Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

I would be very interested to hear Polanski's theory of why Jeremy Corbyn never got to be Prime Minister.

it's just a shame that the legal profession coalesced when it did. imagine if it had happened in the 1970s and barristers had to wear kipper ties and flares for the next two hundred years.

Finally. When Cabinet Ministers warn the PM not to alienate the civil service, they’re saying what the rest of us see: this Government has a problem with how it governs. I served three PMs and a deputy PM as a civil servant. This matters for the change people voted for.🧵 bsky.app/profile/pick...

the profundity of this comment on a random thread about the obsequiousness of AI chatbots stopped me dead in my tracks

This'll be worth seeing, although so will the process of getting him there which I assume will be akin to getting an extremely stressed cat into a cat carrier.

nearest book, p.42, second sentence: "I am the Hercules of SPITE!"

At this point the only reason to call it the Labour Party is it lasts too long, hurts like hell, and people keep popping in and out to check on your genitals.

See ... now I want the next Labour PM to appoint him again, to juice those numbers.

Frequently.

I feel like not enough reviewers know they had to remake the entire final third of the Michael Jackson movie because it falsely exonerated him, and it turned out the kid’s lawyer foresaw that shit in the 1990s and made sure to include a clause that the estate could never ever do that on film.

Types of Board Game xkcd.com/3235/

Iran "also sick of British food discourse", say sources

The Twin Dilemma, pre-broadcast.

Absolutely over the moon about this. If you've not read my HUGO NOMINATED book-length essay on Sandman, it remains free to all at www.eruditorumpress.com/blog/the-cud...

And the Lord saw that the museum goers had grown arrogant, and godless, and so he beckoned to Benugo and said unto to him: “ye shall go down upon the museum goers and provide them bad wine, so that they will pray to me for better”.

love that we're five seasons into Slow Horses and they all still absolutely hate each other. a lesser show would have had them develop a level of respect, even affection. Gary Oldman would have softened into a lovable curmudgeon. but no, he's still a total dick and everyone's pissed off all the time

UK HE, everyone. Will Labour ever acknowledge this crisis?

Four Labour activists have been charged by police after an investigation into claims that a party database was manipulated to help fix a candidate selection.

I'm not sure my French is good enough to understand the full subtleties of Libé's review of the Michael Jackson biopic

Perhaps it would permit more cool-headed discussion if these people could spell out precisely what the "valid concerns" are about immigration, as distinct from the invalid ones. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

So much of what Tosh etc. say about Hartnell having trouble learning his lines was down to them delivering the rehearsal scripts so late he didn't have time to learn them. (This *is* mentioned in the production paperwork).

Martian leader shortly before the events of War Of The Worlds:

working on a theory that the exact moment anything from SNL UK gets good is when you go "Well, this wouldn't be on SNL in America". in this case that moment is 1:16 youtube.com/shorts/rboHL...

There is no route to a Labour recovery that does not run through the sacking of Shabana Mahmood. Perhaps the reason she's so tetchy is that she realises this.

It's certainly a bold approach to take to one of your party's core voting groups two weeks before elections.

Again, I'm not commenting on the scandal itself, because we're in a Pre-Election Period and I like my job, but I do note that the interviewer is sat next to the husband of the Foreign Secretary. It seems very odd that everyone continues to pretend Ed Balls is just another interviewer/presenter.

You can actually see the moment Ed Miliband thinks, what's the point burning through whatever political credibility I've got left energetically defending a man who's going to be gone in a matter of weeks.

“Palantir’s ‘manifesto’ sounds like the ramblings of a supervillain,” said Victoria Collins, a Liberal Democrat MP. “A company that has such naked ideological motivations and lack of respect for democratic rule of law should be nowhere near our public services.” www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

There was this truly venomous right wing guy that I otherwise hate that said one right thing: the Labour party is an institution that radicalises middle class teachers and uni students into thinking no corruption and harassment practice is too far to win a NEC seat. Imagine what they'll do in power

Pushing Starmer under a low emissions bus.

One for the John Wiles haters, this.

For anyone confused by the penguin reactions mentioned in this excellent article, they are so called because a physicist lost a game of darts where the forfeit was to get the word "penguin" into his next paper.

This has been doing the rounds, and while it makes some interesting points, I don't think it's all that convincing, and is quite selective in its evidence. Geza Vermes (in "Jesus in his Jewish Context") makes a stronger case for Jesus as a charismatic Galilean holy man without a Pharisaic education.

I've delivered technical exposition.

going to a rationalist and being like listen buddy i heard about this scary new idea. its called $70’s basilisk. what if there was an entity that, when it came into being, eternally tortured everyone who didn’t give me $70? it’s a simple exercise of pascals wager white boy

@iandunt.bsky.social This is a good example of the UK government missing an open goal. In the US mRNA scientists are being driven out by mad conspiracy theories - including impossible laws to try and outlaw mRNA. The UK has one of the world's biggest clusters of mRNA companies, and a lot of...

...or just this, which is shorter, and surely unimprovable

NERD INFERNO is out on April 28th from @darkhorse.com. Every day until then I'm posting something from the 648-pg brute. Today: Another Fun Strip from DORK, sans color. And very possibly sans humor. That's the risk one takes.

The physics is also bad.

I’ll never forget watching The Wicker Man with my outer Hebridean mum. “I just don’t know where there got all that wicker from”

He's basically a frowny face on a red balloon

on the 50th anniversary of the release of The Boys Are Back in Town I'm morally obligated to share my favorite story of all time

People over on Facebook/YouTube/elsewhere on bluesky/reality have been mocking this, but these are all totally genuine and highly advanced GMing techniques pioneered in obscure corners of indie rpg design in the early 2000s. Let's go through them one by one and learn together.

[foreign office 2025] CIVIL SERVANT: Prime Minister we have news on Mandelson's vetting, it turns out- STARMER: no don't tell me, I want it to be a surprise when the scandal comes out in 8 months' time CIVIL SERVANT: I really insis- STARMER: god forbid we have any MYSTERY in our lives any more

Might get into being a "excluding women is a modern invention, one of the many failings of the 1832 Reform Act" guy, as a bit. Women sat and voted in the Saxon Witas. Anne Boleyn, Marquess of Pembroke could have sat in the House of Lords.

I just re-found this painting, which was in a kid's bible I had growing up. I used to obssess over it, and I'm pretty sure seeing Lucifer here was the first time I thought a man was attractive? Over the years I'd think "it couldn't possibly be as horny as I remember it", but I mean come ON

666 is no longer alone He's getting out the marrow in your backbone And the seven trumpets blowing sweet rock and roll Gonna blow right down inside your soul

Nerddom will always be astonished by supposed Christians not knowing anything about Christianity and yet getting away with it. Imagine someone standing up at a #DoctorWho convention and saying their favourite story is "Revenge of the Daleks". Our kind have more rigour than any of these lightweights.