Rupert Koopman

Predictions for deadly Alaska storm may have suffered due to DOGE cuts | CNN The forecast for the powerful and deadly storm that battered small communities in western Alaska over the weekend was likely made worse by a lack of weather data triggered by the Trump administration’...

NEW: A significant gap in weather balloon coverage in western Alaska, caused by Trump admin cuts to NOAA/NWS, may have hurt the forecast accuracy for the deadly storm there over the weekend. www.cnn.com/2025/10/14/w...

Final call to join our Youth Panel!

Are you 16–18 and passionate about nature? Help decide how £6,000 in funding is awarded to youth-led projects across the UK. Gain experience, training, and a reference - all online and flexible.

Apply by 19 Sept: buff.ly/9YpscPC
Questions? learning@linnean.org

"We're all throwing dildos at women athletes to promote our memecoin" really puts a fine point on not just how sexist, mean and stupid so much of right now is, but also the grim degree to which we're just inundated with Stuff a 15-Year-Old Dipshit Would Think is Cool. A confederacy of Beavises.

Recently turned in a deeply researched draft of a book on What AI Actually Is and reader, this is 100% correct

Panel 1: A robot stands before a tech CEO’s desk “Sir, I can't thank you enough for the opportunity to read so many wonderful books! In fact, I've written a poem to express-“ The CEO cuts him off “You're here to generate content, not express yourself.” Panel 2: Robot, enthusiastically “I'm just proud to be working to pay back all those great writers who taught me so much! “ CEO “The only people we're paying back are the investors.” Panel 3: Robot “Well, at least with all this money we can try to make the world a better place! (No reply ) “Sir?” CEO “Can someone take this thing away, please Panel 4: The robot wanders alone and mutters tearfully “Creating shareholder value is a kind of creativity, isn't it? … Sob!”

My latest cartoon for @theguardian.com books

Warnock: If I'm honest, there are days when I have to ask people of my faith tradition as a Christian, are we reading the same book? 

The book I know says I was hungry and you fed me. I was sick, I was in prison and you visited me, I was a stranger and you welcomed me….

Can’t really articulate how furious it makes me to see gentile politicians wield fake charges of antisemitism against Mamdani. It’s not just the plain Islamophobia, it’s the fact that they’re needlessly stoking tensions in a way that puts Jewish New Yorkers at GREATER risk.

Hakeem Jeffries is so skilled at being a disappointment. The worst opposition leader possible. I am so sick of rank careerism and incompetence.

I genuinely cannot believe how many Democrats are spending their energy on destroying Mamdani when the GOP is trying to turn ICE into a full on secret police by drastically raising their budget

I am perpetually surprised by how in touch with things this man is.

AFA stands for Anti French lawn Action.

But *why* does the pollen want to be in my nose and eyes so badly? Go and fertilise your own species, you sick plant freaks

Colonial extraction and unequal exchange have shaped two centuries of North-South inequality.
A thread on the new study written with @gatonievas.bsky.social
[A thread 1/8🧵]

you are EITHER out foraging in the woods and harvesting the crops all day to feed and clothe your family, A FULL TIME JOB if you are actually not buying anything, OR you are terminally online. you can't be both! even the best gardeners I know also have to buy flour and salt!

This is a widely inaccurate & dangerous mischaracterization. The vaccine was developed in fetal cells obtained from two elective abortions in the early 1960s. There is not abortion debris floating around in the vaccine. And the Vatican has okayed its use. RFK Jr. is again spreading disinformation.

Google is killing software support for early Nest Thermostats No more controlling these “smart” thermostats from a phone.

The Internet of Things ended up being the internet of unsupported products.

Google is ending support for 1st & 2nd generation Nests and completely pulling out of Europe.

Imagine having to replace the thermostats in your home because of a reorg at some big tech meant it was no longer a priority.

Like a Daictionary?

Words used to mean something.

No apologies from me for posting two more photos from this morning's glorious sight of the thin crescent Moon and Venus in a brilliant pink sky well before sunrise. Give them a click as they're both in portrait mode. #astronomy #astrophotography @stormhour.bsky.social @photohour.bsky.social

Discworld QOTD, from Moving Pictures

"If the abnormal goes on long enough it becomes the normal. It was just that, when you came to explain it to a third party, it sounded odd."

A small grey bird with a black head and white belly, is about to jump of a small twig. It is surrounded by sticks, a habitat they prefer. Taken in Alicante province, Spain.

A Sardinian Warbler about to leave the scene! It's a miracle to get pictures of them sometimes, the way they don't stop moving.
I hope everyone has a good weekend and happy birding!
#birds

Cyberstuck

WE SAT DOWN FOR DINNER AND WE'VE GOT DINNER AND A SHOW HAHAHAHAHAHA

There have been people less than helpful in my journey here. I wanted to acknowledge those too, bc I know I am not unique in this experience. No thank you to the physics study assoc that made me sing songs about how women couldn't study physics without sleeping with the professor, the day I stepped into university life. No thank you to the 5th year physics student that decided to assign me a stripper name within the first minute of meeting me in the physics coffee corner in my first year. No thank you to the technician that was responsible for onboarding me on the use of the cluster in my third year who raised his eyebrows and asked me if that meant I was some sort of computer girl. No thank you to the senior researcher that sent me utterly inappropriate texts after a conference, then proceeded to apologise months later by telling me they had not been meant for me anyway so no hard feelings remain hopefully And no thank you to him for attending every conference I've been to since. No thank you to the people who told me that it was surprising that I was doing a PhD since I was a girl. No thank you to the man who mistook me for a coffee lady at a conference, and after having to correct him two times that I did not work there, responded with you should consider it. No thank you to the researcher that asked me what I was wearing underneath my outfit during a conference. No thank you to the physicist who declared to a room full of other physicists that biologists don't know how to design an experiment. No thank you to the people who have called me scary instead of strong and intimidating instead of intelligent. And finally, no thank you to the exec board of the TU Delft, whose knee-jerk reaction to being held up a mirror about the social safety at the university, was to sue the party holding up the mirror instead of looking at the problems they highlighted. ... You have made me feel like I do not belong in science & I cannot forgive you for that.

A friend included this anti-acknowledgement section on her PhD thesis. She also added the proposition: “Systematic bullying and undermining of girls and women in STEM starts early on and is the reason why they do not stay in science and related fields.”
Absurd we still need to go through this
🧪👩‍🔬

Salah has a brace from the spot for the third time.

Leeds 4-3
Leeds 6-0
Southampton 3-1*

Game over.

“Officials liked what the man in the van set out to do - give all the children delicious candy - but have been frustrated by his reckless abduction approach”

Oh my god, there’s more. Travel and grant review meetings are being canceled. Trainee/EC events are being cancelled. In totally non-political fields such as dentistry.

🧪 #ScienceNotSilence #BlueSci #MedSky

@criterion.bsky.social is streaming David Lynch: The Art Life for free on Criterion Channel now through January 31 in honor of the late filmmaker 🤍

Watch now: boxd.it/8s8