Dimestorehalo @Dimestorehalo@qoto.org

The Old Norse name Blábersdal means 'dale of the blueberries', a place name the Norsemen used in Orkney. But because native people in Orkney didn't quite catch that, this place is now called Blubbersdale.

#placenamesinthenorth

During WWII, four brothers from the same Jewish family signed up to fight against the Nazis. Only one of the four brothers survived.

His grandson is the current President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky.

Sláva Ukrayíni!

I gave a glib answer when my daughter asked what I wanted for #Christmas . I now have world peas.

Also looks like someone at the UK's Royal Astronomical Society set up a Mastodon account and is crafting custom posts for it, but it only has ~300 followers compared with their >50K on Twitter:

@royalastrosoc

I see this all too often -- major public/nonprofit organizations set up shop here, but don't know how to best cross-link/promote it, so the accounts get kind of lost. If you care about #astronomy & like their work, give them a boost or follow :)

This is #Zelensky as he was dressed to speak to a joint session of the US Congress. A military commander-in-chief wearing what amounts to dress battle fatigues with the crest of his nation. It's obvious this was the image he wanted to project.

A leader at war.

Cowardly Republicans who carry water for #Putin have been dogpiling him for not wearing a suit. Which reminds me a lot of Republicans dragging President Obama for wearing the wrong color suit.

In a saner society, every one of these Republican culture war gambits would be recognized for what they are: red herrings. Use of red herrings means you've conceded the main argument. That is, if you have any self-respect or dignity.

People on the left often make the mistake of trying to seriously engage the red herring instead of just shaming the person for being obtuse and intellectually dishonest

We know why Zelensky made the choice he made. And so do Republicans.

#slavaUkraini #nafo

A quite remarkable tale:
Start with Peter Kidd's post about being plagiarized in a book from a house called Receptio:
https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/nobody-cares-about-your-blog.html
Then in this thread, J Peter Burger digs into the publisher's site & finds staff pictures are stock photos: https://twitter.com/OkkiPepernoot/status/1607330439496335360
Use Google Translate or here's Kidd's recap:
https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-receptio-rossi-affair-part-i-staff.html
Their offices are fiction, too: https://twitter.com/Hallfiry/status/1607128882783850499
Here's the Receptio site where they seem to offer pubs and courses: https://www.receptio.eu/
Wacky.

Merry Christmas from Seattle, where we are released from our icy prison. (We already had snow, but then we had freezing rain which resulted in 0.25” to 0.5” of glass-slick black ice over our entire very hilly city.) Please enjoy this video of frictionless French bulldogs, at which I laughed very nearly until I cried.

He talked about electric cars. I don't know anything about cars, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius.

Then he talked about rockets. I don't know anything about rockets, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius.

Now he talks about software. I happen to know a lot about software and Elon Musk is saying the stupidest shit anyone's ever said, so when people say he's a genius I figured I should stay the hell away from his cars and rockets.

Stories, great flapping ribbons of shaped space-time, have been blowing and uncoiling around the universe since the beginning of time. And they have evolved. The weakest have died and the strongest have survived and they have grown fat on the retelling . . . stories, twisting and blowing through the darkness.

– Terry Pratchett. Witches Abroad.

#Folklore #FolkNarratives @folklore #NarrativeTheory

Chicago and Lake Michigan from space at night, with the aurora Borealis and the Milky Way (wonder if you can see Santa and his sleigh in there?)

© NASA

#AuroraBorealis #NorthernLights #MilkyWay #NASA #Chicago #space #ChristmasEve

Earthrise.

On Christmas Eve of 1968, the Apollo 8 crew photographed Earth rising over the lunar surface as they orbited the Moon.

“We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing is that we discovered the Earth." – William Anders https://go.nasa.gov/3GcD3F4
#NASAEarth

When the reindeer were very grumpy when one called in sick, they would abruptly halt the sleigh, causing Santa to injure his leg as he fell out of the sleigh.

In those instances, Santa would write up the reindeer for "fell on knees."

#lawtwitter #ChristmasEve

Sometimes reindeer called in sick on #ChristmasEve .

This caused the other reindeer on the team to be exceedingly grumpy.

Santa had no tolerance for this.

He would write up the team. The charges? Missed deer, meaners.

#lawtwitter

I think it’s important to repeat: you don't "have something to hide" when you put blinds on your windows or close the door when you're on the can or wear clothes.

Privacy isn't about having something to hide. It's not about keeping secrets. It's about you being the person who chooses what you reveal about yourself, and when, and to who, and the other word we have for that is "dignity". Your inherent dignity, as a human being.

Your privacy is the agency you have over your dignity.

It looks like critical info, like phone numbers & emails, for every single Twitter account is now up for sale c/o a total data breach.
https://twitter.com/c7five/status/1606724099530694658?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1606724099530694658%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=
#Twitter

Holloways - from the Anglo-Saxon ‘hola weg’, or sunken road - are ancient green lanes carved over centuries by livestock, wagon wheels and human feet.

Locals call this one Hunt’s Lane but you won’t find that name on a map. Shivers down your spine are guaranteed as you follow in the footsteps of countless others and wonder: what errands were all those folk doing, what was on their mind?

#holloway #archaeology #medieval #history #environment #Somerset #Quantocks

For your Christmas cheer a Doctor Who Christmas song featuring Daleks. From the 1960s. #Christmas #music #1960s #Daleks #Dalek

https://youtu.be/SSxmnKWGGvY

The wind-chill temperature here in Minnesota today is about -40 F. Yikes!

By the way, here’s a fun fact!

-40 F is exactly the same temperature as -40 C. It’s the only temperate level where that’s true.

And they’re both really f-ing cold…

Northern lights in Fairbanks, Alaska last night as photographed by Maia Hartwigsen.
#NorthernLights #Alaska