Graph paper is commonly used for plotting, well, graphs, plus other spatial and mathematical visualizations. But for Pejac, its potential goes way beyond a two-dimensional gridded surface. The artist, who is known for his trompe-l’œil paintings and playful street art interventions, often turns to the precise geometry of gridded sketchbooks in order to challenge perception and think instead about depth and movement.
From a group of kids tossing snowballs—wait, they’re cubes from the grid it
Graph paper is commonly used for plotting, well, graphs, plus other spatial and mathematical visualizations. But for Pejac, its potential goes way beyond a two-dimensional gridded surface. The artist, who is known for his trompe-l’œil paintings and playful street art interventions, often turns to the precise geometry of gridded sketchbooks in order to challenge perception and think instead about depth and movement.
From a group of kids tossing snowballs—wait, they’re cubes from the grid itself—to a construction worker carving out a silhouette of the famous Sistine Chapel motif of God and Adam’s hands touching, Pejac challenges our sense of space and the possibilities of the “blank slate.” Find more on Instagram.
Detail of “Mind Trip” (2022)Detail of “The Architect” (2020)Detail of “The Architect” (2020)“Emerge” (2020)Detail of “Emerge”“Fossil” (2018)“Hidden Gold” (2023)Detail of “Hidden Gold”Detail of “Art in Veins”
With Apple unveiling macOS 27, or macOS Golden Gate, today at its annual WWDC event, the Intel Mac's end has finally arrived. It was a good run.
[Read More]
Read a transcript of this episode. Subscribe to receive transcripts.
Return to one of our most compelling interviews of 2025. Amazingly, the same Congressional bill that gutted residential clean energy tax credits also led to a major breakthrough in financing home geothermal systems. Dan Yates, CEO of Dandelion Energy, explains how the Big, Beautiful Bill introduced changes that, for the first time, allow third-party leasing of residential geothermal systems. He shares why this policy change c
Return to one of our most compelling interviews of 2025. Amazingly, the same Congressional bill that gutted residential clean energy tax credits also led to a major breakthrough in financing home geothermal systems. Dan Yates, CEO of Dandelion Energy, explains how the Big, Beautiful Bill introduced changes that, for the first time, allow third-party leasing of residential geothermal systems. He shares why this policy change could help ground-source heat pumps grow the way leasing helped rooftop solar. Geothermal heating and cooling is four times more efficient than a furnace and twice as efficient as air-source heat pumps. Yet only about 1% of U.S. homes use it because the upfront costs for new geothermal systems have ranged from $20,000 to $31,000. The new leasing model means new homeowners can get geothermal systems for just $10 to $40 per month on a 20-year lease, which is usually far less than what they save on energy.
Dan Yates, CEO of Dandelion Energy, is our guest on Sustainability In Your Ear.
Dandelion is working with Lennar, one of the largest homebuilders in the country, to bring geothermal to more than 1,500 homes in Colorado over the next two years. This will be one of the biggest residential geothermal projects in U.S. history. The benefits for the power grid could be even more important than the savings for homeowners. Geothermal systems use only 25% of the peak power that air-source heat pumps need, which is a big advantage as AI data centers increase electricity demand. Yates explains that the Earth works like a huge thermal battery, storing heat in the summer for use in the winter. Geothermal lets utilities reduce peak loads on the grid throughout the year, freeing homeowners from the cost of the most expensive power.
CUNEN, June 2 — While drought expands through Cunen as the specter of El Nino climate instability approaches, one fear has seized this indigenous Guatemalan village: death by hunger.The rains still haven’t come here, where local farmers fear the lack of water could ruin the subsistence crops they need to survive.“If there isn’t rain, (the crops) won’t come...If there isn’t anything we’re going to die of hunger,” Cecilia Pasa Sarat, a 38-year-old woman who has pla
CUNEN, June 2 — While drought expands through Cunen as the specter of El Nino climate instability approaches, one fear has seized this indigenous Guatemalan village: death by hunger.
The rains still haven’t come here, where local farmers fear the lack of water could ruin the subsistence crops they need to survive.
“If there isn’t rain, (the crops) won’t come...If there isn’t anything we’re going to die of hunger,” Cecilia Pasa Sarat, a 38-year-old woman who has planted a small amount of corn, told AFP in Xetzac, a village in Cunen.
Cunen is a hard-to-reach mountainous region where the majority of the approximately 47,000 residents are poor, and rely on water from wells that are now going dry.
View of a drought-affected corn plantation in the Xetzac community of Cunen, Quiche department, Guatemala, on May 27, 2026. — AFP pic
This village in the Indigenous Maya department of Quiche lays in the heart of the Dry Corridor, an arid mountainous stretch running through Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua that’s become vulnerable to extreme climatic events.
Quiche was one of Guatemala’s most hard-hit regions during the El Nino related food crisis in 2023. Some worry the crisis could return due to a lack of government support.
The phenomenon now fueling local residents’ hunger fears occurs every two to six years as part of a natural climatic cycle that affects the surface temperatures on the Pacific Ocean.
It’s expected to start between June and August, creating monthslong planetary ripple effects.
Indigenous leader Elvira Pasa, 27, walks across drought-affected land outside her house in the Xetzac community of Cunen, Quiche department, Guatemala, on May 27, 2026. — AFP pic
‘Prolonged damage’
Weeks of drought have dessicated the dusty streets of Xetzac, where the creeks that usually irrigate the town’s patchwork of corn, potato, broccoli and bean fields are evaporating under the brutal sun.
Taking refuge in the tree shade where the resin-scent of pines drifts down the hillside, Elvira Pasa says the eventual loss of the village harvests will only end in “hunger.”
“We farm, we don’t sell it, we just eat it,” the 27-year-old community leader and mother of a two and seven-year-old son told AFP.
“Whatever we plant is what we eat. What will happen if it doesn’t rain?” 43-year-old Lucia Rojop asks herself.
Indigenous woman Catarina Sica, 39, shows different types of native corn she grows at her house in the Xetzac community of Cunen, Quiche department, Guatemala, on May 27, 2026. — AFP pic
Her fears are well-founded: around 2.5 million Guatemalans face potential food insecurity due to the drought and the high probability of a powerful El Nino weather cycle.
The Guatemalan government says it has 1.1 million rations ready to distribute in the face of an emergency.
According to experts, the chance that El Nino could spiral into a more dangerous event depends on numerous atmospheric factors.
Governments across the dry countries of Central America raised alert levels over the El Niño phenomenon.
But El Nino isn’t the only reason the situation is worsening.
Indigenous woman Cecilia Pasa, 38, loads firewood at her house in the Xetzac community of Cunen, Quiche department, Guatemala, on May 27, 2026. — AFP pic
Just in Guatemala, the “dry corridor” expanded from 40 to 160 municipalities since 2004, meaning almost half of the country has been subjected to climate change-fueled drought, according to the government.
El Nino has reduced by half, according to Alex Guerra, the director of the Private Institute for Investigation on Climate Change (ICC).
Cecilia Pasa walks through a puny corn farm, a clear testimony of the drought. “The plants can’t take it anymore, the ground is drier, it’s not humid anymore like it used to be,” she says categorically.
It means that only half of her neighbors planted corn this year. Everyone else, including Catarina Sica, didn’t even bother.
“There isn’t rain, and the time has passed for us to plant,” Sica says while showing the black, white, and yellow seeds still on the cob of corn.
Indigenous woman Catarina Sica, 39, poses with different types of native corn she grows at her house in the Xetzac community of Cunen, Quiche department, Guatemala, on May 27, 2026. — AFP pic
‘Migratory impact’
The brutal challenges of working the fields in Cunen, for years, were eased with remittances migrants sent home from the US. Yet Donald Trump’s mass deportations have taken away that support.
Around 24,000 Guatemalans have been deported this year, many from Quiche.
The deportations have paralyzed the construction of homes - the great dream of many migrants - as well as the jobs that go with it.
Families now deal with the crisis by raising pigs, sheep, chickens and turkeys for sale.
Sica’s husband returned two years ago after saving enough money to build a concrete house. Now he works occasionally in agriculture, though the US$10 daily wage he earns means the family diet is limited to beans, herbs and potatoes, like most locals.
“We’re seeing what to do, but it all depends on God,” the woman says with resignation. — AFP
EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at In The Hand Of Dante, the latest feature film from Julian Schnabel, which debuted at last year’s Venice Film Festival. The film features an international cast of A-listers, including Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Louis Cancelmi, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero, Benjamin Clementine, Paolo Bonacelli, Martin Scorsese, […]
EXCLUSIVE: Here’s your first look at In The Hand Of Dante, the latest feature film from Julian Schnabel, which debuted at last year’s Venice Film Festival. The film features an international cast of A-listers, including Oscar Isaac, Gal Gadot, Gerard Butler, John Malkovich, Louis Cancelmi, Sabrina Impacciatore, Franco Nero, Benjamin Clementine, Paolo Bonacelli, Martin Scorsese, […]
Login
Antiques and Vintage - flickr
Colossal
saltycotton
PetaPixel
Earth911
Malay Mail - All
Deadline
