An infinite number of mathematicians enter a bar.
The 1st orders a beer.
The next says: "I'll have 1/2 of what he ordered"
The next says: "I'll have 1/2 of that..."
The bartender stops them, pours two beers and says:
"I get it, but you need to know your limits."
The RAF 80 Wing was formed in 1940 and comprised a team of specialist wireless operators who sent radio signal beams to throw German pilots off course, tricking them into releasing their bombs away from their intended targets.
Written English has barely changed in 300 years. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read Robinson Crusoe (1719).
I get the joke here, but it is important to stress to folks that we're taught a lot of stuff that most of us will never use, because:
1. learning it makes you better prepared for whatever path your career eventually takes, and
2. learning abstract math trains one's brain to *think*, in general
![Comic. [Person with ponytail pointing at diagram while speaking to three other people] PERSON: If the emergency stop is activated, any riders on the waterslide will be diverted into the beam dump, a large graphite block which will safely absorb their momentum. [caption] We regretted hiring an accelerator physicist to design our water park.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreicnzdnpjdz4clfa2uhx6isbdwgu72oku5pee4av7paavbjmqpyoiu)
Comic. [Person with ponytail pointing at diagram while speaking to three other people] PERSON: If the emergency stop is activated, any riders on the waterslide will be diverted into the beam dump, a large graphite block which will safely absorb their momentum. [caption] We regretted hiring an accelerator physicist to design our water park.
Beam Dump
xkcd.com/3168/
British and Australian chemists have discovered a powerful new antibiotic called pre-methylenomycin C lactone, hiding in a well-known soil bacterium. This molecule kills drug-resistant bacteria without triggering resistance. buff.ly/YlXaONo
#ShareGoodNewsToo
Why shouldn't you trust someone you see drawing on graph paper?
They're definitely plotting something.
Discworld QOTD, from Men at Arms
Sausages and cheese, German supermarket
the scenario we all feared
platforming sections in games that are not designed to be platformers are almost universally terrible and should not be added
Not for the first time I am begging angry people to put the phone down, walk through actual streets, go to actual pubs, stand on the touch line at local sports clubs, browse Saturday markets, chat with ramblers on footpaths and rediscover beauty & contentedness.
By the time you’ve reached your forties you will have lived to see the newspapers that insisted that the country you grew up in was on the verge of social collapse portray those very same years of your youth as a period of blissful social cohesion.
Mail headline: the school where NONE of the pupils speak English as first language
If you read down this Mail article long enough, you get to this grudging admission:
"76% of pupils at Kobi Nazrul are meeting 'expected standards' in reading, writing and maths.
That compares with a local average of 71 per cent and an average of 61 per cent in England."
.
archive.ph/wip/lmv8G
Thanks for the reminder @janemunday.bsky.social. Every summer, I repost this article DROWNING DOES NOT LOOK LIKE DROWNING. To date, I know of FOUR kids who were saved after someone who'd clicked on the link learnt how to spot actual drowning. Take time to read and pass on.
slate.com/technology/2...
So,as a little thought-experiment, tell me something about the United Kingdom that works well and is actually quite impressive. I am not trying to sound like some boosterish politician. I just genuinely believe that making people believe that all is lost is a convenient pretext for shady characters.
Hinkley Times full page artcile featuring large photo of Katie Neeves - ‘Supreme Court gender ruling is unworkable, it’s discriminatory and it sets us back 50 years’ TRANS ACTIVIST KATIE TALKS ABOUT CONFLICTS OF LAWS AND HOW IT’S NOT ABOUT TOILETS, BUT FEARMONGERING...
Hinckley Times doing more actual journalism than most of the mainstream media and platforming an actual trans person.
Sharing a beer and a smoke with fifty something white blokes isn't an insight into the Northern working class.
It's an insight into the shallowness of Farage's understanding of the North.
It’s Mary Anning’s birthday, so time to share @katebeaton.bsky.social’s brilliant cartoon again.
This sounds very like the practice among Conservative councils of spending a fortune on consultants because you don't trust your own officers for ideological reasons.
Unsplash image of the Earth, mostly the nightside with a tracery of city lights on every continent.
OK, this is wild.
In September 2023, geophysicists across the world started monitoring a very odd signal coming from the ground under them.
It was picked up in the Arctic. And Antarctica. It was detected everywhere, every 90 seconds, as regular as a metronome, for *nine days*.
What the HELL?
1/
Discworld QOTD, from Hogfather
What Labour should be doing is creating a new narrative about immigration - about welcoming people who make a contribution but reducing the numbers who don't.
Pretending to be super tough pisses off liberals and won't be believed by Reform voters.
Discworld QOTD, from Snuff
Recognising that I'm a few years behind the times (as usual), but Line Of Duty is pretty good, isn't it?
A table showing the number of imes teams have won the Premier League in ascending order. The sequence goes 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 - the first seven terms of the Fibonacci sequence.
As Liverpool win the Premier League for the second time, they complete the opening of a quite remarkable sequence, 33 years in the making.
#Fibonacci
Someone holding a sign saying: Respect existence or expect resistance.
Parents holding up a sign saying: "this mum says trans rights are human rights" and "our beautiful daughter is trans."
Someone holding a sign saying "you can't legislate us out of existence."
Someone holding a sign saying "i love my trans self. I love my trans friends."
Today, thousands gathered across the country - from Hastings to London to Glasgow - to say: we will always stand with trans people.
Trans rights are human rights. 🏳️⚧️
A light blue diagram depicting the sea, with the water's surface at the top, and just below it is an outline of the Mary Rose, with the depth (12m, 40ft or 6.7 fathoms). There is a line showing the seabed, which takes a rapid dive into the vertical...
On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked,
"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"
Allow our scaled diagram to explain...
Discworld QOTD, from Carpe Jugulum
