Okay, folks: The big El Niño update is now out on Weather West! This sure looks like it's going to be a dramatic year from a global climate perspective, and there are major implications for extreme events (across California, the U.S. West, & well beyond).

There is a weird strand of moralism around air conditioning, esp in Europe, and we don’t live in that world anymore. Air conditioning is no longer a luxury.

Want to share some thoughts. I know the rioting in Belfast has had lots of coverage. But I still think more needs to be said. This was so incredibly shocking. *people burned out of their homes because of the colour of their skin*.

Musk buying twitter, Bezos buying WaPo, Ellison buying CBS—all are less profitable now. But they’re political investments that increase the value of the new owners’ portfolios Wealth concentration makes this possible, and that’s one mechanism by which inequality destroys democracy

trans rights actually aren't extra rights they're just the same rights everybody else has that you're trying to take away from trans people. sorry you have trouble with this, but it means you're a bigot not that we're wrong.

"Now a data center will be there, just 500 feet from Griffin’s home, nestled between a power substation and the nearby railroad tracks."

A professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago has been suspended because she designed an art therapy assignment included a mention a hypothetical woman who is "deeply affected by the violence against Palestinian civilians." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

hey if you're a scientist and you use this data in your research and you want to tell me how dumb this is, contact info is in my bio (i will also listen to scientists who think this is a great idea, if such a person exists)

Imagine having to now have to write COMPETITIVE scientific grants that will be evaluated on the basis of this gobbledygook sycophantic illogic blather.

tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.

Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.

"OMB also proposes to add a provision that agencies may consider an applicant’s history of questionable practices based on publicly available and verifiable information."

But we can't afford healthcare.

“In effect, today’s corporations and wealthy are hoarding the society’s resources for themselves, while starving the treasury of funds that are badly needed for repairing and strengthening the society on which their wealth depends.” www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

The immense economic power of the richest Americans allows them to wield immense political power, too. They can pour millions into our elections to elect politicians that will continue to rig the system in their favor. We must end this vicious cycle.

I'm hearing reports that the NY State Assembly just passed the plug-in solar vote by a wide margin, joining the State Senate. Assuming the governor signs it, that will be the 8th state making it legal (and the biggest). A groundswell across the country, and so many thanks to great organizers!

My father designed the plutonium powered RTG power source in this unit. Thanks dad. RIP

Heat in the UK doesn't hit different. Humidity isn't exclusive to the UK nor are stone buildings (I live in one). The reason we get their complaints every summer is both because they refuse to invest in A/C including in public spaces & the heat waves come on fast allowing no acclimation /1

Don't let them stop you from protesting dirty #water, poor air quality, polluting data centers, and more. Get this woman a good lawyer. www.comicsands.com/texas-woman-...

There was a time, not long ago, when peaceful protestors were never sent to jail in the UK But at least 286 people have been locked up for protesting climate breakdown and genocide in recent years It's a fucking scandal

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

Again, along with the NSF/NIH/DOE budget cuts, these visa/immigration/foreign student policies are all-out existential assaults on American higher education. And the sum total of university chancellor/president public & collective opposition to them has been ~🦗🦗 (Olson 1965, Akerlof 1970) 🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Bidding the day goodbye. May there be better ones ahead.

"I became a hater by doing precisely those things AI cannot do: reading and understanding human language; thinking and reasoning about ideas; considering the meaning of my words and their context; loving people, making art, living in my body with its flaws and feelings and life."

I’ve pushed back on bullshit data center water claims but this isn’t one, data center construction could totally cause this just like any other construction. Glonzo-friendly but she’s not lying

I have been forwarding this edition of @billmckibben.bsky.social's newsletter to everyone I know. The impact of Musk and Trump's cuts to USAID didn't hit right away, but they are hitting now. And in Somalia and the DRC it looks a lot like racist culling. billmckibben.substack.com/p/a-question...

Yes, this goes for the research process, too. While much of it is deeply meaningful and fulfilling, about half the tasks are boring and/or tedious and nevertheless must be done.

Again, this Trump IRS thing is not a “settlement” or a “deal” or something with any legal basis at all. It’s pure corruption; colluding with his Acting AG to loot the Treasury; pay off his mob; and preemptively immunize himself and his heirs against investigation for fraud.

Thomas Massie: “Today is the six month anniversary of the Epstein Transparency Act. We’ve taken out two dozen CEOs, an ambassador, a prince, a prime minister, a minister of culture, that was just six months. I’ve got seven months left in Congress.” video courtesy @acyn.bsky.social

I’m not sure why this isn’t being mentioned more, but: IRS policy for 50 years has been that the sitting president & VP get audited every year, in an effort to reassure the public they’re not corruptly abusing the office to enrich themselves.

this is a masterpiece

Yikes! I hope they don't do this to Google Scholar.

"The only companies in the dataset with improving margins are the ones selling AI infrastructure to everyone else ... Described in any other industry, that pattern has a name, and the name is wealth transfer. In this one, it is called transformation." readuncut.com/the-ai-layof...

An auditor for the Ontario, Canada government found that AI agents tasked with turning doctor/patient conversations into structured notes routinely hallucinated false treatments, replaced drug names with entirely different drugs, and missed crucial information

“The increase in Black infant mortality, from 9 to 21 deaths per 1,000 births, means Black infants born in Hamilton County are more at risk than those born in Iraq, Iran, Guatemala, Honduras, Libya or Vietnam, according to the World Bank.”

"Whether AGI will arrive matters less than what waiting for it already organizes. Waiting coordinates belief by sustaining investment and economic expectation; it structures time by orienting research and policy toward a future that remains permanently forthcoming; ... " 1/n

Breaking Experts want WHO to declare climate crisis as a global public health emergency. 🔥🌎💥☄️

Seems relevant

if you can’t talk about climate and make it relevant to people’s lives, that seems like a you issue not a climate issue.

“In sum, the researchers uncovered extensive ways that the oil, auto, roadbuilding & trucking industries exert their influence for their benefit. Their experience and political connections are deep…working with state departments and public officials to advance their own industry-oriented campaigns.”

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

It took me nearly 20 years to pay off my student loans. I don't want the new generation of students to have student loans that they have to pay off. This is a minority position in the U.S. and speaks badly about this country.

I just want to add, since this is breaking containment, that this can't be made right. these people, each one a whole universe, are gone. there can only be justice for the perpetrators; public remorse & restitution; & reform to ensure future aid systems are more just and less prone to imperial whims

Chrome is reaching into users' machines and writing a 4 GB on-device AI model file to disk without asking. It is the weights for Gemini Nano, Google's on-device LLM. Chrome did not ask. Chrome does not surface it. If the user deletes it, Chrome re-downloads it. www.thatprivacyguy.com/blog/chrome-...

Pierre Bourdieu once argued that the question of whether something is art isn't answered by the artist's intention or even the object itself. Instead, the quality of being "art" is conferred by a community — curators, dealers, auction houses, audiences, etc. 🧵

So much of history is young people asking for a better world and being met with violence

Incredibly chilling Bhattacharya’s NIH won’t award funding if the grant contains banned words—if it has banned words, the grant is seen as dirty (e.g. a study on “racial disparities” is “unclean”) 👀

Stalin extensively purged top science advisers, engineers & researchers during the '1930s-50s, particularly targeting biology, physics & technical fields. Thousands were arrested, sent to Gulags, or executed. @peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social & I discuss in our sadly prophetic book #ScienceUnderSiege:

What a disgrace?