Watched Argo (2012) recently and noticed that that year, the six Oscars for Best Picture, Best Directing, and the four acting awards were all won by different films. (Got ChatGPT to make oscars-distinct.shreevatsa.net. Before AI wouldn't have bothered, so whether this is good or bad…)

Curious, question: 1. Have you seen lanterns (not lamps) being used for Diwali/Deepavali? 2. If yes, how come the cuboctahedron seems to be the dominant choice of shape, per image search results? (Question and screenshot via Robin Houston at mathstodon.xyz/@robinhouston/…)

A beautiful article, on the Atlas of Finite Groups: joincolossus.com/article/taste-…

This interview of the (now) mathematician Tadashi Tokieda is pure awesomeness.

A video on the ICAO spelling alphabet, that goes into some of the motivation behind it: youtube.com/watch?v=UAT-eO… I've always found this awkward and wanted an alternative with more common words, and knowing why it's like this (international etc) makes me more motivated to try. :-)

“The hotel's so-called continental breakfast gave us diarrhea!” “Ah, the incontinental breakfast”

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

oracc.museum.upenn.edu/saao/knpp/P334… Simo Parpola, Letters from Assyrian and Babylonian scholars, SAA10 = State Archives of Assyria 10 (scholarly letters) (TOC here: ancientworldonline.blogspot.com/2011/02/knowle…)