Instead of civil war, a naked mole rat colony changed queens peacefully These matriarchal rodents often have bloody succession wars to replace their queen. But in a colony in California, Queen Tere ceded the throne to her daughter, Arwen, without violence.

These matriarchal rodents often have bloody succession wars to replace their queen. But in a colony in California, Queen Tere ceded the throne to her daughter, Arwen, without violence. n.pr/3QSZmax

My wife who used to live in Hungary is correcting the pronunciation of Magyar every time they say it on the news

Yes I imagine it would be hard to dictate! (Although I can’t metaphor on the fly very easily so fiction also has its challenges. Emails are the easiest.)

It’s a learned skill like typing. The more you practise it, the easier it gets. I’m still a work in progress at dictation but I do often really like the things I dictate, even if I feel like a knob talking nonsense when I’m doing it.

It was partly thanks to a study skills lecture we had where the guy taught us operant conditioning and I kind of extrapolated from there. I now have a particular seat in a cafe that does the same. I need to do it with my work desk at home bc I’ve now poisoned the cue (as you say in clicker training)

I did this during my A-Levels. I was only allowed to use my desk to work at. If I started skiving, I had to get up and move away. I listened to the Piano soundtrack, which is about an hour, or a Faure compilation which was about the same. I never listened to them if I wasn’t working. It worked!

That’s how check it too. Handy to have them pronounced differently.

BBC Sport to show every Women’s Six Nations match England's World Cup winning captain Zoe Stratford will join fellow World Cup winners Katy Daley-McLean and Maggie Alphonsi on the punditry team

BBC Sport to show every Women’s Six Nations match

www.broadcastnow.co.uk/broadcasting...

Neat idea!

March is all about bold steps. I’m convinced that March is special for the simple reason I get so cheesed off over winter that I am no longer afraid to make sweeping changes. This year, for example, I am thinking about another business idea and growing increasingly convinced it’s time to go for it[...] It’s not just big decisions, March is also the month for thoughts and ideas. With the magical spring light comes clarity over all the things that have festered and swelled in the damp darkness of winter. I’m a firm believer that January is a terrible time for making resolutions...

I've written about how important March is for making changes. Everyone should be hibernating in January. You should be in goblin mode, not attempting goblin squats. substack.com/home/post/p-...

This was my mum-life crisis The day I realised I wasn’t myself anymore

I’ll always be grateful for the long, extremely delayed train ride to Cornwall, the two Gin & Tonics tins I had in my bag and the mad spark of an idea that got me bashing out an entire ecourse because it set off an amazing chain of events open.substack.com/pub/shinykat...

Text: This was my mum life crisis. Photo: me holding my youngest daughter as a baby

Today’s newsletter is a from a silly course that turned into a sitcom pilot that got me shortlisted for a Funny Women award that got me a screenwriting agent.
So if you’re ever wondering if it’s ok to be distracted by a silly side project, just remember what it might lead to! crisis

And I'm not complaining about having a busy WhatsApp social life. I love most groups I'm in and keep them all muted (and some of them archived too), but sometimes it feels like the time I spend administering to it was the time I used to spend reading

Turns out, it doesn't matter what methods you use to mitigate your social media use, WhatsApp is now such a monster that you still have to spend a chunk of your day staring at your phone to say, yes your child will be at footie training, no you can't make the walking trip, 🤣 to the funny meme.

March is all about bold steps. I’m convinced that March is special for the simple reason I get so cheesed off over winter that I am no longer afraid to make sweeping changes. This year, for example, I am thinking about another business idea and growing increasingly convinced it’s time to go for it[...] It’s not just big decisions, March is also the month for thoughts and ideas. With the magical spring light comes clarity over all the things that have festered and swelled in the damp darkness of winter. I’m a firm believer that January is a terrible time for making resolutions...

I've written about how important March is for making changes. Everyone should be hibernating in January. You should be in goblin mode, not attempting goblin squats. substack.com/home/post/p-...

2FA systems that insist on emailing you a code (like Bluesky) are the devil's work. OK thanks. Just wanted to complain about that to no one in particular.

Time to make a big decision If you’re going to go for it, today is the day.

If you want to read the full piece, it’s here: open.substack.com/pub/shinykat...

At the end of 1995, my friend Glen told me he was going to introduce me to the “nicest man in Shrewsbury”, and then he did. By March 1996, I realised I quite fancied the nicest man in Shrewsbury. It was snowing, and we kissed for the first time under a street lamp by the English Bridge in Shrewsbury. He came round to visit me the next day and we stayed together for the next 30 years (and counting). Happy anniversary, Alex Milway. Love you.

I’ve been with the same man for thirty years. How is that possible?! Well, it helps if you start when you’re a teenager...

An OpenAI spokesperson says Sam Altman misspoke in saying OpenAI was looking to deploy on NATO classified networks, and that it was for "unclassified networks" (Hyunsu Yim/Reuters)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Every time I see either of these men:

One thing I've learned from this by-election is that everywhere is like Manchester and Labour should remember that.

Omg just catching up with socials and THIS 👇

Thank you! It really is the dream!

If I say gym I’ll sound like a prick. But it’s what would have been a scullery with a tiled floor and… gym equipment

Omg. New goal unlocked

Writing books, living by the sea, all good (apart from dog’s terminal cancer diagnosis 👎)

It also means that room no longer feels like a thoroughfare. We can sit in a chair in front of it and feel enclosed in a comfortable nook. When it had the door there it would have felt weird to sit there. So it makes more space for books but also for us. Magic!

Ben! Hello!! How are you?!

There’s also space between it and the door behind to hide, so we have had fun doing shit vanishing lady magic tricks with the kids.

As requested, here’s the secret door in action! It’s hard to film one handed, but I did my best. It leads through to another room and we kept the door for warmth. Really the back should be painted green too, but it took @alexmilway.bsky.social long enough to do the rest of it! Maybe one day…