Arete Roper
@areteroper.bsky.social
Dutch, love ( my 5) cats, English, books, science and crochet.
Pinned
Arete Roper
@areteroper.bsky.social
· Nov 21
"Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run certainly has the laugh on her side"
Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Reposted by Arete Roper
If the "I don't like politics" people in your life aren't horrified by surveillance pricing, they are part of the problem.
This is reason number eleventy-million why tech and business need to be regulated by public-minded, independent bodies with big teeth (when pigs fly, I know).
This is reason number eleventy-million why tech and business need to be regulated by public-minded, independent bodies with big teeth (when pigs fly, I know).
(1/11) If you live in NY, you’ve probably started seeing a new warning: “THIS PRICE WAS SET BY AN ALGORITHM USING YOUR PERSONAL DATA.” This mandatory disclosure went into effect late last year, and it’s the first attempt by a US state to grapple with a new generation of surveillance pricing.
February 15, 2026 at 7:55 PM
If the "I don't like politics" people in your life aren't horrified by surveillance pricing, they are part of the problem.
This is reason number eleventy-million why tech and business need to be regulated by public-minded, independent bodies with big teeth (when pigs fly, I know).
This is reason number eleventy-million why tech and business need to be regulated by public-minded, independent bodies with big teeth (when pigs fly, I know).
Come and see a true ally
I am performing in LEICESTER on Tuesday - tickets here
events.comedy-festival.co.uk/events/robin... #comedy #poetry
events.comedy-festival.co.uk/events/robin... #comedy #poetry
Robin Ince: Let the Quiet Ones Rise | Leicester Comedy Festival
events.comedy-festival.co.uk
February 15, 2026 at 9:42 PM
Come and see a true ally
Reposted by Arete Roper
AMSTERDAM! & the Randstad, & the whole Netherlands, & the entire Benelux area! Join ALL 3 EDITORS of the speculative activism anthology WE WILL RISE AGAIN (@drkarenlord.bsky.social @annaleen.bsky.social & me) at the ABC on April 10 for discussion, Q&A, and signing!
abc.nl/events/event...
abc.nl/events/event...
An afternoon with Malka Older, Karen Lord, and Annalee Newitz: We Will Rise Again
Please join us in ABC Amsterdam for an afternoon with 3 of science fiction's most insightful voices: Malka Older, Karen Lord, and Annalee Newitz. They will present We Will Rise Again : Speculative Sto...
abc.nl
February 15, 2026 at 11:02 AM
AMSTERDAM! & the Randstad, & the whole Netherlands, & the entire Benelux area! Join ALL 3 EDITORS of the speculative activism anthology WE WILL RISE AGAIN (@drkarenlord.bsky.social @annaleen.bsky.social & me) at the ABC on April 10 for discussion, Q&A, and signing!
abc.nl/events/event...
abc.nl/events/event...
Reposted by Arete Roper
Also, by reducing professorship to just the teaching, that makes it much easier to replace with contingent labor. After which it's that much easier to tell them what to teach.
What I need people to understand is when legislators argue that professors should teach more and research less, it's not because they think our research is actually worthless. It's because they don't want anyone to be able to develop or disseminate expertise that goes against their party line.
February 15, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Also, by reducing professorship to just the teaching, that makes it much easier to replace with contingent labor. After which it's that much easier to tell them what to teach.
Reposted by Arete Roper
Cancer Alley - courtesy of industrial pollution. "Seven times as many people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer than the national average in these disproportionately Black communities."
A judge ruled that groups representing residents of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley can proceed with their landmark lawsuit seeking a pause on toxic industrial plants in two majority‑Black districts
Black Residents Win Key Ruling in ‘Cancer Alley’ Environmental Racism Case
The lawsuit could force a jury to decide if turning Black communities into sacrifice zones is a legacy of slavery.
capitalbnews.org
February 15, 2026 at 7:33 PM
Cancer Alley - courtesy of industrial pollution. "Seven times as many people are expected to be diagnosed with cancer than the national average in these disproportionately Black communities."
Reposted by Arete Roper
Inb4 de NOS breed uit gaat pakken met de volgende Albanese hitpiece
Reuters, France 24, the UN Human Rights Office, & UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese herself have all confirmed the vid is doctored & that she never made the remark it falsely attributes to her.
The clip was amplified by UN Watch and its executive director Hillel Neuer, who has repeatedly...
The clip was amplified by UN Watch and its executive director Hillel Neuer, who has repeatedly...
February 15, 2026 at 7:28 PM
Inb4 de NOS breed uit gaat pakken met de volgende Albanese hitpiece
Reposted by Arete Roper
'Dutch Girl.' (1899) Marianne Stokes' place amongst important women artists is not confined to those who were followers of Pre-Raphaelitism, she was a pre-eminent painter in tempera and did much to revive its popularity in the late 19thC and the early years of the 20thC.
February 15, 2026 at 7:30 PM
'Dutch Girl.' (1899) Marianne Stokes' place amongst important women artists is not confined to those who were followers of Pre-Raphaelitism, she was a pre-eminent painter in tempera and did much to revive its popularity in the late 19thC and the early years of the 20thC.
Reposted by Arete Roper
Reposted by Arete Roper
Misschien nemen die “not all men” roepers het wel aan van een man? 🧐
Spot on uitleg.
Zit naar even met het discomfort dat vrouwen het meer dan zat zijn. En doe je eigen huiswerk.
Spot on uitleg.
Zit naar even met het discomfort dat vrouwen het meer dan zat zijn. En doe je eigen huiswerk.
February 15, 2026 at 5:42 PM
Misschien nemen die “not all men” roepers het wel aan van een man? 🧐
Spot on uitleg.
Zit naar even met het discomfort dat vrouwen het meer dan zat zijn. En doe je eigen huiswerk.
Spot on uitleg.
Zit naar even met het discomfort dat vrouwen het meer dan zat zijn. En doe je eigen huiswerk.
Reposted by Arete Roper
I currently have a newsletter in which I write regularly about how societies devolve into authoritarianism & what that means right now in the US & around the world. It also features essays about my unsettled childhood in West Virginia. Soon, it will also include art, surprises, & links to resources.
Degenerate Art
Andrea Pitzer on politics and history, the Arctic, and Appalachian exile.
degenerateart.beehiiv.com
November 10, 2024 at 5:22 PM
I currently have a newsletter in which I write regularly about how societies devolve into authoritarianism & what that means right now in the US & around the world. It also features essays about my unsettled childhood in West Virginia. Soon, it will also include art, surprises, & links to resources.
Reposted by Arete Roper
Suffragette leader Christabel Pankhurst. c.1910, photo by Scottish photographer Christina Broom (1862-1939), UK's first female press photographer, who documented the women's suffrage movement.
February 15, 2026 at 6:28 PM
Suffragette leader Christabel Pankhurst. c.1910, photo by Scottish photographer Christina Broom (1862-1939), UK's first female press photographer, who documented the women's suffrage movement.
Reposted by Arete Roper
It wasn’t imagination, it wasn’t over selling there were absolutely white supremacists, in intellectual positions targeting scholars of color and let it happen , but only now think it’s disgusting
NOT BECAUSE OF THE EFFECTS it had on people of color
But because it was a “plot”
NOT BECAUSE OF THE EFFECTS it had on people of color
But because it was a “plot”
February 15, 2026 at 6:46 PM
It wasn’t imagination, it wasn’t over selling there were absolutely white supremacists, in intellectual positions targeting scholars of color and let it happen , but only now think it’s disgusting
NOT BECAUSE OF THE EFFECTS it had on people of color
But because it was a “plot”
NOT BECAUSE OF THE EFFECTS it had on people of color
But because it was a “plot”
Reposted by Arete Roper
Coooool. SWIR = short wave infrared (colored red-orange here), with wavelengths of a micron or longer where hot lava glows brightly.
Lava streaming from the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka, Russia, in the early hours of 15 Feb 2026, in a Sentinel 2C satellite image.
Combination of visual channels + SWIR.
Combination of visual channels + SWIR.
February 15, 2026 at 6:46 PM
Coooool. SWIR = short wave infrared (colored red-orange here), with wavelengths of a micron or longer where hot lava glows brightly.
Reposted by Arete Roper
We need technology that actually connects us, rather than disconnects or divides us.
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I worry we are just going to make this trend even more extreme with AI "friends".
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I worry we are just going to make this trend even more extreme with AI "friends".
February 15, 2026 at 6:41 PM
We need technology that actually connects us, rather than disconnects or divides us.
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I worry we are just going to make this trend even more extreme with AI "friends".
This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately. I worry we are just going to make this trend even more extreme with AI "friends".
Reposted by Arete Roper
Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.
February 15, 2026 at 5:30 PM
Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.
Reposted by Arete Roper
Hoppa
“But always a man.”
“But always a man.”
February 15, 2026 at 3:18 PM
Hoppa
“But always a man.”
“But always a man.”
Reposted by Arete Roper
NEW: Read this terrific piece @virginiaheffernan.bsky.social for @thenerve.news in which she unpicks Edge.org, the hugely influential 'salon' funded by Epstein & threaded through with race science & eugenics.
1/
www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...
1/
www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...
The billionaires' eugenics project: how Epstein infiltrated Harvard, muzzled the humanities and preached master-race science
Edge - Jeffrey Epstein's favourite intellectual salon - was sold to me as a gathering of the world's finest minds, writes Virginia Heffernan. The files reveal it was something far darker: a decades-lo...
www.thenerve.news
February 15, 2026 at 11:18 AM
NEW: Read this terrific piece @virginiaheffernan.bsky.social for @thenerve.news in which she unpicks Edge.org, the hugely influential 'salon' funded by Epstein & threaded through with race science & eugenics.
1/
www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...
1/
www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...
Reposted by Arete Roper
Reposted by Arete Roper
Reposted by Arete Roper
Editor pounding the desk: Bleaker. Bleaker!
February 15, 2026 at 1:58 PM
Editor pounding the desk: Bleaker. Bleaker!
Reposted by Arete Roper
De komende dagen zal ik het gaan hebben over: 17de-eeuwse scheepsbouw, de Hanze, de Trekvaart, het Ontstaan van Holland, Claes Sluter en Floris van Egmond. Dit zijn mijn voornaamste historische ‘hobby’s’. Vanaf morgen meer!
February 15, 2026 at 1:52 PM
De komende dagen zal ik het gaan hebben over: 17de-eeuwse scheepsbouw, de Hanze, de Trekvaart, het Ontstaan van Holland, Claes Sluter en Floris van Egmond. Dit zijn mijn voornaamste historische ‘hobby’s’. Vanaf morgen meer!
Reposted by Arete Roper
The Vandenberg launch of February 14th, 2026 was optimally timed for illumination of the initial as well as the lingering plume. Tonight this plume underwent intriguing looping and stretching as Earths shadow passed across it with reds, golds and blues dominating the last lighting here and there.
February 15, 2026 at 6:02 AM
The Vandenberg launch of February 14th, 2026 was optimally timed for illumination of the initial as well as the lingering plume. Tonight this plume underwent intriguing looping and stretching as Earths shadow passed across it with reds, golds and blues dominating the last lighting here and there.
Reposted by Arete Roper
Franzi Schimmer captured this Grizzly bear in Brooks Falls, Alaska just floating along, tippy-tapping down the river, browsing the salmon.
Prior to hibernation, up to 40% of a bear's body mass is fat, which is less dense than water (~0.9 g/cm^2), so the murder-monster is also a floaty-boaty.
Prior to hibernation, up to 40% of a bear's body mass is fat, which is less dense than water (~0.9 g/cm^2), so the murder-monster is also a floaty-boaty.
February 14, 2026 at 9:47 PM
Franzi Schimmer captured this Grizzly bear in Brooks Falls, Alaska just floating along, tippy-tapping down the river, browsing the salmon.
Prior to hibernation, up to 40% of a bear's body mass is fat, which is less dense than water (~0.9 g/cm^2), so the murder-monster is also a floaty-boaty.
Prior to hibernation, up to 40% of a bear's body mass is fat, which is less dense than water (~0.9 g/cm^2), so the murder-monster is also a floaty-boaty.
Reposted by Arete Roper
I've said it before but, in the absence of proper regulation and the licensing of metal detecting, then we must rely on the good old fashioned fairy curses attached to each and every hoard. Let the folk beyond the veil sort it out. 🏺🪙🧚🏼♂️☠️
February 15, 2026 at 10:45 AM
I've said it before but, in the absence of proper regulation and the licensing of metal detecting, then we must rely on the good old fashioned fairy curses attached to each and every hoard. Let the folk beyond the veil sort it out. 🏺🪙🧚🏼♂️☠️