Zohar Jacobs

i'm not holding anyone's hand when i say this, but when a book's goal is to make you feel uncomfortable and then it succeeds in doing so, that doesn't make it problematic. that's the book delivering on its promise.

not everything is a comfort read.

This has been an amazing resource for my current novel

I think we’re on the cusp of mass attempts to automate teaching, and I also think it is going to be a massive wasteful failure in ways that will make the “learning loss” of the pandemic look like a speed bump next to a mountain.

A Fish Falls From the Sky and Sparks a Brush Fire in British Columbia

For a medieval monastic chronicler, a headline to die for

An orange cat loafing. The setting sun protecting light through a barred window creates the impression of a battery charge bar glowing on the cat's back.

He's charged

I presume you're only talking about heterosexual men here, because the left has historically done quite a bit to ensure that men can get laid legally and safely by other men, and have their desires be socially accepted!

Just bought a copy... cannot wait, it looks amazing.

I'd love to spend a year only re-reading books I've already read, or maybe six months reading only short stories. But I feel like I don't have time – even though, less than a decade ago, I effectively spent a year reading only in Icelandic. Time feels short. This must be a middle-aged thing.

my cousin works on container ships and he indeed had to rely on celestial navigation (which he was trained on at the maritime academy) earlier this year when DOGE suddenly shut down a government tool he’d been using

🏳️‍⚧️ Can anyone help my MA dissertation student? He wants to interview trans (especially non-binary and gender non-conforming) people aged 18+ who are seeking or have sought transition-related medical care in the south of England. Has gone through ethics review. Please DM me for his contact info 🏳️‍⚧️

Can someone PLEASE write an essay about how this makes no sense at all. Is there an essay like this? How time has slowed down? Is this just about TV/technology/mass media? I don’t understand it at all. 6000 words please.

"You know what I loved about it? It celebrated a man who didn't get his dream."

Someone on here compared AI produced material as "digital asbestos " which in a few decades' time we will have to work out how to eradicate from the fabric of research.

I would have told my 30-year-old self that all the things I sought from the world - respect, safety, love, esteem - were not out there, and that experiencing those was going to be an inside job. I wasn't going to be able to achieve, own, lease, marry well enough to feel fulfilled for any length of time. That I could stop dancing as fast as I could trying to fill up on all the prizes and rewards and glitter that the world had to offer - because it was outside of me, it was not of lasting value.

I’m a sucker for ‘what you would tell your younger self’ columns but this one by Anne Lamott brought me up short
www.theguardian.com/wellness/202...

How is it that the more I read, the more books I discover that I want to read? My lists are getting longer rather than shorter.

Reminds me of the realistic sculpture of a boy crouching with a gun that Radley College used to have (maybe still does) up on the rafters of its library.

"Among the... questions is what happens if final congressional action does keep NASA at its FY2025 level but a large percentage of the workforce has left. A closely related issue is whether those who remain have the necessary skill sets to execute the missions."
spacepolicyonline.com/news/one-fif...

Mind-blowing stats on nurseries in China: the number of births has fallen by half *since 2017*, leading to a collapse in early years provision.

The future impact on primary and secondary education is going to be seismic.

www.ft.com/content/8271...

70. SFF tends to misunderstand the role of religion in almost any given society, often either treating it as an oppressive force OR equivalent to magic. and like. it can be both. but aren't they played out? don't you wanna go for something more complex?

Not being a bloke probably rescues me, but I had the same feeling... "whew, I've looked admiringly at that Soviet bus stop book but didn't actually buy it!"

But the Proms, Tour de France, Diamond Geezer? Guilty as charged. And I bet I'd love Split...

(Fascinating article but couldn't help thinking of Algernon Blackwood – and, yes, @megapolisomancy.bsky.social)

In Ukraine’s bombed out reservoir a huge forest has grown – is it a return to life or a toxic timebomb? Two years after the Nova Kakhovka dam was destroyed in Ukraine, nature has returned in abundance to the drained land in a ‘big natural experiment’ – but it could be lost as quickly as it appeared

"After leaving Vienna, and long before you come to Budapest, the Danube enters a region of singular loneliness and desolation, where its waters spread away... and the country becomes a swamp for miles upon miles, covered by a vast sea of low willow bushes.” www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I suspect it's shorthand for "the unacceptable face of het male sexuality," because when pressed people seem to make vague noises about Roth and Updike. But though there are plenty of het men behaving badly in their books, professor-and-student isn't really a theme.

Was about to post exactly this! I read tons of litfic and the only novel I've EVER come across that even remotely fits the bill is "Stoner" by John Williams. Mystifying.

Really missing big, dramatic weather fronts. The current radar map of England looks like it's caught a bad case of chicken pox.

Not in London surely, but only in the City. Still a great stat.

Here's a curious bit of data. By this count, men authored more than 75% of English-language fiction as recently as ~1970. Women only approached, without reaching, parity in the early 2000s. How terrible a time it must be for the male novelist!
culturalanalytics.org/article/1103...

Twitter screencap: Robert Jenrick v @RobertJenrick England, and the United Kingdom, are built upon and in the Judeo-Christian tradition. We should treasure that inheritance. A magnificent speech from @danny__kruger ® Danny Kruger @ @danny__kru... •2d I gave a speech today in an empty chamber. It's about the need for a Christian restoration.

In 1290, Edward I issued an edict expelling all Jews from England, becoming the first European state in history to do so. The law was issued on the ninth of Ab, just to be an extra asshole about it, and land and property were forfeited to the crown.

judeo-christian, my ass

That feeling when you spend all morning pondering how to further your writing career instead of actually writing