Interesting bridge graffiti

Haven’t done one of these photos in ages. It’s easy to grow blasé about the beauty of where we live.

Festive post box.

It’s just possible that we left the Christmas tree purchase a wee bit late this year.

Carol Service time. For which I have had to learn to pronounce “Ephrathah”.

Dropped the girls at their Guides cinema trip, with time to spare for a sneaky coffee.

Something of an evisceration of Kier Starmer’s Substack. I suspect that if you think of it as a marketing channel, you’ve lost before you’ve started. https://unherd.com/2025/12/the-tragedy-of-keir-starmers-substack/

Fun afternoon in the local Warhammer store doing the mini of the month with my youngest and her friends. Apparently they had a queue at the door at opening time for the Deathwatch Space Marine.

Euan Semple: "Anyone who thinks that AI can write literature can only have seen reading as chewing gum for the soul." https://euansemple.com/posts/just-saying

This is a sobering look at OpenAI’s funding. No sniff of a profit for at least a decade, according to HSBC forecasts. A lot of non-industrial AI use is predicated on it being a cheap and easy solution to certain problems. If customers weren’t being so heavily subsidised by investors, when does […]

Turns out, AIs are a humourless bunch. (I’m mainly talking about satire and cartoons here. Maybe the role of humans in the AI age is… taking the piss.) https://onemanandhisblog.com/2025/11/ais-have-no-sense-of-humour/?utm_source=fediverse&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=first-share

Still, kudos to Google for digitally watermarking their AI-generated images.

Video generation is getting good scarily fast. There are some weird, weird sheep in there, ... https://adders.blog/2025/11/27/video-generation-is-getting-good.html

The challenging thing about running a training course on Ai over four weeks, is that things can change dramatically between sessions…

One of the deep problems with algorithmic social media is the incentive to figure out how to game the system: “growth hacks” as a certain constituency likes to call them. Some of them are surprisingly akin to religious rituals. You have faith that they work, but not a lot of evidence… […]

Nice to see that @marsedit has escaped squircle jails…

I don't really keep up with Twitter/X news much these days, but this was kind of funny. "Elon Musk’s social media site X has rolled out a new feature in an effort to increase transparency—and unwittingly revealed that many of the site’s top MAGA influencers are actually foreign actors." […]

Hosting a Warhammer morning for my daughter’s friends. (Kill Team and Underworlds: Emberguard)

I was chatting to a farmer student the other evening, and I predicted that it would be ages before The Telegraph sale was resolved, after the collapse of the Redbird deal. Not one of my better predictions. In fact, it has aged like rancid butter. https://apple.news/AIXeCvzCdTLeYmPaIPmMUHwj

Welcoming @ashleyjkirk.bsky.social from @theguardian.com back to City St George’s for an energetic guest talk on visual journalism. I love bringing in expert guest speakers, but former students in particular. Even if it occasionally makes me feel old… http://ashleyjkirk.bsky.social

My “shrimp Jesus” post from over a year ago is picking up a load of Google traffic again. Still trying to figure out why. Other than, y’know, Shrimp Jesus. https://onemanandhisblog.com/2024/04/shrimp-jesus-and-other-unexpected-results-of-the-ai-boom/

In the rush to headline “AI is transforming journalism”, we are losing sight of what really matters: the audience. AI must not become the strategy. Especially when data suggests audiences remain sceptical of purely AI-generated journalism. 👉 Read “Getting AI in Perspective” […]

This is a ChatGPT/Midjourney co-creation for a course I’m running later today. My job is… strange sometimes.

Richard Dansky "The best metaphor I’ve seen for AI is that it’s our generation’s asbestos. If you think about it, asbestos was this technological marvel that promised to solve a huge problem and that got crammed in everywhere. And yeah, it was good at keeping things from catching on fire, but […]

Cuckmere Haven this ... https://adders.blog/2025/11/15/cuckmere-haven-this-afternoon.html

Managed to clear 100 GB or so of cruft off my aging, but still perfectly serviceable, M1 MacBook Pro, and it’s amazing how much better it performs with some free storage space again.

I’ve been listening on and off to the BBC Sounds investigation of Kate Clanchy’s cancellation a few years ago. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s much more nuanced piece of reporting than it’s being portrayed on social media. Two episodes in, it’s clear (to me, at least) that there are […]

This is such a great story: Meet the teen behind the Louvre ‘Fedora Man’ mystery photo Love an eccentric. https://apnews.com/article/louvre-fedora-man-ap-photo-c0d59847ef5f836a0c5ac49de8bff441

Spectacular hagstone find on the beach. https://walkingwithdaddy.com/hagstones-the-seas-beautiful-gift/

At the Remembrance Day parade on Southwick Green, supporting my daughters who were marching with the Guides.

Props ready to go for my first online training course to help journalists understand AI - and use it safely…

Wait… should I be doing this update? #updateofthebeast

"The people who hold Trump, Farage, Javier Milei and their copycats accountable cannot be part-time freelancers or bored TikTokers. The issues that journalism is supposed to shield us from are way too grand and their subjects way too powerful for […] [Original post on masto.onemanandhisblog.com]

Started reading: The New Censorship by Ayala Panievsky 📚 https://micro.blog/books/9781804441121

My notes from a fascinating but worrying talk between Emily Maitlis and my colleague Dr Ayala Panievsky about how populist politicians manipulate media to shift the conversation in their direction – and what journalists can do about it. Worrying […] [Original post on masto.onemanandhisblog.com]

My #fediverse stickers are here!

24 years ago, I started blogging. That’s nearly a quarter of a century. It will be one of the defining activities of my life. And I'’d never have predicted that back in 2001. https://onemanandhisblog.com/2025/11/24-years-later/?utm_source=fediverse&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mail-free

Looks like @[email protected] has made the shift to Ghost! And also to the Fediverse!

Another rat ogre done and dusted, yesyes. Basing time. #warhammer

IT BEGINS

Weekend treat.

It was a rainy Hallowe’en in old London Town last night.

2001: the year blogging changed the world – but it would be decades before we realised how much. And I’m no longer as sure as I was that it was a good thing. https://onemanandhisblog.com/2025/10/2001-the-year-blogging-changed-the-world/

Meanwhile, my eldest is raiding my badge collection from the 70s/80s.

Doing some half-term Hallowe’en crafts…

Emily Maitlis is somewhere in this scrum…

Packed house for this discussion between Emily Maitlis and Dr Ayala Panievsky, despite a long day of teaching/learning…

Listening to Emily Maitlis interviewing my colleague Ayala Panievsky about her new book The New Censorship. https://amzn.to/43quTV5

This morning I feel like a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is. It won’t last.

I thought we had autumnal mist forming outside the swimming pool, but as soon as I went outside, the smell told me it was someone burning something. And it’s still two weeks from bonfire night!