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Since 2010, the chairs of most House of Commons select committees have been elected by MPs. In this post, Tom Fleming explores recent suggestions that these elections have become more competitive. Results from five rounds of elections suggest a more complicated picture.

Photo by Sebastian Sørensen Today’s post is an abridged excerpt from “In Defence of Giving Up” by Stacey May Fowles in Bad Artist edited by Nellwyn Lampert, Pamela Oakley, Christian Smith, and Gillian Turnbull. Copyright © 2024 by the contributors. Reprinted with permission of TouchWood Editions. Before my daughter was born, in early 2018, I was mostly convinced my worth lay in writing eight hundred–word pieces in very little time …

BookPoirot Investigates by Agatha Christie SynopsisA collection of short stories about Hercule Poirot’s various cases, all narrated by his friend Captain Hastings. Pros The variety of stories shows that Christie was a master at finding variation in a shared formula. The stories don’t feel particularly rushed, and still manage to capture most of the characterization and personality of the full-length mysteries. Often feels as if Christie didn’t consider the mystery …

A sample of some of the photographs from the Natick Soldier Systems Center Photographic Collection. Source: US Army / Digital Commons Natick Soldier Systems Center Photographic CollectionThis story has been updated.The US armed forces is made up of 1.3 million people — soldiers, pilots, plumbers, lawyers, logistics specialists, doctors and even dog handlers. And those active duty forces need uniforms, cold weather gear, backpacks, shelf-stable rations and all kinds of …

Near the end of December 2020, I saw Jupiter and Saturn very close in the sky just after sunset. I didn’t know this was called a great conjunction. The next one will happen in November 2040. And it will happen in a very different part of the sky: close to 120° away. This is how it always works. People have known this for millennia. They just forgot to teach me …

A hole isn’t really nothing, but rather shows you nothing. This is an important distinction. You see it by the shadow it casts. Before even their shadows were seen, black holes were imagined, were what the researcher David Burrows has called ‘a discovery of the mind’[1]. In 1783, a country parson and amateur scientist named John Michell conducted a thought experiment, a hypothetical method of determining the mass of a …

Today's links Expert agencies and elected legislatures: Legislatures are entitled to their own (political) opinions but not their own facts. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2004, 2009, 2014, 2019, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I've been. Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em. Colophon: All the rest. …

Letterform Archive wraps up a banner year in publishing. Here’s the latest on our final releases of 2024 — plus a limited-time deal for members. At Letterform Archive Books, the team has the honor and the privilege of crafting books that tell the story of our collection. This year, we have been delighted to deliver up a dozen beautiful titles — ranging from an entertaining and visually splendid autobiography by …

APHA and Cefas staff visiting the team at the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Sierra Leone Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a critical global issue that poses a significant threat to public and animal health, the environment, and the global economy. The UK is committed to addressing AMR through its National Action Plan and by supporting global partners. The adverse effects of AMR are expected to be most severe in Low- and …

YES! THIS!!! A ban on tracking-based personalised advertising will provide an incentive to reinforce sustainable alternative models and, in fact, will be a condition for making them viable. The advertising industry already has sustainable, proven concepts for effective online advertising that do not require targeted tracking and personalisation (e.g. contextual advertising). adactio.com/links/21569

[web] Today I learned that Europeans spend 575 million hours clicking cookie banners every year … ‘On average, a user visits about 100 websites per month, totaling 1,200 websites per year. With about 85% of these websites displaying a cookie banner, a user will encounter about 1,020 cookie banners every year. Assuming it takes an average of 5 seconds per interaction with a cookie banner, this amounts to 5,100 seconds …

Jasmine rice is our go-to white rice for serving with Chinese dishes and making fried rice. In this post, we’ll answer all your questions about rice measuring, the “finger trick” every Asian kid knows, and the rice cooker we all own. And of course, we’ll teach you how to cook jasmine rice perfectly every time, ... View Post

I’m a fan of the Hourglass Ambient Lighting Palettes but for the past few years, I wasn’t interested in what they released. This year though, when they launched the limited editions, I found myself drawn to two of them — Dragon and Evil Eye. However, I decided to get only one of them so I […]

More UK pirate interviews.This time with Killer, former owner of Y2K Essex. He features in an episode of the now informous BBC mini series 'Tower Block Dreams' in 2003. Elements of this episode were directly parodied in early episodes of the comedy 'People Just do Nothing'. After this period he became better known within pirate radio circles as a prolific rig thief and racketeer, preying on stations throughout the uk. …

Heavy refactoring of models can leave a Django project with “ghost tables”, which were created for a model that was removed without any trace in the migration history. Thankfully, by using some Django internals, you can find such tables. Use the database introspection methods table_names() to list all tables and django_table_names() to list tables associated with models. By casting these to sets, you can subtract the latter from the former …