Just a little PSA- Neil Gaiman has reactivated his Bluesky account. Because he deactivated before a lot of people could unfollow him, and/or because Bluesky doesn’t remove you from a person’s followers when you block them, a LOT of you are still publicly listed as following him. You should check.

Whilst this is true, what is also true is that the “old” internet is still there and there’s nothing preventing us from making more of it. Everything I’ve created or am involved in tries to embody that. Maybe I could do more, I dunno. But I try

I submitted a PR to the gov.uk frontend repo to remove this back in January: github.com/alphagov/fro... Not heard anything back as yet

If Labour had promised to spend £2.5 billion on public and active transport - which would disproportionately support poor and disabled people, and would be a long term investment rather than a short term sop - everyone would be demanding to know where the £2.5 billion is going to come from.

FPTP is like The One Ring of politics in the UK. They know they need to destroy it, but once it's in their hands they think "Why shouldn't we keep it? We can use it for good!" and then everything goes dead-Boromir-shaped

The FCC is floating the idea of making shows put up a warning if they include or discuss trans people and trans lives. A short paragraph objecting to this would be helpful! The deadline for comments is May 22: www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings...

lmao they have finally reversed the process if plugging your phone into the cigarette lighter in cars

I am once again begging, praying, weeping for lists of written instructions rather than videos. I do not want to watch your two minute video in the hope of catching the two seconds where you whizz past what goddamn menu the thing is under. Write. It. Down.

Perhaps businesses are collecting too much data for their own good. “Each morning at 10am, I get an email from Caroline in the finance team showing the cash we have in the bank compared with the same day last year. This fact offers no hiding place.” [undermanager.ghost.io]

Young person's insights needed; which pop star / band would be most cringey for someone in their early 20s?

Because the remaining folks are generally shallow shitheels, Google Android randomly decided wholescale to make every copied link switch to "share.google.com", a power they shouldn't have, and power they shouldn't take. Anyway, it can be unset, I suggest unsetting it.

This will make me a pariah on bsky, but ... University is being sold (at crippling cost) to young people as a necessity: no longer an aspiration but an obligation. Not everybody wants or needs 3 extra years of academic study. There are other ways/things to learn.

Cognitive fly-tipping:

I've always said US-style flag-shagging Taliban Christianity could never take off in the UK, because the vast majority of British Christians are woolly centrists. For the record, I may have underestimated the willingness of British neo-Nazi knobheads to mouth Chrstian formulae if prodded to do so.

Excellent points! Also: Makes pavements even more uneven which is a particular problem for disabled pedestrians Consolidates drivers' claim to the curbside for parking, making any future proposal for bike lanes, bus lanes, bike parking, etc. significantly harder

It'd be something if increased subsidies were tied to a plan to get us out of this mess (car dependency) but the plan is always just to keep throwing good money after bad and yell at, vilify and patronise anyone who suggests that that might not be a great long-term strategy.

Obviously, if you include citations that turn out to be fake, that raises huge questions regarding your credibility and it is understandable that a journal would not want to publish you going forward. I always think AI discourse overcomplicates things. Falsification is already academic malpractice

So much about this has me screaming into my motonormativity cushion. Why further subsidise all the wealthy people who drive? Why NOT subsidise the poorer people who don't drive?

The last, country, mile needs fixing at Braziers Park, but also everywhere else.

These were not written as rarefied, bloodless works of Deep Thought! They were written to stir the heart and entertain the masses. Homer would probably think Epic the Musical is THE SHIT, including the various takes on the part where Odysseus goes anime & battles Poseidon in a raging storm.

This is exactly what we were worried about. "I have to CHECK all my SOURCES are REAL?" no, not really! You should already know, because of how they are your sources!!! Use computers for evil and you will create a generation who sees that evil as normal/acceptable. This is Shrek all over again.

(scrolling Bluesky) I reject the premise. I reject the premise. Granted. I reject the premise. Not my fetish. Granted. I reject the premise. Funny. I reject the premise.

I’m beginning to understand that many people use the word “cancelled” to index the much more complex social process we used to call “falling out of favor”

again, staying completely silent on the actual merits of ai, the initial ai boosters basically campaigned on "this will eliminate your job, forever, and make me personally rich." it should not surprise *anyone* that this provoked a backlash.

Wood Festival was lovely. Elder got paid to sell books, volunteered to be a human flipchart for @edfinch.bsky.social, & got complimented by @robinince.bsky.social; H pestered a pancake seller and built a sofa out of cut grass; we all sang along to every word of @nickcope.bsky.social's two sets. ♥️☀️🦎

The world’s top AI companies showing how ChatGPT makes infinite chocolate biscuits, yesterday.

Here's a sad thought: everyone in the lemonparty photo is dead now. A touching memento mori. You suck that cock while you've still got time

By virtually any measure, ebikes are less resource-intensive than cars (which doesn't mean we should be uncritical of how minerals are sourced or that we shouldn't seek methods that are better for the planet & people!) but for some reason ebike use, unlike car use, has to be justified at every turn.

I don't care how much you like Good Omens or Sandman or Coraline or whatever - do not support this fucking horror of a man's works.

To Kill a Mockingbird The Big Sleep Red Shift

Art class should never stop being a thing. Like if right after our lunch breaks we all got to go down to the basement, throw on a smock and make collages out of old magazines while somebody's slightly witchy aunt tells us how great we're doing, I feel like we'd all be in a better place

“We deliberately sold as much of our capacity to rich people as we could and forced you to rent it from them, as a way of permanently shrivelling and crippling the scope of democracy” - sounds bad, like people should be in jail. “People are on their phones too much” - way better, highly preferable

You can't blame anyone else for the "loss of British culture" when you don't listen to British music created this millennium, don't go to gigs, don't watch British films, don't support arts funding, don't order eels when you have a takeaway and insist you don't watch the BBC.

did you hear about the horrifying thing that youre powerless to do anything about

It's interesting how it is always the left wing's fault that fascists rise to power, as opposed to the centre's. This is, of course, despite the fact that the centre are the ones in power who have declared that racism is 'reasonable', transphobia is acceptable, and the disabled don't need money.

Convinced that the Venn diagram of people saying there is never any excuse for cyclists breaking the law and people saying their car has to be capable of doing 100mph over the speed limit in case they need to avoid an accident is a circle.

What we call "letters" are the skeletal remnants of more ornate glyphs. They never looked like this! They had blubber and feathers!

I personally would prefer it if Burnham could be swapped in quickly and easily, and it’d probably be better for the nation. But I see no reason why the Greens should now help people who just spent two weeks calling them hateful racist cranks trying to give heroin to children.

time and attention are VERY precious. why would an audience give you one of the most existentially valuable things in the universe, their time, if they know you are not a giver in return? EVEN if it means you are givin back to yourself and writing for an audience of one. YOU STILL GOTTA BRING A GIFT

hey john. its your cousin marvin. marvin cage! you know that new sound youve been looking for? well listen to this *hangs up phone*

all this odyssey-posting has got me thinking about this again

if you want to post you should submit a “post request” where a mutual will pretend to read it first and then approve a merge into the main bluesky timeline

So Badgers has been added to the BFI archives. Honestly this feels like quiite an honor. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNqb...

Is that Chekhov’s Gun in your pocket or will you just be pleased to see me later?

The Neanderthal dentist: archaeologists found evidence of a decayed tooth being drilled out with a stone tools 59,000 years ago. “It’s now the oldest known evidence of dentistry — or any direct medical treatment.” [arstechnica.com]

This summary of different early medieval literature is still one of my favourite things on the internet. #medievalsky

Starmer, Burnham, all of them should face off in a school sports day-style event. Sack race, egg and spoon, throwing a little beanbag. We'll quickly learn who is a real winner. The TV rights would help the economy through the uncertain period. I can't believe more people aren't suggesting this.

Someone just told a pro AI bro in my comments: I’m not using it because it’s not smarter than me, I can see why you like it though.

WE’RE HIRING! Find out more at docs.google.com/.../1FAIpQLS...

Wes Streeting origin story