We don't have evidence that it's even possible to simulate the behavior of three fundamental particles perfectly at any speed, let alone a whole-ass person

I agree with this. But also, if you're going to watch this anyway, the very least you can do is to not tell me about it, tbh.

this is the most infuriating part of the harry potter discourse - if you're going to watch it, then watch it, god knows millions of people played the stupid game

but if you know enough to be aware of the issues, you don't get to ask trans people to absolve you

Authors Chad M. Topaz, Anvi Kurongonayini, Bennett Ptak, Arden Fluehr, Ariana Mendible, Rachel Roca, Nancy Rodríguez, Lu Xian, Régan Schwartz, Jude Higdon Abstract Five countries account for over 80% of Nobel Prize–winning discoveries. Because high-prestige recognition redirects resources and talent, such concentration can be self-reinforcing, yet whether it originates in institutional design or individual evaluator behavior is unknown. We decomposed Nobel selection into a five-layer network spanning 8,134 individuals, 514,111 edges, and five prize categories (1901–1975). The Swedish and Norwegian bodies that oversee Nobel selection assembled a geographically diverse nominator pool, yet within it, nominators select same-country nominees 4.85 times as often as expected (p < 0.001), from 8.58 times in Literature to 3.01 times in Physics. This concentration persisted as the nominee pool diversified over seven decades. Geographic sorting enters at the discretionary nomination decision, not the institutional pipeline—a specific, targetable point in the selection process.

🚨 80% of Nobel Prizes go to folx in 5 countries. Why?

We analyzed 75 years of prize committees, nominators, nominees, and laureates... a network of 500k edges. Turns out nominators choose compatriots at 5x the expected rate — amplifying geographic bias.

Read: osf.io/preprints/so...

#AcademicSky

Unsoiled / delusion #isogram #anagrams

the shitheads running the Gulf deserve this for thinking they’d actually benefit from trying to make a deal with Trump

literally everyone else does not

I found it a bit slow going at first but ultimately very satisfying.

The right’s eternal paradox:

the correct hierarchies are obvious and natural … and without constant vigorous effort to maintain them, civilization will collapse

if you truly need your Potterslop that badly because your taste is that shitty and your morals are that deprecated, at the very least STEAL IT and SHUT THE FUCK UP about it

I don't wanna hear you talking about it or you're out, babe

If he's going to get a national profile on the strength of a younger woman's campaign, I'm going to come out and say it: during his short-lived tenure as a math professor, Biss had an inappropriate romantic relationship with one of his undergraduate students. I was that student.

Read this alt text.

A 1944 map by geologist Harold Fisk charts a 40-mile stretch of the Mississippi River from Friars Point to Gunnison, Mississippi. Fisk used aerial photos and maps to estimate the past and then-present channels. Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mississippi-rivers-hidden-history-uncovered-by-lidar?fbclid=IwY2xjawQYXkdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFCZ2JBT2tWdVlXMmEzNU5Uc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHsbjW-Yuubr_o_Kfeh0Elzc94geDwfXIZmeNL7NyljEBAOEjH53m2QLSo1NF_aem__4NkCIJ_D8J6mI1e8eMByg

Rivers are living beings.

I think that is actually the biggest problem with those systems.

It's not losing some random skill that we have made superflous, it's about taking skills that are the foundation for your agency in this world and your ability to understand it.

As a human being you have the right to be able to understand the world. That is why education is so important.

Any technology that hinders your understanding (even if it seemingly gives you capabilities) is deeply in- and anti-humane.

As opposed to, say, the contempt (and seething, eliminationist hatred) they openly express about all of the rest of us, constantly, not just by putting him there but on an ongoing basis.

The Retreat from DEI: The Impact of Legal and Political Developments on DEI Language in U.S. Private Foundations Following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, large private foundations in the United States widely adopted language related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on their public-facing websites. In 2023, a series of legal and political developments began reversing the institutional pressures that had encouraged this adoption: first the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (2023), then state-level anti-DEI legislation, and culminating in President Trump’s Executive Order 14151 (2025). Using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, we constructed a longitudinal corpus of 3,612 archived web pages from thirteen large U.S. private foundations and tracked the frequency of sixty-seven DEI-related terms from 2019 to 2025. Among the nine foundations with data in both years, a Wilcoxon signed-rank test indicates a decline from 2023 to 2025 (one-sided p = .029, two-sided p = .059), with median usage falling approximately 40 percent. The decline was broad-based across many terms. These patterns are consistent with coercive isomorphism: the same process that drove widespread, convergent adoption of DEI language after 2020 now appears to be reversing it. The findings establish an empirical baseline for tracking how political pressure reshapes organizational communication about equity.

🚨What if some intrepid students and I decided to see if private foundations' public stances on justice were thin enough to fold under anti-DEI pressure? We tracked their website language using Wayback Machine. The retreat is real and it seems political vibes alone supercharged it. osf.io/29gda_v1

people who dramatically, like 180, change their mind and don't recognise that nor further credit those who helped them update their views, genuinely scare me because it feels so deeply disingenous and manipulative especialy when it's repeatedly on very important issues...

Indulge / dueling #isogram #anagrams

In the style of an industrial warning sign — WARNING Cognitohazard: Do not think about it

I kept needing this, so I finally made it.

EXCLUSIVE: Education campaigner and headteacher Katherine Birbalsingh, known as 'Britain's Strictest Headteacher' has appeared on two far right podcasts.

To appear on one far right podcast may be regarded as a misfortune. To appear on two

Welp.

Good thing we live under capitalism so there's lots of healthy compet-

The utterance of "A.I.'s inevitability" is one of the most stark pure performatives I've seen in my time working in higher ed. Every time it is uttered, it is clearly not reporting a fact about the world but instead actively trying to create the reality it narrates. We can and must refuse.

If I had to choose a random third grader to make a decision for
me, or Sam Altman, I would not even hesitate before choosing the third grader.

The Fall of the Heights of Wuther

Genius Square game, with two grids, colorful Tetris pieces, some dice that say things like B4 and C2, and little round pegs covering some spaces.

I play this game with my kids, and I have questions about the math. Each player gets a grid to fill with Tetris blocks. Before you start, roll 7 dice and block off the grid spaces you roll. You use your pieces to fill the rest.

How did they set up the dice to guarantee you can fit everything in?
🧮

slumber / rumbles #isogram #anagram

if you don't hire humans to reflect the emotion and complexity of your human written words then i, a human, will not engage with it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jeffrey Epstein helped fuel the campus culture wars The academics in the Epstein files aren’t all criminals, but they shared beliefs about whose work matters.

The worst figures on campus arguing that campuses had become overrun with wokeness were all best buddies with Epstein. Quelle surprise.

www.salon.com/2026/02/19/j...

Screenshot of a legal document filed in Texas district court titled “State of Texas’s Original Petition, Emergency Application for Temporary Restraining Order, and Request for Temporary and Permanent Injunctions” in a case against Lola Olivia, Inc. The text alleges the company sells chest binders to girls ages 9–15 without disclosing health risks and seeks court-ordered restrictions.

Texas AG Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against NYC based Lola Olivia clothing for selling breast binders. He's arguing it's illegal to sell the equivalent of sports bras.

www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/defaul...