it's not that i ever doubted that being a barista was a skilled position, but my year-long effort to try to produce a half-decent latte at home has convinced me that a good barista is easily more skilled than virtually every c-suite executive on the planet

CBC names ✨LETTERS TO KAFKA✨ as one of your must-reads this Remembrance Day if you’re looking for stories on war, resistance, and conflict. This is especially meaningful as my Jido (“grandfather” in Arabic) was a decorated war hero, and he fought for Canada in WWII . www.cbc.ca/books/books-...

Is the point of OpenAI now to haul in enough money so that Sam Altman can bail and still be gazillionaire even when the remains of the company get sued into oblivion and all the IP is bought by Chinese companies?

"Members of Vanguard Britannica, a racist, anti-Semitic group based in the UK, travelled to the US in September to attend the first national conference of the Patriot Front, America’s most prolific neo-Nazi group." www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025...

Eroding Sovereignty in the Age of “War as a Service” opiniojuris.org/2025/11/03/e...

These two headlines tell a most dystopian story about the current state of affairs.

The Amazing World Of Tomorrow

"The state’s exclusive control over the legitimate use of force is quietly eroding—apparently with its own consent." Eroding Sovereignty in the Age of “War as a Service”. An op-ed opinion piece I wrote with @rbarretttaylor.bsky.social for @opiniojuris.bsky.social opiniojuris.org/2025/11/03/e...

2025 will go down as the year when all the subtext became text

Twice in one day! Opinio Juris has published a piece written by @warmatters.bsky.social and I. We are deeply concerned by the erosion of Weberian sovereignty from encroachment of the private sector into control and mediation of violence. Please do read and share! opiniojuris.org/2025/11/03/e...

I finally have a peer-reviewed publication to my name! I'd appreciate it if you all would be kind enough to read and share. I'm trying to comment on the reductive nature of the 'apex' form of techno-process driven war that seems to be the limit of martial imagination. doi.org/10.1057/s429...

Gotta love Private Eye. Always cuts through the crap.

@hypervisible.blacksky.app "Australia’s Federal Police (AFP) is working on an AI to interpret emojis and the slang used online by Generation Z and Generation Alpha, so it can understand them when they discuss crime online." what could possibly go wrong www.theregister.com/2025/10/29/a...

Elon Musk is once again inciting violence on British streets because the government has taught him there are literally no consequences for doing so. They even carry on using his far-right social network to promote government policy as he does it. The absence of backbone is *astounding*.

An underlying theme within the US Right since the early 1990s has been a growing willingness to blur the rhetorical line between culture war and the language of full civil war in ways that have ratcheted up escalation cycles over time. That acts as a warning to everyone in the UK and EU.

fixed that for you

Reading a paper on history of Soviet cybernetics. Never thought I would be able to call myself ‘Cybernetics Stalin’ but here we are. He thought it was a pseudoscience. You’re not wrong Josef. You’re not wrong.

Today at lunchtime. Come join the discussion 👇

Oof

Even more worrying than this struggle to face up to an asymmetry of power that places the UK in the EU geoeconomic sphere of influence is an inability of too many in London to process how far a system crisis in the US is kicking away the geopolitical foundations of the UK's security.

Market position is more important than mental health I guess 🤷‍♂️

Very pleased to have the opportunity to talk to the smart folks at the @theturing.bsky.social about my book. Many thanks to @rbarretttaylor.bsky.social for inviting me. cc: @hurstpublishers.bsky.social @greyhoundliterary.bsky.social

i don't have the words to emphasise how seriously bad things are gonna get

Saw this and thought of @killjamesbond.bsky.social

Just reposting this here for no particular reason ….https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/11/09/oculus-founder-claims-he-made-a-vr-headset-that-actually-kills-you-if-you-die-in-a-game

It's pub day for my book, "Gilded Rage: Elon Musk and the Radicalization of Silicon Valley," which chronicles the rise of the tech right and their role in the 2024 election. Thanks to everyone who helped along the way. linktr.ee/gildedrage

Congratulations to my friend Christine for publishing her SECOND book!

easy halloween costume: Marc Andreessen

Glasgow Gender Clinic now has a waiting time of 224 years. The average across the UK is now 25 years. This segregated system isn’t working and is wasting millions. The NHS has been told time and again - informed consent now.

Damn just realised I moved to London about 20 years ago to start my Masters Degree (paid for mainly on credit cards) and never left.

Re-upping this based on latest gossip from the front.

On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n

The problem isn't that we lack evidence. It's is that we've yet to develop the political will to do anything re: radicalization. Politicians benefit from the virality of outrage. Platforms profit from the engagement spikes that anger, fear, & conspiracy generate. So we muddle along while Rome burns.

Turns out there are albums I cannot listen to anymore without waves of emotive nostalgia which include Entroducing by DJ Shadow and Ten by Pearl Jam. Bit of a shame that.

Writing a research proposal is hard. Like can’t you just divine what I mean when I’m waving my hands around and say yes?

I think I’m moving into my ‘crying inside and stockpiling’ era

I’m guessing you can buy your way out of surveillance in this future.

HOW IS THIS STILL NEW NEWS?? Christ alive Facebook has been part of the far right pipeline for years. www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...

Mark Zuckerberg is introducing a feed that's just 100% AI slop. No pesky creativity from real people to get in the way. Eat up little piggies

Look I don’t know what you expected would happen when the most annoying company commander you’ve ever met was made Defense Secretary

A story that’s attracted surprisingly little attention in our media: Ex-Reform politician admits Russia-linked bribery charges www.bbc.com/news/article...

Enjoying the dying liberal order in the U.K. trying to rally itself around ideas dead a decade ago with more empty words and no intent to change anything at all.

i have serious reservations about assigning a state-nexus to any given network of SIM farms for the same reason i am always skeptical whenever some company announces an intrusion and says “WELL THEY TOTALLY COULDVE GONE DESTRUCTIVE” while the compromised machines are at best OT-adjacent

I’m sure a combination of TikTok and AI Facebook will provide ample proof of all of these things for their US audiences

Golden Domed off

Returning Jesus Christ Downed By U.S. Missile Defense 30,000 Feet Before Making Landfall

3 months ago, Senator Melissa Hortman, her husband, and their golden retriever were shot and killed in their home in a politically motivated attack by a conservative Christian disguised as a police officer. Not only was Trump golfing during her services, he doesn't even recognize her name.

As far as I am concerned, European security is being defined in Helsinki. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...