tobychev @tobychev@qoto.org

Strikes and protests in Iran spread nationwide. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202512291716

European colonizers carved up the Somali territories, with Britain, France and Italy all taking portions and leaving a segment for Ethiopia.

Formerly a British colony , the newly independent Somaliland voted to join the larger country, formerly an Italian colony, in 1960, creating the modern day Somalia we know today.

But it was a tumultuous unity. Eventually a decade long Somaliland war of independence culminated in independence and the declaration of Hargeisa as the capital of Somaliland.

Way back in the day the University of Waterloo's Math Society had a shirt on it with dozens of definitions and identity formulas on the front and back; the ones on the front were upside down, so the wearer could read them, and the ones on the back were all subtly wrong so the person cribbing off your shirt during the exam was screwed.

Anyway, I feel like this shirt is a missed opportunity.

https://social.chinwag.org/@brad/115776906262650344

”Det är fruktansvärt om mitt politiska projekt att få invandrare att inte känna sig välkomna får invandrare att inte känna sig välkomna”, säger minister som ägnat hela sin ministertid åt att få invandrare att inte känna sig välkomna i Sverige.

Ledare: Inte konstigt att Davi...

NEW – Sweden: Storm knocks down Gävle Goat
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/gavleborg/har-blaser-gavlebocken-omkull-under-stormen-johannes

“I came to D.C. when it had seats of comfort, and left it with seats of marble.”

#India

Why did India face climate disasters on 99% of days in 2025? Know what's next

India faced relentless extreme weather events for 331 days in 2025, claiming thousands of lives and ravaging millions of hectares of crops. Urgent global mitigation and local resilient farming are now the only paths to survival

https://www.indiatoday.in/amp/science/story/india-climate-change-2025-extreme-weather-events-india-flood-casualties-heatwave-impact-india-crop-damage-statistics-cse-down-to-earth-report-arabian-sea-cyclones-himalayan-glacier-melting-climate-2842706-2025-12-27

#ClimateChange #GlobalWarming #UpheavalClimate #MassAtrocity #pollution #ecology #environment #climate

I've been thinking about this since I read it. I'm about to make this my entire personality

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29993325/

Slop is not distinguishable by its attributes. It is an attitude of production https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/12/24/slop-is-not-distinguishable-by-its-attributes-it-is-an-attitude-of-production/

And of course, what #NerdReich CEOs are celebrating this?

Tesla CEO and Palantir co-founders are cheering on sanctions on public officials.

Vote with your wallets

We're happy to announce that the release candidate for pandas 3.0 is ready for testing!

This major release brings some exciting new features such as a new default string data type and consistent copy/view behaviour (alongside many improvements and bug fixes), but those also come with some potentially breaking changes.

Have some code or library using pandas? You can help us by testing with the release candidate! 🙏

See the blogpost at https://pandas.pydata.org/community/blog/pandas-3.0-release-candidate.html for more details

As academic nightmares go, this one seems way worse than just showing up for a test you forgot to study for. https://www.leidenspecialcollectionsblog.nl/articles/a-collection-of-almanac-prints-in-conversation-with-the-collector#96300

SEASONS GREASONS!

#SeasonsGreasons #IdLoveSomeoneToComeDownMyChimney

"This paper projects when each of 150 countries can transition to 100% clean, renewable electricity and heat across all energy sectors after near electrification of each sector.

Eight countries, including China, the world's largest CO2 emitter, can reach 100% by 2051. The U.S. and India may reach 100% only after 2130. China’ transition rate is faster than any clean-energy conversion in history.

Thus, a focus on clean, renewable energy can speed a transition."

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2026/su/d5su00912j

Israel's cabinet votes to shut down popular national radio station Army Radio, saying it has become a platform for views that "attack" its armed forces (Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/netanyahu-government-moves-shut-down-israels-army-radio-station-2025-12-22/
http://mediagazer.com/251222/p10#a251222p10

Another crucial result, already anticipated in its twin paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.26918) is that regardless of the B-field configuration, there always is the development of a sharp exponential drop in |B| at some distance from the galaxy, meaning that in realistic plasma conditions, magnetic fields cannot just diffuse away from their source and fill empty space as we would think based on classical electromagnetism and the idea of perfect voids.

Internal email: 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi told staffers Bari Weiss pulled the CECOT segment after the Trump administration refused an interview (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/12/21/cbs-news-bari-weiss-intervention/
http://mediagazer.com/251221/p4#a251221p4

Wishing for a Mastodon plushie this Christmas?🎄

We’re giving away two of the new ones for free to two random people who boost and favorite this post! Winners will be announced on December 25th, just like last year.

If you’d like to support our server and projects like these, donations are always welcome:

✊🎁 Support Here

Thank you all for turning this year into what it has been! :ablobcatsnowjoy:

#Plushtodon #ChristmasGiveaway #GiveAway #Mastodon #FediLove

I missed this post from LeoLabs on Dec 18, where they noted that 10s of debris objects were detected from the Starlink 35956 anomaly event of 17 Dec 2025.

They also assessed that the satellite’s initial drop in orbital altitude was likely caused by an internal energetic source (e.g., an explosion) rather than a collision with space debris or another object.

Ed Lu of LeoLabs posted today 100s of debris objects being tracked.

No info on fragment sizes or apogee.

No new word from SpaceX.
2/n