Josh Cowls

Interesting how colloquial use of non-standard number words tends to alter their perceived size over time.

“Myriad” formally means 10,000 but can now mean anything from “quite a few” to “innumerable”

“Orders of magnitude more” often refers to quite a bit less than 100x or 1,000x

(And by any dimension, food is much better now)

Out of morbid curiosity I watched the very 1st episode of the Wallace/Torode era of Masterchef in 2005. Besides dodgy music, the nastiness of that era of TV is striking, judges acting like wannabe Simon Cowell/Anne Robinson. Ironic how the show was reinvented as cuddly comfort TV (at least onscreen)

D > G > F (with Peru) > E > A > B/C/H

This has been a rough decade to be a supporter of parliamentary democracy, liberalism, membership of the EU and Manchester United.

Was not expecting Love Is Blind UK to provide such an effective antidote to creeping Island-of-Strangerism, but here we are??

One hand no bounce

Test cricket is without equal.

RCB!

“Island of strangers” seems destined—if not outright designed—to live in the history books alongside a similar rhetorical construction by a rather different politician in a different era. I can’t think of another PM in my lifetime who would have uttered it; May perhaps got closest.

In short, if nobody’s talking to each other anymore anyway, does it really matter what language anyone speaks?

Ironically, in a different context “island of strangers” is an apt description for a country that feels as though it’s turning inwards (just look at the decline of pubs and restaurants and of the high street more generally). But holding immigration responsible for that is demonstrably innumerate.

“Island of strangers” seems destined—if not outright designed—to live in the history books alongside a similar rhetorical construction by a rather different politician in a different era. I can’t think of another PM in my lifetime who would have uttered it; May perhaps got closest.

Online Etymology Dictionary The online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet's go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms.

Etymological root I realised today: “preposterous” literally means “before/after” as in topsy-turvy, inherently contradictory. Confirmed via the excellent etymonline.com www.etymonline.com/word/prepost...

If I was designing a majoritarian electoral system from the ground up it would look a lot like Australia’s

Diagram showing differences in party names across Australia, Canada and the UK

Aide memoire for a busy election week

Sad news about the Happy Heat Pump Podcast.

Sorry to say, that after about 20 episodes, we’re drawing it to a close at the request of the BBC which worries it may be seen as steering into areas of public controversy.

1/2

youtu.be/RJPKgngqoX0?...

“Britain is shackled to a corpse.”

Gosh this is good

Stray thoughts on the return to reverse chronology:
- reposts are essential—tho downside is seeing multiple reposts of the same post from different people. Wish there was a way to filter these
- there seems to be a natural law at play absent algorithms: important stuff seems to cut through ambiently

Don’t know about yours, but my Following feed has reached a happy equilibrium: enough posts per minute for a good skim of what’s important (with outlinks!) as well as decent amounts of marginalia without being overwhelming. (Of course it’s a purposive not representative sample, but that’s the idea.)

Wikipedia is uncharacteristically euphemistic on this point

I only recently learned that the names of North Sea port towns ending in -by (Grimsby, Whitby) are Norse in origin, which is somewhat obvious in hindsight

In the hallowed pantheon of season 2 finales, Severance’s eclipses Breaking Bad’s and is up there with those of the The West Wing, The Office and Dark

Should AGI-preppers embrace DOGE? There's magical thinking about the magical thinking

Should AGI-preppers embrace DOGE? There's magical thinking about the magical thinking. www.programmablemutter.com/p/should-agi...

Breaking news indeed

😂 feel like KYC for libraries is happily under enforced

6. iNaturalist: find identified plants, animals, fungi in your area (waay more entries than I expected). Honourable mention for PictureThis: scary good plant recognition from a single picture. Also RHS Grow Your Own if you want to get started growing vegetables.

5. The Way: my pick of the meditation apps, with a focus on simplicity. (Henry Shukman’s two books are also well worth checking out)

4. Flipboard: RSS feeds presented in a magazine format

3. Daily Art: self-explanatory, excellent