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Arete Roper

@areteroper.bsky.social
120 followers 199 following 751 posts

Dutch, love ( my 5*) cats, English, books, science and crochet.

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Reposted by Arete Roper
Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · 2h
A pretty grim sign for legal journalism when the best-known source for Supreme Court news and information turns itself into a free platform for Fortune 500 companies to talk about what a good job the Supreme Court is doing
ballsandstrikes.org
The Conservative Takeover of SCOTUSblog Is Just What the Supreme Court Needed
SCOTUSblog used to cover the Supreme Court. Now, it cheers for it.
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Alom Shaha @alomshaha.bsky.social · 2h
Those of us who do care, have got our work cut out and we can’t afford for “Made by Humans” to become some kind of “”Fairtrade” sticker on slightly more expensive stuff which only a minority of people actually give a shit about.
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Dr Surekha Davies, Historical Monster Consultant (she/her) @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · 3h
Chaucer is NEVER WRONG.
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Russ Jones @russincheshire.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Just tax the compute. Datacentre? Cool. Fund your own power generation and water reservoirs, and then pay tax for every computational act your datacentre does. And we'll use the tax income to offset societal and job damage. Overnight, AI becomes something AI giants are desperate to restrict.
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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 8h
She also adjusted her pace to ensure the injured cub could keep up. By 2008, he was observed hunting on his own & at the age of 20 is King of the Fat Bears, holding his own at the crowded Brook Falls. A story of a mother's love, sacrifice & a little cub who became a champion fat bear. 🥹
discvr.blog
How Bear 89 earned the name Backpack
Discover how Bear 89 became Backpack, why his nickname predates his leg injury, and how his mother Holly adjusted to her cub’s needs.
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 4h
NEW: We are one! The @thenerve.news is celebrating its first birthday today!!! With the news that we are financially sustainable!!! THANK YOU so much to the many, many people who helped us get here. Your support is everything! 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 pressgazette.co.uk/news/the-ner...
pressgazette.co.uk
The Nerve reaches 5,000 paying subscribers in first year
Newsletter-led newsbrand from ex-Observer journalists now said to be financially sustainable.
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Grumpy Philosopher @stevecooke.org · 4h
My horror at the Cornell story is made worse by the strong suspicion that it’s not exceptional. Anyone looking at the US can see that an existing culture of impunity for male violence towards women is being encouraged. It’s bad everywhere, but the US is intentionally fostering it.
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Kathelijne 🪉 @kathelijne.bsky.social · 4h
The Bard’s Lament 💔 Paulien
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De Ruijs @ruijs.bsky.social · 5h
Veelzijdig verzamelaar van observaties over gedrag en taal: Paulien Cornelisse op 50-jarige leeftijd overleden.
volkskrant.nl
Veelzijdig verzamelaar van observaties over gedrag en taal: Paulien Cornelisse op 50-jarige leeftijd overleden
Woensdagmiddag is columnist, schrijver, cabaretier en televisiemaker Paulien Cornelisse overleden. In 2024 bracht ze zelf naar buiten dat ze ziek was. Erover schrijven wilde ze niet, want: ‘Je mag bes...
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Dr Ian McCormick @wokestudies.bsky.social · 5h
"China’s intelligence service used a front company to pay grants to British universities and steal crucial research about technology projects, MI5 said on Wednesday in a rare public espionage warning." #HigherEd #edusky #university www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
MI5 issues spy alert to UK universities over Chinese front company stealing research
Security service says academics should stop taking grants from and working with firm backed by China’s intelligence service
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Big Bearded Spookseller @bigbeardedbookseller.com · 6h
It always surprises everyone that I'm the one that runs the Romantasy book club at our shop
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 6h
"The judges said they want to review whether her allegations of sexual abuse and rape as a child were fully considered before she was sentenced to death."
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The Society of Authors @societyofauthors.bsky.social · 6h
Today is #InternationalTranslationDay, so it's the perfect time to share our new resource: Why Translators Are Better. Download it now on the Resources section of our website.
Translators are explorers. They are seekers. They are the book's greatest asset and champion.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 6h
They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”
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Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 9h
Well, if it’s 30 September, it must be... oh God. The 36th anniversary of the first—and, you may not be entirely surprised to hear—only transmission of a sitcom which was genuinely called ‘Heil Honey, I’m Home’, in which Hitler and Eva Braun live next door to Jewish couple Arny and Rosa Goldenstein
Neil McCaul as comedy Hitler, mugging for the camera
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Gareth @grenow.bsky.social · 22h
Incredible - and I am not being hyperbolic - pictures of a living mycorrhizal network, the first time we can really see what's going on in the rhizosphere - the thing which underpins all life on this planet. eos.org/articles/fun...
eos.org
Fungi Are Holding the Food Web Together. New Research Images This Underground Network. - Eos
By combining computer tomography—the same technology used for medical scans—with a high-powered particle accelerator, researchers have imaged the network of roots, fungal structures, and soil together...
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Selma uit Gouda @thuisop24.bsky.social · 12h
1/6 ⚖️ Gezocht: Jurist of advocaat bestuursrecht / aansprakelijkheidsrecht. Ik zoek iemand die op basis van een toevoeging (Ratz, vanwege #handicap) een brief wil schrijven naar de gemeente of aannemer. De DM staat open! RT = 💙 De casus ⬇️
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Kate Lister @k8lister.bsky.social · 9h
Today on #BetwixtTheSheets, I am talking to the Tudor-tastic legend Kate Williams about the “9 day queen,” Lady Jane Grey. Listen wherever you get your podcasts and you can now watch us over on YT!
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Matthew Stewart @roguestrands.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
No way I can compete with the major poetry publishers who get collections stocked by bricks-and-mortar bookshops But I do have word of mouth and all you wonderful people here on Bluesky, pushing the numbers of readers of Whatever You Do, Just Don't far beyond the sales of the big boys. Thank you!
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Hans LeJeune @hanslejeune.bsky.social · 10h
More updated imagery on google maps of Gaza. See what happened to a cat cafe, a playground, a sports center, museums, hospitals, schools... #israel #genocide #paestine
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Tweakers @tweakers.net · 11h
Veel datacenters, ook in Nederland, lijken hun water- en stroomgebruik onterecht geheim te houden. Daarnaast zou het voor EU-burgers lastig zijn om van overheidsinstanties inzage te krijgen in de milieu-impact van datacenters, terwijl die informatie openbaar zou moeten zijn. Er wordt een speciale...
ebx.sh
Veel datacenters in EU lijken water- en stroomgebruik onterecht geheim te houden
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Richard Littler @richardlittler.bsky.social · 13h
The BBC's new director general's brain is smaller on the inside.
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 13h
NEW: ‘It’s an implicit threat’. Lord Tom Watson of Palantir writes to one of its biggest critics -Labour MP @labourlewis.bsky.social - to tell him the surveillance firm is watching him. www.thenerve.news/p/clive-lewi...
thenerve.news
They’re saying: we’re watching you’: MP Clive Lewis reveals Tom Watson has warned him over criticising Palantir
In a letter to his former Labour colleague, the peer, who joined Peter Thiel’s AI company this month, writes: ‘You have made the case against the company more or less continuously’. By Carole Cadwalla...
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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 22h
Members of fraternities are three times more likely to be rapists than male college students who aren’t members of fraternities
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The Rights Forum @therightsforum.bsky.social · 14h
Op de herziene lijst staan 214 bedrijven, waaronder het Nederlandse Booking. Ook bevat de lijst namen van internationale bedrijven die in Nederland actief zijn of hier producten verkopen.
rightsforum.org
VN publiceert update van lijst met bedrijven die bijdragen aan Israëls illegale nederzettingen - The Rights Forum
Voor een rechtvaardig Palestinabeleid
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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A man replied to this saying in earnest that women need to get organized and fight for our rights and men will follow. We did that. We do that. We mobilized the largest single day protest in global history on every continent and yet I have fewer rights than my mom did at my age.
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Dr. Sarah Parcak @indyfromspace.bsky.social · 16h
It would be a real shame if people here let the folks at Patreon know that Michael Tracey led the charge to help doxx Jane Doe from Cornell. A damn shame. Please don't.
static.klipy.com
Willy Wonka: Stop. Don't. Come Back.
Alt: Willy Wonka: Stop. Don't. Come Back.
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 18h
A truly heinous man has doxxed the Cornell victim on X and the comments are predictably vile. Based on countless interviews I’ve done with survivors, the trauma they are subjected to for coming forward is oftentimes even worse than the initial trauma they experienced. There is no real justice system
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Deidre Lynch @drbibliomane.bsky.social · 20h
Everyone employed at a postsecondary institution (& esp deans of students) should read Kate Manne's powerful essay: "Cease to be a place where sexual assault is often subject to less punishment than protesting and plagiarism. ... become a place where our sons are not initiated into rape culture."
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Br. Dr. Ken Homan, SJ @kenhomansj.bsky.social · 19h
When I taught at an all-boys prep school, we'd do an activity where I had them list every sexual term they could think of. They'd often laugh, as many were absurd things meant for Urban Dictionary. We'd then go through how many terms were violent (~85%) and how many were male-dominant (~90%).
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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Scoop — I've ID'd the two men sitting behind Sen. Eric Schmitt during his botched attack on Jack Smith this morning. Ethan Harper (left) is Chief Counsel to Schmitt, and Andrew Ceonzo (right) is Counsel to Schmitt and the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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Spooky Sara (Endless Halloween🪦) @pashion.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
It's Over
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Sara Gibbs @sararoseg.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
We currently have £708 until we hit our initial goal of £5k by the end of my birthday tomorrow. We’re playing for the inclusion of my top-secret family chocolate cake recipe in Sophie’s booklet!
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Context: Sathi got called out for this in the Letters page of the following issue:
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Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
🗃️ I have never seen these highlighted before
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You know, researchers since the 1980s have found that men can tell when they don’t have consent. They just choose to continue anyway because they prioritize consent as less important than power, domination, and sexual gratification.
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Dr. Sarah Parcak @indyfromspace.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A tremendous thread- how we are raising our son. He was having a bad evening a few nights ago, I asked him if it was OK for me to hug him or comfort him, he said "no" and I respected his request for boundaries. Later when he was better he said "I could use a hug now." Build trust! It works.
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Stephen Heard @stephenbheard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Today on the blog, a super-useful writing technique that's managed to get short shrift in *both* of my writing books! The reverse outline: how to do one, and what to do with it.
scientistseessquirrel.wordpress.com
The “reverse outline”: a useful writing technique I mention, but don’t explain, in BOTH my new books!
In the last year, I’ve published not one but two books on scientific writing: the new edition of The Scientist’s Guide to Writing just last month, and Teaching and Mentoring Writers in the Sciences…
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SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID-19) @covid19disease.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
🚨 BREAKTHROUGH: Scientists have engineered a virus that invades and destroys glioblastoma one of the deadliest brain cancers while turning the immune system into a relentless tumor-killing force. This could be a historic shift in cancer treatment.
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The Bear @bearlypolitics.co.uk · 29/09/2026
The Fairford incident is dominating the news cycle - and the right-wing. Over the past 48 hours we’ve seen speculation, insinuation and implication attempt turn a serious story about security into one about immigration. This is a long one. Make some tea.
bearlypolitics.co.uk
A Dissection: The Fairford Fannywobble
How the right-wing commentariat turned an ongoing investigation into a migrant story before the facts were known.
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Arete Roper @areteroper.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
White peacock
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Steven Bodzin, concerned living being @stevenbodzin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
In this thread, Monbiot explains how political decisions are made for reasons of power and interest, but then justified with pretextual arguments about logic and morality. The reason I cannot deal with most political coverage is that it takes the latter arguments seriously and ignores the real story
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Tom Larkin @tomlarkin.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
We’ve spent many, many hours over the past few months searching the rock pools of Cornwall for a rainbow sea slug. Today, we finally found one! Absolutely worth all the time we’ve spent - it was truly breathtaking.
Rainbow sea slug on a rockRainbow sea slug on a rockRainbow sea slug on a rock from aboveRainbow sea slug on a rock
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Littledigits @littledigits.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
being in animation, its not from AI. the streaming bubble bursting cuz everyone hopped on the grain cuz it undermined unions, less regulations and more mergers are what lead to the loss. AI is just what people think but it started way before that
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Scott Santens @scottsantens.com · 28/09/2026
This is why it's such nonsense for anyone to say that with UBI, people will lose meaning. First, jobs aren't any source of meaning for many people with jobs. Second, the jobs people can't say no to are in the way of a getting a lot of meaningful work done. And third, the rich seem to find meaning.
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Dr Surekha Davies, Historical Monster Consultant (she/her) @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Star Trek: The Next Generation is 39 years old today! I was one of those suckers whose life it changed. A thread of my writing about it, starting with how the show offers a defence of the humanities: #StarTrek #TNG #SFF buttondown.com/surekhadavie...
buttondown.com
Star Trek's defence of the humanities; more international editions of HUMANS
Thanks for reading Strange and Wondrous: Notes from a Science Historian! If you’d like to support my work, buying or gifting HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY...
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
New from 404 Media: when you upload images to Copilot, they're not private. Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users' prompts/images, according to internal docs we got And they're horrified at what they're seeing. Bombarded with requests to make sexual AI images www.404media.co/humans-readi...
404media.co
Humans Are Reading Copilot Prompts — And They're Horrified
Human contractors are reviewing Copilot users’ prompts and uploaded images, according to internal documents obtained by 404 Media. The contractors are also bombarded with users’ requests for sexual AI...
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Arete Roper @areteroper.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
🧵
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Arete Roper @areteroper.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The owl I saw Saturday does not compare
Owl in Avifauna the Netherlands.
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Historiek - Geschiedenis @historiek.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Zo’n 125.000 mensen kwamen op 12 juli 1931 naar Hilversum voor het VARA-zomerfeest. Op de toegangswegen hadden saboteurs kopspijkers gestrooid: honderden bezoekers kregen een lekke band. Wie erachter zaten, is nooit helemaal duidelijk geworden. historiek.net/vara-zomerfe...
historiek.net
VARA-zomerfeest 1931: kopspijkertjes als wapen tegen de rode omroep
Tijdens het VARA-zomerfeest van 1931 in Hilversum strooiden saboteurs kopspijkers op de toegangswegen. Honderden bezoekers kregen een lekke band.
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