George Stewart

Now, it’s obvious this point has been made before, so I won’t claim originality. However, I just want to remind everyone that the first two Star Wars films were about a guy clearly romantically pursuing his twin sister while their father tries to kill them both. These are strange films. 🧐

I bet after a full investigation, they’ll find that he owns like 4 copies of Mein Kampf and an 8-foot Nazi flag… Or I suppose he could have been being ironic… but probably not… probably a real Nazi. After all, it’s not like a comedy show’s the place for irony…

If an 7-year-old were to listen to Smells Like Teen Spirit today, it would be the temporal equivalent of me listening to The Beatles Ticket to Ride in 1998

How much culture could a culture culture if a culture cultures culture?

University of Southampton is top 10 in the UK for sustainability University of Southampton is top 10 in the UK for sustainability

We’re very proud to be in the top 10 universities in the UK for sustainability! 🎉

The QS World University Rankings: Sustainability are published today, and we are 9th in the UK and 23rd in the world.

Read more 👉 brnw.ch/UoS_news_top...

#QSWUR

Is anyone else running the beta of #ios18 .2 and seeing this strange box sometimes round there type to Siri. This is the “Gold Master” I’m running. I would have expected this to be fixed.

Astronomers close to solving mystery of how universe’s giant galaxies formed Astronomers close to solving mystery of how universe’s giant galaxies formed

It's a mystery that has puzzled astronomers for decades - but now our academics say they are close to understanding how the universe's biggest galaxies formed 🌌

Read what they've discovered 👉 brnw.ch/UoS_News_ast...

#AcademicSky #Space

Research set to transform our understanding of how the ocean breathes Research set to transform our understanding of how the ocean breathes

We are leading a new project which could transform our understanding of how the ocean ‘breathes’ - storing heat and greenhouse gases from the atmosphere 🌊

It will use sensors onboard high-tech floats to provide unprecedented detail on ocean mixing.

Read more 👉 brnw.ch/UoS_News_Oce...

Oh what a curse to learn these lessons of life too late.
To be young and unknowing, to be old and unwilling, confusing choices for fate. Oh what a curse to learn these lessons too late.To be feeble and untrying, bereaved and uncrying. What a curse to learn these lessons too late.
(Me, 2024)

So, before I entered academia, I was a professional musician. So I think there might be a pattern here. Though I might have a confirmation bias.

I’ve noticed that about 70% of my PhD colleagues in the philosophy dept, either play the guitar, go bouldering, or both.

I want to poll philosophers. Do you do either of these things?

Sinuses prevented prehistoric croc relatives from deep diving Sinuses prevented prehistoric croc relatives from deep diving

Our researchers found that the sinuses of ocean dwelling relatives of modern-day crocodiles prevented them from evolving into deep divers, like whales and dolphins.

www.southampton.ac.uk/news/2024/10...

I don’t know for sure, but I think X has trained me to scroll #Bluesky looking for things to disagree with.

Or it could just be that I’m a philosopher.

Could we ever decipher an alien language? Uncovering how AI communicates may be the key Decoding emergent languages in AI can have many behefits.

PhD student Olaf Lipinski explains how the methods we’re developing to understand AI languages today could help us to decipher any future communication from aliens.

theconversation.com/could-we-eve...

But also growing up, my favourite WWE wrestlers were Kane and Stone Cold, so I don’t know what that says about me.

Who didn’t cheer for good old Darth? He was so much cooler than Skywalker.

A black woman looking down at a pregnancy test in her hand, appearing thoughtful, set in a kitchen background. To the left, a statistic reads: 'Black women are 3.7 times and Asian women 1.8 times more likely to die during or shortly after pregnancy compared to white women.'

Black and Asian women are more likely to die during and after pregnancy than white women.

We are leading a new collaboration to tackle disparities in maternity care by improving health before and between pregnancies.

See more 👉 brnw.ch/SouthamptonS...

I had to have news for dinner because I looked at the whisky.

The answer is to try to get to the truth by talking about/to people in a way that you would be happy to do to their face.
If people argue in bad faith from anywhere on the political spectrum, then they should be penalised and removed from the conversation if necessary. Thoughts?

I say this because just having been on Bluesky for a few days, I see posts berating those on the right as "dicks" or "stupid", etc. It seems that if this kind of cackling bitterness continues, then when those from the right migrate to Bluesky, it's going to go the same way as X.

The issue that I found was the most destructive to X, was disagreements so often happened in bad faith. E.g., I don't like your view, thus, I don't like you, thus, I want to embarrass/berate you. However, do people think that disagreement is the problem or so long as it's civil, we should disagree?

Do you think disagreement is the problem, or the civility of the disagreement?

Why do people not think that the same thing that happened to Twitter isn’t going to happen to Bluesky?

🤣

Nature loves a figure of eight. E.g., the infinity symbol. 🙃

😁 There there. We're just something the universe can do (we're made of the universe in a particular arrangement). We are the way the universe experiences sadness. So when you're sad, find comfort in the fact that if it weren't for us (if we're alone) the universe would have no feelings at all.

Rare photo of the Milky Way seen from the surface of Mars

Yeah I figured it was. But thank you for letting me know! I was more curious to see where the scam was. 👍

You’re now at war with the entire United Kingdom.

@naturaltheistjw.bsky.social hi @naturaltheistjw.bsky.social. I’m looking forward to commenting on your arguments here also. 👍 keep it up!