REVIEW: “Lev’s Pawn Shop” by Megan Neary sffreviews.com/2026/02/01/r...

REVIEW: “Everyone’s Gay in Space” by Julie Sondra Decker sffreviews.com/2026/01/30/r...

I can 100% guarantee that if I had a white tailed/maned wild cat named "bum-bum", it would cure any melancholy I had.

I've been working for the last 10 days to set up an Etsy shop. I'm launching it now. Two things in this shop are 100% for Minnesota relief - the Bird of Protection mug and the Dragons Against Ice sticker. The other two mugs are for general happiness. www.etsy.com/listing/4447...

The concern is how they distinguish between "curiosity driven research" and "applied research". I work in health/medicine and am focused on meta science around improving methods and reducing waste. This is almost totally squeezed out. It neither gets considered applied nor curiosity.

I didn't read all of this article (it made me too angry) but I read as far as this anecdote: "...a small child announces he is going to leave home, his mother says “see ya”, shuts the front door behind him, and turns off the outside light – [1/2] www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Doctor Logic - Sara L. Uckelman (a Professor of Logic at Durham University (UK); a philosopher and logician whose work spans formal logic, history of logic, philosophy of language, and reasoning) has moved to Bluesky (5.144 followers on X) Bluesky: @saraluckelman.bsky.social

This, my friends, is a Spicy Pickle beer. It is absolutely disgusting and I loved it. If you ever thought "I need a beer that is salty and full of dill and makes my tongue tingle," this is the beer for you.

Every year I shift out some of my weekly logic tutorial exercises and shift in new ones. This year, I'm interested in having students do more with getting from the messiness of natural language to the precision and beauty of logical language, making their background assumptions explicit as they do.

Thanks to DOCTOR @saraluckelman.bsky.social for the great review of Dad Jokes. sffreviews.com/tag/david-le...

We're looking for ONE MORE paper for Medieval Temporalities and Comics! If you or anyone you know studies comics and the medieval, consider submitting an abstract 😀

REVIEW: “Sacrificing Mercy” by Henry McFarland sffreviews.com/2026/01/28/r...

For my followers in the EU, there is an European citizens’ initiative you can sign to demand the full suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement. If you are for BDS this would be a huge step up. eci.ec.europa.eu/055/public/#...

No one took COVID seriously until the NBA halted their season.

"The federal government is killing people in the streets, so sports are canceled," is the point we have reached.

There is a straight line from the failure of Reconstruction to "We don't need to count everyone's vote in the 2000 election" to "People from places like Madison & Milwaukee aren't real Wisconsinites & shouldn't have their votes count" to "ICE can murder people in cold blood in our cities."

REVIEW: “Diving Into the Wreck” by Sierra Bibi sffreviews.com/2026/01/24/r...

On the execution in Minnesota: Obviously, the individuals involved should be held accountable. But responsibility goes to the top of ICE and CBP, and DHS. Their appropriations come up next week in the senate. Not a cent for DHS without pulling ICE and CBP off the streets, in MN and everywhere else.

G and I had a great idea this afternoon. You know how all the British competition shows have a Celebrity version? We want a Judges & Presenters version.

This morning my kid and I sat down and made lists of all the words/phrases we've learned in Korean, Chinese, and Thai on the basis of watching subtitled TV series and listening to K/C/T-pop. I'm really pleased at how many pages we needed!

"One internal November 2020 presentation slide said acclimating children to Google’s ecosystem in school would hopefully lead them to use its products as adults: “You get that loyalty early, and potentially for life.” " Gosh, sounds a lot like Microsoft and THEIR ubiquity in schools...

📣JOB ALERT📣 Lectureship in Liberal Arts and Philosophy/Religion at University of Leeds. We are looking for an academic at Philosophy/Religion interface to run our Liberal Arts BA programme. Closing date: 01 February 2026. More info at: jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx... #Philosophy #PhilosophyJobs

“On Wednesday, leaders of the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements issued a joint statement to ‘condemn, in the strongest terms, the violence with which the Department of Homeland Security is enforcing American immigration law.’”

As clergy pray, arrests begin

A few other quick shots from the protest:

When TE Lawrence left the first draft of Seven Pillars of Wisdom on a train in Reading, he was at least able to rewrite it from scratch because he had actually written it himself...

_Nature_ is an absolute firehose of AI propaganda. It's notable that the article is a complaint that OpenAI *abided by* a data consent rule, rather than secretly keeping the records of his use someplace.

REVIEW: “Magical Thinking” by J. Amanda Ferry sffreviews.com/2026/01/22/r...

REVIEW: “Big Sister” by Jang Ami, translated by Joheun Lee sffreviews.com/2026/01/20/r...

Teams is anti-social media

My kid literally said to me tonight "what about Teams?!"

Two weeks into term, and I'm surprised at how much I'm finding I enjoyed my 9am teaching all last year. Like, I'm not sad at not having to get up in time to be up and functional for a 9am lecture, but there was something really energizing about starting my day that way.

@ucu.org.uk cannot support its members if it cannot support its employees. Solidarity to @uniteucu.bsky.social. uniteucu.wordpress.com/2026/01/22/o...

In the 2010s, the Icelandic tv station Channel 2 accidentally added subtitles from a gritty crime drama to an episode of Teletubbies. I have translated some of the highlights

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... The thing I keep asking whenever I read about social media bans is: "What counts as social media?" Does it cover WhatsApp -- the only way that my kid has to stay in touch with many of her overseas friends?

People who like maps! Can someone help me find a line-drawing (geographical features/cities/country borders not needed) map that goes from Italy to India west->east, AND goes nearly up to the Arctic circle? #maps #cartography #medievalsky

it’s against my principles to drink with the man I’ve diddled

Reminds me of this really cringy poster that hangs in the entrance of my in-laws' church.

OTOH, as an AuDHD parent of a not-exactly-neurotypical-child myself, I can't imagine what it would be like trying to parent a neurotypical child; my kid approaches life enough like I do that all the things in me that never got recognized as a kid I can see in her and *I can give coping advice*.

I wish people understood that a total social media ban for kids will ultimately result in kids who are neurodivergent or queer or who are ostracized for whatever reason, doing whatever they can to make the pain go away. I know that because it was how I survived my childhood.

meanwhile, Minnesotans are out there doing Christianity on its intended difficulty level: loving their neighbor, welcoming the stranger, feeding the hungry, and comforting the afflicted.

I just (accidentally) dropped an M&M on a tile floor and it shattered. I didn't expect it to do that.

Please... one of you capitalist ghouls, please explain to me... why can't the wage slave sing? You've already broken him. He's already a dog in a cage. You can't let this sad motherfucker have any joy at all? Insane.

REVIEW: “Attach” by Mikhaela Woodward sffreviews.com/2026/01/18/r...

Praise be! It is the 277th anniversary of the ‘appearance’ of the Bottle Conjuror at London’s Haymarket. He promised to insert himself into a quart (two pint) bottle, and didn’t turn up, leading to a riot in which the theatre’s fixtures and fittings were torn out and thrown on a bonfire 🧵

THREAD of offers of guest lectures (via Zoom) for Minneapolis-area classes so faculty can offer their students a top-quality education while dealing with other crises Seeing tons of extremely generous offers. I'll try to post 'em all here--please add your own w topics you can cover & how to contact

Turns out, not only could I not figure out how to turn the lights on over the whiteboard, none of the people from CIS or Estates & Facilities who came in successively for the next 3-4 weeks could either.

Hi Bluesky! What are the best philosophy/machine learning/cognitive science books/papers about representation from the last 20 years?

"The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee has published a letter from the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister confirming that the campaign to recruit a permanent Chair of the UK Statistics Authority has closed without appointment." Well, that's concerning...

REVIEW: “Vale of the Firefae” by Jalyn Renae Fiske sffreviews.com/2026/01/14/r...