I know this is not the biggest concern going these days, but it stresses me out that basically every artist/writer/critic is now expected to create their own tiny empire instead of getting paid by any existing entity to perform a job they've worked to get good at!!!!

Americans hear complaining and think that means nothing is happening, no actions are being taken, no resources exist, Brits are just miserable and helpless complaining is how Brits bond as a nation. it’s *how* stuff happens

How do people not understand how alarming it is that Europe is currently experiencing this weather? Even if you COULD buy your way to comfort this time, it’s terrifying that there isn’t more serious discussion world wide about it why this is happening and how to prevent it.

Anyone who pushes for a diplomatic solution to the Ru-Ukrainian war is an anti-Ukr/pro-ru. A diplomatic solution that rewards Ru for its conquest is a priori anti-Ukr/pro-Ru. Ru repeatedly refuses even the most favorable compromise. The only available diplomatic solution rn is Ukr capitulation.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria's milk farmers falter in former yoghurt empire "When the countryside starts being fed by the city, you can write off the whole country," says Emil Deliev, as he leads cows out to pasture in the Eastern Rhodopes in Bulgaria, where small dairy farms are disappearing one after the other.

Hydration break. 📸NMS

As I’ve said before, any serious attempt to ban conversion practices in Britain has to confront the fact that the NHS never stopped doing it. This draft bill not only fails, it explicitly gives “healthcare providers” permission to continue.

At least in the old days, Antipopes usually had the support of at least a few of the crowed heads of Europe and went into battle, whereas now it's just a larper with a temu Papal Tiara calling himself Pope Boniface X, based out of a business park in Milwaukee, next to a condemned Arby's.

Quince, cabbage, melon, & cucumber. Precisely arranged & painted in 1600 by Juan Sanchez Cotán, born OTD in 1560.

Fun fact: if you say “window” and “revolt” three times, you will summon a group of Czechs

My 2yr old showing me her new dance:

the bread is $13.50 and all the circuses are subscription based

yeah there's the physical embodiment of depression weather (99%) and then there's the being scorched off the face of the earth like an ant in gods magnifying glass weather (rounded up to 1%) and nothing in between. experiencing a pleasant temperature for free is cancelled

like it's the perfect trap to lure a nation that "mad dogs and englishmen go out in the midday sun" is about and that a solid proportion of instantly gets tops off cans out solero mania the minute it stops being stygian gloom outside

I agree that it's irresponsible of the media to imply dangerously hot weather is nice weather, and it's a bad idea to try and do normal "what a lovely day" activities in it, but the trouble is this heat is what's replaced all our "nice day for it" days instead of the pissing it down freezing ones

The heatwave in Europe is so extreme, it's 25–32°F (14–18°C) above normal. You read that right. France recorded it's hottest day ever. The UK had its hottest ever June day. The ground is exceeding 122°F (50°C). People are dying. Tell me again why we shouldn't talk about climate change???

Whenever I see OpenAI's Sam Altman with his pseudo-innocent glance, he always reminds me of Carter Burke from Aliens (1986), who deceived the entire spaceship crew in favor of his corporation, with the aim of getting rich by weaponizing a newly discovered intelligent life-form. #aliens #tech #AI

It is history and the humanities that have the tools and the skillset to navigate us (with necessary source criticism and caution) through the age when more sources like the texts from the Herculaneum scrolls will appear. Sadly they are now the target of vicious attacks. Make of it what you will.

Let me correct this headline slightly: Large portion of the text contained in a carbonised Herculaneum scroll has been approximated based on the known corpus of ancient texts again. The probability increased compared to previous attempts but the scroll remains, very much, locked

This is a useful application of ML and LLMs which offers interesting, but still speculative, results for historians and philologists. The possible text has been (largely) modelled not read. This is still an exciting and definitely curious avenue. But it is *not* the same as reading an unknown text.

🧵👆👇 Pulling this from midthread because the comparison to palimpsests is useful.

I was also very confused at the ‘Tulsi associated with a cult’ story being framed as some revelation since I listened to this QAA podcast episode FOUR YEARS AGO detailing all the same things… 🤔

V-glove. ‘The Maastricht Hours’, Liège 14th century. British Library, Stowe 17, fol. 197v. #medieval #medievalart

i should call in sick with climate change

Got a new Dell Laptop at work & it comes with a COPILOT KEY next to the right Alt button. I thought OK, I can surely disable this key or remap it to Ctrl. Oh my friends, no. I was foolish. Searching for help came across this, Dell agents aren't even allowed to discuss remapping the copilot key.

Unite criticising Ed Miliband for net zero is the worst imaginable elevation of the interests of a sector of workers over the interests of the working-class as a whole. You can't carve out a marginally better collective bargaining agreement with your employer if the world is on fire.

can’t believe a narcissist is being so publicly humiliated by a reflecting pool

Once again, as I’ve noted multiple times before, Trump’s foreign policy isn’t really realist, or imperialist, or neoroyalist, or about spheres of influence, etc. Its sexual predation/abuse elevated the level of the state

Lots to say about this quote from Phillipson but I think a key element is how cis people are understood as 'biological' and therefore as having material needs (services, spaces) where as trans people are an 'identity' and therefore only have cultural/recognitional needs ('not being pilloried').

Broke: shading the windows Woke: AC Bespoke: WWII era bunker

Hey @erinbiba.bsky.social always remember that true love transcends species boundaries and requires no vertebrae.

This shit with the heat wave needs to be made to haunt every British politician until they're afraid to get caught even thinking about North sea drilling expansion.

Buster Keaton didn't stand still while a two-ton housefront collapsed on top of him with a window cut out to barely clear his shoulders on each side so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable."

Lynda Barry did not squeeze your heart and simultaneously explain the point of all art with the barest of line drawings so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable."

re the capes, this relates to an issue I constantly see in depictions of Māori – Aotearoa is really far south, it gets cold and wet. A lot of Americans seem to consider us Spicy Hawaiians and put us shirtless in crowns of tropical flowers and like ... we have the same climate as New England.

90% of modern media criticism just sounds like this

Stephen Miller tweeted six words that caused a firestorm: "Change the voters, change the country." He’s getting more concise since he’s usually getting in trouble for eight additional words.

COMING SOON: New record tomorrow. And the next day… #ClimateCrisis

the claim that Russia invaded Ukraine because the West bullied them into it should be immediately disqualifying for any political office

Interesting background: Earlier, there were reports on Belarusian Telegram channels that authorities in the Brest and Gomel regions had demanded that mobile operators dismantle cell towers that were "damaging the nesting sites of grouse."

when you think about it sun worship is one of the less blatantly incorrect ancient religious beliefs, considering they were right about some things. it does beget all living things on earth, and it does have the potential to grant potentially infinite power if we build enough shrines to it

People said Occupy was a failure and it ushered in 15 years of actual political engagement on economic inequality People like to call BLM, Abolish ICE, etc failures and, no. Spontaneous mass protest moments rarely win immediately. But they change the political environment and lay the groundwork.

Shrapnel marks from the Mussolini's fascist bombing of Barcelona, 1938. Passeig de Picasso, just now.

I’m sad if I accidentally used one of my genie-in-a-bottle moments for this outcome.

a legitimately fascinating finding tbh

People also love to say defund the police was a failure because every city in the country did not immediately cut police budgets. Social movement outcomes have a long time horizon and may not always show up in the exact demands the movement made

Excellent chart, and true for all Western economies. What we *could* have done was find ways for that single householder earner to be equally likely to be a woman. Instead, we drove women back into the labour-force alongside men by driving down everyone’s wages.

I've said this before and it's a good day to say it again: media outlets have horny male editors and horny male photographers who want to snap creep pics of women in skimpy outfits, and that is a big part of why they illustrate a deadly event with this type of stuff