Social movements constrained Trump in his first term – more than people realize [more inside]

I tried to find my personal style and all I got was this existential crisis

The Rush to Archive America’s Diversity Programs: A small group of queer Southern archivists are racing to preserve the records of academic DEI programs and LBGTQ-related research as the Trump administration moves to destroy them. [more inside]

'The AI firm Anthropic has developed a way to peer inside a large language model and watch what it does as it comes up with a response, revealing key new insights into how the technology works. The takeaway: LLMs are even stranger than we thought. The Anthropic team was surprised by some of the counterintuitive workarounds that large language models appear to use to complete sentences, solve simple math problems, suppress hallucinations, and more.' Anthropic can now track the bizarre inner workings of a large language model (MIT Review). [more inside]

Contrapoints - Conspiracy

For years, William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience has sat on my bookshelf reproaching me for my laziness and ignorance. It was one of a handful of “great books” in my modest library that I hadn’t yet got around to reading. Few people dispute the notion that Varieties is a hugely significant book, by one of America’s greatest thinkers, on a vitally important subject. No more excuses, then. The time had come to enlighten myself. So, a few weeks ago, I pulled out my copy, blew off the dust, opened it, and was met with the horrifying sight of my own handwriting. At the end of each chapter, I had scribbled detailed, hideously pedantic notes summarizing James’s arguments. In fact, I had read The Varieties of Religious Experience. And hadn’t remembered a word of it. from The Patron Saint of Forgetting [The Hedgehog Review]

"Sunday at the Village Vanguard is a live album by jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans and his Trio consisting of Evans, bassist Scott LaFaro, and drummer Paul Motian. Released in 1961, the album is routinely ranked as one of the best live jazz recordings of all time." * [more inside]

AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism The right loves AI-generated imagery. In a short time, a full half of the political spectrum has collectively fallen for the glossy, disturbing visuals created by generative AI. Despite its proponents having little love, or talent, for any form of artistic expression, right wing visual culture once ranged from memorable election-year posters to ‘terrorwave’. Today it is slop, almost totally. Why? To understand it, we must consider the right’s hatred of working people, its (more than) mutual embrace of the tech industry and, primarily, its profound rejection of Enlightenment humanism. The last might seem like a stretch, but bear with me...

Fall armyworm was unstoppable. Then it came to Australia. The insect said to threaten the food security of 600 million people globally may have met its match in the form of several native Australian fungi and bacteria. New biological control methods targeting fall armyworm have been found by Queensland's DPI and the CSIRO after years of research. The naturally-occurring biocontrols act better than insecticides with some killing the pest within 24 hours.

Jitsuvax gives the 11 main psychological reasons (so-called attitude roots) why people believe in misinformation about vaccination. It guides you on what to say when confronted with misconceptions. You will find examples of responses to over 60 misinformation themes. Back to the Vax is a website started by two former anti-vax moms. Their free information booklet. [more inside]

Survey shows trans adults fear losing health care, concerned about being too open about their gender-identity. Which, considering current federal policies, is probably a rational fear. [more inside]

' “It’s a monster from folklore!” The voice from the forest that calls out for help, or that sings a song that’s seductive and sweet? But don’t you go there… Yes, if sparrows could talk, the shrike would be their Dracula, their Grendel. ' [more inside]

The wildness also made me sentimental. Or: in need of something, and it showed. I didn’t know the drink the person in front me had at the Café Allegro. A new astringent concoction, espresso, seltzer, ice, tinctures, cream. I felt a surge of wild gratitude, to be alive in this year, after everything, to have survived to see this. I think she understood. “You have to try it, it’s addicting,” she said. from “A Field of Telephones” by Zach Savich [Cleveland Review of Books]

Start here, because everyone knows about the Wii Shopping Channel, and everyone loves to shop on it every Wednesday. [more inside]

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University PhD student and Fulbright Scholar, was taken by ICE agents Tuesday and transferred out of state to an ICE Processing Center in the town of Basile, LA. Thousands turned out last night to protest her abduction. [more inside]

You like design blogs? You like the word of God? (Allegedly.) Have I got something for you.

This psychedelic could change the opoid crisis. But its health risks hinder testing. (slCBC)

Spooky the OG. Spooky is originally an instrumental song performed by saxophonist Mike Sharpe (Shapiro), written by Shapiro and Harry Middlebrooks Jr, which first charted in 1967 hitting No. 57 on the US pop charts and No. 55 on the Canadian charts. Its best-known version was created by James Cobb and producer Buddy Buie for the group Classics IV when they added lyrics about a "spooky little girl". [more inside]

In 17th century Mughal India a unique set of spectacles were crafted from an approximately 200 carat diamond. Named the Halqeh-e Nur, or Halo of Light, the now 25 carat lenses are flat and set in a frame that is set with multiple rose cut diamonds. Another set of spectacles, Astaneh-e ferdaws, meaning "Gate of Paradise", was made with slices of an emerald instead of diamonds. With an estimated value of about $2 million to $3.4 million per pair the spectacles are currently in a private collection.

Because much of this book hinges on the idea that there is no urgent need to settle space, here we'll try to convince you that most of the pro-settlement arguments are wrong. [more inside]

Kylie Minogue announces “I am a typeface” in a 1997 song she made with producer Towa Tei. As this lyric suggests, the techno-pop track in question, “GBI (German Bold Italic)”, is delivered from the perspective of a font. Minogue’s breathy, almost robotic vocals bring the absurdist premise to life, reciting declarations of design compatibility over a minimalist reverb-drenched beat. from Whitney Mallett on When Kylie Minogue Was a Font [Dinamo]

Live view of the eruption in Halemaʻumaʻu, from the northwest rim of the caldera, looking east [V1cam] [more inside]

Alone and against the odds, one dachshund survives 16 months in the wild. Valerie, a miniature dachshund weighing in under 4kg slipped the leash to go rogue on Kangaroo Island. Now she survives as a force of nature, a maverick, possibly an eater of other animal's poo.

Most of us have heard how the QWERTY keyboard layout was devised to slow down typists so that early typewriters didn't jam if the typist was too fast. A Japanese paper exploring the evolution of the modern keyboard argues that this was not the case. The original use was in telegraphy and is nonsensical that a Morse receiver should be slowed down so as to be less able to keep up with the sender. [more inside]

The Necessity of Pain in Cozy Fiction

Trump signs order seeking to overhaul US elections, including requiring proof of citizenship Trump’s executive order on elections is far-reaching. But will it actually stick? He wants to require voters to show proof that they are U.S. citizens before they can register for federal elections, count only mail or absentee ballots received by Election Day, set new rules for voting equipment and prohibit non-U.S. citizens from being able to donate in certain elections. [more inside]

Here Are the Attack Plans That Trump’s Advisers Shared on Signal In a surreal leak, Trump officials—including Hegseth, Waltz, Gabbard, and Vance—shared real-time details of Yemen airstrikes in a Signal chat... that accidentally included The Atlantic’s editor. Now the full messages are out, revealing how casually these high-level figures discussed bombing schedules, target confirmations, and civilian death tolls—like it was just another group thread. It's a disturbing look at how recklessly power is wielded behind the scenes.

Reading Frost requires a kind of modesty and curiosity. Coming to this modesty has been a big part of my own experience with him. At first, I was reading a lot of the poems and thinking, This is dumb. What a dumb way of looking at the world. Then I would think more, and read them again, and the twentieth time, I would realize I had been holding on to a false sense of certainty. Frost called poetry “guessing at myself.” If you have a picture of yourself or of the other or of the world that’s entirely certain, then you can’t really guess at it. from Is Robert Frost Even a Good Poet?, an interview with Adam Plunkett [The Paris Review; ungated]

Why were so many major Western philosophers childless? As Mary Midgley once pointed out and as the Crooked Timber article further investigates, it seems that a surprising number of the Greatest Wester Philosophers were not only men, natch, but childless men. [more inside]

How the Irish Pub Became One of the Emerald Isle’s Greatest Exports

A squircle is not a square or a circle. And definitely not a rounded square. Squircles have been used as traffic circles and roundabouts — most notably by Dutch polymath Piet Hein to help decongest the city of Stockholm after the Second World War. A squircular plate can hold more food than a circular one of the same horizontal dimensions, but eliminates the sharp edges of an otherwise optimal square. Despite the cute name, finding the mathematical implementation is kinda tricky.

The Brain Mappers (youtube, 30 mins) tells the fascinating story of the growing field of connectomics: The study of how your neurons all fit together to make that big juicy brain of yours, from the map of C. elegans, carefully traced by hand, to using big data to diagram the brains of fruit flies and mice. (found on Kristen M Harris' absolutely amazing SynapseWeb site)

The Most Iconic Electronic Music Sample of Every Year (1990–2024) and The Most Iconic Hip-Hop Sample of Every Year (1973–2023) [Open Culture]

NASA used to have a pledge about a woman and a person of color on the moon...

"It seemed to have everything … an Oscar-winning visionary at the helm, a hot young writer, astounding production design, a sex symbol who defined a decade and Harvey Keitel – not to mention Kirk Douglas’ butt. So what went wrong?"

Genetic testing and analysis company 23andMe has entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with the intent of putting its corporate assets for sale - including its genetic library. [more inside]

The best way I can express what happens subjectively when I try to project a shape onto an empty canvas is "halos of attention." I don't see anything, in any common sense of the word—there are no contours, no filling, no colors, or connected patterns in my field of view—but I know that certain parts of the canvas are more important than others at any given time, and that can feel similar to seeing. It's as if those regions of the canvas are more "active," more alive than the others. from An Aphantasic's Observations on the Imagination of Shapes [Aether Mug]

There could be billions more people on Earth than previously thought. The UN estimates there are about 8.2 billion people on Earth. However global population datasets miss a significant portion. [more inside]

'Brainrot' AI on Instagram Is Monetizing the Most Fucked Up Things You Can Imagine (and Lots You Can't)
The hottest use of AI right now? Dora the Explorer feet mukbang; Peppa the Pig Skibidi toilet explosion; Steph Curry and LeBron James Ahegao Drakedom threesome. [Content Warning for content linked from article] [more inside]

The first great white shark carcass washed ashore in February 2017, in Gansbaai, a town about 35 miles southeast of False Bay. Over the next several months, four more were found, all with tears to their underbelly near their pectoral fins and none with livers.

Rocky to host Olympics rowing as expert promises crocs won't eat much. There are some concerns about holding the Olympic Rowing and Paralympic Rowing events in a river that is known to regularly have 4 metre [13 feet] Salt Water Crocodiles. Male Salt Water Crocodiles can grow up to a weight of 1000 kilograms to 1500 kilograms (2200 – 3300 pounds).

The Guardian: “Jamie has fallen under the spell of misogynistic influencers and suffered cyber-bullying for being an “incel”. His parents admit that he would shut himself in his bedroom and be on his computer long into the night. They assumed he was safe but he was secretly being radicalised. His story highlights the corrosive impact of social media on impressionable minds and has resonated profoundly with audiences. Parents of teenagers have been watching rapt, heartbroken and horrified in equal measure – with the show clocking up an astonishing 24.3m views in its first four days of release, four times more than the number two show. It tops the Netflix ratings in 71 countries, ranging from Chile to Vietnam.” [Also on FanFare] [more inside]

The Last Drops of Mexico City One of the world’s largest and most populated cities may run out of drinking water in the near future. As Mexico’s capital struggles to quench its thirst, scenes from the parched megalopolis show how water scarcity could one day impact cities around the globe.

Most mainstream sports, while awe-inspiring at the professional level, also tend to serve as fun and accessible pastimes for amateurs, even young children. Think soccer, tennis, basketball. Snooker declines to lend itself so readily to the amusement of dilettantes. The cultural status of the game stems therefore not from mass participation but from mass viewership. Bad snooker would be painful to watch; mediocre snooker is notoriously boring; but great snooker is sublime. from Angles of Approach by Sally Rooney (NYRB; ungated) [more inside]

Started yesterday. Previously, and also previously.

Biologists discover new species of skink on north Queensland island The discovery of the Scawfell Island sunskink marks the second unique species to be unearthed on Scawfell Island near Mackay.

The queer people who are buying guns to prepare for Trump’s America
Since Donald Trump’s reelection in November, nontraditional gun groups across the city and country have seen a flood of interest. The national Liberal Gun Club said it has received thousands of training requests since the election, more than in all of 2023. A spokesperson for the group estimated that roughly a quarter were from LGBTQ people.


Bang Bang Bang - Tracey Chapman [more inside]

"For many on California’s North Coast, Lear Asset Management’s heavy-handed tactics in Idaho were no shock. For decades, CEO Paul Trouette has straddled the line between private security and hired gun, hired by logging companies to police forest protesters." The mercenaries who took on Northern California's hippies resurface by Matt LaFever in SFGate.

Why Dads Take Their Gay Sons to Hooters (NYTimes gift link, archive). Consider the delicious irony that a chain restaurant famed for its cleavage and chicken wings somehow became a secret sanctuary for young gay men.

Meditation And Modern Art Meet In Rothko Chapel [more inside]