Jon Asby

True or not, this is golden: a bored German private (allegedly) ordered a Leopard 2 main battle tank and got it delivered. Real "I shit you not" yarn! www.reddit.com/r/MilitarySt...

So we fly a pride flag in our front yard in a very conservative neighborhood and it’s been there for the last few years. Someone put this in our mailbox and my goodness…

Thread.

For all soldiers preparing to defend #democracy against barbarian warriors, this piece about the role of #artillery in #drone -heavy battlefields of #Ukraine is very much worth the read. TL;DR: no longer the king of the battlefield, but artillery remains necessary. www.twz.com/news-feature...

a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes

Really good article from Ben Evans www.ben-evans.com/benedictevan...

I was just talking to a friend today about Dolly Parton's Imagination Library - new books every month, totally for free, for kids ages 1-5. My son was part of the program - this is a copy of the letter that came with his last book, right after his 5th birthday.

this is a great piece www.thesmallbow.com/p/eulogy-jam...

I am absolutely thrilled to present to you: How to Build a Universe (Theoretically Speaking) available for pre-order now, wherever you buy your books! www.simonandschuster.ca/books/How-to...

"She always told me that truth and beauty were ultimately the same thing, and that one day I would understand that."

4/ Parenthesis: openness is the key to wealth - not for this thread but this is v fundamental and about exchange, trust and the meaning of money

Ok, normally I don't mind that like six people see my posts but it's inconvenient when I have a question like this. Any classics types know if The Odyssey is the first known example of Bad Guy Kicks Dog?

Ancient Roman scrolls destroyed by Mount Vesuvius digitally unrolled in full for first time www.scientificamerican.com/article/anci...

The non-linearity of risks is also a key part of the story. We don’t know the shape of the curves for most systems but we know they are non-linear www.acs.gov.au/pages/nation... actuaries.org.uk/media/qeydew...

No young women have died of cervical cancer in England for years www.newscientist.com/article/2530...

they may be universally loved to this day. George Lucas is a fascinating figure, tragic in a way, and did a lot for the film world, but he was an absolute dipshit for squandering that woman. RIP Marcia Lucas, the most important and vital unsung hero of science fiction, maybe of all time.

a horse walks into a bar and says to the barman, "on a right angled triangle with sides x, y and z, if x and z are perpendicular which side is opposite the right angle?", and the barman says "y, the long face"

Hungary’s parliament sings “Ode to Joy” — the anthem of Europe — after Péter Magyar is sworn in as prime minister. Hungary is once again a proud member of the European Union.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

12/ This is now a high-likelihood, high-impact risk. #AMOC collapse would devastate European agriculture, shift tropical monsoons, raise Atlantic sea levels by up to a metre, and destabilise food systems globally. Yet it's barely mentioned in national security planning. That has to change!

Today marks two years since the death of my father. His lessons only seem to be growing in relevance.

A primer on Hungary’s electoral system. Hungary has a mixed-member pseudo proportional electoral system. 106 elected in first past the post constituencies 93 by proportional representation in closed lists 1/

I wrote a short post-mortem on the Bluesky outage we had on Monday. First time using pckt, it was a really nice experience tbh! pckt.blog/b/jcalabro/a...

Several years ago, on a whim, I started drawing a map of an eel's life travels as seen by the eel. I figured an eel thinks about its life as a linear journey, rather than a there-and-back again adventure. So I wanted to do a map to reflect this. This morning, on another whim, I finished the map!

Essential reading imo. Fascinating and tbh completely matches my limited experience. Now I just need to get the full workflow in our tool stack.

Kurosawa on watching Solaris with Tarkovsky

🚠 Ende einer Ära auf der Zugspitze: Deutschlands letzter Gletscher-Skilift wird abgebaut. ❄️ Ursache: Gletscherschmelze aufgrund des Klimawandels ⏳ Prognose: In den 2030ern könnten Deutschlands Gletscher ganz verschwunden sein. to.wetteronline.de/letzter-glet... #Klimawandel #Zugspitze #Gletscher

When I started working on UK energy in 2007, fossil fuels provided ~78% of electricity. Coal alone: 34%. Wind & solar: less than 2%. Today: wind & solar 33%, fossil fuels 28%, coal 0%. The chart below tells the story better than words can.

Hmmm, if only we had some kind of military philosopher historian who could provide some insight on how conditions in war become obscured - foggy if you will.

You would do immense damage to a Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Sector that grew 12% in 2024 to be worth £77bn. Does anyone seriously think deliberately blocking that growth will unleash greater growth in high carbon industries?

my local park is full of hundreds of snow sculptures and someone has been adding museum labels

Five years after the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines started, it seems the mystery of why the Astra-Zeneca and J&J vaccines led to a rare but deadly side effect of unusual blood clots and bleeding has finally been solved. 
 It's a fascinating case of molecular mimicry that may help make vaccine safer.🧪

The US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023. The Cato study provides the first-ever 30-year analysis of the fiscal effects of immigration on government budgets. https://ow.ly/jy8a50Y8kM3

I also love Penn and Teller for doing this: youtu.be/RfdZTZQvuCo?...

8/ There have been numerous complaints about this practice, which appears to be taking place in many different units on many different fronts in Ukraine. It's possible that some men are deliberately being sent to their deaths so that their commanders can steal their salaries.

One of the things AI coding agents are bad at is telling you you're trying to do something that doesn't really make sense and you probably meant to do this other thing that everyone else does because it makes more sense. Several gigawatt datacentres could be saved

I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

feel this in my bones

i’m not crying you’re crying xkcd: Fifteen Years

If CO2 emissions go to zero in 2050 (top), the sinks (green) will bring atmospheric CO2 back down (middle), & temperature will stabalise at ~1.7°C (bottom). Going to zero today will keep us <1.5°C Constant emissions leads to 2.6°C, rising rapidly thereafter. www.nature.com/articles/s41...