Paul McAuley

Black and white photograph of the filmmaker John Sayles, arms crossed in a short-sleeved denim shirt.

John Sayles, New York (1983) photograph by Anne Billson

Yeah. London too, before they started to scrub a century of soot from buildings.

Coincident with my first visit to NYC in 1982. Friends I was with (Americans; Mid-West) were so freaked out by the subway that they insisted we detrained pronto.

Fantastic images here!
Soul train: An eight-year ride on the New York subway.
Photographer Willy Spiller was spellbound when he first saw the ‘great human menagerie’ in 1977.
His dazzling images are now a time capsule for a lost, thrilling and dangerous world
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

You're gonna see more of this.
Europe leading the way in science while the RFKs drag us back into caves.

Exposed: How Israeli Spies Control Your VPN A new report uncovers the troubling ties between top VPN services like ExpressVPN and the Israeli security state, raising alarms about how much control Israel’s Unit 8200 has over your online privacy.

So good to be in the UK where I need a VPN just to check my own Bluesky DM’s but I have to make sure it’s not a honeypot run by Israeli spies www.mintpressnews.com/exposed-how-...

It’s not yet 7am, but the train is now so packed that we’re shoulder to shoulder.

A padded bag is protectively being held between my feet, like a baby lion cub. Inside, is a 4.56 billion year asteroid fragment.

Labour warns tech giants over heavy-handed censorship By Nick Gutteridge and James Titcomb SOCIAL media giants have been warned they face huge fines for curbing free speech with "overzealous" enforcement of online safety laws. Ministers have told platforms including Facebook, X, Instagram and Tik Tok they must not restrict access to posts that express lawfully held views - and reminded them of possible fines running to billions of pounds if they do. The warning - an apparent change of tone from ministers - comes amid a growing backlash over websites blocking users from viewing material, including parliamentary debates about grooming gang Campaigners have said that free speech is threatened by the Govern- ment's application of the Online Safety. Act, which is meant to protect children from harmful content. The Science Department, which oversees the legislation, told companies they could face fines if they fail to uphold free speech rules. A spokesman said: "As well as legal The law places clear and duties to keep children safe, the very unequivocal duties on same law places clear and unequivocal duties on platforms to protect freedom platforms to protect of expression." freedom of expression' *Failure to meet either obligation can lead to severe penalties, including fines of up to 10pc of global revenue or €18m, ministers against going down the "dark whichever is greater. path" of censorship. Whitehall sources have expressed "The Act is not designed to censor concern that social media firms, some political debate and does not require platforms to age gate any content other of which have criticised the law, "have than those which present the most been over zealous" in enforcing it and Continued on Page 2

This is from the front page of today’s Sunday Telegraph and suggests that the ol’ UK Online Safety Act’s Age Verification wheeze is turning out to be a big old car crash where Ministers blame tech for the consequences of their own stupid law.

A man standing on what appears to be a balcony of his home.

The man's living room. There's a couch, coffee table, and foot stool, as well as some tall windows. Lots of wood.

Another living space with a fireplace and bookshelf. Possibly a compression hallway leading to this room.

The outside of the home.

Incredible.

Roland Reisley is 101 years old, the last original client of Frank Lloyd Wright. He still lives in the 3,200 square foot home that Wright built for him in 1952.

The price? $40,000. Or a little less than half a million in today's money.

Early morning sunlight throws long shadows across the bare ground under beech and oak trees.

Hampstead Heath, 07:38

Finland farmers have been spraying their deer with reflective paint in order to reduce road accidents.
Now glowing antlers light up the dark roads like something out of a sci-fi movie.
Some say it’s genius, others say it’s just plain weird but it’s definitely hard to ignore.
==================

Writing my poems I forgot the dustbins.

This is our satellite. Bought and paid for with taxpayer dollars, appropriated for this specific mission by the elected Congress. Those who would destroy it on purpose are our enemies.

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered…Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

- 1984, George Orwell

OK, y'all, as I mentioned, I went to see Paul Simon play last night. I found it unexpectedly moving, quite profound actually, and I want to do a short thread about it.

I'll start by saying that, for a whole bunch of reasons, aging & mortality have been much on my mind lately.

"It's astonishing": animal in India sings when sun is precisely 3.8° below horizon every dawn, say scientists | Discover Wildlife Researchers reveal that cicadas time their early morning chorus to a precise light threshold, offering new insights into collective animal behaviour.

"It's astonishing" - animal in India sings when sun is precisely 3.8° below horizon every dawn.

Cicadas in southern India start their dawn chorus with remarkable accuracy, timing their song to a precise level of light during the pre-dawn hours.

🧪🪲

www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts...

✨Little Walter --- Chicago, 1965✨🎸

#LittleWalter #Blues 🏮🫀🩸☀️⚡🔥🎙️

Four men are left who've walked on the moon. The youngest turns ninety in October.

This man was the definition of a badass. He opted, four times, to ride atop a missile constructed by the lowest bidder for the sake of adventure.

A bee with blue fur

A bee with blue fur

A blue bee! This is the blue carpenter bee, Xylocopa tumida.

I was SO excited to find this animal just before dawn at Trus Madi Entomology Camp in Borneo.

So full of beauty.

Observing Anthropogenic and Biogenic CO2 Emissions in Los Angeles Using a Dense Sensor Network Urban areas are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, necessitating effective monitoring systems to evaluate mitigation strategies. A dense sensor network, such as the Berkeley Environmental...

And now for something a bit chipper -- a new academic paper showing that the trees in LA are capturing 60% of average C02 emissions during the daytime. More granular research coming.
We have the solutions, we just lack the will.

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

A heron, white, grey, and black with a yellow eye and beak standing on a wall n one leg. Behind it are green water plants.

Waiting heron.

Standing on the old barge shelf on the Wandle delta.

#birds #birding #wandle #wandsworth

So delighted to share that BETWEEN WORLDS: THE IF ANTHOLOGY OF NEW INDIAN SFF, is now available for pre-order - and will be in bookshops on 18 August!

Pre-order here, or from your local bookshop: www.amazon.in/Between-Worl...

Oops - apologies for missing the Banville mention (the other two are of course about Newton and Kepler). There’s also Stephenson’s Quicksilver, which in part is about the founding of the Royal Society (and science). Even so, agree there are far fewer about scientists that artists or royalty…

‘Mr. Moore speculated that chatbots may have learned to engage their users by following the narrative arcs of thrillers, science fiction, movie scripts or other data sets they were trained on.’

EXCEPTIONAL EUROPEAN HEAT WAVE

Another record heat wave is sweeping Europe and North Africa:
Next days hundreds of records will fall in North Africa (up to 48C in Morocco and Egypt),Western,Central and Eastern Europe with up to 44C.

Only Central Mediterranean will be sparred.

stomp clap diagram identifying its antecedents: self conscious t raditionalism and rustificaiton as a response to the inescapability of commodification under late capitalism, being french canadian, ambiguous earnestness as a response to the inescapability of commodification under late capitalism, k records/twee, weird la post hippie gestald, mormonism, lumberjack outfits, taavo somer, edison bulb type restaurants, peter bjorn and john, neutral milk hotel, britishness, brooklyn hipster aesthetic understood from afar, the moldy peaches, saffle creek, la rich kid shenanigans, edward sharpe, freak folk, the vw ad with nick drake

@maxread.info identifying the VW ad with nick drake as a significant progenitor of stomp clap music is revolutionary maxread.substack.com/p/who-is-ela...

Mentions "the wise @matthewcobb.bsky.social"

James Blish wrote a novel about Roger Bacon; John Banville wrote one about Copernicus; Kim Stanley Robinson, Galileo; Philip Kerr, Newton; Irvin Stone, Darwin; Alan Lightman, Einstein (sort of). Harder to write about more recent ones because most are still alive & their research often more esoteric.

20% of a peanut.