What if you made a magic school larp that teaches tens about the dangers and allure of fascism – by making them play fascists? That's the idea behind Epos Daimon, a larp set in the His Dark Materials universe, where students become high-ranking members of a theocratic, fascist regime.

imagining how disappointed the diabolic powers would be if, when a proper end times biblical apocalypse kicks off with various celestial omens & portents, everyone just assumes it’s all just #content for a new product and carries on exactly as they were I mean, are we sure that hasn’t happened?

Watched 2001 (again) last night and was waiting for the scene where objects are facsimiles of objects, but without the functional use, and isn't that a bit prophetic of generative AI? Anyway. Turns out it's a memory of the book, which I also read as a kid, and yeah it IS a bit like that.

What if we teach basic computational literacy in schools before we teach AI literacy?

hmm, for the 3rd time in a week we might be escaping containment, so once again we're obliged to say that if you would like to read us go on about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures, then we do publish a magazine you might like...

Imagine making AI bird slop when Mandarins already exist 🪶🎨

I've written a piece for Computer Weekly about how public services are at risk of agentic flooding. www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Floo...

[email protected] on need for coherence on tech 'sovreignty'. "We need to understand what we can own, control, & lead by ourselves; what we can access that is in the hands of allies we trust; & how we manage what we must obtain from those we do not trust" giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

I spoke to @juliansimpson.bsky.social all about the excellent podcast The Lovecraft Investigations and its latest series, Crowley. And the new Mythos. Both of which are truly fantastic - links to get them are at the end of the article. kotaku.com/lovecraft-po...

the types of podcasts: a guide

A post you can probably smell. An ancient woodland indicator, ramsons (aka wild garlic) flourish in damp, shady places. 📸: Brian Muir

Google is now screwing with the 10 blue links in traditional search and rewriting headlines - including ours - to be the worst kind of slop. This sucks so bad www.theverge.com/tech/896490/...

Nearly coined “the menternet” for the manosphere, but someone beat me to it by 4 months

In a final act of obedience to Zuckerberg and Facebook/Meta he has no legs in his portrait. The portrait will cease to function later this year.

STICK IT ON A FIVE POUND NOTE

There is

Crazy crazy story. Times of Israel reporter ( English language Israeli news site ) gets escalating death threats to change story that’s at center of big polymarket bet. www.timesofisrael.com/gamblers-try...

Here's a new story what I wrote: profadamroberts.substack.com/p/emembededed

Barrier moon tonight

Apple's got a lot of announcements this week, but one huge risk might get overshadowed amidst the noise — the way they're adding support for video podcasts threatens to enshittify the last truly open online media. It's not too late to push them to keep it open. www.anildash.com/2026/02/28/a...

It almost felt like spring yesterday (daily tree)

I don't know if she's on here, but Michelle Tsai's legendary pigeon sweater pattern was released on Ravelry today! Exciting times for knitters 🧶, bird enthusiasts 🦆, and Jeopardy fans ❕- aka 95% of Bluesky www.ravelry.com/patterns/lib...

Earlier this month I had the privilege of MCing the @protocolsforpublishers.com event in London, bringing together people from publishers and the open protocols that might help them secure their futures. I wrote up my experiences: werd.io/building-tru...

Technology discourse is so unhinged at the moment. Just zooming out, beyond specifics, the fact that there are multiple movements to "protect" kids from smartphones at the same time as there is increased pressure to AI everything all the time is bananas

Threads’ new ‘Dear Algo’ feature lets you tell the algorithm what you want to see

Rain has now fallen in Reading for 25 consecutive days - the longest spell of rainfall ever recorded at our Atmospheric Observatory. Dr Stephen Burt, said: “With further rainfall expected, the spell of consecutive days of rain may stretch to an entire month.” Read more: https://rdg.ac/4agN55U

Amazing stuff as the machines buy humans :) rentahuman.ai

I did lots of catch-up reading earlier in the week and here are some things I learnt...

If you're new here and happen to see this, here's a Critical Tech starter pack, full of interesting folk to follow go.bsky.app/VFxSES6 And if you have a small account (<10k followers) and would like to be added for visibility, let me know! (Although response times may be slow)

January tree

Last tree of 2025

#ArtAdventCalendar Dec. 17 Why use wings when you can just engage missile mode? This downy woodpecker male was foraging among the spruce trees, and decide that for this short journey, wings were not needed! #Birds #photography #wildlife 🪶

Published this labour of love today lapope.com/2025/12/15/s...

December tree

He was very weary; the day had been long, and full of dragons.

I just came across this fantastic #birding visualisation and its author too, Mexican information designer Brenda Battaglia. 📊 Always amazed to be reminded, again and again, how much data visualization practice there is to discover out there. brendabattaglia.com/Color-Atlas

The Word for World: an exhibition presenting the maps of Ursula K. Le Guin is now open at the AA Gallery! It's free and on until 6 Dec. Here are some photos from opening evening 🌀 www.aaschool.ac.uk/publicprogra...

‘The architect of Black Gen X sonic feeling and eloquence’: D’Angelo’s 10 greatest tracks

Counter-opinion: it’s a f***ing tragedy that corporate greed has broken the medium which facilitated Tahrir Square etc and is now doing its best to break the rest of the Internet.

Breaking news: In August 2026, the world's most famous cricket club, the MCC, will be sending a team to Iceland to take on our national side. It promises to be an exciting three match series involving three different formats. All will be live streamed.

Banger of an intro paragraph When I see people write like this about finance, it spurs me to be braver in my own writing. Very very well done @dsquareddigest.bsky.social on.ft.com/47ZzGzI The grimdark future of credit risk models

First aired on this day in 1984, the BBC's adaptation of "The Tripods". A Tripod's leg found time to pop into Blue Peter on the way. Forever incomplete - but if you find yourself down The Pink Parrot tonight, raise a glass to what they *did* manage to achieve. A (mostly) impressive stab at it.

I have reviewed Nick Clegg's book 'How To Save The Internet' and Tim Berners-Lee's book 'This Is For Everyone' for The Observer. I, er, really really did not like Nick Clegg's book: observer.co.uk/culture/book...

💜 to see it! @betterimagesofai.bsky.social now has an image representing "stochastic parrots at work" betterimagesofai.org/images?artis... 🦜 cc @mmitchell.bsky.social @timnitgebru.bsky.social

Reclaim the brain!

Genly Ai > GenAI

Lads, I hate to break it to you, but the "animals on trampolines" videos are almost all AI-gen

Have you spotted any novel social media interfaces recently? I'm particularly interested in third-party clients or experimental interfaces for existing social networks...