Cover of The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin

My first Le Guin! The Dispossessed

Google Has a Secret Reference Desk. Here's How to Use It. 40 Google features to find exactly what you need, the alternative search engines that do things Google won't, and the reference desk framework underneath all of it.

This is a great list of techniques for getting real information out of a Google search and avoiding AI slop and paid results.
(One thing not included is that if you add "-ai" to a search, you block the AI summary) cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/google-has...

Green Day - Burnout [Visualizer] YouTube video by Green Day

How I really feel: youtu.be/Kxj1OcYfAgg?...

ANNIE (1982): “Tomorrow” Full Clip | Sony Pictures Kids Zone #WithMe YouTube video by Sony Pictures KIDS ZONE

How I should feel: youtu.be/6PtdpI-D6mM?...

Maybe This Time YouTube video by Liza Minnelli - Topic

Me, when I (re)submit a grant: youtu.be/oJSIFZNq7Uw?...

Bonus—the kid friendly engineers’ drinking song: we are, we are, we are, we are, we are the Engineers! We can, we can, we can, we can demolish 40 gears! Drink juice, drink juice, drink juice all day, and come along with us! Cause we don’t give a hoot for any old coot who don’t give a hoot for us!

Morning walk/bike playlist (as requested by my 4 year old):
1. All you fascists bound to lose—Woody Guthrie x2
2. Bananaphone—Raffi
3. Let’s go crazy—Prince

Cover of Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong

I just started Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong

IDLES - MOTHER (Official Video) YouTube video by IDLES

#mood youtu.be/BuQG6_evFc8?...

Just saw Strangers on a Train. Pretty sure the idea for the Calico Cut Pants guy came from there... #alfredhitchcock #Ithinkyoushouldleave

Knowledge is Worth Your Time Folks who hang out on Bluesky/Twitter may have caught bits and pieces of the discussions amongst academics about what to do about today's university students...

NEW WRITING:

It's aimed at students, with some specific examples for astro/physics folks, but I think other people may find it useful too. 🔭⚛️🧪

"Knowledge is worth your time because of how it shapes your mind. And the authoritarians may take many things from us, but they cannot take our minds."

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To Fight Misinformation, We Need to Teach That Science Is Dynamic Science is a social process, and teaching students how researchers work in tandem to develop facts will make them less likely to be duped by falsehoods

8. This has been a short and honestly rather peevish thread, so if you want read more that has been written in a more equanimous tone, here's a short piece that I coauthored a few years ago, precisely about how we deal with this kind of duplicity.

So true!!

Trem Two YouTube video by Mission Of Burma - Topic

A nice intersection of fields (physics vs. immunosuppression): youtu.be/4KKfH_MraCg?...

3030 YouTube video by Deltron 3030 - Topic

Revisiting. Love a good concept album. #mood
youtu.be/WjSVYKMk-Zk?...

Defeating a Virus That Killed Half a Billion People – The Plea YouTube video by Neil Halloran

What a horror show to have put that man in charge of anything. The documentary is very short and very good. You can watch it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybVZ...

"WE'VE ARRANGED A society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it?" "Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along."

I think a lot about what Carl Sagan said in one of his final interviews.

How to Not Get Poisoned in America The minute I saw that Robert Kennedy Jr., a notorious disease-loving health crank, was going to be responsible for the nation’s health—and the health of its...

Today: I talked to one of my absolute heroes, @deborahb.bsky.social, about RFK Jr., how the US got food purity laws, the wild west of American food in the 19th century... and how to avoid going back to the days of formaldehyde milk and brick-dust spices.
buttondown.com/theswordandt...

How Universities Became So Dependent on the Federal Government For decades, universities got billions in federal dollars for research. The relationship was mutually beneficial, until President Trump decided it wasn’t.

There are so many ways one could provide context for this data.

For example, in the last five years universities have received 52-55% of their research funding from the federal government. That's the lowest percentage since the 1950s. 1/x ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/high...

The federally-funded research university is almost surely the single greatest American invention ever.

And it probably has some of the best ROR in federal spending, both in its contribution to the US specifically, but also to the greater world overall.

I doubt anything comes close.

If you track the history since the 90s, it's actually really clear what happened. Corporate labs (Bell Labs, IBM, etc) closed up shop or dramatically scaled back because the labs weren't profitable. The scientists who worked there went to universities, where research is much cheaper. 1/3 ⚛️🧪

This framing is disingenuous. The government became dependent on universities to produce science, social science & technology. This was never a charity relationship. Government invest in what is useful to it. It’s not mysterious & govt has frankly gotten a good deal.

First, Steves finds a way to talk about institutions and oligarchy that is dirt simple:

1. Institutions are PUBLIC WEALTH. They are our shared wealth, dammit.
2. Billionaires can't stand wealth they don't control.
3. So they are going to dismantle our public wealth to better bleed us dry

Road to Acceptance YouTube video by Green Day - Topic

#mood youtu.be/oUcbZKruvRQ?...
except change adolescence to matrescence 😆

being an indie bookseller in the helltimes has felt both very stable and very stabilizing, and part of me wishes everyone could be on my side of the counter for a little while, because I think it would help some of you be a little less cynical and doomy right now. so here is my VERY anecdotal data:

Wow