Charlie Thomas

Historical illustration from 1895 depicting various Arctic birds of North America. The image features multiple waterfowl and shorebirds, including crested and hooded grebes with distinctive plumage and long necks, as well as black-and-white patterned loons with red eyes. The birds are shown in naturalistic poses around rocky and watery Arctic habitats. Each bird is numbered for identification, showcasing diverse species with notable features such as crests, speckled feathers, and contrasting color patterns typical of Arctic avian wildlife. The setting emphasizes their aquatic and coastal environment.

❄ The birds of North America
New York, U.S.A.: Published under the auspices of the Natural Science Association of America, 1895, c1888.

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Michael Mirer ‪@michaelmirer.bsky.social‬ From a news perspective, you don't can't say "without evidence" because the FDA is probably citing something it calls evidence. "Without outside verification" is probably the qualifer that should go in to online headline. ‪Jess Calarco‬ ‪@jessicacalarco.com‬ · 2d Headlines like this are extremely dangerous. Because moms of young kids are the people who make the bulk of the vaccine decisions for famillies. And for a lot of them, "reading the news" looks like scrolling past headlines on social media in the spare moments of the chaos of caring for kids. NYT headline saying "F.D.A. Attributes 10 Children’s Deaths to Covid Vaccines: The agency’s top vaccine regulator said that a review had found that the children were likely to have died “because of” the shots. But public health experts want to examine the data." With a photo of a light-skinned baby receiving a shot from a healthcare provider with darker skin.

Thinking a bit about how wedded a certain generation of media professionals are to their specifically, arbitrarily credulous notion of 'the news perceptive'.

God I hope the robber declared "Stand and Deliver, Good Sir!"

You could not waterboard a confession like that out of me.

lol proceed sir.

And as the podcast notes in the end, just like the AI Tools push we ultimately decided what would be universal policy based off of what helped the people struggling most have the easiest path to meet immediate goals. AI as an accommodation has been transformative; it should not be foundation.

Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong There's an idea about how children learn to read that's held sway in schools for more than a generation — even though it was proven wrong by cognitive scientists decades ago. Teaching methods based on...

No, I don't have the endurance for that! I had just stumbled onto Sold A Story after learning about the Whole Language Model and being dumbfounded how the hell that happened.

features.apmreports.org/sold-a-story/

And of course the practical effects are similar as well- the students aren't learning foundational skills, just the facade of actual learning now so later when they reach the limits of the tool there is literally nothing for them to fall back on and they just fail.

God this is all paralleling the arguments about the "whole language" model of reading instruction that has left whole swathes of people barely able to functionally read. Teaching phonics was hard and frustrating; teaching cueing felt good and students liked it.

I am pretty dismissive of non-DIB watchers just queueing in now and saying “seems bad!”, but what’s useful and much more worrying is that this sentiment seems totally pervasive in the elite class who are totally susceptible to the Anduril and Palantir PR pushes

the unitarian notion of accountability is, in general, very strange as it holds that a single election — the president’s reelect — is more democratically accountable than the rolling process of democratic assent produced by legislative elections and congressional oversight.

Our ILL service has been getting hit with a number of requests for sources that simply don't exist and y'all know it's only going to get worse 🫠

“A 2nd (awful) NYT editorial on the future of war has dropped”

God do you remember the national catharsis of Joe Biden hollering “would you just shut the hell up, man!?” at the debate? Whoever did it might lose their job but become a legend.

I am like 100% certain my high school will be first in line.

How dare you.

"As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free," goes harder than any Civil War song has any right to go.

@rdwadle.bsky.social hey Ryan weren’t you working on this as well?

Like this isn’t even “stick or carrot,” we now have cabinet members holding out a rusty tire rim going “what about this- do you like this? I think it’s neat!” Just aliens to the human experience.

Remember when Michelle Obama asked kids to work out and eat vegetables and the whole Fox Ecosphere melted down?!

Like apparently aside from dumping $12bn on farmers who are struggling because this very government nuked their overseas markets I have not seen a single policy proposal in any realm that might have close to majority support or even salience to the electorate. Who is any of this for?!

Oh that’ll help.

Who is the constituency for this? What is this accomplishing for anyone?

M23 rebels entrench their rule in east Congo even as Trump claims peace President Donald Trump says he has ended the long war in eastern Congo. But despite signing peace deals, Congo’s M23 rebels have tightened their grip on power by enlisting more soldiers, building a parallel administration and seizing mines rich in critical minerals.

M23 rebels entrench their rule in east Congo even as Trump claims peace reut.rs/4pxDBda

Ain't no-one do livery like Siege

These Somali trolls are top-flight talent.

At some point SCOTUS might want to emphasize they are *partners* in this project, not subordinates. I’m honestly surprised they have not been more aggressive about it so far!

Relentless innovation, rapid adaptability, & discarding assumptions are all expensive decisions that don't themselves address organizational needs in a crisis. Believing otherwise makes me wonder how any of these people have made it through their careers. Are they all just writers?

hey a fun thing is that if congress is delegating authority to an independent agency then by definition that agency is not "unaccountable." it is still accountable to congress. and it is interesting (read: extremely frustrating) to me that these people just write congress out of existence here.