The cover of Germany’s Der Spiegel reads: “Donald, enough!” It looks like a meme.

Outstanding piece and some lovely new perspectives to add to the Unfollow Project 2.0 (maybe it's 2.1 now?). www.voidifremoved.co.uk/p/political-... HT the Overspill newsletter from @charlottesantry.bsky.social And FWIW, I find Bluesky more "claustrophobic" that Xitter was...

Turn 1 of Civ be like:

Europeans after managing to prevent the collapse of NATO for another 1-2 weeks… #Europe #Rutte

It's a bit like Trump's senility forcing everyone to reassess the viability of the old world order. This from the FT piece hit me - just how may "degree level" jobs *really* require a degree? And how many just use the degree as a crude filter? And "hands" work piece still applies, IMHO...

I’m completely convinced about the ‘AI screwing up the recruitment process’ bit. Less so about the ‘AI wiping out jobs’ bit. Feels to me more like ‘Economic chaos so let’s cut a load of jobs and see what happens. Blame AI in the press release.’

Really fun Bluesky Timeline Juxtaposition of the Day (glassware edition) courtesy of @estheraddley.bsky.social and @wallaceme.bsky.social - 100% faithful. (you need to click to expand the image to see the reason for the Jux...)

So many kids would be so much better off if we had decent skills training 16-18 (and better "hands" education in KS3 and 4). But we got brainwashed by our class system that uni=success and that "hands" work is less respectable... just at the moment "hands" jobs become more secure and better paid

One of the funny* things about the Jenrick defection is his articles basically amount to "Reheated Thatcherism and bungs to pensioners have broken Britain, and that's why I'm joining the Reheated Thatcherism and Bungs to Pensioners Party".

NO! Silence. Just silence. Don't give him the satisfaction!

In his speech in Davos, Switzerland, President Trump said he hasn’t been able to find a wind farm in China. The world’s largest wind farm is in China.

Trump just told Davos: "after the war we gave Greenland back to Denmark." America never had Greenland. It was governed — and defended — by the Danes and Greenlanders throughout WWII. www.bugeyedandshameless.com/p/read-the-d...

Trump keeps referring to Iceland, when he appears to mean Greenland. He also repeats his offensive claim that NATO wouldn't be there for the US if asked. The US is the only country ever to have invoked Article 5, after 9/11. The war in Afghanistan cost the lives of 454 Brits.

Trump: "Battleships". Oh, Donnie. Thick as shit.

The whole 'racist grandad at Sunday lunch' thing is very well trodden, but this rambling, self-important idiot would have been put in a home by any sane family years ago. #trumpdavos

AI bubble datapoint of the day, courtesy fo Paul Kedrosky's analysis of Satya Nadella at WEF: paulkedrosky.com/four-takeawa... (We're investing gajillions in railway sleepers; there's 1000s of miles of track now, but no-one's talking about where we want to go or in what style we'd like to get there)

Wait, the gates are storming the barbarians?! (Where's Gary Larson when you need him...?)

Do yourself a favour and enjoy seven minutes of Tom Baker heaven. (Toast much?) www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQeT...

My dudes, most of the folders on my Mac have name like this.

Yet again the craven, corporate mainstream media bends the knee to Trump, covering for him and normalising his behaviour! do they have no shame! Washington Post no better than a craven mouthpiece for fascism. (Dear Bluesky: am I doing this right?)

“I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace"

It's a common problem with elderly men who have a history of poor diet and sexual misconduct.

It’s a fiction in that it suggests that a First in subject A at institution X is the same as in subject B at institution Y (or indeed X). Communicates no useful information. I always used to write references esp for demanding careers that described students in percentile terms within their cohort.

How is it 2026 and we still have to accept a cookie policy *every time we visit a website* rather than just once? Isn't that the whole point of cookies?

I asked ChatGPT about investments (for fun, obvs - tho my experience of human advice, especially on Bluesky, is pretty negative). It was a generic guide given my appetite-specific prompt (fine, really), but the LLM has started peppering answers with charts and images. Some of them are... terrible.

It amazes me that politicians and a huge number of those working in the education sector itself look at teacher burnout, industrial action, the inability to properly handle SEND, the gameable lumpen exam system - and even regulator burnout - and say, "let's all just try harder!"

Education Support’s Teacher Wellbeing Index 2025 makes for grim reading. And yet... tweaking the curriculum (adding to teacher workload), complicating Ofsted (adding to teacher stress) and underfunding the sector (growing class sizes... and adding teacher workload) seem to be the policy prescription

Who is the most French-looking French monarch, and why is it Charles IX?

Tonight's turret meeting will be pretty awkward

So I guess Kemi now has to seduce a new Traitor

thomaswc.com/2025.html I mean, great for Only Connect fans; but don't start unless you intend productivity to drop massively.

I aspire to the level of resilience of that municipal worker. She didn’t flinch, didn’t panic, just went back to sweeping the snow.

Untrammelled AI allowing people to perv on people is really bad; it's even worse that its owner defends the perving as a form of free speech. But even AI used "responsibly", more than three years after we all got blown away by ChatGPT, is so limited, its (mis)application so frustrating.

Very helpful table from @andymasley.bsky.social comparing water use of different digital activities helping contextualise the popular concern about the water impact of using ChatGPT andymasley.substack.com/p/individual...

Big sign of positivity for #lufc: even at just 1-2 the Leeds fans are loud and confident, WACCOE ringing out. Signs belief is strong in this side right now, especially the defence. #famouslastwords

Post a pic of the venue where you saw your first concert and the band or artist. (Honestly hate these attempts to recreate early Twitter but also can't resist, gah...)

I blew my student grant on pizza, beer and ciggies in the second term of my second year at uni.

He ain't got time to bleed.

I want @matt-levine.bsky.social to do a column for the mag I edit. (Matt: it's for an institute! Wouldn't compete with Bloomberg! It's only 600 words a time...) Today's wonderful gem via his superb newsletter: contracts speculating on movie box office and *onions* are prohibited in the same statute.

"As the old saying goes, you can’t spell Leeds without LSD and a couple of Es. And, unfortunately, from that moment on the game descended into a psychedelic kaleidoscope of chest-aching, teeth-itching football." Lovely stuff. So gutted last night, but if you're going to lose, lose like that #lufc

I'm unnerved by "2026". It feels like when you play Civ or Football Manager and none of the stuff you started with is still around and the dates have got too far in the future. (Worryingly, when this happens when I play Civ, I generally throw all my resources into nukes and wipe the world out.)

Lol a massive self-own in the Bluesky Timeline Juxtaposition of the Day...

You know how Word can't paste in a table without it running over the edge of the page, meaning you can't resize it? I thought I was just being stupid in not knowing how to avoid that. The five minutes Copilot has spent "pulling things together" when I asked it to fix that suggests it's not me.

Got to hand it to Alex Garland: Civil War looks increasingly like a credible outcome for the US. Runes well-read... But it's got me wondering: how deep, how obvious does the corruption and targeted oppression need to be before it happens? (😒 Germany in the 1930s...)

Grouping anything by first letters is reductive, annoying and an insult to your audience. My old employer had six 'C' "values" and even the MD couldn't tell you what they all were after a week. But here are three Cs that could save this government: consistency, clarity and, above all, competence.

Well worth a read, but given how quickly the piece goes from one part Trumps speech to another, I can see The Atlantic being on the hook for, oooh, $5bn or so