She's also often the demographic group that ICE is ostensibly "protecting" (oh no, landscapers without proper paperwork, the horror, truly I shall be murdered in my bed...), so it can be particularly effective for people like that to push back.

History is awe-inspiring and emotionally difficult sometimes, but also is dusty, falling apart, and sometimes strangely sticky.

What I actually look like while working on this project: imagine me seated on the floor in the middle of a library aisle, covered in dust, squinting at a handwritten note on the flyleaf of a book, wailing "oh, come on, that's not even a real letter!".

Me looking thoughtfully at an open book I'm holding, pointing to a line of text. On either side are small piles of old library books.

How the newspaper article presents my work on this project:

Some of them! I don't subscribe to that many newsletters, so it's entirely likely that my sample set is skewed.

And I have no idea if I'm typical here, but if I'm subscribed to your newsletter, you're probably already on my "I will read everything this person writes unless there's a very specific reason not to" list.

I don't think I'd find it offputting, but I mostly subscribe to authors' newsletters because I want to hear their random thoughts/weird research tidbits from writing/etc. I have other ways to find out about new books.

(Given the script this is *probably* Ladino, but I can't remotely read it so it could be Hebrew)

Tada!

My favorite example so far is in Solitreo, which is an old Sephardi hand that's very Arabic-influenced and I swear looks like Tengwar.

And don't even get me started on Hebrew and Yiddish cursive handwriting. At this point I can distinguish between illegible Hebrew scribble and illegible Yiddish scribble with maybe 80% accuracy, but don't ask me what it says unless you want me to spend an hour on it.

Oh god yes and you don't even have to be talking about medieval manuscripts! I've been learning to read early-20th-century German handwriting and knowing late-20th-century American English handwriting helps, but not that much. Reading anything but your own cursive requires learning a new skill.

Is there some specific way I can take action? Seriously, if there's something I'm not doing I'd love to hear about it!

E. coli is one of the most commonly studied organisms in science. It's kind of the default "let's use a bacteria to do this" option!

I'm still mad about that, but there's not really anything I can do to affect the actions of the Russian government. I can do things to protect my neighbors.

She'd seen the Deutschmark, the Reichsmark. and...whatever it was in the interwar period that basically just sublimated on contact with the German economy.

I was in Germany as an exchange student when they rolled out the Euro, and it was fascinating to get to see a currency actually go out of circulation and be replaced. My 90-year-old host grandmother was hilarious -- "It'll never last!" she declared, because this was her third currency change.

They are worth considerably more to a collector and it would be unkind to hand them to a baffled CVS employee and try to actually buy something with them, but technically they are legal tender.

I do find it kind of intriguing that the US is one of the few countries where previous versions of coinage are still legal. I.e., I have a few pennies from the 1800s. They are still worth a penny.

Stopped clock, etc. I'm curious if anyone has reasons I haven't heard of that we *shouldn't* do this, but it seems both relatively low-impact and long overdue.

I very occasionally go "oh, cute, I actually have the right amount of change" and pay for something with coins, and otherwise they go straight into the little jar on my desk. Once every few years I get around to putting them in the CoinStar machine and donate it to charity.

They're not delegitimizing the penny (I know there's an official term for that but I can't remember it...), and there are more pennies than anyone needs already out there. When was the last time you paid for something in pennies, or even nickels?

0.o Does that...make a lot of money? It just sees like if you're going to do a weird AI moneymaking scam, there have to be ways to get a bigger payout.

On the one hand, yes. On the other, that's kind of the plot of @maryrobinettekowal.com 's Lady Astronaut series and it doesn't go well for the rest of Earth's inhabitants.

I've got an amazing story about this one. Let me tell you all about how "If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about" almost got me charged with unlawful possession of a minigun. 1/?

Hawaii doesn't exist, and Norway is labeled but appears to have fallen into the sea because the label is on an area of ocean off the coast of Sweden (which is approximately the right size for just Sweden). They forgot to label the United States despite it being produced in the US.

I would try to use the xkcd flowchart, but neither Istanbul nor Constantinople appears on the map and the labeling is in general *extremely* haphazard.

Key locations include:
- Russia
- Bechuanaland
- Cape Colonia
- Congostate (yes, all one word)
- Israel
- Nubia
- Assyria
- Persia
- Burma
- Leningrad

Today's @xkcd.com presumably explains this extremely wrong globe that turned up in the work supply closet:

I still wish I could get a nuclear-powered one. I'd be an ideal patient! I'm young! I could use it for my entire life and then *pass it on to someone else*. And yes, they actually are a way better idea than they sound.