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erronis's Journal
erronis's Journal
December 6, 2025
Let it snow!
Saturday Soother - Animals in Chicago zoo enjoying the snow -- Digby
https://digbysblog.net/2025/12/06/friday-night-soother-335/Let it snow!
December 6, 2025
https://snyder.substack.com/p/ukrainian-history-global-initiative
What Deep and Global History Of Ukraine Really Means -- Timothy Snyder
Ukrainian History Global Initiative is a history project led by Timothy Snyder that seeks a new empirical and conceptual understanding of the past, using an innovative interdisciplinary approach and the application of new technologies to write history today.
In the video, the speakers talk about their experience writing the deep and global history of Ukraine, the new technologies that help us understand the past better, and why history matters.
Timothy Snyder – Historian, University of Toronto
Serhii Plokhii – Historian, Harvard University
Yaroslav Hrytsak – Ukrainian Catholic University
Maya Jasanoff – Historian, Harvard University
Thula Simpson – Historian, University of Pretoria
Olivia Judson – Evolutionary Biologist, Imperial College London & Freie Universität Berlin
Victor Pinchuk – Founder, Author of the idea of the project
Pavlo Shydlovskyi – Archaeologist, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Serhii Telizhenko – Archaeologist, Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Oleksandra Ivanova – PhD Student, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
🔗 More information: uhgi.org
In the video, the speakers talk about their experience writing the deep and global history of Ukraine, the new technologies that help us understand the past better, and why history matters.
Timothy Snyder – Historian, University of Toronto
Serhii Plokhii – Historian, Harvard University
Yaroslav Hrytsak – Ukrainian Catholic University
Maya Jasanoff – Historian, Harvard University
Thula Simpson – Historian, University of Pretoria
Olivia Judson – Evolutionary Biologist, Imperial College London & Freie Universität Berlin
Victor Pinchuk – Founder, Author of the idea of the project
Pavlo Shydlovskyi – Archaeologist, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv
Serhii Telizhenko – Archaeologist, Institute of Archaeology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Oleksandra Ivanova – PhD Student, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy
🔗 More information: uhgi.org
https://snyder.substack.com/p/ukrainian-history-global-initiative
Amidst a war of aggression, scholars in Ukraine have undertaken one of the most ambitious knowledge projects of our time. Over the course of three years, more than a hundred Ukrainian and international scholars are together creating a long-durée history of the lands and peoples of the territories of today’s Ukraine from the formation of the earth to the present. The goal is to bring together knowledge about a crucial part of the world, and make it accessible to everyone in the world.
This endeavor, Ukrainian History Global Initiative, recalls some of the great encyclopedic ambitions of past centuries -- while bringing to bear the technological advances of our own. It’s an attempt to write interpretive history that people will want to read, made possible by the findings, sometimes quite spectacular, of recent decades. The goal is to bring knowledge about some of the great themes of the past to a very large global audience. At a time when specialization can separate scholars from audiences (and from one another!), we are working together to bring knowledge to everyone.
I’ve been privileged to be involved with Ukrainian History Global Initiative from its beginnings. The thought process began back in 2019, well before the full-scale invasion of 2022. So it would be a mistake to think of this project as a reaction to the current war. But the fact that the project has proceeded, with two major conferences in wartime Kyiv in 2023 and 2024 as well as other meetings around the world, is a sign to me of how important the humanities are in a time of crisis.
We are told that, under stress, the humanities must be sacrificed -- of what use are literature, philosophy, and history when we have problems to solve right now? And yet colleagues meeting in wartime Kyiv have a clearer sense of purpose, more esprit de corps, , and a better instinct for the essential. And soldiers on the front (as they tell me) want to talk about history and culture. In traumatic conditions, people think about where they stand amidst larger forces -- and they think about the why as well as the how of life.
. . .
This endeavor, Ukrainian History Global Initiative, recalls some of the great encyclopedic ambitions of past centuries -- while bringing to bear the technological advances of our own. It’s an attempt to write interpretive history that people will want to read, made possible by the findings, sometimes quite spectacular, of recent decades. The goal is to bring knowledge about some of the great themes of the past to a very large global audience. At a time when specialization can separate scholars from audiences (and from one another!), we are working together to bring knowledge to everyone.
I’ve been privileged to be involved with Ukrainian History Global Initiative from its beginnings. The thought process began back in 2019, well before the full-scale invasion of 2022. So it would be a mistake to think of this project as a reaction to the current war. But the fact that the project has proceeded, with two major conferences in wartime Kyiv in 2023 and 2024 as well as other meetings around the world, is a sign to me of how important the humanities are in a time of crisis.
We are told that, under stress, the humanities must be sacrificed -- of what use are literature, philosophy, and history when we have problems to solve right now? And yet colleagues meeting in wartime Kyiv have a clearer sense of purpose, more esprit de corps, , and a better instinct for the essential. And soldiers on the front (as they tell me) want to talk about history and culture. In traumatic conditions, people think about where they stand amidst larger forces -- and they think about the why as well as the how of life.
. . .
December 6, 2025
Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a language network in the human brain — and has found some similarities to LLMs.
The Polyglot Neuroscientist Resolving How the Brain Parses Language -- Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-polyglot-neuroscientist-resolving-how-the-brain-parses-language-20251205/Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a language network in the human brain — and has found some similarities to LLMs.
Even in a world where large language models (LLMs) and AI chatbots are commonplace, it can be hard to fully accept that fluent writing can come from an unthinking machine. That’s because, to many of us, finding the right words is a crucial part of thought — not the outcome of some separate process.
But what if our neurobiological reality includes a system that behaves something like an LLM? Long before the rise of ChatGPT, the cognitive neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko began studying how language works in the adult human brain. The specialized system she has described, which she calls “the language network,” maps the correspondences between words and their meanings. Her research suggests that, in some ways, we do carry around a biological version of an LLM — that is, a mindless language processor — inside our own brains.
“You can think of the language network as a set of pointers,” Fedorenko said. “It’s like a map, and it tells you where in the brain you can find different kinds of meaning. It’s basically a glorified parser that helps us put the pieces together — and then all the thinking and interesting stuff happens outside of [its] boundaries.”
Fedorenko has been gathering biological evidence of this language network for the past 15 years in her lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Unlike a large language model, the human language network doesn’t string words into plausible-sounding patterns with nobody home; instead, it acts as a translator between external perceptions (such as speech, writing and sign language) and representations of meaning encoded in other parts of the brain (including episodic memory and social cognition, which LLMs don’t possess). Nor is the human language network particularly large: If all of its tissue were clumped together, it would be about the size of a strawberry. But when it is damaged, the effect is profound. An injured language network can result in forms of aphasia in which sophisticated cognition remains intact but trapped within a brain unable to express it or distinguish incoming words from others.
. . .
But what if our neurobiological reality includes a system that behaves something like an LLM? Long before the rise of ChatGPT, the cognitive neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko began studying how language works in the adult human brain. The specialized system she has described, which she calls “the language network,” maps the correspondences between words and their meanings. Her research suggests that, in some ways, we do carry around a biological version of an LLM — that is, a mindless language processor — inside our own brains.
“You can think of the language network as a set of pointers,” Fedorenko said. “It’s like a map, and it tells you where in the brain you can find different kinds of meaning. It’s basically a glorified parser that helps us put the pieces together — and then all the thinking and interesting stuff happens outside of [its] boundaries.”
Fedorenko has been gathering biological evidence of this language network for the past 15 years in her lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Unlike a large language model, the human language network doesn’t string words into plausible-sounding patterns with nobody home; instead, it acts as a translator between external perceptions (such as speech, writing and sign language) and representations of meaning encoded in other parts of the brain (including episodic memory and social cognition, which LLMs don’t possess). Nor is the human language network particularly large: If all of its tissue were clumped together, it would be about the size of a strawberry. But when it is damaged, the effect is profound. An injured language network can result in forms of aphasia in which sophisticated cognition remains intact but trapped within a brain unable to express it or distinguish incoming words from others.
. . .
December 5, 2025
An interactive storyboard which attempts to explain the involvement of the Cossacks into the war on behalf of the Russians. I am finding this presentation very engaging but also frustrating because of the format.
While I knew some small amount of their history, this did lead me to dig deeper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks
From School to Battlefield to Grave How Russian Cossacks drive young people to war -- bellingcat
https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2025/12/05/from-school-to-battlefield-to-grave-how-russian-cossacks-drive-young-people-to-war/An interactive storyboard which attempts to explain the involvement of the Cossacks into the war on behalf of the Russians. I am finding this presentation very engaging but also frustrating because of the format.
While I knew some small amount of their history, this did lead me to dig deeper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cossacks
December 5, 2025
Who's Going To Tell Him? -- Digby
https://digbysblog.net/2025/12/04/whos-going-to-tell-him/The utter lack of self-awareness among these people is astonishing. They seem to be barely sentient.
December 5, 2025
We can't let any damn facts sneak into this country!
State Department to deny visas to fact checkers and others, citing 'censorship'
Source: NPR
The State Department is instructing its staff to reject visa applications from people who worked on fact-checking, content moderation or other activities the Trump administration considers "censorship" of Americans' speech.
The directive, sent in an internal memo on Tuesday, is focused on applicants for H-1B visas for highly skilled workers, which are frequently used by tech companies, among other sectors. The memo was first reported by Reuters; NPR also obtained a copy.
"If you uncover evidence an applicant was responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the United States, you should pursue a finding that the applicant is ineligible" for a visa, the memo says. It refers to a policy announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in May restricting visas from being issued to "foreign officials and persons who are complicit in censoring Americans."
The Trump administration has been highly critical of tech companies' efforts to police what people are allowed to post on their platforms and of the broader field of trust and safety, the tech industry's term for teams that focus on preventing abuse, fraud, illegal content, and other harmful behavior online.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/12/04/nx-s1-5633444/trump-content-moderation-visas-censorship
We can't let any damn facts sneak into this country!
December 4, 2025
I guess the FBI agents and other gov't security professionals have been tasked with redacting tons of trumpshit.
Twins who hacked State Dept hired to work for gov again, now charged with deleting databases
https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/04/twin_brothers_charged_with_deleting_databases/Vetting staff who handle sensitive government systems is wise, and so is cutting off their access the moment they're fired. Prosecutors say a federal contractor learned this the hard way when twin brothers previously convicted of hacking-related offenses allegedly used lingering access to delete nearly 100 government databases, including systems tied to Homeland Security and other agencies, within minutes of being terminated.
The siblings allegedly hatched the plan during the call in which they were being fired, and asked an AI to help them cover their tracks.
Brothers Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, both 34, of Alexandria, Virginia, were indicted on November 13 for conspiring to delete databases used to store US government information.
They both worked as federal contractors for a company that's identified as "company 1" in the court documents [PDF]. According to an earlier Bloomberg report, it's Opexus, a Washington-based firm that provides software and services to federal agencies and developed the Freedom of Information Act request portal, FOIAXpress.
. . .
The siblings allegedly hatched the plan during the call in which they were being fired, and asked an AI to help them cover their tracks.
Brothers Muneeb and Sohaib Akhter, both 34, of Alexandria, Virginia, were indicted on November 13 for conspiring to delete databases used to store US government information.
They both worked as federal contractors for a company that's identified as "company 1" in the court documents [PDF]. According to an earlier Bloomberg report, it's Opexus, a Washington-based firm that provides software and services to federal agencies and developed the Freedom of Information Act request portal, FOIAXpress.
. . .
I guess the FBI agents and other gov't security professionals have been tasked with redacting tons of trumpshit.
December 4, 2025
Top Military Commander Showed Lawmakers Boat Strike Video--and It's Bad
Source: The New Republic
Lawmakers were shocked and appalled Thursday after they were shown video footage of the September 2 double tap that killed two survivors of an airstrike in the Caribbean.
Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley met behind closed doors with members of the House and Senate in an attempt to defend the Trump administration’s decision to slaughter two individuals who clung to the wreckage of their boat. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine was also in attendance at the meeting.
Ahead of the meeting, military attorneys claimed that there could be a legitimate explanation for the second strike if Bradley was able to prove the survivors posed a credible threat to U.S. military personnel. But the footage supposedly left no room for doubt that that was not the case.
“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN. “You have two individuals [in] clear distress, without any means of locomotion, with a destroyed vessel, [who] were killed by the United States.”
Read more: https://newrepublic.com/post/203962/lawmakers-boat-strike-video-pete-hegseth-defense
December 4, 2025
'It's absolute anarchy': Oxygen therapy chambers have led to horrific deaths. Why are Maha elite raving about them?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/04/oxygen-chamber-maha‘It’s absolute anarchy’: Oxygen therapy chambers have led to horrific deaths. Why are Maha elite raving about them?
Touted as a cure for everything from wrinkles to autism, the treatment has been hyped by Robert F Kennedy Jr and various celebrities. Experts say it needs to be regulated
Warning: this article contains distressing content
It was the kind of cold, damp morning that makes it hard to get out of bed, much less get a child out the door. The sun had not even risen when five-year-old Thomas Cooper and his mother, Annie Cooper, arrived for an appointment on 31 January at the Oxford Center in Troy, a northern suburb of Detroit, Michigan.
Thomas was an exuberant child with a button nose and pinchable cheeks – a little kid who loved running fast, playing Minecraft and watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, according to a GoFundMe set up by his family. He had just received money in a special red envelope for lunar new year, and he planned to spend it later that day with his little brother. But first, he was going to receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sleep apnea.
That morning, Thomas got into a tubular metal and clear plastic chamber, which was sealed, pressurized and filled with 100% oxygen. Then, according to an expert who viewed video of the incident, Thomas squirmed enough to pull the sheet off the mattress, causing a spark of static electricity. In the oxygen-rich environment, that spark became a flash fire that incinerated Thomas within seconds. Annie, desperately trying to open the tank, got badly burned on her arms and chest. When firefighters arrived just before 8am, all they could do was put out the flames.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) – breathing concentrated oxygen in a highly pressurized enclosure – is prescribed by doctors for a handful of conditions such as severe burns, non-healing wounds or radiation injury. When it is provided by trained and licensed physicians and nurses in medical facilities using equipment that meets FDA regulations and is properly maintained, it is safe and effective.
. . .
Thomas was an exuberant child with a button nose and pinchable cheeks – a little kid who loved running fast, playing Minecraft and watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, according to a GoFundMe set up by his family. He had just received money in a special red envelope for lunar new year, and he planned to spend it later that day with his little brother. But first, he was going to receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sleep apnea.
That morning, Thomas got into a tubular metal and clear plastic chamber, which was sealed, pressurized and filled with 100% oxygen. Then, according to an expert who viewed video of the incident, Thomas squirmed enough to pull the sheet off the mattress, causing a spark of static electricity. In the oxygen-rich environment, that spark became a flash fire that incinerated Thomas within seconds. Annie, desperately trying to open the tank, got badly burned on her arms and chest. When firefighters arrived just before 8am, all they could do was put out the flames.
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) – breathing concentrated oxygen in a highly pressurized enclosure – is prescribed by doctors for a handful of conditions such as severe burns, non-healing wounds or radiation injury. When it is provided by trained and licensed physicians and nurses in medical facilities using equipment that meets FDA regulations and is properly maintained, it is safe and effective.
. . .
December 4, 2025
by University of Leicester
Edited to add:
There are some incredibly well-preserved additional mosaics pictured in this article.
Celebrated Rutland mosaic depicts 'long-lost' Troy story connecting Roman Britain to the ancient classical world
https://phys.org/news/2025-12-celebrated-rutland-mosaic-depicts-lost.htmlby University of Leicester
Section of Panel 1 of the Ketton Mosaic shows Hector, prince of Troy, in his chariot. Credit: ULAS
The team behind what has been described as "one of the most significant mosaics discovered in the UK" have revealed that it depicts an alternative "long-lost" telling of the Trojan War. The paper is published in the journal Britannia.
New research from the University of Leicester has conclusively determined why the famous Ketton mosaic in Rutland—one of the most remarkable Roman discoveries in Britain for a century—cannot depict scenes from Homer's Iliad as was initially believed. Instead, it draws on an alternative version of the Trojan War story first popularized by the Greek playwright Aeschylus that has since been lost to history.
The mosaic's images combine artistic patterns and designs that had already been circulating for hundreds of years across the ancient Mediterranean, suggesting that craftsmen in Roman Britain were more closely connected to the wider classical world than has been assumed.
The Ketton mosaic was discovered in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown by local resident Jim Irvine, leading to a major excavation by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS). The mosaic and surrounding villa complex have since been designated a Scheduled Monument in recognition of their exceptional national importance. Historic England and ULAS undertook collaborative excavations at the site in 2021 and 2022 and are working together to publish the results of those investigations.
. . .
New research from the University of Leicester has conclusively determined why the famous Ketton mosaic in Rutland—one of the most remarkable Roman discoveries in Britain for a century—cannot depict scenes from Homer's Iliad as was initially believed. Instead, it draws on an alternative version of the Trojan War story first popularized by the Greek playwright Aeschylus that has since been lost to history.
The mosaic's images combine artistic patterns and designs that had already been circulating for hundreds of years across the ancient Mediterranean, suggesting that craftsmen in Roman Britain were more closely connected to the wider classical world than has been assumed.
The Ketton mosaic was discovered in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown by local resident Jim Irvine, leading to a major excavation by University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS). The mosaic and surrounding villa complex have since been designated a Scheduled Monument in recognition of their exceptional national importance. Historic England and ULAS undertook collaborative excavations at the site in 2021 and 2022 and are working together to publish the results of those investigations.
. . .
Edited to add:
There are some incredibly well-preserved additional mosaics pictured in this article.
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