Nathaniel Comfort

Maternal, Minnesota farmer -- genuinely rugged

Paternal, San Francisco stock broker -- unrugged, but did play basketball

I’ve had whole courses with this dynamic and it is, indeed, glorious to behold ✨

Meet three scientists who said no to Epstein The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude”

"To me, it was very simple"- David Agus

"Since you don’t care that much about money, they can’t buy you"- Scott Aaronson

"At the end of your life, who you are is the accumulation of the things you did. It’s not just how much money you got"- Sean Carroll
#AcademicSky
www.science.org/content/arti...

Academic friends, you know that feeling when a seminar (undergrad or grad) takes off, and as instructor you feel like you're playing keep-it-up with a balloon, just giving the lightest tap once in a while to keep it in play? It's almost worth going to faculty meeting.

That's cool. At the Googleplex? Amazing place. Did he reveal Mickey's psychology of drumming?

[Devil on my shoulder says, Start a silly Pythonesque Grateful Dead one-upsmanship battle! But, discretion also being the better part of humor, I will hold my position unless challenged.]

Really! Good to know, thanks!

It's worth rereading @naomiaklein.bsky.social's Shock Doctrine in this moment. Kegbreath is using classic "shock-and-awe" rhetoric.

Starting to see this administration as post-neoliberal. Even the pretense of spreading democracy is abandoned. It's all just brazen swagger and obscene profiteering.

!!!

I've never gone to SciFoo, though I've been invited a couple times. It's expensive! Apart from Country Joe, was it worth it?

Here's an optical allusion:
The little screw holding the temple piece fell out of my glasses. I have another one, as well as the tiny screwdriver.

But now I'm stuck b/c I can't see well enough w/o my glasses to fix my glasses.

I have Catch-22:20 vision.

a pack of kittens closes in a a large dog standing on a chair

David Attenborough [whispering]:

“As the predators close in on their helpless prey, we can only watch in silent horror, for it is not man’s role to interfere in the hierarchy of nature.”

Man, that's great. Wish I could say I heard him busking on Telegraph in Berkeley, but I was too little.
He did show up at a protest I was at in the early 80s —I think it was anti-apartheid—and did Fixin' to Die Rag, which was awesome.

Whoopee! We’re all gonna die

Sadly, Country Joe continues to be timely

Hello, texas? Nathaniel here. I'd like to rob banks, please. Just walk in, take the money, walk out, no muss no fuss. Can we schedule a call to discuss?

What? No, just me. We can't have everyone robbing banks—it would be a disaster!

ICYI, I reviewed Disputed Inheritance in FASEB J. You can read it here:

A fine review by "eco-evo-devo" researcher Scott Gilbert of a superb book by Greg Radick. Radick argues persuasively that the dominance of Mendelian genetics over the past century+ has been driven more by social and cultural forces than the March of Scientific Truth.

Huh, that's just what they said about killing Renee Good.

They can call it defensive, but I think it's offensive.

Can confirm - I woke up this morning feeling normal, and then just a few hours later I realized I might be showing symptoms of rapid-onset Acute Canadian Syndrome

I agree, but I also think satire can de-normalize and subvert offensive language. I’m thinking of Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce. I just have a deep and abiding value for humor as a tool of social change, is all.

So, basically human trafficking?

My condolences. He was one of the greats.

Sad to hear of the passing of David Botstein, one of the greats in that 1st gen of folks to be trained in molecular biology. He generously talked with me, a lowly grad student, about Barbara McClintock... 30 years ago!
@drgregorymorgan.bsky.social @alistairsponsel.bsky.social

aw, no—don't take away satire. That's how we turn their words against them!

YouTube video by Radiorock TheOriginal Dr. John - Live At The Village Gate (Full Album) 2025

I've been listening to Dr. John Live at the Village gate, just released, and it is terrific. Blues and ballads with a swampy New Orleans moan. I don't like the guitar-player, he's nothin' but a gang o' licks, but the Dr. and rest of 'em TEAR IT UP.
Batsignal; @neurotimes.bsky.social

Dufuq?
we insult, humiliate, defund, and disrupt y'all's sensible policies and when we start a pointless war y'all jump in line to offer support?

ICE moving forces from minneapolis to western maryland. quietly building detention center near Hagerstown.

stay alert, stay strong

love your marine iguana. only one place where that can be from! when were you in the galápagos? I spent 2 weeks there in 2004. absolutely extraordinary, from top to bottom, frigate birds to sleeping sharks.

Melania Trump will preside over a UN Security Council meeting in a first for a first lady U.S. first lady Melania Trump will preside over a U.N. Security Council meeting in what the United Nations said Thursday would be a first.

"The first lady’s office said the meeting she will preside over will 'emphasize education’s role in advancing tolerance and world peace,'” placing her in direct opposition to the policies of her husband, the president. hmm

what do we make of this?

dashcam image of a billboard in Baltimore that reads, in big white caps on a black background, “ABOLISH ICE”

one thing i will always cherish about #Baltimore is its bone-deep tradition of murals and other street art. for me, they are a frequent source of pleasure and, as here, wisdom.