Tootfinder

I have a particular fondness for Hungary because I spent a formative time studying there. It was just after The Wall came down. I had so many encounters that conveyed a sense of hope for a bright future. I imagine the squares of Budapest feel like that again right now.

TIL that in 1784, Brown University President Manning and Chancellor Hopkins (co-signer of the Declaration of Independence) made a petition to a benefactor to get a chair in French established at Brown. The person they petitioned was…Louis XVI. (It didn't succeed.)

I have a particular fondness for Hungary because I spent a formative time studying there. It was just after The Wall came down. I had so many encounters that conveyed a sense of hope for a bright future. I imagine the squares of Budapest feel like that again right now. ↵

I love a stickler for precision and a discussion about the true nature of things. But I can separate that from observed phenomena. I wonder if during the early days of flight, people said, "Well akshually Mr Wright, you didn't really *fly*". (Yes, this is a GenAI post.)

When I lived in the UK ~13y ago, I don't remember ever hearing about Windrush. I feel like I saw *numerous* references to Windrush this past month, including the Waterloo statue and Tube line. Is this a new awareness—if so, what triggered it—or was I just oblivious before?

Education researchers: what are good books by knowledgeable folks (educators, researchers) about how US curricula changed after the "Sputnik moment", and what the lasting consequences were (e.g., did things "revert to norm" in 10 years?)? CC @…

Super excitedly looking forward to this workshop on Software, Community, Territory at Brown's humanities center: @…, @…, Lachlan Kermode, and all kinds of other amazing people.

[SCALE]: Software, Community, Territory
April 17 – 18, 2026

It's hilarious to me how #cycling gear companies sell you on the critical importance of cycling gloves for absorbing shock, and then you watch Paris-Roubaix — 6 hours of hard cobbles — and several of the riders are glove-less. (I mainly wear them to avoid losing skin if I crash.)

"No field of science should be associated with a face." Sabrina Imbler on what happens with a scientific field is overrun by charismatic megafauna.
https://defector.com/vibrations-from-interstellar-meteor-ac…

Vibrations From 'Interstellar Meteor' Actually From Local Truck; Or, Fact-Checking The Celebrity Scientist | Defector
On Jan. 8, 2014, an extraordinarily bright meteor plummeted from space to Earth and crumbled into confetti over the ocean near Papua New Guinea. Sensors from the U.S. government that track bright meteors called fireballs dutifully recorded this fireball’s breathtaking speed—nearly 28 miles per second. NASA’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies logged this fireball,…

Really nice piece by Simon Hughes explaining how the IPL auction was created not just to be attention-getting (they really could have chosen a better name; the Bristol comment is on-the-nose) but to overcome a key weakness in "salary cap" methods.
https://cricverse.substack.com/p/money

MONEY FOR (ALMOST) NOTHING
A windfall in county players' salaries as a result of the Hundred auctions is all thanks to the enlightened thinking of the two men who founded the IPL 18 years ago.