A shirt of cartoon oarfish, squid and nautilus

Jellyfish whale sharks and sponges oh my!

Oarfish on a black sleeve

Purple jumping spider backpack

Biologists must display their most marvelous plumage if they are to be accepted by a flock of fellow biologists.

We are now witness to this rare yet beautiful phenomenon at the Society of Integrative of Comparative Biology conference in Portland, OR #SICB2026

Intergalactic Mixtape #34 Hey! Welcome to 2026. Also, welcome to the new subscribers; I assume lots of you are here from the very kind rec in The Rec Center. Thanks very much to...

Intergalactic Mixtape is live! Maybe put some guard rails on your TBR lists. :)

brightwanderer I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned "forever" into the only acceptable definition of success. Like... if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it's a "failed" business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don't actually want to keep doing that, you're a "failed" writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it's a "failed" marriage. The only acceptable "win condition" is "you keep doing that thing forever". A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a "real" friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a "phase" - or, alternatively, a "pity" that you don't do that thing any more. A fandom is "dying" because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things. I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it's okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success... I don't think that's doing us any good at all.

Wish I could internalize this

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: "The UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela. We regarded Maduro as an illegitimate President and we shed no tears about the end of his regime. "I reiterated my support for international law this morning. The UK government will discuss the evolving situation with US counterparts in the days ahead as we seek a safe and peaceful transition to a legitimate government that reflects the will of the Venezuelan people."

Starmer effectively gives the US the UK’s backing over Venezuela.

Dave watched this government Education Committee meeting so you didn’t have to. But you do have to read his summary (if you have any interest in the future of HE)

A black and white image of a man with long hair and sunglasses overlaid with the Ki logo and a banner that says “New Client: Peat Long”

It is announcement season at Ki - we are thrilled to welcome @peat.bsky.social and his epic fantasy murder mystery to the agency. Peat is represented by @knifewitch.bsky.social

Read more: www.ki-agency.co.uk/post/peat-lo...

Bipolar time is a metaphor for the complexities of times as we variously experience them, and as it intersects with other times and demands. It provides a way to index the components of time, of illness, of accelerating contexts, which construct the experience of failure. Bipolar time describes the non-rhythmic space where failure is everywhere and nowhere, personal-affective, contextual and structural. It is not just a metaphor for personal struggle; we offer it as a critical tool to analyse how times move – and how (or whether) we move against/with time – in ways which reinforce inequalities. Bipolar time offers a mechanism to explore how failure is attached to certain bodies and why ‘reasonable adjustments’ or accommodations for disability do not preclude the painful affective experience of delivering work on time, slowly, or not at all

Here we are then, the article I have been whining about for well over a year. Written with @robinskyer.bsky.social, our article explores failure and crip temporalities in UKHE and is published today with the Sociological Review

doi-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0038...

#bipolar #Sociology

Literature Is Not a Vibe: On ChatGPT and the Humanities | Los Angeles Review of Books Rachele Dini discusses OpenAI’s “A Machine-Shaped Hand” and an academic sector in crisis.

This essay is beautiful and painful.

My feelings about the BBC are largely in line with my feelings about the NHS.

I think it is vital we have a publicly owned and funded broadcaster and its enemies are my enemies, but I *detest* the way it's talked about as some gift to the peasantry we're supposed to be fawningly grateful for.

This is a delightful read about a really fun, not uniquely British phenomenon but definitely not a worldwide one, on Hollow Ways, which I personally consider to be deeply sacred spaces

Discover Project Hanuman: A Unique Sci-Fi Adventure Discover 'Project Hanuman', a thrilling adventure of galactic civilizations, survival, and community. Get your copy now!

Project Hanuman is here. I hope you'll take a look as I think it's a pretty good space opera - no hero's journey here - this is about community, how we build back better and, of course, mind bending space battles in sentient ships.

#spaceopera #scifi #projecthanuman #writing #SFF #sciencefiction

The legislation is so ludicrous, even the police look embarrassed when called upon to enforce it.

Hundreds of elderly people charged under anti-terrorism laws because of a cardboard sign.

Schools cannot solve all our problems The limits of ‘put it in the curriculum’ politics

For political hacks like myself, 'put it in the curriculum' is the oldest and hattiest of old hat policy ideas.

Why do we think schools should solve all our problems? What if we thought differently about life skills and civic education?

howtorunacountry.substack.com/p/schools-ca...

chalk drawing of a small dog dangling from a balloon and wearing goggles, one side of which is a rusty round hole in the concrete. The pastels with which he was drawn are lying on the ground nearby.

“Pup in Flight” - pastels, charcoal, and removed signpost nubbin, drawn by David Zinn on January 25, 2018

This and many other ephemeral creatures can be found in Underfoot Menagerie, available now at zinnart.com!

zinnart.com/products/und...

Yeah, it certainly makes explicit that all this is subjective rather than reaching for the illusion of objectivity that sometimes just focusing on how it fits within specific boxes can create. But as I think you say further up, it is a bit of a balancing act.

Ditto. But at the same time, when I'm reading reviews, particularly for something fairly popular I find it helpful as it differentiate reviews which might come to the same conclusions but for different reasons

I know it's definitely something I struggle with when writing my own reviews. As so much of how I respond to a book is down to my experiences and perceptions and thus only writing *what* i felt without *why* might result in half a review. Otoh feels slightly overindulent/oversharing at times.

Time relocate to the sofa where I will inevitably fall asleep within 20 minutes but at the cost of various aches and pains and losing circulation in at least one limb.

I am awake and deeply unimpressed about it. This is particularly galling as I've spent the last two hours trying to sleep and getting *more* awake rather than less.

ScifiMonth 2025: freestyling Close your eyes. Feel that strange sensation whooshing over your skin? That's the dislocating feeling of being whirled away to another place and time. November is here, which means ScifiMonth when we share our love of a favourite genre with an amazing crew of geeks across the verse. Let's do this!

November has started - suit up, hop aboard and blast off with us for a month of sharing our love for all things SF! #ScifiMonth2025

A cross stitch hoop filled with a majority of red stitches.

Apparently what I needed to work on this project was people talking and train travel.Luckily at the point with some solid blocks of colour so slightly less counting required

Dogs are helping people regulate stress even more than expected, research shows A new study finds that dogs’ mitigation of human stress is more biologically complex than scientists previously understood.

Dogs may have a more profound impact on reducing human stress levels than previously thought. They regulate both major stress pathways in the brain, keeping us in a healthy "sweet spot" for handling stress, according to researchers. theconversation.com/dogs-are-hel...

If it's particularly not my thing about 2 pages but most other times it's about 25%. Most of the time an instant reject is either the book's voice or its prose. Most other things will depend on how it's written.

Thanks, that looks really useful. I'll give it a go, next time I start a cross-stitch. 😊

Seeing 5am without choosing to sucks. I did eventually get to sleep but I feel like my day has been all thrown out of whack and Sunday blues struck early.

Thanks. That's a good shout, I should probably take a look for one - I have another that was about an inch too short and I'm completely demoralised to do anything with it.

one final weekend bump for this!

An incomplete cross stitch. The hoop is at the very edge of the fabric

More progress. Also proof that I really need to allow more fabric than I think. It'll fit but it's going to be tight

#Booksky Looking for #Fridayreads #Weekendreads and/or #PrideMonthreads? Check out the Pride StoryBundle for 14 terrific queer books for $25 and help support Rainbow Railroad too!