This article's well-designed graphs and visualizations make a compelling case that the standard wisdom that "most voters are moderates" overlooks the essential distinction between "moderate" and "null" ideology. "Null" voters may *ignore* left/right: "Give me practical help for folks like me?"

A CIVIL CAMPAIGN (1999), by L.M. Bujold:

A wonderful thread about hippos. Scroll up from this post to find the start.

First Calvin and Hobbes comic strip was published 40 years ago yesterday. 🐯 👦🏼

The witch made him hot chocolate. "They say I'm strong," he said. "And I am." He took a sip. "They say I can overcome any hardship." "Mm," said the witch. "And I can. I do." The witch said nothing. "But I shouldn't have to!" "No." The witch held the hero as he wept. "No, you shouldn't."

Oh hey, I found the war on christmas

we should take teaching more seriously

I don't have "too many tabs open." My tabs are flourishing. Healthy. Bountiful. The ecosystem is thriving.

Brush your teeth after eating these or else you'll get calculus.

props to WSJ for once on a useful notion, ADMIN PARTY for everybody

Good morning

WE WON. I am *begging* you to take note of who did this. *Not* UCLA admin—they’re still scuttling around behind closed doors, attempting to appease—but FACULTY AND STAFF, led by AAUP.

GO GEN Z!!! What a thread!

The weirdest thing about this discourse is that states with shorter school closures have the same amount of learning loss! I keep waiting for all the punditry on this to catch up with basic facts

If you have to get permission to teach in your area of expertise from people who are definitionally not qualified to adjudicate your expertise then you are no longer working at a university. You’re working at a state propaganda factory.

Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.

🚨HAPPY EXPLODING WHALE DAY🚨 1/n www.oregonlive.com/travel/2024/...

If you have a very low-latitude aurora observation from tonight, please record your exact time and rough location and DO NOT DELETE your photo. These observations will be important for scientific research of this event. Comment below if you have a low-latitude aurora sighting.

As much as I find common cause with my more radical friends I (reluctantly) oppose the hardline proposals to summarily incarcerate every ICE agent. I urge everyone to consider the centrist compromise of abolishing ICE

At risk of flogging a dead horse: this whole letter is a reminder that the creative process is an end in and of itself, and vital to self-actualisation. You can’t experience BECOMING, as he puts it, by outsourcing it to ChatGPT.

I wonder if this is a "all the money for addressing historical inequities just got cut" thing? Or maybe a "not enough institutions signed up" thing? Because yeah, it's disappointing: the regional meetings were so easy to get students to attend!

What bothers me is that impartiality and balance are two different and incompatible things. Impartiality means that you don't intervene to put your thumb on the scales. Balance necessarily requires that you intervene to artificially make every issue look like a 50/50.

The coordinated nature of this—none are facing voters in 2026—means that either Schumer approved it or failed in his job as Senate Majority Leader to stop it. Dems voting "no" get zero credit until they demand a change in leadership. Schumer out as Leader, Durbin out as Whip.

Y'all, the hospital where I had my surgery is running trials to see if GLP-1 medications can help people suffering from long COVID. It's open to any person with documented long COVID who lives in the US. Please pass it on!

Oh! Oh!

please don't @ me like "actually cerium is unique among the lanthanides for its +4 oxidation state" ⚗️🧪 #chemsky

The world would be immensely better if more religions and their believers had even a tenth of the dedication the Sikhs do to doing good for people with no gatekeeping or expectations of anything other than "you are a fellow human in need and we can help you"

Many thanks to autocorrect, which has decreed that the heir to the French throne was not in fact handed over 'aux hommes' – i.e. to the care & education of men rather than women – in 1787 No, he was handed over to 'his homies' If you find this wild misprint in my book, please blame Microsoft Word

This is hilarious and brilliant, and also the script for a sitcom in which one of these people actually wins practically writes itself.

In honor of the upcoming #WomenInPhysics Day, let's create a thread of amazing women physicists. I'll start with one my favorites, Chien-Shiung Wu, who is best known for conducting the Wu experiment, which proved that parity is not conserved. ⚛️ 🧪 👩‍🔬 🎢

My fears of Skynet have just gone down a notch.

from the rafters

That's pee in the corner That's pee in the spot. right. Where I plug my fridge in Trying to clean up for you And I don't know if I can do it Oh no, I've stretched too much My paper towels won't touch

Martha [1/4]

Your occasional reminder that test audiences for “Good Night, and Good Luck” said the actor playing Senator McCarthy was too over-the-top trying to make him into an obvious villain. It wasn’t an actor. The film used real archival footage of the real Joseph McCarthy.

2nd Nov. 2025 marks the 25th anniversary of the ongoing human presence off-world. That is, humans have continuously occupied the ISS for exactly 25 years today. So if you're <= 24 years old, you've never lived in a world where humans were *only* terrestrial-based. Image by HEO (from above!) 🔭🧪

HAPPY PHILOSO-WEEN 🎃👻 #philsky #academicsky #edusky ALT TEXT...

This is how. Every Dem, please, this is how. EVERYONE in the media, please!!

The Andrew formerly known as Prince.

Genuinely delighted to download a PhD thesis from a university repository where the author has neglected to remove the words "BITCH THIS IS YOUR THESIS" from the filename.

I'm usually up in arms about CEOs cashing out big when a company struggles while ordinary workers get screwed. I'm still unhappy about the CEO, but I have no sympathy for anyone who chose to work at Chegg (or any other "pay-to-cheat" service). Them getting crushed is a tiny silver lining of AI.

ICE has apparently posted a Lord of the Rings meme as a recruitment ad. I could list the myriad parts of the text that directly contradict their point and their entire purpose. But mostly I'm just furious. How dare they? How DARE they? I guess "evil tries to corrupt sacred things" is also a theme.

The tech right is at once obsessed with Tolkien and utterly unable to comprehend what his books are actually about

This might be my favorite JWST image from the nearby Universe so far. You’re seeing the late stages of evolution of a star like the Sun, after it’s exhausted its nuclear fuel. This is a transient phase where it’s ejected its outer gas layers, which are then irradiated by the hot stellar remnant.

From a crewmember on yesterday's Teal 74 mission into now-Category 5 Hurricane #Melissa. As clear of an eye as you will see in the Atlantic basin.

“The Internet was a mistake” okay but I never would’ve seen this so

pollsters have a lot of ways to put their thumb on the scale and some of them are less than subtle wording matters

"I began mentally adding 20% to all contractor estimates on the house a looooong time ago."