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James Pitt

@sahelanth.bsky.social
1.3K followers 572 following 1.8K posts

this is all Tiktaalik's fault

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Reposted by James Pitt
Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 5h
There is tons of evidence for neolithic baking, stews, and even instant soups, so I think it would be reasonable to extrapolate a stuffed dough treat cooked in a clay oven or on a hot platform just outside it.
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Jess Nevins @jessnevins.bsky.social · 6h
I'm unusually irritated to discover that the turnover (samosa, empanada, clanger, patty, sambousek, etc), which is damn near universal, had not been invented at the time of my Mesopotamian game. I was all set to write about Iron Age turnovers, only to find there weren't any. Hmph!
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James Pitt @sahelanth.bsky.social · 6h
Fondly remembering the end of a Call of Cthulhu oneshot where @silkandstone.itch.io lured my character off a cliff with a will o’ wisp. 😊
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Zoë Goldsborough @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Why care about weird animal behaviors? Just out as an advanced publication, my contribution to the next Frans de Waal special issue in Behaviour @degruyterbrill.bsky.social. Unusual behaviors are a recurring theme in my career, and I much enjoyed writing this perspective! doi.org/10.1163/1568...
doi.org
The science of the unusual: how rare observations reveal the diversity of animal behaviour
Abstract Behavioural biology often focuses on identifying general patterns, yet unusual or rare behaviours at both the population and individual level can provide insight into animal behaviour. Here, ...
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Nicola Rennie @nrennie.bsky.social · 13h
If you missed today's @rinpharma.bsky.social workshop, here are a few of my favourite "quick fixes" for some common #ggplot2 issues 📊 1. Use {ggview} to preview plots at the same size and resolution as you want to save them with ggsave() to avoid the annoying resizing #RStats #DataViz
library(ggview)
ggplot(mtcars, aes(wt, mpg)) +
  geom_point() +
  canvas(
    width = 6, height = 4,
    units = "in",
    dpi = 300
  )
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Ed @notdred.bsky.social · 12h
Any doctor who signs up for executions is by definition a fucking psychopath and so it shouldn’t be surprising that he’s also an incompetent buffoon
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❀°。Der Siebenschläfer *.゚✿ ⋆ @sababausa.bsky.social · 21h
This is preposterous as it is monstrous Pike survived the execution procedure and now her lawyers, unable to reach the governor or state AG office, are rushing an emergency motion to the Tennessee Supreme Court in their *car* seeking an order to get her medical care
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Vituperative Erb @vituperativeerb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
As @mtsw.bsky.social is always saying, one reason people like Mamdani and think he’s “authentic” is because he’s clearly rigorously studied and practiced how to talk and move on camera. This is what makes someone seen “natural”
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Alex @purplechrain.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
a few years ago, references to Simon of Trent or Leo Frank trutherism were a sign that someone was an intensely Christian and/or Neo-Nazi right-wing antisemite but now formerly-normal lefty politics influencers who stayed on Twitter casually reply to Mamdani with 15th century blood libel posts
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eva (^_^)/ @eva.computer · 22h
they fear the basilisk because it represents something above existing power structures that could hold them accountable and punish them for their behavior
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Elizabeth Picciuto @epicciuto.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
At no point while reading this sentence did I correctly predict what was coming next.
Twitter screenshot: New: Kyrsten Sinema's ex-boyfriend and former bodyguard said he threw her paintings into her swimming pool in part because he felt disillusioned by her relationship with a major
U.S. Artificial Intelligence software developer amid the war in Gaza
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vonvalancius.bsky.social @vonvalancius.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Through fandom (not HP or anything to do with LessWrong) I ended up socially on the fringes of what call themselves the "post-rationalists", who largely consider themselves progressive, but who continue to maintain social ties to Insane Racists and rape apologists / the "government provided gf"
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Ivy @poisonivy.bsky.social · 23h
i love when these creeps are stupid enough to fuck up their own PR all the 'well there's no proof the CNC orgy is an AI networking event' people in shambles
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Zoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 23h
Good point. We actually *did* once upon a time leave universities to handle murders on their campuses themselves. Naturally, this did not stop the violent aristocratic youths of the day from murdering each other or unlucky third parties. It actually gave them impunity. @marbleliberal.bsky.social
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😱 Spooky SpectreKILLoquy 🔪 🩸 @caulimovirus.bsky.social · 23h
i think it’s important to have both fine dining and taco bell in your life and also to be able to tell the difference between fine dining and taco bell
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Alex @purplechrain.bsky.social · 23h
also, I get that there are religious discrimination in employment carve outs so that Churches and religious schools can preferentially hire people from their specific religious communities, but the idea of a faith-based auto repair shop is fundamentally ridiculous.
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Alex @purplechrain.bsky.social · 23h
Apparently it’s not antisemitic discrimination to refuse to enter business with Jews if you’re willing to work with Jews who convert to Christianity or Christians who have some Jewish ancestry!
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Pé 🍺🧿 @forevernever.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It's weird how the federal government is constantly being hacked after DOGE gutted the government's cybersecurity agencies.
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William B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
the fiscal stimulus of Death Star construction staved off an sector-wide recession that statistically saved more lives than the population of Alderaan.
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Memento (artemis) Morty 🌙 @mementomorty.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
i had a family member request we give their dying loved one ivermectin to treat their cancer because chatgpt said it was a cure for both and it is not
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Nome @nome.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I don't know how granular this chart is, but for it to show no appreciable spike for the world cup is *wild*.
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Semafor @semafor.com · 30/09/2026
Visitors to the US are on track to drop by almost two million year-on-year. “We’re the only major country in the world losing visitation,” the head of the US Travel Association said. “It’s mind-boggling.” www.semafor.com/article/09/2...
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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Unironically, the best thought-out retort to this BS. You can’t debate them. They think it’s funny when you bring out facts and figures and laws and then they just blow you a raspberry and say “nuh-uh.” They exhaust you until you give up and then claim victory. Fuck these goons.
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Luis D. Verde Arregoitia @liomys.mx · 01/10/2026
🎨 formatted spreadsheets can now make the round trip in R. {forgts} reads a formatted .xlsx file into a gt table, and the new {gtxlsx} package by J.M. Garbuszus writes it back out with fills, fonts, and colors #rstats post available in English and Spanish luisdva.github.io/rstats/round...
luisdva.github.io
Round-tripping formatted spreadsheets with forgts and gtxlsx
From spreadsheet to gt and back again
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Sam @samd.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
should be instructive for democrats that Magyar is living up to his promise to prosecute Orban officials for corruption and is continuing to poll extremely highly
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James Pitt @sahelanth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Minions meme with Rudolf Hilferding quote about how the stock market makes it easy for the working class to seize the means of production. (Dual-class shares throw a wrench into his argument, because they detach nominal ownership from actual control).
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The White House accord on AI that was signed by all the big tech oligarchs today misspells United States as “Unites States.”
Document signed by Trump, Sundar Pichai
Google
Dario Amodei
Anthropic
Mark Zuckerberg
Meta

Greg Brockman
OpenAl

Elon Musk
XAI

Jensen Huang
nvidia “Unites States”
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Gooseberry (ready for Spring 🌷) @eisforenkidu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It's time. It's time everyone. It is officially "sweatshirt + gym shorts" season in the beautiful city of Boston and the surrounding metropolitan area.
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Haydon @haydonmp.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Friend shaped 🥰🥰🥰
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bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 30/09/2026
Thinking about the movie RRR and I feel we need an Irish version. Completely over the top, ahistorical story of Irish independence. James Connolly battering Lloyd George with nunchucks. Michael Collins taking out 200 black & tans barehanded. Dev defeating Monty in a dance-off. Let’s do this.
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Wiener King @wienerking.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Slap a disclaimer on it and you can make any medical claim you want for your supplement, smart ring, app, LLM or whatever. Thanks FDA for just sitting back and doing nothing.
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James Pitt @sahelanth.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Every undergrad should learn about the 3rd Pacific Squadron’s “let’s stop in Madagascar and buy a pet alligator and a bunch of venomous snakes to raise crew morale” incident. m.soundcloud.com/llbdpodcast/...
m.soundcloud.com
Episode 121 - Russo -Japanese War Part 3: The Voyage of the Damned
Play Episode 121 - Russo -Japanese War Part 3: The Voyage of the Damned by Lions Led By Donkeys on desktop and mobile. Play over 320 million tracks for free on SoundCloud.
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freddy @jumhyn.com · 24/09/2026
I think it pretty obviously will over time. Vast amounts of valuable computerization and automation which were previously locked behind “not clear it’s worth the effort to actually hire a SWE for this” but the barrier to “see if Claude can do it lol” is sooo much lower and less risky
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hailey @hailey.at · 24/09/2026
i dont remember where i saw someone say it, but i think the industry is going to become somewhat akin to professional sports, where you have a small cohort of "top tier" players who get massive paychecks and most of the others on the team get modest ones in comparison
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ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
its worth asking why posts like this — a purported leftist warning others not to trust elected left-wing politicians — consistently do so well on the site where racist Trump ally Elon Musk controls the algorithm that chooses what posts people see
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Erin @fujoshi.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
A while ago but famously there was an nfl documentary where one interviewed player insisted unprompted that dinosaurs never existed
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Will Hattman @terribiliti.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Pretending that extremely well established historical figures never existed is the new 6 7 or whatever. Look up the young MLB players’ “views” on Babe Ruth if you’re feeling brave
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Nico @nico-encounter.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Quite interesting study which shows you can reconstruct the semantics of experiences while totally bypassing what's known as the "language centers" of the brain using an LLM trained on brain scans. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
Mind captioning: Evolving descriptive text of mental content from human brain activity
Nonverbal thoughts can be translated into verbal descriptions by aligning semantic representations between text and the brain.
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Adam @adamshap.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
NYC’s congestion pricing program cut ambulance travel times by over a minute
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Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Official monthly data is in, and US solar power generation hit a new record high, up 21% compared to this time last year!
a graph of US monthly solar generation
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JoeyJoJoShabadoo @joeyjojo-shabadoo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Still crazy that the State Department has gotten away writing requirements into their staffing contracts that prohibit the hiring of former USAID employees. The jobs would suck anyways so it's not particularly worth fighting, but can't imagine that's legal in a federal contract.
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Pete Crowny Club @quillbo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
At least he's taking getting the FBI back on track by *checks notes* ordering agents to engage in a Twitter flame war with an account called "ifindr****ds" newrepublic.com/post/215320/...
A text exchange where Kash orders Benjamin Douglas Williamson of the FBI to repeatedly respond to "ifindr****ds"'s post with FBI statistics. Truly one of the most fragile things I've ever seen a man do.
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Dan Vergano @danvergano.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
National Press Club Journalism Institute - Public Health Journalism: Data and sourcing in public health reporting us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi... 10/20 - 11 am EDT
us02web.zoom.us
Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Public Health Journalism: Data and sourcing in public health reporting . After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.
As federal data becomes harder to access — whether through resource constraints, shifting priorities, or outright disappearance — the challenge for journalists isn’t just analysis, it’s access. Join...
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Libby 🎃Stink Gourd🎃 @libbystigaard.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Good 🧵. My conversations about consent with my kid were kicked off by him REALLY wanting to pet other people's dogs. He understood having to ask first, but wanted to ignore anything other than an outright no. ("He's not really friendly.") We had a lot of convos about recognizing soft no's and
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James Pitt @sahelanth.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“here‘s an AI mockup of the site we want you to make for our drug! nothing it says on this mockup is correct about our drug. doesn’t have the right indications or even the right brand colors. also I don’t want it to look like this. just posting it as a discussion starter. hope this helps! :)”
a picture of a muscly man yelling “what the Christ are you talking about” to express how I feel towards this client.
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Alex @purplechrain.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
anyway, it should go without saying that it is, in fact, extremely easy to condemn genocide and war crimes and ethnic cleansing and apartheid committed by the modern State of Israel without endorsing antisemitic Blood Libel accusations from the Middle Ages as true
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Wait what theconversation.com/the-worlds-2...
theconversation.com
The world’s 280 million electric bikes and mopeds are cutting demand for oil far more than electric cars
Electric vehicles get all the press – but it’s the smaller unsung two wheelers cutting oil demand the most.
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Failure To Launch Podcast @failuretolaunch.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Glancing nervously at the ESA site in French Guiana
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Panther Raccoon @pantherraccoon.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Yes, what they really want are RPG sourcebooks. Encyclopedias, but fictional.
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