Links (again).

I've made the mistake of doing a bit too much doom-scrolling in the past few days, including this morning. There's still war in the Ukraine, there's still really high Covid numbers in Germany, and there's still a lot of bullshitty stuff happening regarding energy and preservation of nature and sustainability here as well. It makes me feel sad, and helpless, and more sad, and that is not a very good thing. 

The little cat, however, is determined to brighten up my day by snuggling up to me on the desk, purring loudly, and I have the Vienna trip and presentation to look forward to. There's hot tea sent by a friend (well, not in its hot brewed state, obviously, but the tea bags), and finally a little light rain outside. While sunshine is nice too, the rain is much needed and appreciated, even if it means there will be fewer bees and bumblebees around today. 

I hope you have your own doom-scrolling under control, and enough nice things to brighten up your day. Maybe some links can also help? Here you go.

• A German company is developing something like a cross between a pedelec bike and a tiny car - it seats up to two people, no driving license needed, and it has solar panels on the roof to help with battery capacity. Here's an article on Heise, and here's the manufacturer's website (both in German only).
• The virtual convention "Flights of Foundry" is taking place on April 8-10. You can join in from anywhere in the world, for free.
• It's a well-known fact that some plants thrive next to each other, and one of the prime examples are the Three Sisters. I tried a sort-of-doing-this last year, planting beans next to sunflowers (though with rather limited success - neither beans nor sunflowers usually thrive here, due to the rather poor soil in the garden bed I put them in). Here's an article about current projects on this on The Conversation.
• In case I have not linked that before - the world's oldest pants were found a while ago, and have been analysed, and there's a nice article (with pictures) about them here.

And now I will return to getting something resembling work done...