The replies to this post *shakes head*. By all accounts McSweeney was the de facto PM Oct 2024 - Feb 2026 and this is the first time we get to hear him speak. Strikes me as fairly important news.
FYI - councillors elected in May 2025
bsky.app/profile/0xcd...
The last council elections were on 1 May 2025, ie very recent data
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Ci...
The wards are
www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/sea...
Adwick le Street and Carcroft
Bentley
Mexborough
Norton and Askern
Roman Ridge
Sprotbrough
Stainforth and Barnby Dun
and the councillors are:
doncaster.moderngov.co.uk/mgMemberInde...
Reform - 15
Labour - 1
Cons - 1
Other - 1
Reform didn't stand a candidate in the 2024 GE, but back in 2019 the Brexit Party got 20.3%, Cons 33.2% vs Miliband's 38.3%, ie Brexit + Cons > Lab.
Given the councillors, Miliband's going to be even more terrified of Farage than Starmer & McSweeney.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doncast...
Well here's a more recent data point:
'At the city council, almost all councillors elected from wards in this constituency are from Reform UK.'
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doncast...
It was such a clear signal, too, but back then everybody was still parroting 'no new wars'.
I remember seeing that image as a very young kid and I'm now decidedly middle-aged. I understand (and agree with) the focus on Mars and hopefully the Moon as well (as a nearby industrial base with no atmosphere and a low escape velocity), but come on, a mission to Venus is way overdue.
Agree that Miliband is the only serious candidate, but worth noting that his seat (Doncaster North) is *very* Brexity - 72% Leave, 7th highest in the country
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results...
Why don't they get McSweeney in front of the committee as well?
Incidentally I've never heard a single interview with McSweeney. I'm beginning to suspect it's because of his Irish accent?!
Also this
bsky.app/profile/0xcd...
There are GOOD REASONS why it's a dodecahedron. Let me give you a clue:
'Their purpose or meaning has been long debated but remains unknown.'
... unknown to those WHO DON'T THINK for themselves and don't do their own RESEARCH.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_d...
@essiewood.bsky.social Completely off-topic - given your profile pic, I thought you might enjoy this song. It's in Spanish, but this page has a reasonably good English translation of the lyrics.
www.letras.com/los-ganglios...
I see the DM is plumbing new depths. Incidentally would love to be as unattractive as that lot!
PS Reading that just now, I've noticed that apparently Alex was also the first non-human to ask a question - when looking in a mirror, he asked 'what colour?' (a Q he was often asked during training) and learned the word 'grey' as a result.
(Apes famously do not ask questions.)
African grey parrots can understand - like actually, testably understand and use correctly when answering questions - words for numbers, colours, shapes, materials etc.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(p...
At 8:31 pm Friday, the US Treasury prolonged Russia's exemption from US oil sanctions for another month. Two days earlier Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent had promised that this would not be done.
This is sufficient proof that Trump works for Putin.
ofac.treasury.gov/media/935526...
> "clearly a human in a bear suit"
OR WAS IT
bsky.app/profile/colu...
❗️Lithuania and Latvia have denied airspace access to Slovak PM Robert Fico for his planned trip to Moscow for May 9 celebrations, forcing him to arrange an alternative route. #Europe
2026 Hungarian election result
Tisza: 3.4 million votes
Vote: 55% constituency, 53% list
141 seats (71% of seats)
Fidesz: 2.4 million votes
Vote: 37% constituency, 39% list
52 seats (26% of seats)
Turnout 79% (+9)
Final results now that postal votes from Hungarians living abroad have been counted. The constitutional majority is 2/3, ie 133 seats or more.
vtr.valasztas.hu/ogy2026
Trump Occasionally Redefines Threats Into Limited, Lighter Asks.
Yeah but... Cuba is in much worse shape today than it was in 1961. By some estimates they've lost 25%(!) of the population to emigration over the past 4 years, a good chunk of them young and educated. The frequent blackouts that are now the norm have been brutal.
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
Yeah, but did you look at the prompt? The hint he gave ChatGPT wasn't used and the rest was "here's the problem, don't look online, try something new and clever", and then it spat out the solution in its first reply. Great job human, impressive prompting skillz.
chatgpt.com/share/69dd1c...
bsky.app/profile/0xcd...
bsky.app/profile/0xcd...
Based on this blog post by Robert Smith. The holomorphic argument was removed in the most recent version as distracting from the more sophisticated point based on Khovanskii’s topological Galois theory, but for mathematical simpletons such as myself it's good enough.
web.archive.org/web/20260415...
So every EML expression is holomorphic, but Re(z), |z| and z* famously aren't complex differentiable, so can't be EML expressions. ▫
PS Oh, there's a simple proof that EML can't do Re(z), |z| and z*:
• 1, z, exp(z) are holomorphic
• every branch of ln(z) is holomorphic
• f(z) - g(z) is holomorphic if f and g are
(holomorphic = complex differentiable everywhere)
Anyway if you can't do Re(z), you can't do |z|, and if you can't even do |z|, then whatever your thing is, it's not a scientific calculator.