The Date of #Eilmer of Malmesbury’s Flight: https://academic.oup.com/nq/advance-article/doi/10.1093/notesj/gjag066/8671576 (about a guy allegedly doing gliding flight experiments - and observing Halley's comet - a millennium ago) -> Did a medieval flying monk spot Halley’s comet, twice? It’s complicated: https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/06/did-a-medieval-flying-monk-spot-halleys-comet-twice-its-complicated/ - yeah, right, because the sources are ... tenuous at best.
Canada's last epishelf lake is gone for good, study confirms #Canada
From Sputnik to Starship - estimating the experience curve of #SpaceLaunch technology: https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/5/7/pgag217/8732400?login=false -> For more than 60 years, the cost of transporting payload into space has been falling: https://www.heise.de/en/news/Transport-of-payload-into-space-SpaceX-as-the-East-India-Company-of-our-time-11365594.html - according to an analysis, there is no comparable development in history.
Dutch gas storages: First, the Netherlands made an EU commitment to reach 74% of capacity before winter and it set itself a target of 80%. But filling progressed much too slowly to reach that and now, just before the end of the filling season, the target is lowered to 64%.
https://www…
You're Invited: 404 Media's Third Anniversary Live Podcast and Party! https://www.404media.co/three-years/
Pretty good showing from the Count. Entirely unsuprised that Farage makes up some bullshit to avoid being on the stage of his own media circus.
Nigel Farage wins Clacton by-election that major parties boycotted: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c5y40d11zewt
> The Reform UK le…
Just finished reading "The Beast Player" by Nahoko Uehashi. I had already watched the anime, but it had been so king I didn't remember all the details. While the anime was great, the book is even better, and it's going to be high on my list of things to recommend to my children when they're old enough to read for fun.
The neurodivergent representation is cool, as is the deep central question of interspecies bonds and the political possibilities and dangers they entail. Uehashi handles the exploration of that question well in my judgment, including appropriate ambiguity without muddying moral clarity. Elin is a truly fantastic protagonist, not without flaws but nevertheless a excellent role model and a very sympathetic figure without being pitiful.
One thing I really love about Uehashi's writing is that she's not shy about using interior narration to tell the reader directly what a variety of characters are feeling, but when she does this she focuses on human contradictions, quirks, and weaknesses that make those characters feel much richer, and that remind the reader of all the ways our weird and sometimes contradictory or inexplicable quirks guide our actions just as much as both logical thought and predictable/expected feelings. None of the characters is an unerring source of wisdom, with every grand principle presented shown to have its weaknesses and biases, and even the wisest characters making mistakes and learning from them.
Overall, a wonderful book, and having also seen the "Seirei no Moribito" anime but not read the books, I'm excited to dig into more of Uehashi's extensive catalog.
#AmReading #ReadingNow #Bookstodon
Found a site that always goes the extra mile for it's niche subject, to the point I genuinely feel bad tryna explore rather than be a sincere initiate https://enochian.net/
TJ Bass ready, no stranger to what Cowboys need in absence of Tyler Smith https://www.dallascowboys.com/news/tj-bass-ready-no-stranger-to-what-cowboys-need-in-absence-of-tyler-smith