NEW: Russian forces are currently unable to build out a strategic reserve and will therefore likely be constrained to grinding, slow advances at their current rate and scale in the coming year. Read the full Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment: isw.pub/UkrWar122725 Other Key Takeaways ⬇️

I freelanced as a Ramen model when I lived in Japan, so photos (of the back of my head while eating Ramen at a yatai) were plastered on the walls of several Chinese airports

almost as if the knowing we do does not happen via the Eye alone ahem

'Sometimes it's almost like writing a little skit or something, where one page is the straight man and then the next page comes in with the punchline.' therumpus.net/2025/12/22/e...

"Doors should have handles that work without electricity" is for some reason a hot take

‘Warning to others’: murky death of militia leader as Kremlin reasserts control

A better article about the NZME/World Literacy Foundation/AI NZ booklist debacle. Feat. the always fab @taniaroxborogh.bsky.social They've published a list of the fake books - no doubt encouraging AI to keep thinking they exist. The future of the internet: screwed. www.1news.co.nz/2025/12/27/n...

Even after everything, I still find it staggering that anyone could look at, or listen to, this group of people and think, "yes, that's what I want for the country's future." Just an absolute concentrated tincture of the worst of humanity.

On average, Christmas Day was 15.4F above the 1991-2020 normal. Seems warm. Seems bad.

Home Alone is about a grieving mother who can’t accept it her son Kevin is dead, so she begins to fantasize that the reason he’s not with the rest of the family is not that he’s dead, but that he was somehow left alone, and he’s in danger, and if she can just get back to him it’ll all be alright.

I’ve done some catalogue searching and am fairly confident in saying that 5/10 titles in this list do not exist (1, 2, 4, 5 and 7). Sloppy, unacceptable, and a real kick in the guts to real authors with real books they’d love people to buy and read!

Day 16: 'The only green in the City' Golfers on the roof of the recently built Adelaide House. The top of the Monument is behind. An Advent Calendar of London a century ago, from 'Wonderful London', 1925, 📷Donald Macleish. #AdventLondon100 #Day16

Day 14: 'Whatever their relationship with the constable may come to be in later life, the children of the East End are quite willing to use his protection at street crossings.' An Advent Calendar of London a century ago, from 'Wonderful London', 1925, 📷Donald Macleish. #AdventLondon100 #Day14

this is how you all look to me

beware feline highwaymen in this festive season 😼

Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing a text, writing an email, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing since the dawn of time.

I got you a holiday present, and it is 22 completely alarming photos from Zillow and 2 lovely ones. Please stop the doom scroll and join me! open.substack.com/pub/rebeccam...

< (fascists when they see art that uses the aesthetics of fascism to ridicule and criticise it) wowww the aesthetics of fascism are so cool

Barbari Weissand Effect

“The last-minute christmas rush at the bookshop.” - my latest cartoon for @theguardian.com books

US intelligence says Putin still aims to capture all of Ukraine and reclaim former Soviet territories in Europe, six sources told Reuters. www.reuters.com/world/europe...

This is patently one of the most absurd things Donald Trump has done, and in a way, it is something of an indictment of all of us as well. Or maybe it’s more of a taunt, or even an accusation — and it’s up to us to decide how we’re going to deal with it.

While a bunch of journalists were at the Kennedy Center taking pictures today, I asked the VP of Facilities and Operations at the Kennedy Center a direct question: “Matt, is this the first time that you’ve defaced a public building?“ Only at Law Dork: www.lawdork.com/p/q-and-a-de...

Bill Watterson does *what* now?

This computer is art

The Spooning With Zohran Mamdani jokes will continue until morale improves.

We see this in very literal form as Cambridge, MA's tech community is shifting investments from life sciences to death sciences www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

It is hard to overstate how critical @ncar-ucar.bsky.social is to climate science in the US and around the world. It's the beating heart of our field. Generations of scientists have trained there, and almost everyone I know relies on deep collaborations with NCAR scientists. It's end is unthinkable.

I see your heron and raise you my hoatzin. I've seen them in the Orinoco basin crashing through the riverbank bushes like mullered chickens. www.sciencehistory.org/stories/maga...

This doesn't sound good: www.thebookseller.com/news/waterst... (And it's already terrifying that such an important asset to the UK economy, cultural soft power and to generally making life better is owned by a US hedge-fund.)

The ambiguous intimacy of the census: women workers sort through forms in the French census office in Paris in 1911 (Gallica, BnF) 🗃️

OceanaGold Mining gets #FastTrackNZ OK to mine conservation land behind Waihi for gold and silver. Rock powder’s mixed with water and cyanide, put in tanks and residual toxic sludge piped to a tailings pond. Locals have protested the mine’s envt impacts. #NZpol www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360...

'The climate crisis is at the heart of ingredient price rises.' Not mentioned until paragraph 6. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

What a time to decide to learn less about the world. dailytarheel.com/article/univ...

Read the study and think about population level implications, remembering that the vast majority of people have been infected multiple times. What are the possible long-term neurological sequelae? What are the implications for societies now? news.griffith.edu.au/2025/12/16/c...

S-tier dialogue.

This Publishers Weekly article about protests at the Poetry Foundation, including layoffs & changes in PF programming, is so strange. Because this shift is so important to poets, to readers, & to the field, here's a 🧵 about how we got here: tinyurl.com/326xy2tm

She's like a strange class war robot programmed to shout the quiet parts out loud in parliament - fascinating in a way, but undeniably grotesque.

I am about as cynical a person as can be imagined when it comes to capitalism but I honestly cannot remember any development since the dawn of industry that immiserated so many people and created so much environmental havoc with so little to show for it

I’m excited to show you my finished Krampus marionette/puppet in action. look at him go! 🌲

I’ve seen this dynamic with a few journalists. Some are fine w copy editing, researching, even art being automated, as long as their brilliant mind is allowed to be creative. It’s all of us or none of us, boo. You can’t just wait to fight this stuff until it comes for YOUR job.

Thrilled to share the cover of Cherry Blossom at Nightbreak by @betarish.bsky.social and make it available to pre-order. Stunning art by Ria Dastidar. Blooming with poems determined to do the generous work of love and hope. Seductive and sublime. ninearchespress.com/publications... Out in March 🌸

The idea that massive crackdown on anti-genocide protests in universities, and refusing to support Palestinian statehood would have somehow prevented last Sunday's terror attack in Bondi has already infected Aus media so deep that they're taking it as a truism www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

Told you so

Chuffed to have my work listed alongside Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Nnedi Okorafor and Richard Powers in this article by @clairemabey.bsky.social on recommended climate fiction (cli-fi) from NZ and the world!! thespinoff.co.nz/books/15-11-... #ClimateFiction #clifi #books #nzbooks #Aotearoa

Black Door with Snow, 1953–1955 by US painter Georgia O'Keeffe #WomensArt

I really can’t get over the way he fawns over soul music made by AI. He should be disqualified from having opinions indefinitely

From a friend a few minutes ago whose family member works at an Amazon warehouse in the south Puget Sound: > [Worker] is currently at work around that area and surprise surprise, Amazon isn't letting anyone evacuate.