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Philippa Lang

@philippalang1.bsky.social

88 followers 250 following 220 posts

Fond of guinea pigs, likes to write (https://amzn.eu/d/fhv1F4L), obsessive about Tolkien and the Beatles. Spent a couple of decades as an academic classicist & those books are here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Philippa%20Lang/author/B00AZMPYTK/allbooks

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The Onion @theonion.com · 1d

Health Experts Recommend Standing Up At Desk, Leaving Office, Never Coming Back https://theonion.com/health-experts-recommend-standing-up-at-desk-leaving-o-1819577456/

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Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 2d

Frodo is claiming it as his own in the understanding that is a challenge to Sauron (is how I manage this). It’s a shout on the spiritual plane. Hey! Over here! Come & get me if you’re tough enough!

Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 2d

It wasn’t designed to be separated from him so its behaviour could be legitimately hard to understand.

Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 2d

His language varies. I don’t think the Ring is sentient exactly but it has quasi-instincts/reacts to minds around it? Shippey’s ‘psychic amplifier’ quality reaches out to the nearby powerful &/or corruptible. As part of Sauron it might have some kind of psychic resonance with him ??

Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 2d

I haven’t seen an entire episode of The Simpsons. Or The Sopranos, Succession or Stranger Things. And looking at this list I’m starting to think I have an aversion to the letter S.

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KOJAMF🤘🖤🤘 @kojamf.bsky.social · 3d

Dr. Jane Goodall filmed an interview with Netflix in March 2025 that she understood would only be released after her death.

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Iain Soutar @isoutar.bsky.social · 4d

Hay, look

Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 4d

It is interesting to see how horse fodder and food was as much a part of our energy mix (20%) in 1820 as coal is today. In 1920 coal was up at 70%. Note these are percentages not quantities.
visualizingenergy.org/americas-ene...

Chart showing United States energy transitions over 200+ years per energy source.

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Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 4d

Wonderful book. Too short. Thank you @questingvole.bsky.social

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Kevin Wilbraham @kpw1453.bsky.social · 5d

Some of the surviving frescoes from the House of Livia, the wife of Augustus, on the Palatine Hill in Rome. The frescoes date to around 30 BC. 📷 My own. #FrescoFriday #Rome

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Naomi Alderman @naomialderman.bsky.social · 5d

I didn't know until we buried my mother, so probably most people here don't know: Jewish cemeteries strongly recommend that you get insurance for the headstone.

Because the cemeteries are so often desecrated, the gravestones smashed.

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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 5d

Really cool story - bird species from across the world make the same sound to warn against cuckoos, and they can even understand each other. Feeds into ideas Darwin had about the origin of language! www.newscientist.com/article/2498...

20 bird species can understand each other’s anti-cuckoo call

Several species of birds from different continents use and understand similar alarm calls when they see an invader that might lay an egg in their nest – this shared call hints at the origin of languag...

www.newscientist.com

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David Quantick @quantick.bsky.social · 7d

A tradwife is someone who plays the cornet while wearing a straw hat. She is not to be confused with a bop wife, who plays a bent trumpet while wearing a beret.

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Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 7d

Oh no

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 7d

Jane Goodall, world-renowned primatologist, dies aged 91

Jane Goodall Institute says ‘tireless advocate’ for natural world died in California during US speaking tour The world-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall has died at the age of 91, her institute has said. The Jane Goodall Institute announced that she had passed away of natural causes while in California as part of a US speaking tour. Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 7d

Ah, I see!

Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 7d

This conjures a very worrying, Ferengi-like image of SC

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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social · 9d

#MosaicMonday takes us back to the #MuseodelleCiviltà in the #EUR, and to the breathtaking #opussectile hall of the #domus of #PortaMarina in #OstiaAntica, to get an overall view of the north wall. This is #LateAntiquity at its most refined, a real masterpiece of stonework. #AncientBluesky 🏺

OPUS SECTILE OF THE DOMUS OF PORTA MARINA, 385-388 CE. MUSEO DELLE CIVILTÀ

This is the most magnificent interior from late-antique Ostia. The room is divided into two parts, with the smaller part, a large alcove, visible at far right. The main part of the hall has a surviving floor, which repeats the geometric themes of the wall, particularly an almost obsessive use of peltæ-like shapes, but these are fancier than ordinary peltæ, which originally represented the shields of the barbarian Amazons. The north wall is separated from the alcove by a huge acanthus-scrolled pilaster. The lowest register of the wall is made of large panels of giallo antico with complex frames separated by smaller panels in serpentino and giallo antico. Above this is a register which picks up the acanthus-scroll theme of the pilasters. The next register up, very fragmentary, shows large scenes of tigers attacking animals, in this case a stag, and a further register, almost nonexistent, has circles and geometric shapes.

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Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 9d

Ursula Le Guin has a footnote somewhere noting that wizards always speak in the subjunctive.

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Andy Marshall @fotofacade.bsky.social · Jun 12

Here's a selection of Anglo Saxon buildings for your delectation and delight: The remarkably complete C10th Anglo-Saxon tower at All Saints’ church, Earls Barton, Northamptonshire.
Worth cracking the photo open to see. #thread #throwbackthursday

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Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 11d

Surely the Economist has a columnist called Reynard?

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Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 12d

In discussion with a computer scientist from the University of Cambridge last night:

Me: "you've described some of the things that AI is good at. How would you describe the category of things it's not good at?

**pause**

Him: "Anything where it has to be right".

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Journal of Art in Society @artinsociety.bsky.social · 15d

Here’s a couple of splendid Eupholus magnificus weevils minding their own business in the forests of New Guinea (photo: Rob de Vos)

Two large blue, black and aqua-striped weevils creep up a tree trunk

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Philippa Lang @philippalang1.bsky.social · 15d

Or one day a year. Preferably April the 1st

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Dr Sophie Hay @pompei79.bsky.social · 16d

That magical moment when the pumice is gently cleared away revealing, for the first time in nearly 2000 years, a white mosaic.
#MosaicMonday #Pompeii

Most of the image is of a white mosaic and the top part is small pumice stones

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Robert Ferry @robertferry.bsky.social · 16d

Vertical rows are the agrivoltaic winner!

“The vertical panels produce slightly less electricity—but with higher value, as generation peaks coincide with morning and late afternoon demand…The crops don't seem to mind the presence of solar panels and they like the wind protection they provide.”

Double harvest: Vertical solar panels and crops thrive side by side

Imagine a field where solar panels and crops coexist—with no trade-off. It sounds like science fiction, but that's precisely what researchers from Aarhus University have now documented in a full-scale...

techxplore.com

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Prof. Dimitra Fimi @dimitrafimi.bsky.social · 17d

Happy birthday to J.R.R. #Tolkien’s The Hobbit, published #OTD in 1937, with a gorgeous dust jacket and illustrations by Tolkien himself! @tolkiensociety.org @tolkienwonder.bsky.social @uofgfantasy.bsky.social #Hobbit 🐉

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