we have not "apprehended" the president of venezuela. we have invaded a foreign country and kidnapped its leader. what the fuck are we doing here, i am going to lose my mind

They gentrified the tinfoil hat

166 years ago, on the 2nd of January 1860, Urbain Le Verrier announced the discovery of the planet 'Vulcan' at the Académie des Sciences in Paris. He was awarded the Legion d'honneur. The existence of the planet was disproved after 1915 thanks to Einstein's theory of relativity. #otd #history 🗃️

And second, the first of what promises to be a super short series on the idea of progress, and what has become of it. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

ICYMI: Here are two very nice programmes that appeared on BBC Radio 4 over the holidays in which I've contributed. First, a report from the summer on the big quantum mechanics meeting on Helgoland. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

An excellent example of how lazy English speakers ignore diacritics at their peril

i get why ppl want ai checkers to be a real thing but they are effectively just random number generators. i don't think it's because of ai being trained on existing books, it's because detection is just a parallel grift. that's where we're at: the technological countermeasures to scams are scams

Two giants, who span the beginnings of modern medicine, were both born in the Netherlands on 31 December–Vesalius in 1514 and Boerhaave in 1668 #histmed thonyc.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/m...

Isaac Barrow & John Wallis introduced the young Isaac Newton to the concept of mathematical physics and the new continental mathematics #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/f...

Isaac Barrow & John Wallis introduced the young Isaac Newton to the concept of mathematical physics and the new continental mathematics #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/12/31/f...

Two giants, who span the beginnings of modern medicine, were both born in the Netherlands on 31 December–Vesalius in 1514 and Boerhaave in 1668 #histmed thonyc.wordpress.com/2009/12/31/m...

This is an important point, but it is definitely the case that premodernity is undervalued across the board, even by history departments. Global premodernity always has been and I think the writing is on the wall even for formerly privileged "European" fields.

This is an important point, though I think there is a distinction to be made between what is becoming the fate of the premodern “West” (an object of right-wing capture) and the premodern global, including less insular and less traditional framings of European history (objects of right-wing attack).

Apparently senior members of the field out there crying about the exclusion of white males? I can't even. People need to get a grip.

This is a nice addition to the "bad Cold War ideas" file — nukes that would detonate themselves at full yield "in the event the carrier and/or crew fell prey to the enemy defense." Never adopted as far as I know... from a Sandia study of nuclear safety issues, 1959.

We launched our podcast 'Beyond The Knife' this year, featuring fantastic guests discussing dissection, forensic anthropology, and the history of midwifery—something for everyone! Exciting episodes are lined up for 2026. Find Beyond the Knife wherever you get your podcasts.

Anyone know how popular or unpopular the Moderate Realist position is these days? Among professionals. #philsci

'You shouldn't be getting a medal for being robbed by your own government' 92 year old Betty Brown, the oldest surviving victim of the Post Office IT scandal, told #BBCBreakfast she was 'very honoured, but angry' about being made an OBE in the New Year Honours

166. Should I close this tab or continue my search for the film Coxeter made about dihedral kaleidoscopes? @graveolens.bsky.social @rmathematicus.bsky.social 🧪 #TabClosed2026

Your referees were idiots!

i can tell you i wasn’t one of those referees. I’d’ve said, “brilliant!”

“Technology and History: ‘Kranzberg’s Laws’,” was published in Technology and Culture in *1986*— that's *forty fucking years ago* people— & it was delivered as his (Kranzberg's) presidential address to the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) the year before that, so we're rolling up on 41…

As a college student, Isaac Newton tried to figure out a scale where all the frequency ratios are simple fractions. How did it work, and how does it compare to the scales invented by Mercator, Mersenne and Euler? I'll explain 174,240 such scales. johncarlosbaez.wordpress.com/2025/12/29/j...

Which is why we remember the sacrifice of health and life by the laying of yellow wreaths at war memorials. The British Legion Poppy Factories are now making such wreaths (to order).

rmathematicus doesn't know but 'sGravesande did indeed popularise Newton's work in the Netherlands very early in the 18th century

This wins today's Internet

SJUPP!

NYT gets it in the headline

"controversial" lol. The words people use to whitewash and euphemize hate. www.france24.com/en/france/20...

"Covid is a good thing. It's a way of overcrowding that got out of hand. . . . When 5 million people have died, then nature will regain its rights." — Bridget Bardot

This guy is not a figure from the #Zelda gaming universe but a heavily and eccentric armed fighter of the Great Peasants' Revolt of 1524/25 - the German Bauernkrieg. #skystorians

'Penguins listening to the Gramophone during the summer, 1908 - 1909'

It will basically be an anti-"book burning"

“Kepler was born the son of an innkeeper’s daughter and a mercenary…This is not the environment in which parents have portraits painted of their children.” @rmathematicus.bsky.social concludes the 2025 Christmas Trilogy by analyzing the few portraits we have of the early modern astronomer. #histSTM

A lecture I just stumbled on. The great environmental historian, John McNeill, giving a lecture on the *process* of writing his new book, "The Industrial Revolution as Global Environmental History." Go ahead, give your brain a stretch today! www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9_8... 🗃️

immediately buying this!

There are very few surviving portrait of Johannes Kepler and each of them has a question mark hanging over it for some reason #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/12/27/c...

WHOA! Elly Robson Dezateux’s Violent Waters @universitypress.cambridge.org is every bit as genius as I had assumed/hoped/dreamed. 🤩 Get this on all your reading lists, #EarlyModern #SkyStorians www.cambridge.org/core/books/v...

Not now, super-massive runaway black hole!

There are very few surviving portrait of Johannes Kepler and each of them has a question mark hanging over it for some reason #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/12/27/c...

Stephen Miller is a horrible racist in the sense that he is actually not that good at being racist.

Charles Babbage, Victorian polymath & inventor of the difference engine, was born #OnThisDay in 1791. In Part 2 of his 2025 Christmas Trilogy, @rmathematicus.bsky.social presents a survey of Babbage portraits from early engravings & paintings to daguerreotypes. #histSTM #ArtHistory 🗃️📜🎨

Scientific translator, science writer, astronomer, Mary Somerville was born 16 December 1780 #histsci #womeninscience thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/t...

The portraits of nineteenth-century inventor & mathematician Charles Babbage including an early daguerreotype e by the French photographer Antoine François Jean Claudet #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

What looks like an early example of a Millennium Falcon styled hat, is worn in this etching from 1524 by Frederick the Wise, Prince-elector of Saxony from 1486 to 1525. The powerful defender of Martin Luther would have surely joined the rebellion along with Chewbacca. #skystorians

Yesterday's Part 1 on Newton portraits is here: thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/12/25/c... Tomorrow is Kepler! #histSTM

The portraits of nineteenth-century inventor & mathematician Charles Babbage including an early daguerreotype e by the French photographer Antoine François Jean Claudet #histsci thonyc.wordpress.com/2025/12/26/c...

Scientific translator, science writer, astronomer, Mary Somerville was born 16 December 1780 #histsci #womeninscience thonyc.wordpress.com/2014/10/14/t...

Every single one for bribery