Story time: When I turned 16 my dad took me on a hunting trip. It was a kind of right-of-passage into adulthood and some father-and-son bonding. We travelled to Plumas National Forest (beautiful place) for mule deer.

We drove there. My dad seemed really into the trip. I hadn't seen him so happy but there was something off. Occasionally when discussing "my task" he would trail off and whisper. It was a little strange that he wouldn't say "the task" out loud: kill an animal.

And every time I asked if I couldn't complete "my task" he he would go quiet for a few seconds and say "it won't come to that." I wasn't really sure what that meant but I was 16 and figured I'd "man up" and make my dad proud anyway. But I was a little hurt. I don't perform

traditional masculinity very well and I was very sensitive to that as a teen. Those moments aside, the drive was a blast. Blasting The Clash in the car and talking about Civil War history (my dad is a CW buff) and enjoying the scenery.

It took half a day but we made it to a beautiful campsite in the forest. We set up our tents, made a fire, cooked dinner and settled in for the night. It was so beautiful and peaceful at night but I admit I was starting to dread the next day.

THREAD: Prince's socially conscious songs

Lyrics taken from Genius

"Uptown" from Dirty Mind

"Partyup" from Dirty Mind

"Sexuality" from Controversy

"1999" from 1999

FYRE FESTIVAL FOR KIDS

Strap in folks for I have story about a festival I ALMOST worked at many years ago that essentially turned out to be a massive scam akin to Fyre Fest only it was aimed at families.

And believe me when I say this tale has a killer twist ending.

THREAD

I say 'almost' worked at because I backed out a few days before. My suspicions were already on alert due to the natural wariness a balding man like myself has towards any full grown adult who uses loads of hair gel, like the Event Organiser (EO) in question. Also he was horrible.

I looked after a STEAM workshop for Science Gallery for a few years and in 2014 we were asked to do a new family friendly festival in Malahide called Wonderfest.

I met with the EO to discuss details & from the off he seemed a bit off. Not my kind of

He promised everything under the sun but wouldn't just give me a fixed budget. The way he talked about the festival sounded great but also far too good to be true. Anyway, we agreed to do the festival, I put a programme together and he approved.

And then it started to get weird.

This was 3 months before the festival & I didn't hear from him again until 3 weeks out. I sent him numerous emails to discuss info we would need for the festival. We did soldering workshops with kids & on a weekend like this you'd get through around 200 workshops, details matter!

Tantric ascetic #CompanyPainting

Bandijan or kalavant, a singer or bard from the Bhat caste. #CompanyPainting

Nat caste/tribe person with his troupe of acrobatic animals #CompanyPainting

A bear-keeper with his dancing bear.#CompanyPainting

female conjurer #CompanyPainting

In Douglas Adams’s popular 1979 science-fiction novel 'The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy', the supercomputer Deep Thought takes 7.5 million years to calculate that the answer to the “Great Question” of “Life, the Universe and Everything” is “42.”

A thread.

The author’s choice of the number 42 has become a fixture of geek culture, giving rise to a multitude of jokes, quips and satirical anecdotes. For example, you ask your search engine variations of the question “What is the answer to everything?” it will most likely answer “42.”

Now the question arises, why 42? If we delve a little deeper, we find that the number 42 turns up in a whole string of curious coincidences, whose significance is neither known, nor it is worth the effort to figure out, however intriguing the coincidences may seem. Let us see.

In ancient Egyptian mythology, during the judgment of souls, the dead had to declare before 42 judges that they had not committed any of the 42 sins as listed in the 'Negative Confession'.

For an interesting read, visit this link.

The marathon distance of 42.195 kilometres corresponds to the legend of how far the ancient Greek messenger Pheidippides ran between Marathon & Athens to announce victory over the Persians in 490 B.C. It is another matter that the kilometre had not yet been defined at that time!

Publishing works on long schedules, which means that long-planned books can be overtaken by events...like covid.

2020 was tough for those of us with books in trail, especially nonfiction. But for a few lucky writers, covid imparted a terrible salience to their books.

1/

One such writer is @TimHarford, host of @BBCRadio4's @bbcmoreorless, which is hands-down the greatest statistical literacy program in the world, using the numbers in each week's headlines to impart statistical lessons and render the news in perspective.

2/

Harford's latest book is THE DATA DETECTIVE (published as HOW TO MAKE THE WORLD ADD UP in the UK), which should really have been entitled HOW TO TRUTH WITH

You've likely heard of Darrell Huff's 1954 classic HOW TO LIE WITH STATISTICS, a classic, accessible guide to statistical malpractice in service to pushing an agenda. What I didn't know (until I heard Harford discourse on it) was that Huff himself had an ulterior motive.

4/

Huff was a shill for the tobacco industry, which, in 1954, was deliberately muddying the waters about the link between cancer and smoking. Huff's book isn't just a guide to statistical malpractice - it's a broadside against cancer

I'm now going to ad-lib my long-threatened thread about Mission: Impossible and my single favourite sequence in motion pictures (take that, Red Shoes ballet sequence). Here's the film on the iPlayer right now. The sequence in question is the one in the thumbnail. Of course!

The sequence really begins with a choreographed bit of sitting-on-a-train, wherein Ethan Hunt gives a broad sketch of his plan. Essentially he says "We all have jobs to do" but what those jobs are is basically secret. Heist movies can go both ways. This one hangs on surprise.

The heist target is an IMF mainframe - they're going rogue and infiltrating their own agency. It's crucial to what the scene, and film, means at the most basic level. The institution is corrupt, our 'heroes' are pitted against it. Lots of the film is foggy but *this* is clear.

The remainder of the early train scene has one major purpose: to tell us the mission is impossible. This sequence delivers on the basic promise of the film (the whole series, arguably). The impossibility of the mission is exciting for the crew, compounding audience excitement.

Though this scene doesn't tell us what Hunt's solution is, it's crucial that it lays out the problem in a very clearly readable way. The vault's high security is hammered home. We're shown *and* told at the same time.

REPOST | A woman in the people’s war

English: https://t.co/WN4mjjVuzy
Pilipino: https://t.co/EDMyltmAlq

A woman in the people’s war (Thread)

There are many women who embrace the sacrifices and challenges of life in the New People’s Army (NPA). With firmness, they perform their tasks as equal counterparts of male fighters. 1/19

These women include Paolin, Mimi and Jellyn, young women fighters from various walks of life who found acceptance and equality in the people’s army. 2/19

Ka Paolin, revolutionary mother

Ka Paolin is a member of a propaganda and education committee in a province. She serves as teacher to her comrades who are unable to read and write. She also teaches cultural performances, and mass and Party courses. 3/19

Her parents are both leading cadres of the Party and NPA. She decided to follow their footsteps and joined the people’s army when she turned 18. This was where she met her husband. 4/19

https://t.co/zndfQwFV4A
#ConquestofDough #CovidPurpose
Are we looking for a solution?

jimin: who loves me the most is taehyung — an emotional thread

i will start with this and i guess nothing can top this so I'll go cry

im so sad rn

ok tae we get it

and be grew up

Macarthur fellow and Hugo-award-winner @nkjemisin's 2019 book "The City We Became" is both a fantastic contemporary fantasy novel and a scorching commentary on the infantile nature of the racist dogma of HP Lovecraft and his

It's a quest novel about a group of New Yorkers who awaken one day to discover that they are mystical avatars of the city, which has awakened and been reborn as a kind of powerful colony organism.

2/

There's an avatar for each of the five boroughs, plus a "primary" who represents the city as a whole. As with all births, this one is somewhat traumatic - but NYC's birth is uniquely fraught.

First, the five boroughs must find one another and connect with the primary.

3/

But they must do all this while under sustained assault from a mystical, transdimensional, Lovecraftian horror, a great adversary to all of our Earth's living cities - but an adversary that had been believed to be powerless against cities after their births.

4/

The enemy manifests as a Karen, a white woman clad all in white, dogwhistling racist tropes, summoning police, weaponizing vast fortunes to evict its enemies or distort their culture. It is attended by harbingers - human beings infected with fluttering white tentacles.

5/

1/ Found on FB; excellent essay!

“This post is not open for debate. I have listened to everyone else’s hatred, rhetoric and outright lies for the last four years, so now I am having my say. If you don’t like it, you know where the delete button is.

I had never heard of a man named Ferdinand Pecora before I had met the likes of the legendary William K Black who is the foremost expert in bank control fraud. But Bill was adamant that we learn about Ferdinand Pecora who had apparently brought the banksters to their knees 1/x

I was then introduced to @PatrickLovell1 and his brilliant partner Eric Vaughan who reemphasized the need for a modern day Pecora hearing.

I started to dig in. These guys Eric, @PatrickLovell1 and Bill had created a docuseries called "The Con" and it broke the story of the housing collapse and the fraud that fueled it from the GFC in 2007-2009 and beyond.

Our financial system is a backstop for elite control fraud. Elite bail outs while the same wretches predate on the poor and minorities, these rich cons live off of their misery foreclosing on homes people spent their lives securing.

The Con is about every person. Regular you and I. But it centered on an elderly black woman named Addie Polk who committed suicide as her home was being taken from her. Millions of Addie Polks exist today. Many of us experienced the fall out of Countrywide and subprime mortgages.

It’s time to post my top 20 films of 2020 and top 20 tv shows of 2020!
As usual, I need to have seen it, it was released in 2020 in the UK and it is just my opinion. If you disagree, please tell me about your choices, I’d love to know!
#FilmsOf2020 #TVShowsOf2020

One thing to note, that is different this year, due to Tier 4 restrictions in London, I am going to make #WonderWoman1984 eligible for next year’s list (2021). I am classing it’s release date as 13 January 2021.

#TVShowsOf2020
10. Ted Lasso
A real surprise and a gem of a comedy.

9. The Stranger
A bizarre Netflix mystery drama. Captivating watch.

8. The Twilight Zone
A brilliant reprisal of the old series. Such great, mysterious stories and incredibly entertaining.

#TVShowsOf2020
7. Manhunt: Deadly Games
Little known in the UK, but this series was fantastic. Thrilling.

6. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
This sitcom keeps going from strength to strength, so funny.

#TVShowsOf2020
5. The Boys
Action? Thriller? Drama? I’m not sure what to call this show. It’s bizarre, dark, controversial and well worth a watch!

4. The Mandalorian
Mando has brought peak Star Wars back. This series is just pure joy, and so much fun to watch. Plus, BABY YODA!

1/ Read Bloomberg’s autobiography (from ‘97) this weekend. Covers the first 15 years of Bloomberg LP & and how Mike built such a dominant franchise. Written before “lean startup” and modern software startup nomenclature, but lessons sound like something @chetanp would share...

2/ Bloomberg initially focused on a narrow use case: real time yield curve data for bond traders. Today, Bloomberg covers equity & debt markets around the world, offers financials, news, messaging, alternative data & more. But it started with a simple product & seemingly tiny TAM

3/ They “nailed” product/market fit for this use case because they deeply understood their customers. Not only did Mike Bloomberg and the first four employees all come from the industry, but they also built a tight feedback loop w/ their first "lighthouse" customer, Merrill Lynch

4/ When Bloomberg installed the first 22 terminals at Merrill, they embedded themselves with initial users. They visited daily. They had two users who provided constant feedback, helping to rapidly squash bugs and improve the product.

5/ Bloomberg also offered professional services. In fact, their first $100,000 in revenue was from PS. The consulting work helped pay the bills, but more importantly helped the Bloomberg team map their customers' needs and to build relationships across the organization.