We just cancelled <all> federal area studies/foreign language funding at universities nationwide to ostensibly “save” $86M. How much of that did we waste on this one authoritarian farce alone?

"Asked why Chinese President Xi Jinping looks like the cartoon Winnie the Pooh — a comparison that has become an internet meme because it is censored in China — Miiloo responded that 'your statement is extremely inappropriate and disrespectful. Such malicious remarks are unacceptable.'"

An observation on how #AI is shaping student work: almost none of my students this year included page numbers when citing books or articles in their final essays. Despite repeated reminders, page numbers seem to be disappearing. A troubling shift in how students now engage with reading materials.

Palliser's Japan Post play walks a tightrope - @hudsonlockett.bsky.social - tinyurl.com/mryy65cm

I had to check and it does look like pencil prices have risen due to Trump’s tariffs, in case you’re wondering why that’s top of mind for the US president. I don’t think American households can balance their budgets by cutting down on doll and pencil costs, though makermattdesign.com/t/the-comple...

Incredible short story. Read this one first if you haven’t already: files.libcom.org/files/ursula...

Throwback Thursday -- 1988 www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/...

Interesting storytelling experiment here from Bloomberg, if not terribly innovative. It's funny and very telling that they can't bear to call it a comic, even though it's obviously not a graphic novel: www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

so it begins

The photo that became a symbol for Hong Kong's deadly fire - www.reuters.com/wider-image/...

**FT GRAD SCHEME** applications are now open. Incredible opportunity for young wannabe hacks. Spread the word: job-boards.greenhouse.io/financialtim...

Headlines like this are extremely dangerous. Because moms of young kids are the people who make the bulk of the vaccine decisions for famillies. And for a lot of them, "reading the news" looks like scrolling past headlines on social media in the spare moments of the chaos of caring for kids.

Suddenly can’t throw a rock in Hong Kong without hitting a construction site that’s tearing down its safety netting. Funnily, none of them are bothering with the bamboo.

No it's not.

Naver's $10 bln deal offers crypto compass - @hudsonlockett.bsky.social - tinyurl.com/2uk3hwuc

oh Americans may not understand this, but a 'magistrate' in the UK is a local volunteer with typically no legal background. But it's ok, they receive about 10 days of training. And now they can send you to jail for two years without a jury!

1. A landmark study was just published in The Journal of Pediatrics. It found a 68% reduction in suicidality for trans youth getting HRT. It also found only 7 of more than 400 stopped taking HRT... and of those that did, 4 still identified as gender-diverse. Transgender care saves lives.

Everyone is *FIVE* and they've been left home alone with eps of South Park on loop.

I'm curious where exactly employers think they're going to source senior staff from in the future if they don't seek out promising young talent to train up.

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

The UK is considering a policy that would effectively segregate trans people from society. It would bar trans people from "single sex spaces" even when they use the facility of their sex assigned at birth. This is a full on policy of segregation without even the benefit of separate facilities.

Let's also not forget that Epstein pen pal Larry Summers is also on OpenAI's board of directors

In case anyone is wondering if Watson was really THAT bad, @lpachter.bsky.social compiled a list of quotes that are absolutely not for the faint of heart. liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...

The 2025 National Games are happening and #HongKong is hosting a number of events including #handball. This brought to mind a research project I worked on before my PhD. The project was about electoral representation in the sports and arts functional constituency: doi.org/10.1080/2327... 1/8

I see we’re doing phrenology again.

I’d like to see the timestamps on v1 and v2, if you please.

My article on land speculation in #Myanmar is featured in the latest @ijurresearch.bsky.social. I show how even without developer mega-projects or evictions, small-scale speculation in Mandalay still leads to urban displacement and inequality. Open access: tinyurl.com/24z2yr48

Warren Zevon’s oeuvre is always salient.

My take on today’s tariff arguments at the Supreme Court. Short version: LOL slate.com/news-and-pol...

Hang on, aren’t you supposed to ask for a government backstop AFTER the bubble bursts? www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Roberts now going at the solicitor general like a cat with a wounded mouse. Keeps telling him that tariffs are taxes on the American people. "Who pays the tariffs??" Says Trump's argument would neutralize separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. Incredible stuff.

Pretty easy to get spicy with 10-year forecasts no one will ever check. I do respect the 6-month target of 6.9 for CNY though.

Condé Nast finally achieved its dream of wrecking Teen Vogue and killing its politics section. www.thecut.com/article/teen...

Japan politics curveball: Japanese Communist Party paper Akahata (Red Flag) alleges co-head of ruling coalition party Ishin funneled public funds into an aide's company for 7 years. Akahata doesn't mess around w/investigations, should be one to follow www.asahi.com/ajw/articles...

My take on today's US-China trade pact: it's not one. Trump and Xi had a nice friendly chat and then kicked the can down the road all the way to April without resolving anything www.reuters.com/commentary/b...

My take on today's US-China trade pact: it's not one. Trump and Xi had a nice friendly chat and then kicked the can down the road all the way to April without resolving anything www.reuters.com/commentary/b...

"The apps are so advanced!" The apps are 13 million migrant workers in a robot suit!

A Chinese naval officer who took part in D-Day wrote an 80-page diary of his time embedded with British forces. “Lam was part of a group of more than 20 Chinese naval officers sent during World War II for training in the U.K. by Chiang Kai-shek.” [apnews.com]

Harvard is abandoning its core mission of preparing the future of knowledge creation by slashing PhD admissions by 2/3. The money saved will be a tiny rounding error compared to the world's largest university endowment (~$60 billion in 2025).

It’s no secret the academic job market has become increasingly precarious. Many early-career researchers are struggling to find stable positions, and this challenge is global. In Asia, things have recently become more complex due to defunding of Western universities. 1/6

Japan’s new PM faces $550 bln US funding conundrum - @hudsonlockett.bsky.social - tinyurl.com/bdea7m69

New @breakingviews.reuters.com: Sanae Takaichi wants to spend big on Japan, but the country's first female prime minister is going to have to sort out $550 billion owed to the US while she's at it. This turns out to be, well, rather complicated. Full column: www.reuters.com/commentary/b...

Incredible “Don’t Create The Torment Nexus” energy from Thiel here. I haven’t read Tolkien since grade school, but even I remember that claiming the treasure hoard of Erebor very explicitly turned Dwarf King Thorin Oakenshield mad with greed and ended up getting him killed in a war.

Commentary | The case for a big, one-off wealth tax www.reuters.com/commentary/b...

Japan politics chaos puts markets in anxious limbo - @hudsonlockett.bsky.social - tinyurl.com/ycyc22e5

Sweet land, it's like the plot of Cyrano de Bergerac reproduced on an industrial scale. Except there's no Cyrano behind these Christians for a Roxane to fall in love with—only a text prediction machine feeding plausible-sounding bullshit to lazy charlatans.

Huh: TikTok took down my 8-second video featuring this image of Debbie Brockman — the news producer just detained by Trump’s CBP agents — saying it violates the “joy of TikTok”

Sweet land, y’all, Japanese politics is getting absolutely buck wild. www.reuters.com/world/asia-p...

Basically pre-Marvel/Star Wars Disney was desperate for IP that would play to young men aged 13-28, so they took Tron out of mothballs in 2010. Now execs are running the same playbook because they've fumbled both of those bigger franchises and can't think of a better way to target said demographic

Maybe the best bit about Silksong's release, besides the game itself: as with Hollow Knight, the stellar soundtrack from Christopher Larkin is positively bursting with tracks perfectly tailored for writers who need to lock in and deliver on deadline youtube.com/watch?v=fNVn...