Paul Ford

“Why Are We Funding This?” Long-standing myths about “silly science” have contributed to the reckless slashing of government-supported research.

My latest for American Scientist Magazine helps give scientists the tools to fight back against politicized charges that our research is silly or pointless- tools that will work whether you’re asked “why are we funding this” from your asshole uncle at Thanksgiving or an asshole US Senator.
🧪🌎

An album cover by the one hit wonder Deep Blue Something from 1994. The fonts with shadows. The cheesy Xtreme explosion thing going on. The pixelated shadow whatever thing. The door probably tastes like blue raspberry which was new at the time. It could have been on a Trapper Keeper folder. Toad the Wet Sprocket and Rusted Root probably each have three album covers that look like it.

Vibes are off. Please submit your most 1990s-aesthetic album cover possible.

Starter pick: Deep Blue Something’s “Home”

The cover of Poi Dog Ponderings album VOLO showing a bunch of dudes twice once on top and once below mirrored. I don’t really know how to describe their clothes except to say it’s about black round shades and a t shirt that says JUDAS and a Jamiroqai hat if you need more details just ping and I’ll do the best I can.

The over of Moxy Fruvous Bargainville which is some sort of shit map with a dinosaur and a chart all hand relearn with colored pencils and looks like ass. Just total ass.

A road leading into the distance lined with GrecoRoman columns. A man with an acoustic guitar stands in the foreground back to us. Shadowy with light in the distance. M (PHI) M on the top; ONE on the bottom.

Really blurry orange red of like a little porcelain figurine of a reclining woman maybe. You mostly see the feet and the legs. Boudoirish but unsettling. Extremely Emigre type says GEEK THE GIRL and the name Lisa Germano.

Exactly that!

Photo grid of five headshots of members of Briet's team. Photos are, clockwise from top left: Flaming Hydra collective's Maria Bustillos, Aboard co-founder Paul Ford, developer Matthew McVickar, developer Jacob Ford, and Sludge founder David Moore.

Worried about the move from libraries owning books to just renting temporary access to eBooks? @MariaBustillos.com & the Brick House team have launched BRIET, inviting publishers to sell, not license, eBooks to libraries!

More ⤵️
www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...

@ftrain.bsky.social

A NYC map with a line showing a bike's path from Kensington area to Union Square; the middle stretch is circled in red.

This morning I took a Citi(e)Bike to work and, from Smith&9th St. in Brooklyn to Duane St. in the City, I only hit green lights. It was so bizarre that when I got to Joralemon St. I began to wonder if I had been hit by a truck and this was the afterlife, because nothing else explained it.

The storm coming today in NYC is forecast to be intense.

As much as 5 inches of rain could fall between 2 and 5 pm., at a rate of as much as *3 in/hour.*

This would be a storm of historic proportions for NYC. Significant risk of flooding in subway, streets etc. 1/2

Hello! Thanks for both of these—sometimes you get weird artifacts from the LLM APIs which make are hard to catch. We'll take a look! Glad it worked second time.

extremely detailed pixel art of an amiga computer sitting on a column with water pouring out of the monitor and filling a reef filled with bright fish, a pink flamingo, orca whales, a distant mountain and a toucan on top of the monitor - all spilling out from the screen.

Please enjoy one of the sickest pieces of pixel art I've ever seen: "Amiga Lagoon" by Jim Sachs (~1993)

hey dad i know you’re tired but could you build an ikea dresser for me tonight

Warner Bros. Discovery will split into two companies, Warner Bros. and Discovery, which will then split further into individual Bros.: Szmuel/Samuel Bro., Hirsz/Harry Bro., Aaron/Albert Bro., and Jack Bro., also restoring the Polish name Wonsal. Discovery will be further split into Disco and Very.

RIP Tom Lehrer, your work stayed totally relevant for more than 60 years, I memorized much of it, you absolutely ruled, you made your entire body of work public domain, and you taught my wife math at Santa Cruz.

YouTube video by Benn Jordan I Saved a PNG Image To A Bird

They stored a PNG on a bird. youtu.be/hCQCP-5g5bo?...

I just reread that and … the media industry has changed so, so much since I wrote it.

Email marketing from Crunchyroll. CHECK OUT YOUR SEASONAL STATS: 12345 Hours watched, 12345 Episodes watched.

Either there's a bug here or I have to have a very serious conversation with my son.

Just a fan.

This is great but I also got derailed thinking about how much social context is embedded in how this particular text was reproduced and annotated then distributed and then wandered off and reread random chunks of The Textual Condition and thought about IATH. Dude was from the future.

Happy birthday Commodore Amiga, the computer for the creative mind. 40 years old! #commodore #amiga #retrocomputer

Detail of rainbow checkmark badges on the OG Amiga and the OG Amiga monitor

Happy 40th birthday, Amiga!

I stopped writing my column for @wired.com and IMMEDIATELY after that they began an unstoppable winning streak. I try not to think about that. In any case—they're upgrading and doing WAY MORE STUFF, thus pushing hard on growing subs. It's cheap! Necessary! Subscribe! www.wired.com/v2/offers/wi...

WIRED is hiring! We're looking for a senior writer to cover the frontiers of scientific advancement—breakthroughs in space tech, quantum science, nanotechnology, batteries, and more—and the people and companies behind them.

This role is based in our London office.

www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/42...

Libraries Pay More for E-Books. Some States Want to Change That.

Public library ebook access can be as much as 10 times more expensive than print books. 🧐

A missing turtle poster.

I saw the sad absence of a turtle.

There are MANY

I haven’t listened to that yet! But I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. It’s so good.

Exactly.

There is currently an NWS flash flood warning in effect for all five boroughs of NYC.

But no City agency has posted it on this platform.

Please help spread the word.

“If you live in a basement apartment or low-lying area, be ready to move to higher ground.”

Later that same day…

It was wild to realize just how much of the Main Line is people trying to get back to this.