I'm not going to stop using em dashes. I'm not going to stop using tricolon. I will use any device I deem necessary in my writing. I refuse to be limited because some mediocre motherfuckers choose the plagiarism machine, or the plagiarism machine, which is mediocre ab initio, has some tics.

A blistering and vital conversation between journalists @hettieobrien.bsky.social and Vicky Spratt on the impact of private equity on our economy. I suspect Hettie’s new book The Asset Class will be just as illuminating at @doctorow.pluralistic.net’s Enshittification in explaining the world today.

This Saturday 6th June, join me for ramble through 2000 years of culture in Spitalfields followed by tea and cakes freshly baked to recipe of 1720 served in a 300 year old house overlooking Christ Church. shorturl.at/N8E1T

“[T]he problem isn’t that the midlist has been shrinking, it’s that the midlist has been growing, and growing much faster than the pool of regular readers. The pie isn’t smaller, the slices are.”

What an astonishingly sad sequence of events which led to this. Excellent reporting by @londonermag.bsky.social

I can’t wait to see this. Bravo to A24 for their creative choices and a tight budget.

Something we’re doing with the new press.

"I can't properly describe to anyone under the age of 30 just how cool the Internet was before Amazon. Gooale, Meta, and Apple turned it all into a walled carden of garbage and commerce."

1/ I have no legal training but this is a fascinating case: a routine application by a reputable firm quotes a statute which does not exist and the judge’s suspicion is raised. Cue an absolute trainwreck when it transpires the junior lawyer didn’t bother checking the LLM hallucinations (cont)

I’ve managed to *not* use AI in any shape or form. I hate this ‘AI is inevitable’ narrative being forced down our throats, just as LLMs are shoved down our throats. Not using AI is now an act of rebellion. And I refuse to use this cognitive rot machine.

Adrian is a creative force of nature and I can’t wait to read the follow up to Mushroom Blues. Pre orders now available👇

Did you discover, as part of the Anthropic settlement, that your publisher failed to register your copyright? The @authorsguild.org is collecting information authorsguild.org/anthropic-cl... (This is a correction of something I posted yesterday w/ a significant error. Apologies for the mistake)

Bill’s assessment doesn’t sound like a dystopian science fiction — anyone who continues to deny that climate change is happening at a frightening speed is willfully denying their own lived experience👇

@narrativedamagerpg.bsky.social is a terrific podcast and YouTube channel — I’m looking forward to seeing this live play at @cymerafestival.co.uk this year!

1/ A brilliant thread in its entirety (including @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social’s original post), and I entirely agree with @huwroscience.bsky.social — creativity is a *skill*; not a talent. I have two degrees in architecture and the best piloting I got out of it was not designing buildings (cont)

Reading a book that argues we all have a moral duty to use AI in order to 'humanise' it, which feels a bit like saying we all have a duty to offer our blood to vampires to endow them with as much life force as possible

Without a doubt a bunch of my favorite ever movies all in one summer. Incredible.

Congratulations to @mahmudelsayed.bsky.social on the publishing of his novel The Republic of Memory!👇

Auster is a treasure👇

Absolutely *gutted* to read this. His latest English translated book EDGE was very good, and of course, the RING series has been a seminal influence on me.

A *fantastic* book by @laurasrobinson.bsky.social — highly recommended👇

I absolutely refuse to do shit like this. If you capitulate to a plagiarising robot to communicate then you need to reevaluate your priorities. The only appropriate response to accusations of using LLMs for written communications is, ‘fuck off’. That sounds human, doesn’t it?

Deepfakes are everywhere, but digital forensics investigators are fighting back. Learn more: https://scim.ag/42dMPBg

Incredible.

Camilla: You, sir, should unmask. Stranger: Indeed? Cassilda: Indeed it’s time. We all have laid aside disguise but you. Stranger: I wear no mask. Camilla: (Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No mask? No mask! -- The King in Yellow, Act I, Scene 2

An *astonishing* story start to finish as reported by @theatlantic.com — even as a novelist I couldn’t come up with something as insane as this. Worth the (very) long read👇

This 👇

An amazing educational initiative 👇

1/ Horrifying and unconscionable. This is the same company that has collectively stolen the sum total of humanity’s culture, in order to sell you technology which leads to tragedies like this. There is no oversight, no regulation, and no accountability for them unlike the rest of us (cont.)

This is coming from a place of warmth and acceptance… -It’s ‘sleight of hand’ -It’s ‘bated breath’ -It’s ‘lo and behold’ -It’s ‘one fell swoop’ -It’s ‘brass tacks’ -It’s ‘free rein’

“Dave, who needs a walking stick due to fibromyalgia…. recorded by members of the public when he parks in a disabled bay. “…[a]n elderly man started filming me… ‘You’re clearly not disabled, I’m putting you on social media.’” We should be ashamed as a nation to allow this to happen to the disabled.

I don’t usually do these kind of posts and I also don’t want to admit how many times I’ve watched this film:

An absolutely brilliant piece up on @unseenhistories.com by @richardstrachan.bsky.social for his new novel Night Fire👇

In a world where "AI" submissions are a plague, human-written stories are the cure for an editor's breaking heart. Don't let the flood discourage you from sending your work out there. You are better, no what the hype of the moment says. We want your stories. Not the slop-infested noise.

An excellent lineup here, come and see my fellow ESFF’ers @rhiannonagrist.bsky.social and @franceswrites.bsky.social in London👇

@mahmudelsayed.bsky.social is my @jjbker.bsky.social agent sibling, fellow London SFF author and all round good dude. I can’t wait to read The Republic of Memory but in the meantime, you can check out this talk with @writeopolis.bsky.social👇

I gave up watching the Marvel films after Doctor Strange 2, namely because watching AN ENTIRE TV SERIES was crucial to the plot. One of the world’s largest entertainment franchises should not be punishing casual viewers because they couldn’t keep up with the unceasing onslaught of material.

@ianthegreen.bsky.social‘s books are filled with immense settings which are characters in their own right. Worth the price of admission👇

My god.

“Something without a brain scrabbled around and found stuff that looks like content but isn’t, because it wasn’t chosen, analyzed, and written by a person. Frankenstein’s monster copy-paste jobs from a bunch of different places? That’s not a summary. That’s word salad” — @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social

No more monthly updates, no selfies, no reels or videos promoting myself. Now I’m working diligently in the background and I’m getting the important work done.

It’s #BatAppreciationDay 🦇 on a #FabricFriday so please appreciate this awesome 19th c. Japanese kosode decorated with embroidered lucky #bats: KOSODE WITH BATS Edo - Meiji, 19th century silk twill, paste-resist dyed, embroidery; 67⅜ × 48⅞ in National Museum of Japanese History / NGA DC #JapaneseArt

May the rest of these awful plagiarising corporations follow.

🇭🇺 This photograph was taken on 23 October 1989 in Kossuth Lajos Square in Budapest. It shows the US Ambassador to Hungary, Mark Palmer, in a red bow tie, among the crowds as the acting head of state, Mátyás Szűrös, solemnly proclaimed the birth of a new republic👇

Sad to hear about the passing of Ian Watson, whose Warhammer 40,000 books were seminal into getting me into reading science fiction back in the 90s. Going to have to re read these ones again.

@meghan0n.bsky.social is *a* writer. Go and follow her👇

I hadn't seen this before. This is pretty remarkable. Earth and Moon in one NASA photo. ht @astrokatie.com

We absolutely do not have to accept artificial intelligence, Stephen.

An incredible piece by Kieran Morris for @theguardian.com about the sushi chef Endo Kazutoshi — it’s a *long* read but worth your time: where food, life and relationships intersect👇

I *cannot* wait to read this because the audio version is absolutely *brilliant*. Huge congratulations to my pal @clhellisen.bsky.social, author and ice skater extraordinaire!