Mary Branscombe
@marypcbuk.bsky.social
Omnivorous technology journalist. girl with the USB earring; author of the Cassidy At Large technomysteries. Like my writing? Buy me a ☕ https://ko-fi.com/marybranscombe. she/her. Warning: contains opinions. signal marypcbuk.44
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
/3 It’s increasingly difficult to blame anyone for not trusting institutions and institutionalism, or for expecting the worst result.
November 10, 2025 at 4:51 PM
/3 It’s increasingly difficult to blame anyone for not trusting institutions and institutionalism, or for expecting the worst result.
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
My absolute favorite is the insistence by some male department heads that anonymous student ratings of female professors are valid indicators of our teaching skills. Love it when my boss presents glaring sexism from teenagers as legit professional critique.
November 10, 2025 at 3:52 PM
My absolute favorite is the insistence by some male department heads that anonymous student ratings of female professors are valid indicators of our teaching skills. Love it when my boss presents glaring sexism from teenagers as legit professional critique.
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
*Women receive substantially lower "potential" ratings despite receiving higher performance ratings
*Differences in potential ratings account for half of the gender promotion gap
*Women’s lower potential ratings do not reflect future performance: women subsequently outperform male colleagues
*Differences in potential ratings account for half of the gender promotion gap
*Women’s lower potential ratings do not reflect future performance: women subsequently outperform male colleagues
Forthcoming in the AER: "“Potential” and the Gender Promotion Gap" by Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue. www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=...
“Potential” and the Gender Promotion Gap
(Forthcoming Article) - We show that subjective assessments of employee “potential” contribute to gender gaps
in promotion and pay. Using data on 29,809 management-track employees from a
large retail ...
www.aeaweb.org
November 10, 2025 at 2:54 PM
*Women receive substantially lower "potential" ratings despite receiving higher performance ratings
*Differences in potential ratings account for half of the gender promotion gap
*Women’s lower potential ratings do not reflect future performance: women subsequently outperform male colleagues
*Differences in potential ratings account for half of the gender promotion gap
*Women’s lower potential ratings do not reflect future performance: women subsequently outperform male colleagues
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
"Introducing the Kubeflow SDK: A Pythonic API to Run AI Workloads at Scale" blog.kubeflow.org/sdk/intro/
Introducing the Kubeflow SDK: A Pythonic API to Run AI Workloads at Scale
⚡ We want your feedback! Help shape the future of Kubeflow SDK by taking our quick survey.
blog.kubeflow.org
November 10, 2025 at 5:04 PM
"Introducing the Kubeflow SDK: A Pythonic API to Run AI Workloads at Scale" blog.kubeflow.org/sdk/intro/
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
NSO Group makes the notorious Pegasus spyware.
Bad news for human rights and national security, no matter how you spin it
NSO Group has a new executive chairman, David Friedman, who's a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and onetime bankruptcy lawyer for President Trump.
www.wsj.com/tech/israeli... via @WSJ
NSO Group has a new executive chairman, David Friedman, who's a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and onetime bankruptcy lawyer for President Trump.
www.wsj.com/tech/israeli... via @WSJ
Israeli Spyware Maker NSO Gets New Owners, Leadership and Seeks to Mend Reputation
Investors led by Hollywood producer Robert Simonds have taken a controlling stake in the company behind Pegasus, and former Trump official David Friedman has been named executive chairman.
www.wsj.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:08 PM
NSO Group makes the notorious Pegasus spyware.
is there a good technique for eating pumpkin seeds? usually we get butternut squash and you can eat the whole seed but this was a big round crown squash with nice crunchy seeds that taste really nice but seem spot welded inside their shells even after roasting (tried 'crack with teeth and suck out')
November 10, 2025 at 7:03 PM
is there a good technique for eating pumpkin seeds? usually we get butternut squash and you can eat the whole seed but this was a big round crown squash with nice crunchy seeds that taste really nice but seem spot welded inside their shells even after roasting (tried 'crack with teeth and suck out')
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
Nazis need to be punched.
New:
On The Gateway Pundit's podcast yesterday, Stewart Rhodes announced he's relaunching the Oath Keepers
He also urged Trump to “call us up as a militia" & "order us all to come together in our counties under his command."
www.mediamatters.org/oath-keepers...
On The Gateway Pundit's podcast yesterday, Stewart Rhodes announced he's relaunching the Oath Keepers
He also urged Trump to “call us up as a militia" & "order us all to come together in our counties under his command."
www.mediamatters.org/oath-keepers...
![STEWART RHODES (FOUNDER, OATH KEEPERS): And one other thing I want to say is that President Trump, as commander in chief, always has absolute authority to call all of us up as the militia because every one of us — in federal statues defining the militia, it's every able-bodied male from age 17-45. And for us veterans, it goes up to age 64 because of our prior training and experience.
Right now, under federal statutes, President Trump can call us up as the militia if he sees it necessary, especially for three purposes: to repel invasions, to suppress insurrections, and to execute the laws of the union. And right now, we see all three of those in play.
...
And the militia is all of us. So the National Guard is part of the militia, which is why it's completely lawful for him to use the National Guard as he has, and he should do more of that, I think, across the country.
...
He could just say given the circumstances of an invasion, insurrection, and resistance against federal law being being enforced, I'm calling up the militia, ordering all the men to come together [in] every county, put the veterans in charge of training and organizing all the other men and just have them stand too and await his orders. He can do that and I think he should do that. And so that's what I'll be advocating for from him. So from the bottom, from down the rank and file, we can let President Trump know that we're ready to serve, encourage him to do that, call us up as a militia, order us all to come together in our counties under his command, which gives you complete legal sanction to do what you're doing.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:af7tqcetuyt352aolf3znlxe/bafkreialm4skuozqobejpd6vx4m6kuwsgtidxmmxvj3ftcff6otiuyohiy@jpeg)
November 10, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Nazis need to be punched.
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
If there’s one thing that’s likely to massively boost the popularity of the BBC in the UK, it’s being attacked by Donald Trump.
November 10, 2025 at 5:15 PM
If there’s one thing that’s likely to massively boost the popularity of the BBC in the UK, it’s being attacked by Donald Trump.
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
Caption competition ?
November 10, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Caption competition ?
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
Today's a great day to support some creators.
Writers and artists and creatives of all sorts: reply with a link to one of your works. And feel free to tell us about it.
Everyone: let's check through the replies and buy some creations and support some human beings.
Writers and artists and creatives of all sorts: reply with a link to one of your works. And feel free to tell us about it.
Everyone: let's check through the replies and buy some creations and support some human beings.
November 10, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Today's a great day to support some creators.
Writers and artists and creatives of all sorts: reply with a link to one of your works. And feel free to tell us about it.
Everyone: let's check through the replies and buy some creations and support some human beings.
Writers and artists and creatives of all sorts: reply with a link to one of your works. And feel free to tell us about it.
Everyone: let's check through the replies and buy some creations and support some human beings.
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
Evernote seems to have taken this rate increase from T-Mobile's playbook: replace a plan that met most individual-user needs with one that offers far more features/capacity than most people need and which costs a lot more.
Discontinuing Evernote Personal & Professional / Introducing Starter & Advanced — FAQ
To better serve our customers and support Evernote’s ongoing evolution, we’ve introduced two new individual plans—Starter and Advanced—to replace the current Personal and Professional subscriptions...
help.evernote.com
November 10, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Evernote seems to have taken this rate increase from T-Mobile's playbook: replace a plan that met most individual-user needs with one that offers far more features/capacity than most people need and which costs a lot more.
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
We are still finding new gross anatomy in humans - like, oh hey, this large nerve has never been described before umm... 2019.
Previous rounds have included "we don't need animal testing" and variations on "what do you mean we can't just reboot those people?".
Previous rounds have included "we don't need animal testing" and variations on "what do you mean we can't just reboot those people?".
November 10, 2025 at 5:20 PM
We are still finding new gross anatomy in humans - like, oh hey, this large nerve has never been described before umm... 2019.
Previous rounds have included "we don't need animal testing" and variations on "what do you mean we can't just reboot those people?".
Previous rounds have included "we don't need animal testing" and variations on "what do you mean we can't just reboot those people?".
go right ahead and buy permission to increase tax, it's time (and then put someone on Amazon VAT scams and the like)
NEW: Rachel Reeves signals she intends to remove the two-child cap *in full*
"I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own," she tells BBC.
"I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own," she tells BBC.
November 10, 2025 at 6:45 PM
go right ahead and buy permission to increase tax, it's time (and then put someone on Amazon VAT scams and the like)
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
Things you DON'T want to be web searching at 11:30pm on a Sunday night:
How to get pen ink stains off inside of dryer... 🫣😣
A $0.10 pen caused 1+ hours of cleanup on the dryer and clothes that it exploded on. Turns out nail polish remover (acetone) and rubbing alcohol worked best. 😐
How to get pen ink stains off inside of dryer... 🫣😣
A $0.10 pen caused 1+ hours of cleanup on the dryer and clothes that it exploded on. Turns out nail polish remover (acetone) and rubbing alcohol worked best. 😐
November 10, 2025 at 3:16 PM
Things you DON'T want to be web searching at 11:30pm on a Sunday night:
How to get pen ink stains off inside of dryer... 🫣😣
A $0.10 pen caused 1+ hours of cleanup on the dryer and clothes that it exploded on. Turns out nail polish remover (acetone) and rubbing alcohol worked best. 😐
How to get pen ink stains off inside of dryer... 🫣😣
A $0.10 pen caused 1+ hours of cleanup on the dryer and clothes that it exploded on. Turns out nail polish remover (acetone) and rubbing alcohol worked best. 😐
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
what is a blog if not a series of intrusive thoughts
November 10, 2025 at 5:21 PM
what is a blog if not a series of intrusive thoughts
I celebrated by taking my circulatory system to the kitchen twice today already
November 10, 2025 at 6:41 PM
I celebrated by taking my circulatory system to the kitchen twice today already
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
First: I am really proud of this blog post title. It’s for the girlies (IYKYK).
Second: .NET 10 drops tomorrow, so I did a whirlwind tour of the big and small features I worked on this cycle.
Third: go read it!
#dotnet #aspnetcore
📰 :https://blog.safia.rocks/2025/11/10/aspnetcore-ten/
Second: .NET 10 drops tomorrow, so I did a whirlwind tour of the big and small features I worked on this cycle.
Third: go read it!
#dotnet #aspnetcore
📰 :https://blog.safia.rocks/2025/11/10/aspnetcore-ten/
And just like that .NET 10 ships tomorrow
A look at key ASP.NET Core features shipping in .NET 10, including: model validation for Minimal APIs, OpenAPI 3.1 support with unified JSON Schema, improved integration testing with top-level…
blog.safia.rocks
November 10, 2025 at 5:15 PM
First: I am really proud of this blog post title. It’s for the girlies (IYKYK).
Second: .NET 10 drops tomorrow, so I did a whirlwind tour of the big and small features I worked on this cycle.
Third: go read it!
#dotnet #aspnetcore
📰 :https://blog.safia.rocks/2025/11/10/aspnetcore-ten/
Second: .NET 10 drops tomorrow, so I did a whirlwind tour of the big and small features I worked on this cycle.
Third: go read it!
#dotnet #aspnetcore
📰 :https://blog.safia.rocks/2025/11/10/aspnetcore-ten/
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
New YouGov poll: Is BBC News politically biased? 50% of Britons say yes.
Biased in favour of left-wing views: 31%
Biased in favour of right-wing views: 19%
Not biased: 19%
Belief in bias by party
Reform: 73% biased to left / 4% biased to right
Con: 52% / 5%
Lib Dem: 19% / 22%
Labour: 16% / 31%
Biased in favour of left-wing views: 31%
Biased in favour of right-wing views: 19%
Not biased: 19%
Belief in bias by party
Reform: 73% biased to left / 4% biased to right
Con: 52% / 5%
Lib Dem: 19% / 22%
Labour: 16% / 31%
November 10, 2025 at 5:26 PM
New YouGov poll: Is BBC News politically biased? 50% of Britons say yes.
Biased in favour of left-wing views: 31%
Biased in favour of right-wing views: 19%
Not biased: 19%
Belief in bias by party
Reform: 73% biased to left / 4% biased to right
Con: 52% / 5%
Lib Dem: 19% / 22%
Labour: 16% / 31%
Biased in favour of left-wing views: 31%
Biased in favour of right-wing views: 19%
Not biased: 19%
Belief in bias by party
Reform: 73% biased to left / 4% biased to right
Con: 52% / 5%
Lib Dem: 19% / 22%
Labour: 16% / 31%
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
I legit just finished making a comic about brains that goes into a lot about visualization, too, here's one of the pages
November 10, 2025 at 6:23 AM
I legit just finished making a comic about brains that goes into a lot about visualization, too, here's one of the pages
you know, that's one sculptor who is really famously defensive of their image and has resorted to lawsuits a couple of times because of it...
To Hell with these swine. They are irredeemable. blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/10/b...
Border Patrol Agents Pose At The Bean For Apparent Photo Op
The photo op came after agents tear-gassed a Little Village street and were spotted in the area numerous times. At the Bean, one agent shouted, "Everyone say, 'Little Village!'"
blockclubchicago.org
November 10, 2025 at 6:20 PM
you know, that's one sculptor who is really famously defensive of their image and has resorted to lawsuits a couple of times because of it...
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
this one was a low (but given this SC, never zero) probability shot. My gut is that they are waiting for a more solid case to do it in. Kim Davis is too much a nutter even for the Sinister Supreme Six
November 10, 2025 at 5:35 PM
this one was a low (but given this SC, never zero) probability shot. My gut is that they are waiting for a more solid case to do it in. Kim Davis is too much a nutter even for the Sinister Supreme Six
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
Every time @reckless.bsky.social brings up the "Door Dash Problem" and CEOs say "we won't get commodified by AI chatbots because we solved the hard problems and they'll depend on us," all I hear is "shut up, this is going to solidify our monopoly."
November 10, 2025 at 5:38 PM
Every time @reckless.bsky.social brings up the "Door Dash Problem" and CEOs say "we won't get commodified by AI chatbots because we solved the hard problems and they'll depend on us," all I hear is "shut up, this is going to solidify our monopoly."
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
"Italy’s biggest pasta exporters say import and antidumping duties totaling 107% on their pasta brands will make doing business in America too costly and are preparing to pull out of U.S. stores as soon as January."
November 10, 2025 at 5:40 PM
"Italy’s biggest pasta exporters say import and antidumping duties totaling 107% on their pasta brands will make doing business in America too costly and are preparing to pull out of U.S. stores as soon as January."
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
TIL the tale of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of corporate malfeasance and worker endangerment.
SS Edmund Fitzgerald had a structural defect in its keel. Sailors on that ship had complained about the ship bending and flexing during storms, especially when it was overloaded, which it usually was. They had also found old keel weld breaks due to structural fatigue, which were never repaired
November 10, 2025 at 5:32 PM
TIL the tale of the Edmund Fitzgerald is one of corporate malfeasance and worker endangerment.
Reposted by Mary Branscombe
If 10% of my business was based on defrauding and scamming people, and was called a "pillar of the global fraud economy", I would have some serious moral qualms about my business. Not our friends at Meta though.
www.reuters.com/investigatio...
www.reuters.com/investigatio...
Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show
Meta projected 10% of its 2024 revenue would come from ads for scams and banned goods, and it internally estimates that its platforms show users 15 billion scam ads a day, company documents show.
www.reuters.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:43 PM
If 10% of my business was based on defrauding and scamming people, and was called a "pillar of the global fraud economy", I would have some serious moral qualms about my business. Not our friends at Meta though.
www.reuters.com/investigatio...
www.reuters.com/investigatio...