This is fundamentally true: except it’s not necessary to flip heads 100 times. After a few wins the wealth gives you the power to ignore the coin flips.

I did a Q&A with Jon Cohen at Science, talking about Watson, his partnership with Crick, and more… www.science.org/content/arti...

Not everyone lives near an independent bookshop buy you can still support one by buying online from bookshop.org. You can now also buy ebooks from them.

“The information you have is not the information you want. The information you want is not the information you need. The information you need is not the information you can obtain. The information you can obtain costs more than you want to pay”

I tend to give books as presents when I don’t know what else to get. I try to buy them from indie bookshops, not Amazon, because that way there’s someone else I like who benefits, instead of an actively harmful company. My favourite bookshop is @newhambookshop.bsky.social.

Really interesting obituary from Sharon Begley. Just learnt this morning that it was Matt Ridley who introduced JDW to the Bell Curve. (Ridley is a UK zoologist who was also chair of a bank that went bust in the lead up to the GFC and has “interesting” views on AGW).

love this for her.

Race was the issue that exposed the bankruptcy of Watson's genetic determinism. In the 20th century, he made his reputation by staunchly championing the power of DNA. In the 21st, he torpedoed that reputation the same way. That is the great tragedy of James Watson. 19/n #JDWxNC

Matt Fucking Ridley!

Today we remember all who served, including the Commonwealth soldiers whose sacrifice is too often forgotten. They gave their tomorrows so we could have our todays. May we honour them not only in words, but in our work for a world without war.

If Russia ever hit the pipelines from the UK, how much LNG gets through? I‘m imagining that the Royal Navy would be busy and not have Irish gas as a priority. The only energy security that Ireland has is renewables.

Lithuanians and Poles Anglicising their names 1891-1901. In an article in the West Ham news 1901 where the census enunerator complains about not being able to spell Lithuanian names, asking them to spell phonetically, and then just writing down an English or Irish name that sounds most similar.

One of the ironies in the confusion of stories is that Watson‘s depiction of himself in Double Helix played a large part in creating that confusion.

Sorry, one more #politics post this week. Labour’s obsession with immigration makes them unelectable even for life long trad Labour supporters like me. I will never ever vote for a racist party www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Science teachers! I hope most of you will be familiar with this already, but if not, this is absolutely worth a few minutes of your time, especially if you teach Biology:

The Rosalind Franklin’s notes joke is fun but minimises her contribution. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Is not building small homes less of a problem than not building large homes?

“Gove’s schools were for reading, writing, remembering and shutting up”

"China can produce almost a terawatt of renewable-energy capacity in a year. That is enough to supply as much energy as more than 300 big nuclear-power plants." www.economist.com/leaders/2025... I love The Economist's bullishness here

People are taking the piss out of this, but I was intrigued by the Polish marking. Turns out it's an acknowledgment by the local community of three Polish squadrons who flew from a local RAF base, 22 of whom died in service and 6 of whom are buried locally. I think the mockery is uncalled for.

I always find it interesting how the story changes when a lawyer gets to court. They can say anything they want outside of court without accountability but the rules are vastly different in court where you can get seriously penalized for lying.

Yup. An example of the increasing meaninglessness of the capital/revenue distinction.

The difference is that the renewables investment has both limited downsides and upsides. This generation of AI is probably junk - but there’s a tiny chance it’s not and the AI capex pays off bigly. It’s an expensive lottery ticket.

I love that python did this and so my yt channel has sponsored python. links in this thread if you want to donate.

Haven’t seen this clip for a while. I just about remember watching games on pitches like this. I certainly played on a few at school. Passing/control pretty good here. The Ronnie Boyce goal (our fourth) is legendary (at West Ham).

@zohrankmamdani.bsky.social when's bins?

British Bluesky most of the time: “The British right is worryingly americabrained”. British Bluesky this morning: “OMG, have you seen the precinct level numbers from VA?”

Tony raises an important point. For a given KE and elasticity of sandwich the pointy end (major axis) hurts more than the side (minor axis). Particularly for a baguette. Also ignoring allergies and calories. This is now straying dangerously close to engineering. And nobody wants that.

Pretty sound. Especially about the Castle Cinema. www.thetimes.com/article/3e08...

but...you shouldn't use a calculator when you are learning elementary math...the whole point is to develop the language of math... letting elementary math students use a calculator to 'learn math' would be like letting elementary reading students use a voice reader to 'learn to read'

They‘d had the demographic info for ages to see when the supply of 18-year olds was running down.

Anyone like to guess from where this extract was taken?

Ant & Dec, Cheryl, Rodney Bewes, Jimmy Nail, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia .… your boys took a hell of a beating. (But not sliced up and carried out in a suitcase so there’s that.)

@tpgroberts.bsky.social Well worth a watch, but from 0:51:00 is right up your street. youtu.be/CnsDc9GDn1Y?...

We don’t need visas for highly skilled straw men, since the domestic market is already oversupplied with British ones

I genuinely can't think of a more textbook example of complementarity than "you can't perform a string quartet if you haven't got a viola player"

This is such a crying shame, and so short-sighted. But there it is.

I just looked this up for comparison

You‘ve got to wonder how long someone like Tao - who can move to any job in any maths department - will put up with this before throwing in the towel.

I doubt he remains. A collapsed state is unlikely to be kind.

Utter classic. Not read for decades. It was a rainy day in the Royal Festival Hall and I liked the cover. Great fun reading his thoughts on evolution but the thing I‘d totally missed when I was a kid was the strong criticism of contemporary society and colonialism/empire. 1/n

MoU Operations Ltd. Really? Someone had a sense of humour.

The Reform MP's racist comments were disgraceful. Her so-called apology doesn't cut it. So I called it out in Parliament. It is up to all of us to bravely call out racism - and we will. 👇🏾 metro.co.uk/2025/10/28/c...

“Look at Ukraine. Look at Gaza. I haven’t changed a solitary thing. I mean it. I feel as if I’ve been riding on other people’s pain over the last 60 years, and their pain hasn’t helped prevent this kind of tragedy. “

Starmer is in a safe constituency. Streeting very much isn‘t. And if he acknowledges too many legitimate concerns he’s toast in 29. Labour is not fighting on one front. Could get interesting. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Pretty brutal speech from Lucy Powell.