I had another post planned for today. That can wait until next week. Instead I’ll just be singing this with my whole chest all weekend. In the first seven days of 2026 the United States of America has bombed Venezuela and kidnapped its leader, threatened to take Greenland by force and shot a woman in broad daylight for all to see. We are the bad guys. And it’s up to us, its everyday citizens, to denounce, protest and fight this administration in any and every way we can. What the federal government is doing is corrupt, unlawful and immoral. And we, the people, cannot let it stand. Fuck ICE. Fuck Trump. Fuck MAGA. Fuck billionaires. But this weekend especially, FUCK ICE. Plus, it’s a true banger. Happy weekend, all.
I was delighted to discover this well-researched (and very entertaining) YouTube video about the Baghdad Battery by Penn Museum archaeologist Dr. Brad Hafford (I have reached out to him with my recent article on Sino-Platonic Papers and welcome his criticism).
Towards the end of his lecture (~25:00), Dr. Hafford discusses a likely ritualistic role played by the Baghdad Battery and similar objects that have been found at the archaeological sites of Tel Umar and Csestiphon. I find his explanation quite plausible given that the devices from Tel Umar were found in close association with other ritual objects, including three incantation bowls (Waterman, Leroy. "Preliminary report upon the excavations at Tel Umar, Iraq." 1931, 61-62). I find Dr. Hafford’s discussion of Sasanian-period incantations written on papyrus and lead sheets particularly interesting, as I believe it was probably the corrosive capabilities of the Baghdad Battery and similar artifacts that were employed by its users for ritual purposes. For example, I speculate that the artifact discovered at Csestiphon, which contained ten bronze tubes, each filled with rolls of papyrus and sealed, was intended to produce a corrosive effect on the outside of the tubes, thereby releasing the prayers inside.
In recreating the Khujut Rabu artifact, my starting assumption was that if this object had once functioned as a battery, then it almost certainly would not have been the first device of its kind to have been made. The language of the artifact’s design, therefore, ought to portray a history of trial and error whereby its makers found the best way––for them––to get the results they wanted. Nothing about it should be superfluous. In connection to this, I further assumed that this battery necessarily would have had enough power to provide some kind of visual feedback––otherwise, makers would never have discovered the device’s electrochemical effects nor how to improve upon them.
I designed my experiment therefore to ask the doubly biased question, “How can I read the Khujut Rabu artifact as having been a good battery for c.100-300 CE?” and focused on those design elements that seemed most counterintuitive. In doing so, I found that those oddities (namely solder on the copper vessel and the unglazed ceramic jar it sits in) are the very things that would have enabled the Baghdad Battery to work so well, comprising an entire second source of voltage for the device. Biases? Confirmed!
But what if we assume that the Khujut Rabu artifact absolutely was not a battery? What might a craftsperson read from its design, even though its function remained obscure to them?
Well, the first thing any metalworker would notice is that either the maker of this artifact was deliberately trying to corrode their handiwork or they had very little experience with metals. Not being a chemist, I suspect the actual mechanism of how the Baghdad Battery’s “outer cell” (solder + caustic potash + ceramic) functions may be more complicated than I have described. Whether or not oxygen from the air forms part of the equation (my theory), the fact remains that this specific arrangement of materials, filled even with water, will lead to extreme corrosion of both the solder and the iron rod.
And so herein lies the reason most crafted items are not easily mistaken for fully-functional batteries: people don’t like their stuff to corrode, and a battery is designed to do just that. Because corrosion provides visual feedback, makers can easily adjust how they do things to prevent it, thereby leading to an extreme dearth of maybe-batteries in the world.
If the Khujut Rabu artifact is indeed an ancient battery, it might be assumed there was once necessarily some other apparatus it was plugged into (e.g. an electroplating setup). While I believe this is quite plausible, I also think it equally likely that the device was merely plugged into itself. In other words, the battery’s purpose may have been solely to corrode the iron rod inside the copper vessel and the solder seams on its outside. Were a written prayer wrapped around the iron rod, then the author would soon receive visual evidence of an energetic influence having passed through their prayer, ultimately busting through the solder seams of the vessel and releasing the “genie” from the bottle.
Given that Mesopotamia already had its own ancient alchemical systems and that the Khujut Rabu artifact is contemporary with the development of the Greek Corpus Hermetica in Egypt, I find little reason for surprise that ritualists from this period would have been incorporating alchemical practices into their work.
Alexander Bazes, “The Baghdad Battery: Experimental Verification of a 2,000-Year-Old Device Capable of Driving Visible and Useful Electrochemical Reactions at over 1.4 Volts", Sino-Platonic Papers, 377 (January, 2026), 1-20.
The Ministry of Health and Population has announced the closure of 32 unlicensed centers for addiction treatment and psychiatry in several governorates, according to a statement released on Wednesday, 7 January. The Ministry clarified that these centers, located in the governorates of Alexandria, Sharqia, Beheira, and Dakahlia, were shut down for operating without licenses and violating health and legal regulations. The decision follows a viral video that spread last week, showing a mass escape by residents from an addiction treatment facility in Egypt after allegations of mistreatment and abuse, prompting the Ministry of Health to shut down the center and refer those responsible to the Public Prosecution. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar, the official spokesperson for the Ministry of Health, explained that joint inspection campaigns involving the Free Treatment Department in the health directorates, the National Council for Mental Health, and the General Administration for Drug Control at the Ministry of the Interior led to the closure of these violating facilities. The closures in Alexandria included 8 centers in the areas of Abu Tlat and Al-Ajami, such as the Dar El-Safa Center. In the Sharqia governorate, 11 centers in 10th of…
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(The AI pioneer on stepping down from Meta, the limits of large language models — and the launch of his new start-up)
LeCun’s lightbulb moment came as a student at the École Supérieure d’Ingénieurs en Électrotechnique et Électronique in Paris in the 1980s, when he read a book about a debate on nature versus nurture between the linguist Noam Chomsky and Jean Piaget, a psychologist. Chomsky argued that humans have an inbuilt capacity for language, while Piaget said there is some structure but most of it is learnt.
“I’m not gonna make friends saying this . . . ” he tells me, “but I was reading this and I thought everything that Chomsky . . . was saying could not possibly be true, [because] we learn everything. Intelligence really is about learning.”
AI research — or neural networks, as the technology was then called, which loosely mimic how the brain functions — was practically a dead field and considered taboo by the scientific community, after early iterations of the technology failed to impress. But LeCun sought out other researchers studying neural networks and found intellectual “soulmates” in the likes of Geoffrey Hinton, then a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon.
[You can't read the whole article at that link without a subscription, which I recommend despite its price. But as Kai von Fintel tells us in the comments, there's an open-access reprint at Ars Technica.]
For a sketch of Yann LeCun's opinions about current directions in AI research, see "AMI not AGI?", 8/2/2025.
And 1980's Yann seems to have fallen into the common error of seeing Noam as a proponent of epistemological nativism rather than rationalism, though Noam has often been misleading on this issue, including apparently in the debate with Piaget. See e.g.
Welcome to 2026, here are some hot women in hot menswear because we still deserve nice things. Honestly, they should just let us have it. It looks better on us anyway. Menswear only for women in 2026. As for the men themselves, well, let’s hope a lot more of them put in the work this year. Otherwise we’ll just have to take away the rest of their things, too. Until we can figure out what’s going on. You know, like their roles as Fortune 500 CEOs and congressmen and the President of the United States of America. Just as a start. Dream big, it’s a whole new year.
I just got back from the first curling game (and post-game beer) of the second half of the season for my Wednesday night Open League, and I have to do some dishes and go to bed very soon, but I must sneak in a little entry for today's snowflake_challenge challenge #4 before I go.
Alas for the curling, my team lost. I made some shots, but overall I didn't play very well. Hopefully soon I'll get all the bad shots out of my body, and in the meantime, I'll dine on the sick shot I made to win our game for my Rookie League team last Sunday. Possibly I'm going to have to go to open practice ice one of these Saturdays, though!
Anyway, snowflake_challenge. Challenge #4 is: Challenge #4: Rec The Contents Of Your Last Page
Any website that you like, be it fanfiction, art, social media, or something a bit more eccentric!
My last page, before I got to the challenge entry on my reading page, was the Greater Victoria Public Library page, where I was checking my position on the hold list for Heated Rivalry. I'm up to #2. Fingers crossed for this weekend! For most of you, my local library will not be your local library, and I'm sure I hardly need to say this for this crowd, but I do recommend your local library!
My other recommendations, perhaps at the "something a bit more eccentric" end of things, are some curling go-tos. For curling scores from all the events (ALL THE EVENTS) and rankings for all the teams with word curling rankings (ALL THE TEAMS), there's Curlingzone. Are their news reports up to date? No! Is their website user-friendly? Also no! But are the scores for, again, ALL THE EVENTS and rankings for again, ALL THE TEAMS there? OH HELL YES!
Also, for pro curling, there's the Grand Slam of Curling website, bringing you media and live and on-demand streaming from the Grand Slam of Curling pro curling tour, and the soon-to-be pro curling Rock League!
The Mastodon comments hint that this is from Youtube user @ohiofinalboss .
Etymology
The origin of the name "Oreo" is obscure, but there are many hypotheses, including derivations from the French word or, meaning "gold" (the original tin was gold-colored); the Greek word όρος (oros), meaning "mountain" (the cookie was originally conceived to be dome-shaped); or the Greek word ωραίο (oreo) meaning "nice" or "attractive". Others believe that the cookie was named Oreo simply because the name was short and easy to pronounce. Another theory, proposed by the food writer Stella Parks, is that the name derives from the Greek Oreodaphne, a genus of the laurel family, originating from the Greek words 'oreo' (ωραίο) meaning 'beautiful' and 'daphne' (δάφνη) referring to the laurel. She observes that the original design of the Oreo includes a laurel wreath, and the names of several of Nabisco's cookies at the time of the original Oreo had botanical derivations, including Avena, Lotus, and Helicon (from Heliconia).
Just for the record, I dislike Oreos, have probably only eaten one or two of them in my life.
These gluten free bran muffins are tender and satisfying, with the rich taste of honey and molasses. Made with a blend of gluten free flour and chewy oat bran.
Why this recipe works
These muffins are hearty and satisfying, with a tender, chewy crumb and the complex, earthy sweetness of molasses and honey.
I grew up in the 80s when bran was a very big deal. So was margarine, though, so you can't win them all. Made with about half all purpose gluten free flour and half bran, these muffins are relatively high in fiber, and keep you nice and full.
Oat bran has more soluble fiber than wheat bran, and wheat bran has more insoluble fiber, so it's better for digestion. The gluten free oat bran I buy says “hot cereal” on the label, but it's just small oat bran flakes.
Recipe ingredients
Here are the ingredients you'll need to make these cookies with a brief explanation of the purpose of each:
Gluten free flour: Is more effective than oat bran at creating structure for the muffins, so a good quality blend is really important here. My favorite blends are Better Batter's classic blend and Nicole's Best multipurpose with added xanthan gum.
Oat bran: The fibrous outer layer of the oat groat, it's rich in soluble fiber. It's very chewy, and absorbs a lot of moisture. I used to make these muffins with rice bran, which is the outer layer of brown rice grains, but it's no longer widely available. I now use Bob's Red Mill's oat bran hot cereal, which is relatively easy to find. Just be sure to choose the bag that clearly says it's “gluten free.”
Xanthan gum: Without a binder like xanthan gum, most gluten free baked goods would be unpleasantly crumbly. To help these muffins rise tall, even if you're using a blend like Better Batter that already contains an appropriate amount of xanthan gum, you'll add 1/2 teaspoon more xanthan gum. If you're using Nicole's Best, which contains no gum, add 1 teaspoon. Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1, which should also work here, contains some gum but not enough, so add 3/4 teaspoon more.
Baking powder and baking soda: Help the muffins rise and brown in the oven. Be sure yours is fresh.
Salt: Brightens the other flavors.
Buttermilk: Brings the batter together with moisture, reacts with the baking soda to create rise, and adds a flavorful tang. Do not use milk (even if it's been soured with lemon juice) in its place, which contains too much moisture. Instead, try 1/2 cup sour cream or plain Greek-style yogurt + 1/2 cup milk. You can also use 1 cup plain kefir.
Molasses: Adds color, moisture, flavor and earthy, caramel-like sweetness.
Honey: Adds moisture, flavor and a gentle floral sweetness.
Vanilla: Adds depth of flavor.
Eggs: Add rise and structure that holds as the muffins cool after baking.
Butter: Adds moisture, buttery flavor, and tenderness to the crumb. When creamed with the sugar, adds air to the batter.
Granulated sugar: Adds sweetness and tenderness by locking moisture in the muffins.
Light brown sugar (not pictured): Sprinkling the raw batter in each well with about 1 teaspoon of light brown sugar adds some extra flavor, sweetness and even texture as some of it becomes crunchy after melting and cooling. It's optional.
How to make gluten free bran muffins (with step by step photos)
The full recipe with ingredient amounts is in the recipe card below. This overview is to help you envision how to make them in your own kitchen:
Whisk dry ingredients In a medium-size mixing bowl, whisk together the gluten free flour blend, xanthan gum, oat bran, baking powder and soda, and salt. Combine the dry ingredients well to avoid any clumps that could alter the final result.
Whisk some wet ingredients Whisk together the buttermilk, honey, molasses, eggs, and vanilla separately. Make sure that everything is at room temperature for a smooth result. Whisking these wet ingredients in a spouted 4 cup measuring cup makes assembling the batter without spills much easier.
Cream the butter and sugar Cream room temperature butter with granulated sugar in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment or a large mixing bowl with a handheld mixer for about 3 minutes on medium-high speed. The mixture should be pale yellow in color, should have increased in volume, and the sugar crystals should have dissolved into the butter. This adds air into the batter for taller muffins with a slightly more open, less dense crumb, which helps counteract the denser tendencies of liquid sweeteners like molasses and honey.
Finish the muffin batter To the butter and sugar mixture, add the combined dry ingredients in 3 batches and the buttermilk mixture in 2 batches, beginning and ending with the batter. This helps evenly distribute all of the ingredients throughout the batter.
Let the batter rest Set the muffin batter aside to rest in the mixing bowl for about 20 minutes. This will allow the oat bran to soften, and the ingredients in the flour blend to swell in size, making a thicker batter that rises higher.
Transfer the batter Line the 12 cups of a standard muffin tin and transfer the batter evenly among the wells. Pile the batter toward the center of each well to help them rise up rather than out.
Top the muffins Sprinkle the tops of the muffin batter in each well with about 1 teaspoon light brown sugar. Try to keep the brown sugar from the muffin tin, since it will melt and may burn there.
Bake Begin baking at a higher initial heat of 400°F for 7 minutes to activate the baking powder quickly for a tall rise that sets the outer crust into a larger dome. Lower the oven temperature to 350°F and bake for another 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. If your muffins still aren't done, reduce the temperature to 325°F to avoid burning the edges and bottom.
Expert tips
Watch for burnt bottoms
Liquid sweeteners like molasses and honey contain more fructose than regular granulated sugars, causing them to brown more quickly in the oven. That can also cause them to burn if they're exposed to too much heat for too long. If you start to smell something burning after the initial high temperature bake, lower the oven temperature from 350°F to 325°F until done.
Test doneness with a toothpick
Most muffins are done baking when they spring back readily when you press a fingertip gently into the center. These muffins are likely to be overbaked by the time they pass that doneness test. Instead, test doneness by inserting a toothpick into the center of one toward the center. If it comes out clean, they're done.
Check your oat bran label carefully
Bob's Red Mill makes two types of oat bran, and only one is labeled gluten free. Be sure to grab the right one off the shelf!
Ingredients and substitutions
Dairy free
In place of the butter, I recommend trying block-style vegan butter. My favorite brands are Miyoko's and Melt.
In place of buttermilk, just use half unsweetened nondairy milk (like coconut milk in the carton) and half nondairy plain yogurt to mimic the consistency and flavor of buttermilk best.
Egg free
I think “flax eggs” would work best here, since they're more robust than chia eggs as an egg replacer, and the texture and taste might even enhance the chew of these muffins.
Oat bran
If you can find it, try using rice bran in this recipe. There isn't another substitute for the bran in this recipe, since the recipe was developed to showcase bran. If you'd like a basic muffin recipe, try our recipe for easy gluten free muffins, a recipe with plenty of variations, and no bran.
Honey
In place of honey, try using Lyle's golden syrup or light corn syrup. Maple syrup is too thin and has too much moisture to be a proper substitute.
Molasses
The molasses in this recipe really helps add depth of flavor to these bran muffins. You could try replacing it with more honey, but the overall flavor of the muffins won't be the same.
These gluten free bran muffins are tender and satisfying, with the rich taste of honey and molasses. Made with a blend of gluten free flour and chewy oat bran.
Grease or line a standard 12-cup muffin tin and set it aside.
In a medium size bowl, whisk the flour, xanthan gum, oat bran, baking soda, baking powder, and salt to combine well. Set the bowl aside.
In a 4-cup measuring cup or medium-size bowl, whisk the buttermilk, honey, molasses, eggs and vanilla until well-combined.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a large mixing bowl with a handheld mixer, beat the butter and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).
Add the dry ingredients in 3 batches and the buttermilk mixture in 2 batches to the mixing bowl, alternating between the them, and beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
The batter will be thick but not stiff. Let it rest at room temperature in the mixing bowl for 20 minutes.
While the batter is resting, preheat your oven to 400°F.
Fill the prepared muffin cups all the way full with the batter after resting. Try to pile the batter toward the center of each well.
Sprinkle the top of the batter in each muffin lightly with the (optional) brown sugar.
Place the pan in the center of the preheated oven and bake for 7 minutes.
Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F and continue to bake for another 12 minutes, or until a tester placed in the center of a middle muffin comes out mostly clean. The center may still feel a bit too soft when pressed, so the toothpick test is more reliable here. Do not overbake or the edges and bottoms will burn.
Remove the muffins from the tin as soon as you’re able to handle them without burning your fingers. If you leave the muffins in the tin for too long, the muffins may shrink and separate from the liners.
Transfer the muffins to a wire rack to cool to room temperature before serving.
Notes
For the flour blendMy favorite gluten free flour blends are Better Batter's original blend gluten free flour and Nicole's Best multipurpose blend. Bob's Red Mill 1-to-1 Gluten Free Baking Flour should also work, but you'll need to add an additional 3/4 teaspoons xanthan gum to the muffin dry ingredients (instead of the additional 1/2 teaspoon you'll add to Better Batter) or the muffins may be crumbly. To make your own blend using one of my “mock” recipes, please see the all purpose gluten free flour blends page.For the oat branI use Bob’s Red Mill gluten free oat bran cereal for this recipe, since it’s what is most widely available. I used to use rice bran, but I can no longer find it anywhere.
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