It's been a little while since I've seen it. I know he has no discomfort at all saying other epithets, not sure about this specific one.

Where does Herc fall on that scale?

The People Getting Falsely Accused of Using AI to Write Clean, precise prose is now a liability, and non-native English speakers and autistic writers are often paying the price.

nymag.com/intelligence...

iranwarcost.watson.brown.edu

For a second I thought the cost burden in California was high here because of the rising costs of fertilizer, but it appears this is *only* counting the costs of gasoline and diesel.

I … have never read this twitter account as being ideological

The British Museum image shows a painted scene of a lion and a gazelle playing a board game, probably senet. They are seated on low stools, facing each other, across a low table on which a board game with black playing pieces is laid out. It is probably the popular ancient Egyptian board game senet. The gazelle sits on the left of the table facing the lion on the right. The animals are seated on their haunches, sitting upright, legs hanging down from the chair seat, and their forelegs raised, being used as arms. Each animal holds a game piece with their hoof and paw respectively. The gazelle is painted brown within a black outline. It has black hooves, two long, black, s-shaped curved horns, and a black dot for its eye. It has long pointed ears at the back of its head. The lion is painted a sandy brown within a black outline. It has a darker-brown shaggy mane and a black nose and eye. It’s mouth is ajar as if speaking. Detail from an ancient Egyptian illustrated papyrus from Deir el-Medina

A 3,200 year-old painted scene of a lion and a gazelle playing a board game, probably senet.

From an ancient Egyptian illustrated papyrus showing animals taking on human roles in comic situations where they act against their natural instincts.

📷 British Museum

#Archaeology

This came immediately to mind

It’s happening!

Reading On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder this week and thinking about how to practice this:

“Avoid doing violence to the minds of unseen others on the internet, others will learn to do the same.

Carceres et dracones

How did they manufacture dice back then? Was there any notion of evenness being related to “fairness?” How different was their understanding of probability from it’s modern conception?

If you’re annoyed now, wait until you upload the file to Microsoft drive to share with your colleagues. There’s no guarantee that the images will be in the right place or retain their original quality.

Bulbasaurus - Wikipedia

Exhibit A: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulbasa...

“While the account’s earliest available posts focused on NFTs…”

It’s named for the field ecologist who identified it, Stephanie Tailéd

Article: The political effects of X’s feed algorithm Abstract: Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects1. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk’s platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users’ feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X’s algorithm has persistent effects on users’ current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

Figure 2. ITT estimates of feed-setting changes on engagement and political attitudes. ITT effect estimates of switching the algorithm on and off (in s.d.). Left, effect of moving from the chronological to the algorithmic feed for users initially on the chronological feed. Right, effect of moving in the opposite direction for users initially on the algorithmic feed. For each outcome, the results of two specifications are reported. Blue, unconditional estimates with robust s.e., controlling only for the initial feed setting and, where applicable, pre-treatment outcome levels. Orange: conditional estimates, controlling for pre-treatment covariates using GRFs; 90% and 95% CIs are reported. Numerical effect sizes and P values correspond to the conditional estimates (all tests are two-sided). The unit of observation is respondent. From top to bottom, sample sizes are n = 4,965, n = 3,337, n = 4,965, n = 4,965, n = 4,596, n = 4,596 and n = 4,850. Tests are described in Methods. Supplementary Information Table 2.16 reports the exact numerical point estimates, s.e., CIs and sample sizes for every specification. All outcomes are standardized. Additional results are presented in Supplementary Information section 2. PCA, first principal component from principal component analysis.

X's algorithm is in fact doing what you think it's doing. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Meet the Metal Snail from the Bottom of the Ocean Live specimens of Chrysomallon squamiferum (known as the “scaly-foot snail”) from the Longqi vent field in the Southwestern Indian Ocean

Meet the Metal Snail from the Bottom of the Ocean ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/i...

If you can live through February, you’ll live another year.

From the Latin meaning “Oreo-toothed.” Very relatable.

QUIXOTE

Time to retire

Dares us to ask - what if Heathcliff were freakishly tall?

William H. Foege, Key Figure in the Eradication of Smallpox, Dies at 89

Highly recommend William Foege’s memoir “The Fears of the Rich, the Needs of the Poor” on public service through public health.

Thank you for your career of service to Americans and to the world.

www.nytimes.com/2026/01/24/u...

I found this at the store a few years ago and I cannot believe it is real still

wikipedia turns 25 today! the last unenshittified major website! backbone of online info! triumph of humanity! powered by urge of unpaid randos to correct each other! somehow mostly reliable! "good thing wikipedia works in practice, because it sure doesn't work in theory" - old wiki adage

“I will accept electronic communication from students, but only by Telex or telegram”

Origami bird sitting on origami capybara

Capybara and bird friend. #capybara model by Hiroaki Kobayashi, folded from papyrus. Homage to www.tumblr.com/animalssitti... #origami

“Lord, please make my enemies ridiculous“

This work uses a mathematical model of malaria transmission in Bangladesh. This model includes a spatial component for tracking human movements, and uses data collected from mobile phones as an input for that model. The result is a map of source-sink dynamics throughout the region.

New paper out: "Identifying #malaria elimination strategies in the presence of human movement in Bangladesh" - led by Hsiao-Han Chang and and @ayesha-mahmud.bsky.social.

rdcu.be/eOXse

All of the samurai are muppets and the peasants are humans.

Kermit is Kambei. Sam Eagle is Kyuzo. Animal is Kikuchiyu.