Happy New Year to all of you out there on BlueSky. Thanks for all the support and encouragement each morning. Here are some of the sunrises from 2025 from the beaches of te Tairāwhiti. Have a blessed 2026 one and all. Ngā mihi o te tau hou / Happy New Year

I wrote this only last week, after saying that Trump seems about to wage war on Venezuela. It seems pretty relevant to what transpired today. UK and Europe *must* reduce our dependence on America and its technologies as rapidly as we can. christinapagel.substack.com/p/personal-r...

How likely is ‘likely’? Does ‘likely’ have a higher probability than ‘probable’? I put together a quick quiz so you can see how you interpret probability phrases, then see how you compare with others: probability.kucharski.io

Happy New Year! 🎉 Wishing you a prosperous 2026. Hard to believe that this September marks 60 years since filming began at #Portmeirion on #ThePrisoner. #HappyNewYear #PatrickMcGoohan #Arrival

2.1.26 and my first #sunset back in #Loughborough on top of a very frosty Beacon Hill ❄️❄️❄️

A brisk country walk - something oddly witchy about these trees….

Stunning new year's eve #sunrise behind Eryri / Snowdonia - viewed (a little fuzzily) through the window of a little cabin on the other side of the Menai Straits on Ynys Môn ❄️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

"Norms kept collapsing in one dramatic moment after another, but they kept happening so often, that it feels like I had become completely numb to them... absurdity stopped feeling like an interruption and started feeling, well and fully, like it had now officially become the operating system"

Categories in Social Interaction by Kevin Whitehead, Elizabeth Stokoe, and Geoffrey Raymond investigates the situated (re)production of categories, from the most mundane and unremarkable to those most strongly associated with power and privilege. Read more here: www.routledge.com/Categories-i...

🚨 We’re hiring an Assistant Professor in Political Science ⏰ Deadline 4th January 2026 🙋‍♀️ Any questions, please reach out 👇

I've written an end of year substack post about tracking Trump, where we are ending the year and some implications for Europe and for me personally... christinapagel.substack.com/p/personal-r...

Views of this morning's freezing and perfectly still #sunrise emerging behind Snowdonia/Eryri as seen from from Brynsiencyn across the Menai Straits on the edge of Anglesey/Ynys Môn ❄️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Streaks of pink #sunrise across the estuary at #Portmeirion at low tide this morning ❄️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

A freezing but beautiful #sunset across the estuary at #Portmeirion ❄️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

NEW Jane Austen as a writer about law Some notes on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, by me (And also why there is only one good adaptation of her works.) emptycity.substack.com/p/jane-auste...

Christmas day #sunset across Cropston Reservoir #Loughborough ❄️🎄

Here's Cernunnos, wishing you all a merry Yuletide, however you celebrate! The name Cernunnos appears in an inscription on a first-century CE Roman pillar from Gaul, associated with a horned figure.

Santa has arrived at London Heathrow Airport (LHR) and we take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas from the crew at AviationSource! Photo Credit: Heathrow Airport #Christmas #Christmas2025 #aviation #avgeek

Unbelievably, #DuvetKnowItsChristmas generates such good will on social media that over the years we've raised somewhere approaching a quarter of a million quid for homeless charities. If you can spare a bob or two, sling some to Centrepoint, and here's the link: www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...

Former head of trust and safety at Twitter, Yoel Roth, demonstrating the intellectual dishonesty of “In Covid’s Wake” by showing how they distorted his own words to make them say the opposite of what he was arguing.

Nearly 30 U.S. ambassadors just got recalled within a week. Career diplomats. No explanation. The Foreign Service union says this has NEVER happened in U.S. history. Not during wars. Not during scandals. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/u... #BlueSky #NewsSky #PoliSky

Everyone is porcupining and bracing for war. Finland has raised the reservist age to 65, bringing its reserve force to nearly one million. The memory of the Winter War with the USSR continues to shape Finnish thinking. yle.fi/a/74-20201345

Every year, people mock this tree. But I love it anyway. It reminds us that if we stand together in tough times, we can overcome anything. Merry Christmas from my family to yours. 🎄✨

Most divisive debates in different countries... 5. Scones, pronounced scone or scone (England) 4. Omelettes, with onions or no (Spain) 3. Swimming costumes, bathers or swimmers (Australia) 2. Choco pastries, pain au chocolat or chocolatine (France) 1. Is Die Hard a Christmas movie (all countries)

Newly-announced scheme, supporting international PhD students and postdocs who want to come to Canada www.grad.ubc.ca/awards/canad...

Parents & anyone else up early on Christmas morning: there’s a bright pass of the International Space Station over the UK, just after 6.15. Well, I say it’s the ISS. Could be Santa heading home… Exact timings for where you are at www.heavens-above.com/PassSummary....

Sleigh rides, sleeper trains and reindeer stew. Here’s my final piece for the year on Finland’s Santa Claus Express! www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...

Happy #WinterSolstice. Today's #LentoAdvent day 21 theme is 🌇 sunset 🌅 Did you see a particularly amazing sunset this year? Or enjoy or make some sunset art? Please share with alt text.

A slightly fuzzy Father Christmas after a shift on the Great Central Railway's Santa Express #Loughborough 🎅🎄🚂

This is a perfect explanation of why 'AI' that exists is nothing like and can never be anything like the 'AI' of science fiction that the grifters want us to believe this 'AI' is.

Whenever I think the days are short I look up Kiruna. They have had night since 10th december

Gen X is the 'most stressed' generation but studies show they're also the toughest: www.upworthy.com/gen-x-most-s...

This site is digitizing found cassette tapes of old dj sets, mixes & radio shows from around the world intertapes.net

UK customers buying pencils at 3:23am. #christmas

Documentary ‘The Librarians’ is a must watch, it’s currently on iPlayer - likely to be Oscar nominated & rightly so. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

How to Draw Christmas, Ed Emberley 1986. We’ve scanned it in full here www.presentandcorrect.com/blogs/blog/h...

Carsten Höller’s pink mirror carousel has just opened in Switzerland. www.kulm.com/en/journal/s...

Ladybird Artists Advent Calendar Window 20 ‘Winter Sunrise’ Artist: SR Badmin

Today's chilly, misty, but colourful #sunset at 15.51 across Cropston Reservoir #Loughborough ❄️

2025 has been a speed competition in normalising racism. And as Toni Morrison said, the serious function of racism is distraction. So 2025 has topped the charts in distraction from the real work to achieve societal progress. Wishing you a less distracted 2026. northeastbylines.co.uk/news/politic...

The story of Farage and Putin, told by British-Ukrainian soldier Shaun Pinner on a destroyed apartment block in Kyiv.

The Society of Editors has raised concerns about Keir Starmer’s plan to reduce scrutiny of No 10 by political journalists, saying it risks weakening transparency. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I know not to judge a book by it's cover, but I have started judging a book by its index comma lack thereof. A good index is real work, and I'm coming around to noticing a pattern that if the publisher didn't think the book was worth the effort, it's not very good.

A happy and peaceful Christmas to all our followers.

Some of these redactions are almost like modern art

It can't be a reference to our successes in Court because, as this thread points out, we have won every single case we have taken on trans rights this year. I think it must mean that The Times doesn't like our politics. Well, that's true and something to be proud of. bsky.app/profile/good...

Final walk to work of the year to @lsepbs.bsky.social and I followed the #SnoopyInTheCity trail which is very near to my office 🎄 📍 wildinart.co.uk/events/snoop...

Open science must avoid ‘feeding the machine’ for AI firms. Academics must set standards for use of artificial intelligence in research, says open science expert. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-euro...

"These costs are incurred by scientists in writing proposals, by their peers in reviewing them and by the administrative systems that run the process. The question is, which costs more: the research being funded, or the application process itself?" #AcademicSky 🧪