All throughout my recent semi-attempt to get back into following the England cricket team, something was nagging me about the name Harry Brook. Turns out I was (probably) thinking of jiescribano.wordpress.com/2021/09/12/m...

i am happy to fight for freedom with the libertarians but also, we don’t really need to *talk*

there is something really exhausting about how predictable this cycle is. It isn't taken seriously because TACO. Then when it still continues, people freak out. He caves and people say "look, TACO", forgetting that TACO failing is what produced the freakout that retroactively confirmed it.

Don’t love that grandpa just says things and we have a 24-72 hour period of is this real and is the airline industry about to have a very not poggers time or was he just…saying things

The answer is that SK is weird, but it has a fraction of the population

> air Canada well there’s your problem

He also offered the interviewer some jelly babies

French embassy only serving water and juice to attendees until the evening's speeches are over, a misunderstanding of what Brits look for in a drinks reception of such proportions that I can only assume the declaration of war will come overnight

Minneapolis is a place that means a lot to me, so I wrote a short Substack about the city, its people, and what we all owe them. benansell.substack.com/p/my-minneap...

Thread.

One of the great tragedies of AI and science is that the proliferation of garbage papers and journals is creating pressure to return to more closed systems based on interpersonal connections and established prestige hierarchies that had only recently been opened up somewhat to greater diversity.

The University of Aberdeen was founded in 1495. The state of even our ancient universities is hideously depressing. We’re throwing so much away.

GWR mainline out of Exeter has reopened. My on-the-train source tells me it's like riding the train in Spirited Away.

Anyone?

This day always brings a smile to my face :)

In edtech news, I hear that the colleague who was using a polling system to display anonymous free-text responses in real time in a classroom full of teenagers is no longer using a polling system to display anonymous free-text responses in real time in a classroom full of teenagers.

One of the great threads from the old place is back, and it's nearly as long as a tank.

I have no fucking clue why Antiques Roadshow is on this list and I refuse to find out.

needing some lightness amidst <gestures at the world> so found this rather cute (from Wikipedia): "When Baryshnikov and Lange met, he spoke very little English; they communicated in French instead"

While this is fairly insignificant in the wider scheme of things (on a scale where everthing in my professional life is utterly trivial in TWSOT), at least **some** of the formal bodies in my profession are taking **some** kind of stand re ICM2026 in Philadelphia: smf.emath.fr/actualites-s...

Question for the hivemind: does anyone know which of the Iran-watching/analyzing users on formerly-Twitter have any presence on Bluesky

After some sort-of-close-to-home news earlier today, need some light relief:

“I grab my keys, I grab a coat, and drive over,” Knutson told me. “I barely park my car and I’m running out screaming and crying, ‘You stole a fucking flower from a dead woman. Like, are any of you human anymore?’”

That’s a turn up for the books!

We've had January off, but the podcast returns next month with UFO. In the meantime, here's our back catalogue.

wireheading with the claudeswarms, buddy. donglemaxing the staticwave, buddy. gleaming on the edge of the motherboard, buddy

I know we’re all having to focus on everything all the time, and it’s impossible and overwhelming, but this from Iran is worth some of your attention, if you can spare it. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

These are the most online-poisoned minds I've ever seen. There's no room for altering strategy when every single move is calibrated toward getting likes on X. They can't imagine that others might have different motivations. Just a bunch of highly dangerous children.

Very much a Project 2025 situation here. Reform are telling us what they will do, but millions will vote for them on the reassurance that Reform are lying about their intentions, with the media cheerfully supporting that notion.

timeline cleanse: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imzk...

"People as things, that’s where it starts." "Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes..." "But they starts with thinking about people as things." (from Carpe Jugulum)

is there something in Bluesky water lately? before it was japanese-americans, now it's indian-americans

I worked alongside Steve in the Reuters Rome bureau. This is his story of hard work doesn’t protect you from hard times. stevescherer.substack.com/p/my-journey...

For Jim Moir/Vic Reeves' birthday, a reminder it's thirty years this year since this advert.

<does a double-take>

I would like to gently request that AI pharmacy bots stop trying to kill my mother

They might have got a better response if they'd used the Bic four colour pen. Those are genuinely useful. But no, they have to go with the most wild, overly cumbersome example.

at a wedding in Cambridge when I was a kid, the small daughter of the Japanese woman getting married, who didn't speak great English at the time, took the wedding cake and went out to the backs to offer it to passing punts, saying "Present! Present!"

Just got home and still not really sobered up, so perhaps watching this isn't the best move www.youtube.com/watch?v=98Mx...

Since the YT reaction genre has led some American fans of shows like Supernatural to watch all (all!) of Classic Doctor Who including Dimensions in Time, am now imagining them evolving/mutating into an Eastenders reaction series

Please watch this great moment in French Canadian history: www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-P0...

Now this is the handwriting (and the organized page layout) of a real crystallographer!

Discussing coverage of Iranian protests & crackdown with BBC Persian's forensic editor on latest BBC Newswatch. From Midnight Fri on iplayer/Sat 745am BBC1 Breakfast www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I said earlier I’d share my photos from the summer. (They don’t “disparage the US”. They don’t even disparage Washington, though goodness knows, on this point he deserves it. They tell the truth and let you draw your own conclusions). They aren’t great - wish I’d taken more.

detaching this from the post in my timeline where I saw it, but honestly my response to what's described here is "are you a goddamn idiot, do you not back anything up" www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Yet another day at work where I was incapable of doing any work between 3pm and 6pm (sleep deprivation) but have been able to get some momentum/focus after 6:30pm (coffee+body clock). I really wish I lived within walking distance of my office. Or had a futon in it.

Well played to the original poster - I misread it as intended and consequently did a literal LOL at the moment of reveal

Watching Homicide: Life on the Streets and of course there's an episode where John Waters cameos as a bartender listening to Ned Beatty talk about a teenager killing another with a baseball bat. Why wouldn't there be.