I only rode a couple of times in 2025, even though cycling is my bliss. I will get out more in 2026 as my mojo returns. A couple months ago I crossed the Jitensha custom bike shop in Paris with this chromoly-steel e-beauty, and on one of my 2025 road rides I was greeted by an approving floof.

This is me. I count myself incredibly lucky to have had sensible coaches back when that was decidedly not popular. Our coaches were jeered in competitions because we kids weren’t winning. They taught us to care for our teammates, and that joy, fair play, & mutual support (teamwork) were the goal.

For the last #caturday of 2025, my beloved floof Kanoko, rescued Maine Coon mutt. Found as an abandoned malnourished kitten, he adored me from the moment we met and was my delightful companion for 15 years. I miss him 💜

I gripe a little bit about the ambiguity of the word "day" — astronomically speaking, of course — and also present you with a *gorgeous* Hubble shot of a face-spiral galaxy that turns out to be part of the puzzle that tells us how the universe expands. badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/happy-sols... 🔭 🧪

Currently 902 books in my library - I use @librarything.com Have read every page of every one, organized by theme & author to find quickly when I want to re-read part or all 😊 Most recent fiction add was “Earthsea: The First Four Books” by Le Guin; nonfiction was “The Culture Map” by Erin Meyer

meowy meowmas :3 🎄 #art #cuteart #caturday

The photos of those Haitian refugees was his first big break, as they earned him the Robert Capa Gold Medal award, which catapulted his career. But at the moment he took the images, he and the other men on the boat thought they were going to die. He had this to say about the experience:

A few days ago, a very cool preprint went up on how the brain processes prosody — the melody of speech. This is one of those studies that I feel like helped me understand my brain better. So it's the topic of this week's post, which ends with a little future-studies wish list for science Santa 🎅🧪

Inside the mother of all Neolithic tombs ... Newgrange in Ireland. This photo, from excavator Michael O'Kelly's book, shows the chamber (with spiral carving) that is illuminated via the famous roofbox opening at winter solstice. A 5,200-yr-old celebration of the return of the sun. #TombTuesday

Teeny tiny flowers of Butcher's Broom, with a bonus Ladybird! Spotted in woodland near Plumpton Green, East Sussex #wildflowerhour

Even more tragic/ironic saying this at the party conference of probably the biggest transatlanticist germany ever had

when you dig into the history of menswear, you find the same stories repeated. men who moralize traditional aesthetics rarely consider how their "tradition" was considered a corruption by an earlier generation, who wore things hated by people before them IG the_art_of_dress

| PUBLICATION 📚 | We are very happy and proud to announce the publication of the English translation of ‘Introduction à l’archéologie du genre’ by @barpublishing.bsky.social ! 🎉 👉 www.barpublishing.com/book/an-intr...

Gustavo Novoa (Chile, b. 1941) And Color Arrived, n.d. (sold 2021) Acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 in. www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/...

This series shows how a damselfly reaches a dewdrop on a horsetail stem, turns its head, touches its eye to the drop, and brings it onto its face for a drink.

1. Some good news at last. This week’s column is about the amazing thing a couple of us stumbled into three years ago, which we’ve now developed into a global research programme. It doesn’t change everything, of course, but it could help change quite a lot. + 🧵 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

After years of keeping lookout, finally found a used copy of the wonderful 2006 book “Victorian Lace Today” by Jane Sowerby. “Meet the women who first put knitting into print. See how lace knitting evolved from the 1830s to the 1900s.” Forty patterns in all!

Meister Bertram von Minden’s “Madonna Knitting” depicts the Virgin Mary making the young Christ’s red tunic, by knitting “in the round”, using 4 needles, to produce a seamless garment (early 15C) commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kn...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Currently dorking out over this graph about child mortality with my brother. Just mind boggling to take in.

Mein erstes deutsches Wort, kleines Weihnachtsgeschenk von Lehrern des Goethe-Instituts 😊 Bald beginnt meine erste Unterrichtsstunde! Ich habe den Schal gestrickt

I had a blue steel Japanese bike and an outfit that looked very much like this in the 80s 💙🌸🌟 my great-grandma knit my matching hat, gloves, sweater, and legwarmers!

Happy Chompsgiving!

BREAKING: This is huge news, the EU's equivalent of the 🇺🇸Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling. 🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states. This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺

"While other universities report that the humanities are shrinking, at Berkeley, the opposite is true. The music major is the fastest-growing major on campus. We are finding bigger classrooms because film is exploding. English is back to the numbers we saw 15 years ago. We are hiring" bit.ly/4ohKuOe

This isn’t institutional capture. It’s a parallel epistemic system built outside medicine, using influencer dynamics, curated anecdotes, and spiritualised autonomy to replace verification, deliberation, and accountability.

Have you got a little brook in your heart, Where bashful flowers grow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so? And nobody knows, so still it flows, That any brook is there, And yet your little draught of life Is daily drunken there. (stanzas 2/4, continues) - Emily Dickinson

Today on @opb.org's The Evergreen: You probably know a Rothko when you see it: abstract, colorful, rectangular. You might *not* know that Mark Rothko grew up in Portland & went to Lincoln HS — and now, he’s the namesake of a new wing of @portlandartmuseum.bsky.social. From Malya Fass + Eric Slade:

“All right Raymond, you’ve had enough to read, it’s time to go home.” The treasure trove thread of Boulet’s favorite single-panel comics continues

Boulet, a French cartoonist whose art is also on my profile thanks to his Bouletmaton, shares some favorite single-panel comics. Classics, all. Here also for your enjoyment, Le Bouletmaton www.zanorg.net/bouletmaton/

Our beloved Alice Wong has joined the ancestors. It was one of the great honors of my life to call Alice my friend, co-author & co-conspirator. She was a true genius, a force of nature the likes of which the world has never seen before. I love you, Alice, and am equal parts grateful and devastated

Eiffel this evening #13novembre Eiffel ce soir

Today is world kindness day, and a perfect day to celebrate Fred Rogers and his impact on many of our lives. He shared innumerable wise words with us, many which have stuck with me and guide me even today, and I'd like to share a few of them this morning.

Positive 🦇 story #lovebats #batresearch #conservation #batconservation #trees phys.org/news/2025-11...

A very readable piece about scholars and the press. I am still not sure whether I agree fully, but I certainly agree enough to have given up on some outlets.

Going to share crafts after inspiration - used to all the time. Two cardigans I knit for myself and still wear! The buttons on both are vintage, from an antiques fair I go to every year. Wool yarn for both. The grey is “Lush” from Tin Can Knits, and the teal is a Japanese pattern gifted by a friend

Grateful to spend two days on the Klamath watching chinook, liberated by dam removal, return to streams from which they’d been precluded since the Titanic sank. Fish are everywhere, in numbers that stagger the mind & locations that biologists figured would take years to repopulate. Too beautiful.

"Others will take time in catching up to that." whew

잠이 안 오네요

On a tiny island near Tanzania, bats have revealed a stunning secret: a neural compass that points north no matter the moon, stars, or horizon - proving mammals can orient by memory and landmarks alone. buff.ly/fgHasNP #ShareGoodNewsToo

The campaign to label art "too woke" or "too liberal" has dark historical echoes. In my op-ed, I draw the parallel to Nazi Germany's "Degenerate Art" exhibitions and the Soviet doctrine of "Socialist Realism." When a government dictates what art is acceptable, we are on a dangerous path.

“I'm not asking you if your grandmother rides a bike” 1955 Artist: Fernand Léger

“Painter of pictures, fisherman is he, Whose memories of his early life at sea, He now portrays, Lifeboats & Sailing Barge, Trawlers, Drifters, Steamers small & large.” 1/2 www.derehamhistory.co.uk/john-craske-...

Proud to support Senator Jeff Merkley on the floor today as he sounds the alarm on Trump's creeping authoritarianism. My family fled Nazi Germany. We know a thing or two about what happens next.

“Now Scientific American has updated and re-released what it calls the “classic graphic” that shows that a human on a bicycle—able to coast, or freewheel, without pedaling—remains the world’s most energy effecient traveler.” @carltonreid.com on the re-release of the iconic graph in @forbes.com.

The system feeds on your outrage. It can weaponize your anger and categorize your protest. But it can’t process humor. It can’t predict love. That’s why kindness and laughter are still the most radical acts left.

Artefacts incorporating felines from the 9th-century-BC burial mound of Tunnug 1, Siberia #ReliefWednesday The coiled feline is one of the earliest motifs in Scythian art, hinting at the origins of the animal style that spread across the Eurasian Steppe 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

We're extremely lucky that every year without fail we have breeding Kingfishers at Warnham LNR. Usually the first sighting gets everyone excited and the hides are packed, today I comfortably sat with a few others watching this cracking male. @sussexwildlife.bsky.social #kingfisher #birds

“My whimsy is ungovernable My 👖 are irrecoverable”