Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋 @bibliolater@qoto.org
Not a bot just a chap in his fifties who occasionally reads things.
Toots are humanities, science, non-fiction, books, maps, charts and graphs related. Some toots containing videos may also find their way into the timeline.
Toots or follows or boosts or mentions ≠ endorsements of any particular notion or notions.
Finis
Joined Nov 2022
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
boosted
⚠️ Confirmed: Live metrics show a decline in internet connectivity along the west coast of #Jamaica as Cat 5 Hurricane Melissa approaches the island, with widespread outages reported as winds bring down power lines 📉
@mason He may well have put it back after reading the back cover.
**Nine months later, that body of water down south is still the “Gulf of Mexico” to news outlets**
**Why zero is the most important number in all of mathematics**
**The Strange History of Why North Is Always Up**
"_South-up maps are challenging traditional views of the Earth—and the political and cultural beliefs that go with them._"
**Map: Viabundus 2**
"_Viabundus 2 is an online map of long-distance routes in late medieval and early modern Europe (1350-1650)_"
🔗 https://www.landesgeschichte.uni-goettingen.de/handelsstrassen/map.php.
#Medieval #EarlyModern #History #Histodons #Europe #Maps #Cartography
📚 **In My Words: The quiet rebellion of reading**
"_To read a book today is, in its own quiet way, an act of rebellion. It resists speed. It refuses to be optimized. It asks for our full attention in a world that profits from distraction and constant stimulation._"
🔗 https://www.elon.edu/u/news/2025/10/27/in-my-words-the-quiet-rebellion-of-reading/
**On the 19th-Century Scientist Who Realized Solar Storms Influence Life on Earth**
🔗 https://lithub.com/on-the-19th-century-scientist-who-realized-solar-storms-influence-life-on-earth/.
📚 **The Case for Whole Books**
"_Students, it appears, increasingly struggle to read long texts, and teachers are increasingly discouraged from requiring them. We think students should read whole books, we think they can, and, it turns out, we wrote a book about a way to teach them to do that, whether they’re in college or still in high school._"
🔗 https://slate.com/life/2025/10/school-books-reading-literacy-crisis-common-core.html.
**Delaware professor on how monsters are used to exploit cultures**
"_Persephone Braham, a professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Delaware, specializes in the cultural history of monsters. Her research focuses on how European colonizers used monstrous imagery to justify the enslavement and exploitation of Indigenous and African peoples._"
**The Downside of Fertility**
"_The reasons for the declines from the 1970s to the early 2000s involve greater female autonomy and a mismatch between the desires of men and women. Men benefit more from maintaining traditions; women benefit more from eschewing them._"
Claudia Goldin, "The Downside of Fertility," NBER Working Paper 34268 (2025), https://doi.org/10.3386/w34268.
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
boosted
“Doctors who blame an imbalance of bodily humours for health issues are viewed negatively by their peers”
https://hub.jhu.edu/2025/10/27/doctors-viewed-negatively-for-ai-usage/
Evening all
🇬🇧 **Joseph Banks: the man who collected the world**
"_He made his name on a voyage around the world alongside Captain James Cook, before becoming a friend of King George III and one of the most influential men in Britain._"
**Inside the $22 trillion world of private capital, an asset class so big it would be the world’s second-largest economy**
"_As the line between public and private capital blurs, the $22 trillion world of private capital is not just a financial story—it’s a signpost for how our economies, companies, and innovations will be built and valued in the years to come."
🔗 https://fortune.com/2025/10/26/what-is-private-capital-credit-22-trillion-industry-equity-debt/
**Oxford University And The Times Good University Guide**
🔗 https://cherwell.org/2025/10/26/its-time-we-stopped-fussing-over-university-rankings/
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
boosted
Amazon chose not to include all the ways its data centres use water because it didn’t want to negatively impact its reputation.
Amazon as a whole (including data centres) consumed 105bn gallons of water in total in 2021, as much as 958,000 US households, which would supply a city bigger than San Francisco. Those numbers are likely higher now.
At the same time, the company debuted a new ad campaign in November 2022 called “Water Positive,” (which is still running) with a promise to “return more water than it uses” by 2030. The company argues it should receive credits for water “offsets” or other projects that provide benefits elsewhere (think carbon credits).
The company continues to keep its current overall water consumption confidential.
#aidatacenters #aidatacentres #water
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/25/amazon-datacentres-water-use-disclosure
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
boosted
For those of you thinking about AI use in its various forms in social scientific research, Due Cuong Nguyen & Catherine Welch suggest that this use is not only distorting analysis but actually leading researchers to make erroneous conclusions.
The paper is available open access; like all academic article its not an easy read, but if you're interested in AI (especially in university settings) then its likely of interest.
@media Getting rid of a smartphone is usually a good idea.
Bibliolater 📚 📜 🖋
boosted
»Why I got rid of my smartphone for a 'digital detox'« https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crexqyzvd9go?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss?eicker.media #media #socialmedia
Not a bot just a chap in his fifties who occasionally reads things.
Toots are humanities, science, non-fiction, books, maps, charts and graphs related. Some toots containing videos may also find their way into the timeline.
Toots or follows or boosts or mentions ≠ endorsements of any particular notion or notions.
Finis
Joined Nov 2022
