Most people don't realize the size of Iran. It's helpful to see Iran vs Texas vs northern Europe at the same scale.

given the modern conservative fascination with Sparta it's at least a little funny that they've engineered a situation in which Persia is able to level a dramatically uneven battlefield by forcing the conflict into a narrow pathway

Oh god this made me laugh so hard. Watch til the end.

Were raising money to fight and win the local elections in May on the IOW 💚 Can you spare a few quid? Thank you 🙏 actionnetwork.org/fundraising/...

Up there with one of my favourite things I’ve ever made. Episode 1 of Word For Word is here, and it’s with the inimitable poet Len Pennie. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnyl...

And have to share two @edutopia.org posts in a row because this one from @mrrablin.bsky.social is SO cool! I have never seen this seating-arrangement strategy before. www.edutopia.org/article/clas...

Come March, the buds on the tree's begin to burst, this #dataviz shows the timing of bud burst for different tree species across the UK. The black lines show the timing in the Spring for the years 2000 to 2025 and the blue line is the average day for that species.

> @covie93.bsky.social

Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll get my LLM to use regular expressions.” Now they have three problems.

There hasn't been much media coverage outside the science media of the Epstein scientists. So I wrote about them here for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social. As many in science know, John Brockman was central in linking Epstein to scientific "public intellectuals". www.thenewworld.co.uk/philip-ball-...

#WutheringHeights Sweepcliff.

Your #BanjoAunti is here with a special guest: Ed Helms! While filming “Ode to Mary Jo” Ed and I got to have some banjo time behind the scenes. Today we’re demonstrating the difference between clawhammer and Scruggs-style banjo.

What if functional programming could solve your toughest Domain-Driven Design challenges? In the Domain Modeling Made Functional Workshop, @scottwlaschin.bsky.social shows how combining DDD with FP creates systems that are evolvable and business-aligned. www.avanscoperta.it/en/training/...

Breaking: Tragedy at the Winter Olympics

The whole internet is cheering for Milkshake Duck, the formerly canceled duck who went on a successful redemption tour! *five seconds later* Are you fucking serious.

Screenshot below of why I love /r/AskHistorians. Proper ruthless mods!

Watch an extra funky and extra heavy version of Rock On performed by David Essex with a live band on the Midnight Special in 1975 here 📺▶️ youtu.be/BT6RdovM1OI?...

A little F# goes a long way. The .NET Conf session “Smatterings of F#” is a joyful tour of pattern matching, pipelines, and the kind of expressive code that makes you rethink your next refactor. If you’ve been F#‑curious, this replay is a treat. 👉 Watch the session: buff.ly/y4zajBa

SOAS's food studies centre (which runs the anthropology of food masters I fantasise about) publish videos of their incredibly interesting seminars. Live cheese regulations! War economics and hunger! More incredibly specific nerdy food talks!

If I was the commander in chief of the Imperial hegemon I would simply not dismantle the network of military and diplomatic alliances, favourable trade deals, and broad cultural paramountcy that had made my nation the most wealthy and powerful the world has ever seen.

just saying: it's possible that "I'm gonna dramatically constrict my state capacity while plotting dramatic imperial expansion, and expanding my set of internal enemies while alienating most of my foreign allies" is the beginning of a world-historical masterstroke. but also possible that it isn't

Watch Design for Disaster, a 1962 Film That Shows Why Los Angeles Is Always at Risk of Devastating Fires

Remembering today that having your heart broken is a necessary step on the path to becoming fully human. Whichever heartbreak is your first, it’s probably critical that a state break your heart so that you can develop a political imagination. If this is your first, I’m sorry and also welcome.

We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the scenes in the Berlin street below from our apartment window above.

Like many others, I’m missing @tinstargames.bsky.social this morning. While I can’t claim to have known Steve that well, we’ve been moving in the same online circles for, god, I have no idea how long. Gaming Outpost? Usenet? He had a genius for wickedly clever little games. I especially love this:

SCIF stands for Six Curtains Is Fine!

The cynics think today's attack on Venezuela is staged and transactional. Maduro is allied with Putin, but in 2019 Putin offered Trump a swap: Russia cedes Venezuela and gets Ukraine. (See Fiona Hill's testimony in Trump's first impeachment trial, h/t @davetroy.com). Even Maduro may be in on it. 2/

"F# Advent Calendar in English 2025" is complete and all slots are filled 🎉 #fsharp #fsadvent sergeytihon.com/2025/11/03/f...

Part 2 of my "Designing Weaving Software" series is up. This time using generic and parameterized implementations to reduce duplication. #fsharp fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/design...

"Sauron wants to see Gondor succeed”

Domain Modeling Made Functional Workshop is now CONFIRMED! In February, we’ll be back in the classroom with @scottwlaschin.bsky.social , and we can’t wait! 🤩 www.avanscoperta.it/en/training/...

Yesterday @bootsmcgoot.bsky.social and I saw some techbro giving “30 pieces of advice for people under 30” over on Twitter and it was all grind culture bullshit. As adults of 38 and 43 respectively, we compiled 30 pieces of advice that people under 30 won’t have heard before:

My #fsharp #FsAdvent post for 2025 is up. It's about applying my functional DDD design principles to an unusual non-business domain, which is my hobby of hand weaving! Anyone else weave? I'd love any comments. fsharpforfunandprofit.com/posts/design... Thanks as always to @sergeytihon.com

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans. 🧵 1 of 9

Rare footage of St Paul’s Cathedral testing its giant flamethrower

One of the biggest moments of my career: USCIS canceled my client’s naturalization oath ceremony. We filed a lawsuit, went to trial, and the judge swore him in right there in the courtroom!

Happy 76th Birthday, Tom Waits!

last week i remembered that macOS lets you set your own icons and that *I* have the power to delegitimize the professionalism of the software that runs on my machine, so here's a thread of the 16 new icons i've made so far i really forgot how fun it was to just sit down and make art for myself :')

Error handling often clutters code. Fortunately, functional programming offers a more elegant way. @scottwlaschin.bsky.social explains the 'two-track' model 🚂 (railway-oriented programming) - keeping the success path clean while ensuring errors are always handled. 🎧 compiledconversations.com/9/

Programming isn't one-size-fits-all. In Episode 9 of Compiled Conversations, @scottwlaschin.bsky.social makes the case for being multi-paradigm - using the right language for the right job. Just like a tradesperson has more than one tool, a programmer should too. 🎧 compiledconversations.com/9/

RIP Danny Thompson. Here's a playlist featuring just some of the hundreds of songs that were graced by his bass playing. Includes Nick Drake, Pentangle, Donovan, John Martyn, Sandy Denny, Marc Bolan, David Sylvian, Kate Bush, Talk Talk, Lilac Time, Julian Cope etc ▶️ open.spotify.com/playlist/4XS...

Writing code isn't just for computers - it's for people too. @scottwlaschin.bsky.social explains how #DDD encourages developers to use the same language as non-developers; making code a tool for communication, not just execution. 🎧 compiledconversations.com/8/

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

Ep. 8: Domain Modeling Made Functional, Part 1 w/ @scottwlaschin.bsky.social #DDD isn't about code - it's about communication, we discuss: - Strategic vs tactical DDD - (Sub)domains - Bounded contexts & ubiquitous language - Conway's Law & team organisation 🎧 compiledconversations.com/8/

Before the election, my MAGA focus group said its top priorities were ending inflation and releasing the Epstein files. Now, that same group says its top priorities are defunding scientific research and prosecuting John Bolton.

There are probably cases where we have to leave FP and do hardcore perf stuff, but with four partitions and four relatively small off the shelf containers we can do approximately 500.000 events pr second with no perf tuning and super simple code to maintain.

Kind of fun to see straight forward, functional programming in #fsharp with Result types on every single event and @scottwlaschin.bsky.social style domain driven design process 8-9 million events pr minute on a 2-core 4GB RAM Azure Container App IRL.