@fivemack.bsky.social
Reposted
The room is
almost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.
-Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room”
#everynightapoem
almost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.
-Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room”
#everynightapoem
November 13, 2025 at 12:13 AM
The room is
almost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.
-Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room”
#everynightapoem
almost all
elephant.
Almost none
of it isn’t.
Pretty much
solid elephant.
So there’s no
room to talk
about it.
-Kay Ryan, “The Elephant in the Room”
#everynightapoem
If you’re making a movie with Super Obvious Frankenstein Vibes you do not *actually* need to have the Frankenstein character observe someone reading Frankenstein and highlight several important passages twenty minutes in. Banging NIN sound track though!
November 7, 2025 at 6:06 PM
If you’re making a movie with Super Obvious Frankenstein Vibes you do not *actually* need to have the Frankenstein character observe someone reading Frankenstein and highlight several important passages twenty minutes in. Banging NIN sound track though!
Lovely work! What sort of repeatability do you get for the astrometry on pictures on consecutive nights?
Are you taking them six months apart to try to get a parallax measure too?
Are you taking them six months apart to try to get a parallax measure too?
November 6, 2025 at 7:52 PM
Lovely work! What sort of repeatability do you get for the astrometry on pictures on consecutive nights?
Are you taking them six months apart to try to get a parallax measure too?
Are you taking them six months apart to try to get a parallax measure too?
Does en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabir_i... give anyone else en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas... vibes? Massive compilation of works all claimed to be by a single author, but for the existence of whose author there is very limited evidence.
Jabir ibn Hayyan - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
November 4, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Does en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabir_i... give anyone else en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas... vibes? Massive compilation of works all claimed to be by a single author, but for the existence of whose author there is very limited evidence.
I am pretty sure that if I hire someone in Britain to knock down my listed building without getting planning permission, they're liable as well as me. I'm certain that if the builders I hired disturb a nesting bird they're personally liable. Does this not apply in the US?
November 2, 2025 at 6:54 PM
I am pretty sure that if I hire someone in Britain to knock down my listed building without getting planning permission, they're liable as well as me. I'm certain that if the builders I hired disturb a nesting bird they're personally liable. Does this not apply in the US?
Today I discovered that the honeycomb in Crunchie bars is a closed-cell foam, and so you can't drink through them in the way you can with Penguin bars.
November 2, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Today I discovered that the honeycomb in Crunchie bars is a closed-cell foam, and so you can't drink through them in the way you can with Penguin bars.
Is ‘derpy’ entirely neutralised in American English by the My Little Pony character and the tiger from K-Pop Demon Hunters? It’s absolutely not an adjective I feel comfortable using in Britain.
October 31, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Is ‘derpy’ entirely neutralised in American English by the My Little Pony character and the tiger from K-Pop Demon Hunters? It’s absolutely not an adjective I feel comfortable using in Britain.
Reposted
I think this is an example of how game logic shapes policymaking - 'you play the regulation card - in five turns, new market participants appear. in eight turns, produce a five housing tokens every turn thereafter' would be so frustrating for any strategy game. But that's how it actually works!
A surprising number of people don't seem to get this - if you are a business, and your path to profitability for 20 years has run through 'selling high density homes at £750k a pop', changing the regulatory incentives that created that business does not mean a £450k a pop business appears overnight.
October 30, 2025 at 10:10 AM
I think this is an example of how game logic shapes policymaking - 'you play the regulation card - in five turns, new market participants appear. in eight turns, produce a five housing tokens every turn thereafter' would be so frustrating for any strategy game. But that's how it actually works!
I suppose inflation since 2003 has been enough that new instances of a fighter jet that entered service in 2003 at a claimed $117 million per plane now cost £200 million (the £8bn deal appears to be '20 now with an option for 20 later')
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Starmer signs £8bn deal to supply Turkey with Typhoon fighter jets
The agreement will support thousands of jobs across the UK, the government says.
www.bbc.co.uk
October 27, 2025 at 11:38 PM
I suppose inflation since 2003 has been enough that new instances of a fighter jet that entered service in 2003 at a claimed $117 million per plane now cost £200 million (the £8bn deal appears to be '20 now with an option for 20 later')
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted
Something like 80% of the used lithium-ion batteries in the country go to Redwood Materials for recycling. So they had a thought: what if we hook all these used batteries up as grid-scale storage until they're completely tapped out, and *then* recycle them? Thus was born: Redwood Energy.
Can "second life" EV batteries work as grid-scale energy storage?
Colin Campbell explains how Redwood drains every drop of capacity from used batteries before they are recycled.
www.volts.wtf
October 23, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Something like 80% of the used lithium-ion batteries in the country go to Redwood Materials for recycling. So they had a thought: what if we hook all these used batteries up as grid-scale storage until they're completely tapped out, and *then* recycle them? Thus was born: Redwood Energy.
What would evidence that the AWS outage on Monday actually cost anyone money look like? I don’t think it took out physical cash registers and I can’t imagine any purchases were skipped rather than postponed.
Business continuity people always seem to assign vast values to business continuity.
Business continuity people always seem to assign vast values to business continuity.
October 22, 2025 at 6:07 PM
What would evidence that the AWS outage on Monday actually cost anyone money look like? I don’t think it took out physical cash registers and I can’t imagine any purchases were skipped rather than postponed.
Business continuity people always seem to assign vast values to business continuity.
Business continuity people always seem to assign vast values to business continuity.
Reposted
Mr Sri Lanka. This is a rare case where I think the outfit would be better without the giant gold snakes around his head. Maybe add a cape, but I think the rest of the outfit (what little of it there is) is so great that he doesn't need the snakes.
October 11, 2025 at 7:55 PM
Mr Sri Lanka. This is a rare case where I think the outfit would be better without the giant gold snakes around his head. Maybe add a cape, but I think the rest of the outfit (what little of it there is) is so great that he doesn't need the snakes.
‘ “Dark doings,” Ingold added. The way he pronounced dark as dahhhk was so pure that I had an involuntary urge to snatch up the teapot and find a harbor to dump it in. ‘
I have started the new @tkingfisher.com Sworn Soldier book
I have started the new @tkingfisher.com Sworn Soldier book
October 11, 2025 at 11:30 AM
‘ “Dark doings,” Ingold added. The way he pronounced dark as dahhhk was so pure that I had an involuntary urge to snatch up the teapot and find a harbor to dump it in. ‘
I have started the new @tkingfisher.com Sworn Soldier book
I have started the new @tkingfisher.com Sworn Soldier book
(Amateur) orchestra today: two trumpets, two horns, four clarinets, two bassoons, three oboes, four flutes. So far so good. Two first violins, two second violins, one viola, two cellos. Not quite sure this is the balance Beethoven intended.
October 8, 2025 at 7:21 PM
(Amateur) orchestra today: two trumpets, two horns, four clarinets, two bassoons, three oboes, four flutes. So far so good. Two first violins, two second violins, one viola, two cellos. Not quite sure this is the balance Beethoven intended.
Teeny bijou cherry-blossom-biomette
October 7, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Teeny bijou cherry-blossom-biomette
Tried to watch _One Battle After Another_ this evening and walked out after 45 minutes; super slow moving, something about the cinematography felt unanchored in time - is this the seventies or today? and not a moment of amusement in what I'm sure was claimed to be a dark comedy.
October 4, 2025 at 10:10 PM
Tried to watch _One Battle After Another_ this evening and walked out after 45 minutes; super slow moving, something about the cinematography felt unanchored in time - is this the seventies or today? and not a moment of amusement in what I'm sure was claimed to be a dark comedy.
My new iPhone absolutely fails to recognise my face when I’m wearing glasses - to the point of saying ‘FaceID doesn’t work’ if I try to enroll without taking my glasses off. Any ideas?
October 3, 2025 at 2:24 PM
My new iPhone absolutely fails to recognise my face when I’m wearing glasses - to the point of saying ‘FaceID doesn’t work’ if I try to enroll without taking my glasses off. Any ideas?
I wonder what anatomical image was inscribed deeply enough into the roof lead of Carfax Tower to require a patch to be welded in …
September 28, 2025 at 3:26 PM
I wonder what anatomical image was inscribed deeply enough into the roof lead of Carfax Tower to require a patch to be welded in …
I am quite surprised that a professionally made tapestry from the 1660s has so many of its N embroidered as И but no other letters mirror imaged (Sheldon Map of Oxfordshire in the Ashmolean)
September 28, 2025 at 2:30 PM
I am quite surprised that a professionally made tapestry from the 1660s has so many of its N embroidered as И but no other letters mirror imaged (Sheldon Map of Oxfordshire in the Ashmolean)
I am deeply amused by my old college’s response to the prevalence of pink hair among undergraduates …
September 27, 2025 at 5:11 PM
I am deeply amused by my old college’s response to the prevalence of pink hair among undergraduates …
I found my old college’s copy of Lucretius (as a special treat, returning alumni were allowed into the Old Library). It does not appear to have manuscript annotations @adapalmer.bsky.social
September 27, 2025 at 5:06 PM
I found my old college’s copy of Lucretius (as a special treat, returning alumni were allowed into the Old Library). It does not appear to have manuscript annotations @adapalmer.bsky.social
“The world must be round because the shadow during an eclipse is round” illustrated in 1545 by Peter Apian
September 27, 2025 at 4:14 PM
“The world must be round because the shadow during an eclipse is round” illustrated in 1545 by Peter Apian
Reposted
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
September 24, 2025 at 8:30 PM
I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)
Reposted
John Lee Hooker with a diagram of the evolution of the Blues.
September 21, 2025 at 5:11 PM
John Lee Hooker with a diagram of the evolution of the Blues.
Currently playing _Luigi's Mansion 3_, it's good fun (I have defeated the piano ghost and am half way through the castle level), though I probably shouldn't admit having to google 'how to get out of the garage' right at the start despite the big picture of a door with an arrow on the garage floor
September 19, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Currently playing _Luigi's Mansion 3_, it's good fun (I have defeated the piano ghost and am half way through the castle level), though I probably shouldn't admit having to google 'how to get out of the garage' right at the start despite the big picture of a door with an arrow on the garage floor