Toivo V.

It will take decades to recover our science talent if this insanity goes another 12 months.

I say 12 months because most people who CAN move today aren't ready to pull the trigger yet, and even if they are, other countries are just warming up to receive the talent.

Rose/House Rose/House is a breathtaking and taut sci-fi gothic thriller from Arkady Martine, Hugo Award-winning author of A Memory Called Empire.“I’m a piece of arc...

TOMORROW.

for all your haunted desert architecture horror needs: ROSE/HOUSE, in wide release wherever books are sold.

(also contains: gratuitous Haunting of Hill House riff, Le Corbusier, the diner my old boss used to take me to, deep Gibsonian influence, and things you shouldn't do with flowers.)

So LLM AI models and chatbots are full of Russian disinformation.

thehill.com/policy/techn...

D.C. U.S. attorney tells Georgetown he won’t hire from any school with ‘DEI’ Trump appointee Ed Martin made the claim in a letter to the Georgetown University law school dean. Martin has called the school a “locus” of anti-Trump activity.

Trump's interim US Attorney for DC tells Georgetown law school dean that no one will get job in his office if they graduated from Georgetown unless the univ eliminates DEI. Dean tells US attorney to go read Constitution. WaPo asks other DC uni's for their response to US Attorney and gets crickets 🦗

I’m not but I’m also curious if people I know are on there.

Todesfahrt in Mannheim: Was über Alexander S. bekannt ist Am Dienstag wurde der mutmaßliche Mannheimer Amokfahrer vernommen. Das Amtsgericht Mannheim erlässt daraufhin einen Haftbefehl. Die digitalen Spuren von Alexander S. hinterlassen ein wirres Bild.

Some details about the terrorist attack in Mannheim.
1) The terrorist was a born German right-wing neo-nazi.
2) The person who stopped the nazi was a Pakistani immigrant, A. Muhammad. Quote from an interview: "I'm no hero, I'm a Mannheimer."
3) It was a political attack.

www.faz.net/aktuell/gese...

Seems like a pretty important detail

Mission accomplished for Integral, ESA’s gamma-ray telescope

www.esa.int/Science_Expl...

Today, a reporter from the Russian state news agency TASS gained unauthorized access to the Oval Office. How does one gain unauthorized access to the Oval Office? Meanwhile, AP and Reuters were blocked.

Trump Fires Joint Chiefs Chairman Amid Flurry of Dismissals at Pentagon The decision to fire Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a four-star fighter pilot, upends a tradition in which the Joint Chiefs chairman traditionally remains in place as administrations change.

Mr. Hegseth has previously said that General Brown should be fired because of his “woke” focus on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the military.

Replaces a Black four-star fighter pilot with a white man who does not meet the statutory qualifications supposedly over DEI.

What Works and for Whom? Effectiveness and Efficiency of School Capital Investments Across the U.S.* Abstract. This paper identifies which investments in school facilities help students and which and are valued by homeowners. Using novel data on school dis

“Investments in essential infrastructure, such as HVAC systems or pollutant removal, yield notable improvements in student performance, while expenditures on athletic facilities show no measurable academic benefit.” academic.oup.com/qje/advance-...

What Works and for Whom? Effectiveness and Efficiency of School Capital Investments Across the U.S.* Abstract. This paper identifies which investments in school facilities help students and which and are valued by homeowners. Using novel data on school dis

academic.oup.com/qje/advance-...

Weekend Update#120: The US Changes Sides? Is this the week the post-1945 world ended?

Hi All, just sent out my weekend update, free as always. This is arguably the most momentous week in European history since 1991 or even 1945. The US pivoted this week to be a friend of dictators who is forcing unilateral concessions on democracies. open.substack.com/pub/phillips...

Microsoft Study Finds Relying on AI Kills Your Critical Thinking Skills Researchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University warn that the more you use AI, the more your cognitive abilities deteriorate.

gizmodo.com/microsoft-st...

Language-like efficiency in whale communication Whale vocalizations follow efficiency rules seen in human language, revealing striking similarities in communication systems.

This strongly suggests that whales have language.

Get to DC this weekend if you possibly can. Otherwise get to your state capital or protest at local government buildings. Remember to take pictures and post them and spread the protest as much as you can. Courage is contagious! #3E #USProtests

U.S. intelligence, law enforcement candidates face Trump loyalty test Candidates for top intelligence and law enforcement jobs were asked to give “yes” or “no” responses to questions such as: Was Jan. 6 “an inside job?”

If these questions are designed to hire people with no grasp on reality, U.S. national security is at significant risk.

Was Jan. 6 “an inside job?”

Was the 2020 presidential election “stolen?”

Who were the “real patriots” on January 6?

Who won the 2020 election?

Who is your “real boss?”

1,100 EPA employees have been notified of imminent termination.

Idgaf I’m still fighting for guaranteed healthcare.

Aspiration is the answer. Not just “we’re not the bad guys.”

We need something more meaningful than that. I want a future worth fighting for. They have no vision. We do. Lean into our strengths and knock them out. 👊🏽

It’s a sad fact that you never realize how young you were until you aren’t. Then later you realize how young you were when you realized you weren’t. Then eventually you die, obviously, but the moral here is that you are actually young for a really really long time.

Earnest post, but: a thing I like here is it’s okay to have moments of happiness in public without being broadly scolded, and I believe that sustaining this kind of humanity will be very important as we resist fascism.

We have to sustain each other. Making joy isn’t denial, it’s how we will survive

To pull former Chief of Staff General Milley's security detail is one awful thing.

To publicly announce it is to invite violence.

www.foxnews.com/politics/whi...

I used to work for an elected official as the person who answered their emails. I can tell you from personal experience, if even twenty or thirty people all call an official in a day, they start panicking. This stuff does help.

Ganymede is bigger than Mercury, it has a magnetic field (which no other moon in the solar system has) that protects it from Jupiter’s intense radiation. Also, it has more liquid water than any other object in the solar system INCLUDING EARTH.

One thing about me is that I will fight Nazis until I’m six feet in the ground.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us". #lordoftherings

Why some animals appear to mourn their dead Grief has long thought to be a human trait, but other animals – from killer whales to crows – also appear to suffer loss when a companion dies.

CW death and dead animals.

www.bbc.com/future/artic...

False marketing, clearly.

Die wehrhafte Demokratie schafft sich ab