Map of Strait of Hormuz
Map of English Channel
Map of Lake Erie
And similarly, to get an idea of the Strait of Hormuz, here it is compared with the English Channel and the western end of Lake Erie, all at same scale
Map of Iran
Map of Texas
Map of Northern Europe
Most people don't realize the size of Iran. It's helpful to see Iran vs Texas vs northern Europe at the same scale.
given the modern conservative fascination with Sparta it's at least a little funny that they've engineered a situation in which Persia is able to level a dramatically uneven battlefield by forcing the conflict into a narrow pathway
Oh god this made me laugh so hard. Watch til the end.
Were raising money to fight and win the local elections in May on the IOW 💚
Can you spare a few quid?
Thank you 🙏
actionnetwork.org/fundraising/...
Not exactly the same situation as gamblers, but tragic stories and a warning about using probability in evidence
"The prosecution relied on evidence presented by paediatrician Roy Meadow, who testified that the chance of two children suffering SIDS was 1 in 73 million. He had arrived at this figure by squaring his estimate of a chance of 1 in 8500 of an individual SIDS death"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_C...
"One of the various pieces of evidence against de Berk at the original trial had been the testimony of a statistician, who said that the odds that it was a coincidence that all the incidents occurred when she was on duty were 342 million to one"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_d...
Up there with one of my favourite things I’ve ever made.
Episode 1 of Word For Word is here, and it’s with the inimitable poet Len Pennie.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnyl...
And have to share two @edutopia.org posts in a row because this one from @mrrablin.bsky.social is SO cool! I have never seen this seating-arrangement strategy before.
www.edutopia.org/article/clas...
Come March, the buds on the tree's begin to burst, this #dataviz shows the timing of bud burst for different tree species across the UK. The black lines show the timing in the Spring for the years 2000 to 2025 and the blue line is the average day for that species.
> @covie93.bsky.social
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll get my LLM to use regular expressions.” Now they have three problems.
There hasn't been much media coverage outside the science media of the Epstein scientists. So I wrote about them here for @thenewworldmag.bsky.social. As many in science know, John Brockman was central in linking Epstein to scientific "public intellectuals".
www.thenewworld.co.uk/philip-ball-...
#WutheringHeights Sweepcliff.
Your #BanjoAunti is here with a special guest: Ed Helms! While filming “Ode to Mary Jo” Ed and I got to have some banjo time behind the scenes. Today we’re demonstrating the difference between clawhammer and Scruggs-style banjo.
What if functional programming could solve your toughest Domain-Driven Design challenges?
In the Domain Modeling Made Functional Workshop, @scottwlaschin.bsky.social shows how combining DDD with FP creates systems that are evolvable and business-aligned.
www.avanscoperta.it/en/training/...
Image of the Yeti in the skiing Windows game SkiFree eating the player
Breaking: Tragedy at the Winter Olympics
The whole internet is cheering for Milkshake Duck, the formerly canceled duck who went on a successful redemption tour! *five seconds later* Are you fucking serious.
Screenshot below of why I love /r/AskHistorians. Proper ruthless mods!
Watch an extra funky and extra heavy version of Rock On performed by David Essex with a live band on the Midnight Special in 1975 here
📺▶️ youtu.be/BT6RdovM1OI?...
Spot art. Photo of presenter(s) text reads: .NET Conf 2025 Smatterings of F#
A little F# goes a long way.
The .NET Conf session “Smatterings of F#” is a joyful tour of pattern matching, pipelines, and the kind of expressive code that makes you rethink your next refactor.
If you’ve been F#‑curious, this replay is a treat.
👉 Watch the session: buff.ly/y4zajBa
SOAS's food studies centre (which runs the anthropology of food masters I fantasise about) publish videos of their incredibly interesting seminars.
Live cheese regulations! War economics and hunger! More incredibly specific nerdy food talks!
If I was the commander in chief of the Imperial hegemon I would simply not dismantle the network of military and diplomatic alliances, favourable trade deals, and broad cultural paramountcy that had made my nation the most wealthy and powerful the world has ever seen.
just saying: it's possible that "I'm gonna dramatically constrict my state capacity while plotting dramatic imperial expansion, and expanding my set of internal enemies while alienating most of my foreign allies" is the beginning of a world-historical masterstroke. but also possible that it isn't
Watch Design for Disaster, a 1962 Film That Shows Why Los Angeles Is Always at Risk of Devastating Fires
A 35 year old letter to the editor, written by a very ballsy 15 year old, about the Rodney King verdict.
Remembering today that having your heart broken is a necessary step on the path to becoming fully human. Whichever heartbreak is your first, it’s probably critical that a state break your heart so that you can develop a political imagination. If this is your first, I’m sorry and also welcome.
We are Christopher Isherwood, watching the scenes in the Berlin street below from our apartment window above.
Like many others, I’m missing @tinstargames.bsky.social this morning. While I can’t claim to have known Steve that well, we’ve been moving in the same online circles for, god, I have no idea how long. Gaming Outpost? Usenet?
He had a genius for wickedly clever little games. I especially love this:
