Snohomish and Island county voters approving the Library Levy by 56.34% so far
Chris Brockett
@chrisbrockett.bsky.social
Data janitor and leftover linguist (retired). Tsundoku expert. Language & Cognition. NLP. Japanese literature. Anti-authoritarian. Pro-science.
Seattle voters are currently approving the library levy renewal by nearly 72%.
Ryan Packer@typewriteralley.bsky.social · 20h agoGreetings from the Yes Seattle Libraries election night party at Reuben's downtown, featuring CM Dionne Foster.
Overall turnout in King County was 18.14%. I know it is only the Primary election, not the General, but this seems like abysmally low voter engagement at a time when the Republic is collapsing before our eyes.
Washington has been 100% vote by mail since 2011. I haven't voted in person since 2000. All of our ballots have individual tracking numbers and we get to watch them go through the whole process. It is the best voting system in the US.
Dropped our ballots off in the dropbox near the city hall. There was a long stream of cars following us in. Hardly any space to maneuver.
Yesterday in the NW Spokane greater city limits, over 600 homes, businesses and structures were lost in this horrific man made fire. If you can, lend a hand or a dollar. These people have lost everything. This picture only shows a small part of this devastation.
A new article 'Hidden Deep Inside a Moscow Museum: A Metal Turtle That Learned' #AI #machinelearning
HISTORIANS SELDOM APPLY FOR LICENSES, SIR
Kathryn Tewson@kathryntewson.bsky.social · 3d agoLike, right out of the gate!
10 Open-Access Medieval Studies Articles Published in July 2026 www.medievalists.net/2026/08/medi... #medievalstudies #openaccess
10 Open-Access Medieval Studies Articles Published in July 2026 - Medievalists.net
Discover ten open-access medieval studies articles published in July 2026, covering the Voynich Manuscript, King Arthur, bear-bating, archaeology and more.
medievalists.net
I’m so moved that this story about Auckland’s Nowhere, a Chinese-language bookstore with Cantonese books, banned books, and others, features our book Decolonizing Chinese History www.asiamediacentre.org.nz/a-library-bo...
After nearly 20 years of using Wenlin 3, I've updated to the latest v. 4+ From 60,000+ hanzi it now boasts 80K+ But the clincher for me is the 《說文解字·注》部首 (1-540) Shuowen Seal characters with its 11K+ seals Between wenlin.com on the desktop and @pleco.com with various pro dic. I'm set for hrs of 🫣👁🦭
Nobody freak out but the Seattle light rail just derailed across the track at the Chinatown International District station.
WHO: Bundibugyo virus disease outbreak in the Dem Rep of Congo is intensifying, with sustained transmission & continued increases in reported cases & deaths. As of 7/30/26, total of 3605 confirmed cases, including 1587 deaths, have been reported, corresponding to a crude case fatality ratio of 44%.
Very scary. Wildfires, evacuations, widespread power outages, and high winds. Good thing there’s no climate change 🤦♀️ Be careful out there, Spokane, Washington, folks!
kate b.@katebitz.bsky.social · 4d agothis is incredibly abnormal and scary. always a possibility this decade, extremely bizarre to experience in real time. we’ve got important stuff loaded in the car, not going anywhere at the moment because by all accounts traffic is already very bad www.spokesman.com/stories/2026...
There's lots of stuff LLMs can't do, but if you want to disbelieve all the recent math, you have to believe a bunch of Fields Medalists with long track records are just straightforwardly lying about the thing they care most about. Here's a recent blog by Gowers: gowers.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/a...
A recent experience with ChatGPT 5.5 Pro
We are all having to keep revising upwards our assessments of the mathematical capabilities of large language models. I have just made a fairly large revision as a result of ChatGPT 5.5 Pro, to whi…
gowers.wordpress.com
Not only did they absolutely beg for this, they made it so that “merit” was synonymous with being white so now you’re stuck with precisely the kind of moron who believes that. www.politico.com/news/magazin...
For anyone who is interested in learning to read very basic 篆書, I encountered the following gem in my recent travels on the web 篆書唐詩選五言絶句. A mid-18th C Japanese edition in the Waseda Collection. www.wul.waseda.ac.jp/kotenseki/ht...
Query for seal script 篆書 folks -- an early 20th C. (probably) ownership seal in my copy of Fukuzawa Yukichi's Seiyō jijō 西洋事情. Looks like 好古山蔵書印 to me, but the 山 doesn't match any example I've seen so far. Also could 好古山[人] be Kuki Bunnosuke 九鬼文之助? Any suggestions much appreciated!
A GOP Congressman, Griffith Morgan (Virginia), has introduced a bill to strip people in Guam, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and every other US non-state territory of their birthright citizenship. www.congress.gov/bill/119th-c...
congress.gov
I visited Nabeta a couple of years ago. A bit of a haul by bus from Kumamoto, and a few kilometers hike on foot. A pleasant way to spend a spring day. Unfortunately, the tombs weren't open and most of the most interesting material had been hauled off to the National Museum of Japanese History.
Antiquity Journal@antiquity.ac.uk · 2w agoRead the new research in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Read the new research in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
The anonymous protagonist? Agency and abstraction in Kyushu decorated tombs of the Japanese Late Kofun period | Antiquity | Cambridge Core
The anonymous protagonist? Agency and abstraction in Kyushu decorated tombs of the Japanese Late Kofun period
doi.org
Anthropology.net@anthropology.net · 2w agoIn Kyushu’s 6th-7th century tombs, horses are painted with sex, detail, and individuality. The humans riding them? Faceless stick figures. A new @antiquity.ac.uk study argues this wasn’t a lack of skill, it was the point. #Archaeology #Kofun www.anthropology.net/p/in-kyushus...
This is tight. My rule of thumb is that if the pre-election poll shows a margin of +3% for the D, then that converts into a +1% margin for the R at election time.
Poll Tracker 📊@polltracker.bsky.social · 6d agoTexas Senate Race (Fox News): Talarico (D) 51% Paxton (R) 48% July 23-27, 2026 www.foxnews.com/official-polls
"Blame Elon Musk and Donald Trump for the Out-of-Control Ebola Crisis" Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped lead the U.S. response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, on the deadly consequences DOGE's dismantling of USAID has had, as Congo struggles to contain the virus.
Blame Elon Musk and Donald Trump for the Out-of-Control Ebola Crisis
Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped lead the U.S. response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, writes about the deadly consequences DOGE's dismantling of USAID has had, as Congo struggles to contain the virus.
zeteo.com
America. Today. "A concentration camp, in its most basic definition, is a place where a targeted civilian population, not necessarily accused of a crime, is detained and at least some of their basic rights are suspended," www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Don’t call them ICE detention centers. Call them camps | John Washington
I’ve spent a decade reporting on immigration enforcement. The word ‘camp’ best captures the political function of these facilities
theguardian.com
Interesting. A statistical study of refusals to answer questions in Japan's National Diet.
Masae Ohsugi@ohsg1m.bsky.social · 6d agoこれすごく面白かった。 過去の国会の議事録を元に「お答えを差し控える」などの答弁拒否の件数やその論法の変化、そして「答弁の噛み合わなさ」などを量的に分析した報告。 政治家の「答弁拒否」の言語学：計量政治言語学のアプローチ note.com/lingfieldwor...
If you see me supporting Russia in any form from this account, assume that it has been hacked.
Sarah T Roberts, PhD@ubiquity75.xyz · last wk.
Canopy-penetrating LiDAR reveals widespread ancient earthworks in southwestern Amazonia, suggesting the historical presence of a monument-building civilization with a population in the millions! 🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
In a first, Germany drew more power from wind and solar than from fossil fuels last year.
In Germany, Wind and Solar Overtake Fossil Fuels
Together, wind and solar generated 44 percent of Germany’s electricity, while fossil fuels generated roughly 43 percent, according to data from the Energy Institute, a think tank based in London. The figures represent a major milestone for the German “Energiewende,” or “energy turnaround,” a national push to ramp up renewable energy and phase out gas, coal, and nuclear power.
e360.yale.edu