Reading

Created
Wed, 20/08/2025 - 19:02

Last month, Chris Worrall — the apparently ‘pro-housing’ Labour councillor and founder of Labour YIMBY — announced his defection to the Conservatives. As he did so, he claimed that Labour had become a ‘PIP and asylum seeker PAYEpig’, and that the party had extinguished hope for the burgeoning YIMBY movement. For the unfamiliar, YIMBY stands […]

Created
Wed, 20/08/2025 - 18:15
As has been long and widely emphasized in various terms … frequentism and Bayesianism are incomplete both as learning theories and as philosophies of statistics, in the pragmatic sense that each alone are insufficient for all sound applications. Notably, causal justifications are the foundation for classical frequentism, which demands that all model constraints be deduced […]
Created
Wed, 20/08/2025 - 14:22
Saw this recently, from the University of Chicago: And it begins. No music history and theory, comp lit, classics, and on and on. pic.twitter.com/e2JxrCbm1k — Dialectical Zach-Zack Loeffler (@thezachloeffler) August 12, 2025 The commentary is a bit of an exaggeration. But not too much. Now if this was just one data point, it wouldn’t matter, […]
Created
Wed, 20/08/2025 - 05:54

The site did an “investigation” into preexisting conditions in starving kids in Gaza — the same logic that would have you believe typhus killed Anne Frank.

The post Bari Weiss’s Free Press Wants You to Know Some Kids Being Starved by Israel Were Already Sick appeared first on The Intercept.

Created
Wed, 20/08/2025 - 03:35

Inspired by the boycott of South African goods and apartheid-affiliated institutions in the St. Paul’s neighbourhood of Bristol, people in our city today are opposing the Israeli genocide by organising a community boycott of all Israeli fresh produce. The Bristol Apartheid-Free Zone was launched at last year’s Bristol Transformed festival with a call for local […]

Created
Wed, 20/08/2025 - 03:00

It was beautiful witnessing our children’s blossoming friendship when they were in Miss Penny’s first-grade class—and by extension, our friendship too. That said, seeing as next year your kid will be in Mrs. Lang’s Second Grade Class, and mine in Mr. Dodd’s, I’m afraid it’s time to say goodbye, because we will never see each other ever again.

I know, it’s hard. We grew so close. Together, we cut out hearts for the Valentine’s Day Party. Enjoyed each other’s cookies for the Christmas/ Hanukkah/ Diwali/ Kwanzaa Celebration. Trolled the Moms for Liberty at PTA meetings. Sang “So Long, Farewell” at the Parent/Teacher Talent Show. But from this moment on, whatever it was between you and me is over.

Now, you’re just somebody that I used to know.

Created
Tue, 19/08/2025 - 23:00

It’s 1:17 a.m., and I’m sitting on the floor of my kitchen drinking Dr Pepper Blackberry out of the can like it’s medicine for a heartbreak I haven’t earned yet. I haven’t cried today, but I can feel it coming, crouched behind my molars. This beverage might be the gateway.

The label promises “Delightfully Dark. Subtly Sweet,” which, coincidentally, is also how I described myself during a short-lived phase in college when I tried to brand myself as “the mysterious girl who reads Bukowski and wears velvet chokers.” It didn’t stick. Much like this flavor profile.

I pop the tab. The hiss is aggressive, like the soda is already judging me for buying it. Like it’s muttering, “This is what we’re doing now?” before surrendering to carbonation.

Blackberry hits first. Not a real blackberry. Not a berry that ever knew soil or sunshine. This is the kind of blackberry that grew up in a basement listening to My Chemical Romance and wearing fingerless gloves. It’s dramatic. It’s synthetic. It’s here to make you question everything you once believed about fruit.

Created
Tue, 19/08/2025 - 22:01

A group of librarians is called a cardigan.

A collection of empty chairs is called an author reading.

A collection of Eric Carle books covered in spit-up is called a storytime.

A group of exhausted mothers covered in spit-up is also called a storytime.

A cluster of teens reading quietly is called a mystery.

A pile of books gathering dust is called a hold shelf.

A handful of change is called a budget.

A stack of books on a nightstand is called a magical thinking.

A group of people who only remember “the cover was blue” is called a patron.

A plastic prize tub of stickers is called a summer reading program.

A collection of missing pieces is called a community jigsaw.

A group of retirees is called a Scrabble night.

A shelf of books in alphabetical order is called a miracle.

A group of shushing librarians is called a cliché.

A group of underfunded libraries is called a tragedy.