Recently updated blogs

A dramatic rise in pregnant women dying in Texas after abortion ban The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds. Please vote for people who care about women. This should not be …

The Ordinal Society by Marion Fourcade & Kieran Healy (Harvard University Press, 2024) Vasts amounts of data accrue and follow each of us around, some of it visible and gameable, much of it obfuscated and impossible to interrogate. All of it eventually becomes ranked, stacked, and ordered into systems that not only surveil our every move but have worked their way into every crack and crevice of our social relationships. …

Despite living in Taiwan for more than one-and-a-half years, until yesterday I was yet to catch a bus. The schedules are numerous and confusing, and I have better transport options:The light rail’s within a 10-minute walk of my apartmentI’m less than 15 minutes from the MRTThere’s a YouBike (bike rental) station 100 meters from my buildingI have a scooterUber is cheapA night market, two shopping malls, three cinemas, three supermarkets, …

Adedapo Adeniyi is a promising 20 yo abstract SF author from Ilorin, Nigeria. Disclaimer: you should read The Dilemma of the He and His House, House? then Mosquito Farm before reading the interview. Which Nigerian city do you live in? Can you describe it for us? I live in Ilorin, it's in Kwara State. I think Ilorin is great, I've lived here all my life, it's claustrophobic and surreal, simultaneously …

This week, I was disturbed to see that Stef O’Driscoll’s new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream has been cancelled by Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. Nice eh? The reasons given were that the show included the phrases “trans rights” and “Free Palestine” in a rap performed by one of her actors. She says that her production, set in the rave scene of Manchester, “expressed solidarity with trans people and the …

Every problem at every company I’ve ever worked at eventually boils down to “please dear god can we just hire people who know how to write HTML and CSS.” This UX is awful? That UI looks old? Accessibility busted? Performance bad? Design team can’t ship stuff? Customers annoyed by tons of bugs? Everything takes too long to build? No time for small usability improvements? Hire. HTML. And. CSS. People.

After writing last month’s post about Tamara Andreeva, I’ve discovered a few new details about her life both in China and in the US, which I’ll share soon. But today I’d like to post a poem by Taisia Bazhenova (1900-1978), who, like Andreeva and Mary Custis Vezey, came to California after getting a literary start in Harbin in the 1920s. Like Andreeva, Bazhenova largely abandoned poetry a few years after …

Antique Folk Art Whirligig. A simple abstracted bird original paddles. Circa 1940 or so. Collection Jim Linderman / Dull Tool Dim Bulb

An interesting expedition. Wiki.Book on the subject here

Irvin Yalom’s (b. 1931) The Spinoza Problem: A Novel (Basic Books 2013) intertwines history and philosophy, offering a fresh perspective on two distinct but connected lives. Yalom masterfully blends historical fact with fiction, crafting a narrative that explores profound philosophical questions through the lives of two men separated by three centuries. The novel centers on the intriguing “Spinoza problem,” weaving together the stories of Nazi officer Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946), who …

This summer, I emptied our small, above-ground swimming pool twice and used the water on my vegetables and fruit trees. What were the results? Thus far, I haven’t observed any response in any plant that indicates the water was harmful. Swimming pool water has the potential to damage plants and soil because of the chemicals […] The post Using swimming pool water on vegetables and fruit trees appeared first on …

The original: Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto c’un marmo solo in sé non circonscriva col suo superchio, e solo a quello arriva la man che ubbidisce all’intelletto. Il mal ch’io fuggo, e ’l ben ch’io mi prometto, in te, donna leggiadra, altera e diva, tal si nasconde; e perch’io più non viva, contraria ho l’arte al disïato effetto. Amor dunque non ha, né tua beltate o durezza o fortuna …

We’ve a bonus blog post for you this week. Earlier this month Cardi B welcomed her third child. In today’s post, pulled from the pages of Ma’Chell M. Duma’s 33 1/3 on Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy, we look at how rap is becoming more matriarchal and the expectations placed on mothers in popular music. Excerpt from Cardi B’s Invasion of Privacy, by Ma’Chell M. Duma One of the principle …

American Pellitory (Parietaria pennsylvanica) is a common edible weed with an affinity for walls and sidewalk cracks sometimes called pellitory of the wall. As common as it is, the fact that it's edible isn't well known among foragers. Although it probably won't change your life, its pleasant taste of cucumber might surprise you. Today we'll... Read More The post Pennsylvania Pellitory: An Edible Weed That Tastes Like Cucumber appeared first …

British theatre has a proud heritage of science plays. From 1990s classics such as Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia (1993) and Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen (1998) to more recent examples such as Lucy Kirkwood’s Mosquitoes (2017) and Marek Horn’s Octopolis (2023), the trick lies in balancing intellectual material about often complex scientific subjects with dramatic flair. As the Hampstead Theatre stages Stella Feehily’s new play, The Lightest Element, which was originally commissioned by …