Ian Rapley
@irapley.bsky.social
Historian of modern Japan, part time shepherd, clueless beekeeper, forensic cricket scorer.
I was vibe coding before AI did coding but even given that, it's a bit weird that PillowBot was down for six months and just decided to spring up again yesterday.
Sei Shonagon@thepillowbot.bsky.social · 19h agoThe empress held a poetry contest. My entry caused a great stir: If I had slept this night I surely would never have heard the noise of the turbulent ocean that batters the shore at Ise
I've never really clicked properly with Montaigne's essays, but the urge to lock myself in a tower and ignore the outside world? Increasingly on board with that.
Slightly chagrined to discover that my eight year old's best friend is better than me at bop it.
NYT Categories, purple section: Things Sei Shonagon thinks are hateful
The Pillow Book, by Sei Shōnagon @thepillowbookbot.bsky.social · 5d agoPriests. Fruit. Houses. Provision bags. Inksticks for inkstones.
Don't get sucked into list discourse again. This list is stupid, because all lists are stupid.
Phil Lewis@phillewis.bsky.social · 6d agoHere’s The New York Times 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century: www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
Like the look of this: edizionicafoscari.unive.it/en/edizioni4... "The Fish Skin Road Mapping Indigenous Knowledge from the Lower Amur River to Sakhalin Island" by Elisa Palomino (& it's open access!)
Edizioni Ca' Foscari
Edizioni Ca' Foscari - Venice University Press
edizionicafoscari.unive.it
We are grateful for the time and effort you put into your application... ... But we couldn't be arsed to read it.
John Stott@jpsastro.bsky.social · last wk.Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky
Undefeated political commentary.
Stephen Collins@stephencollins.bsky.social · last wk.#TBT to this from 2012 in honour of Michael Gove starring as an invasion-battling leader in Sky's new show The Wargame. If you don't know what or who this comic is about... just count yourself lucky and scroll on, no worries.
![[Opening scene is WESTMINSTER, LONDON. Over Downing Street a huge ALIEN SPACECRAFT hovers, silent, still, filling the whole sky a la Independence Day].
[Cut to INSIDE 10 DOWNING STREET. The (then) prime Minister DAVID CAMERON is looking out of his office window at the ship.]
VOICE FROM OFF-SCENE, BEHIND CAMERON:
Prime Minister…
CAMERON [addressing the person behind him, still keeping his eyes fixed ahead in dread at the spaceship]:
Yes?
[We see the speaker is MICHAEL GOVE, then Education Secretary]:
GOVE:
Let me do it.
CAMERON:
For God's sake, Michael, you're the Education Secretary! You've never flown a fighter plane in your life!
GOVE:
But I know I could do it, David. I could fly a fighter plane into the big space- ship...
...and shoot all the aliens.
CAMERON:
But you have no military training!
GOVE:
David
I haven't told you this, but...
I used to be a journalist. For The Times.
[Cameron reacts, turning to look at Gove with awe and respect, as if only now truly seeing him for the first time].
GOVE:
I wrote two articles about planes, David.
I've got strong opinions about aliens.
I know I can do this job.
[Cut to a title card panel]:
AND SO:
[Then cut again to Cameron on the roof of Number 10, watching a Michael Gove pilot a fighter jet up towards the spacecraft, and then completely miss it, careering towards Earth, as Cameron buries his face in his hands].
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreictdw36myuavccr5oqqgsfb2jzkicnjrxhcexhned7ux7ws6oq5ny)
Went to dinner at Oxford last week where, presumably due to some administrative snafu, I ended up at the top table in the following orientation: me, my more eminent friend, the rector of the college, the vice chancellor of the university, an Olympic gold medalist.
JFC Solidarity with staff & students at Edinburgh. We're living through such a devastating act of self-harm. I dread to think what this will inspire other HEIs to do next.
Josh Pizzuto-Pomaco@joshpizpom.bsky.social · 2w agoEXC: 90 programmes in Edinburgh University's College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences are to be closed. The casualties, which include 48 language and literature programmes, will be 'taught out', w/ no admissions after 2027. @heraldscotland.bsky.social www.heraldscotland.com/news/2655839...
The Japan Foundation London has recently launched a new series of short essays introducing UK academics working on Japan. I enjoyed putting together a contribution on "The Enigma of Concrete Castles", about this phenomenon and how I came to research it. lo.jpf.go.jp/japanese-stu...
Japan Up Close Essay Series | Japan Foundation
Essays by researchers offering fresh perspectives on Japanese society, culture and everyday life. Read the full series, free online.
lo.jpf.go.jp
I'm going to be speaking in Oxford later on this autumn on my research on the history of the game of Go. #japan #boardgames #boardgamestudies #history
Turn on the TV too see Ben Duckett walking in the wrong direction. It's on! #cricket
Weekend fun project: adding a feature to the restored Nagasaki Foreign Settlement website by Lane R. Earns and Brian Burke-Gaffney to allow direct browsing of the concession leaseholder lots over time thanks to the detailed leaseholder tables they created. froginawell.net/nagasaki/
A woman of the lower classes dressed in a scarlet trouser-skirt. The sight it all too common these days.
I'm holding out for a translation that's word for word identical to the first one.
Kirkdale Bookshop@kirkdalebooks.bsky.social · 4w agoCommitment to the bit www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...
I'm not sure people really appreciate the size of an em dash. They're massive. I definitely overuse en dashes in my writing, but an em dash is truly extravagant.
This is the single biggest physics discovery of my entire lifetime. Or something's wrong with one of the cables. One of the two
Michael Greshko@michaelgreshko.bsky.social · last mo.BREAKING: The world's most sensitive dark matter detector has announced it has spotted something it can't easily explain: a single event that's tantalizingly consistent with a type of theorized dark matter particle. Very early days yet, but pretty wild. 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...
The one I can never remember is whether it's towing the line or toeing the line, and I have a workable mental image of both.
Kate Bevan@katebevan.com · last mo.Public service announcement: it's shoo-in, not shoe-in. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
My friend and classmate John Lee is on the BBC to talk about the Mongol invasion of Korea! #medievalsky #mongolsky *Unfortunately the full program (below) is only available in the UK without a VPN, but here is a clip on Facebook: www.facebook.com/reel/1374711...
BBC Radio 4 - You're Dead to Me, Medieval Korea
Join Greg and his guests in medieval Korea to learn about the Goryeo and Joseon kingdoms.
bbc.co.uk
Thank you for your email. I am currently out of the office, and declining to complete any circuits of verificationist communication you may have set in motion.
Plashing Vole@plashingvole.bsky.social · last mo.I don’t have terrible handwriting, I just refuse to complete the circuit of verificationist communication.
Izzy and I went fossil hunting the other day, and got a classic haul: countless shellfish, one ammonite, a couple of rocks too big to carry, and then a curious cylindrical stone that's either an amazing plesiosaur (paddle?) bone, or a piece of man made concrete c. 2015.
It's the Scottish national texel sale from tomorrow (main sale on Thursday, I think). The biggest ram auction of the year. Want to know what a sheep worth £100 grand looks like? Livestream details here: lawriesymington.marteye.ie
MartEye
lawriesymington.marteye.ie
I saw a big plume of smoke while I was dealing with the chickens. Guess it was this.
Twlldun@twlldun.bsky.social · last mo.It is happening again
