the only video worth rescuing from my deleted twtter

A bunch of new people followed me recently so I must remind you that I wrote a biography of Henri Bergson called Herald of a Restless World. I wrote it with my HANDS and BRAIN and I'm very proud of it. John Banville called it “The most intellectually stimulating book I read this year” (last year).

The thing about these conservatives and the Odyssey is that *they don’t care*. They don’t read. Their talk of “the western canon” is a dog whistle. They want to vilify coloured people. That’s it. Stop taking their bad faith complaints seriously.

Have no doubt: the campaign to sack Misan Harriman is part of an assault on black figures in public life | Afua Hirsch

Comedy, History, Tragedy, Mockumentary, Found Footage

Raising the Flag Follow my work and writing on Substack: nickanderson.substack.com

Huge news! I'm co-producing Alexandre O Philippe's new doc IN SEARCH OF NOSFERATU. Our team (including @pattonoswalt.bsky.social) is scouring the world for uniquely aged prints of Murnau's classic. 🚨 CAN YOU HELP? 🚨 Any leads on old prints, VHS, etc, please hit me up! Our treasure hunt is global!

Brilliant news to share! Just heard from OUP that our proposal has been accepted to co-edit an "Oxford Handbook of Animal Politics" featuring over 40 commissioned chapters surveying the field. Co-editors @drsvg.bsky.social, @stevecooke.org, @joshmilburn.bsky.social, Alasdair Cochrane & Angie Pepper

It finally happened to me. Got a (overall cool and constructive, though challenging) R&R where one reviewer said it was a shame we'd not paid enough attention to work by, among others, me.

The publishing industry views Bluesky as some tiny unimportant island out somewhere in a far-off ocean. It's not worthy of their attention like Amazon Algoland or The Republic Of Instagram Influencer Collaborativepost is. What they don't realise is just how much the island's inhabitants love books.

106 years ago today, on May 7th, an undergraduate at Christchurch College, Oxford, drank a glass of port then left through the main gates for a walk. I've been thinking about him, & his walk, for years now. It's taken a long time for me to figure out why - why I've kept returning, near obsessed.

Again, cannot be stressed enough, mere months into Starmer’s premiership, hundreds of radicalised right-wingers attempted open pogroms, attacking places of worship and hotels housing people coded as brown and Muslim, and our he has shown zero interest in interrogating what catalysed those actions.

You used to be able to use a kayak in a mall fountain while dressed as a pirate and shouting orders at shoppers but its all woke nowadays.

I am not "back to my usual bullshit". This is a separate and distinct bovine excrement project.

Cartoon by @slyngstad.bsky.social

According to this peer-reviewed paper, the “screeching sound of peeling tape” is caused by tiny sonic booms. The speeds at work here are in the range of Mach 0.7–1.8. Supersonic crafts! [journals.aps.org]

"Who in their right mind would merge a 200,000-line unaudited vibe-coded blob into the master branch of global human science?" (This, about AI and mathematics, isn't short, but I really liked it a lot) davidbessis.substack.com/p/the-fall-o...

obligatory repost

Elite (ZX Spectrum)

Right wing domestic terrorism -- by every measure, the overwhelmingly most common kind of domestic terrorism -- cost a legislator her life and the national press did not give a shit. Barely covered it. Read this lovely tribute.

It’s the 250th year of American independence, and the Pope and the King of England are reminding Americans of their revolutionary values, principles, and ideals Somewhere, John Adams is confused as fuck

Your periodic reminder that if you ask "frontier models" questions about something you actually know something about, you'll quickly realize that they're completely full of shit.

I assure everyone that my slop is still 100% artisanal and shade-grown in small batches.

Good god. Trump fired the entire National Science Board without explanation on Friday afternoon.

According to the Lebanese National News Agency, these panels supply the town with electricity, which is needed for its water supply, and Israel destroyed homes, roads and olive trees as well.

The Least Bittern is in hiding most of the time. This one finally gave me a decent view after a good long time of tracking it through the reeds! pixels.com/featured/lea... by @DebraMartz #LeastBittern #bittern #bird #aves #birds #ayearforart #birdwatching #birdwatcher #featheredfriends

"Sir, it is my well-considered opinion, based on many years of military experience, that what these United States need most at this moment in time is a bullet and cannonball-proof ballroom. Gilded. I demand it."

I'm doing a 'final' edit of my book in progress. I've got great feedback from a close reader who is not philosophically trained, and who has identified lots of snags, tangles and opaque bits. The process is 'work' but also rewarding and satisfying. /1

Does anyone know of smart writing/thinking about why LLMs are so bad at writing (and why they seem to have gotten worse, if they have)? As in, is it a training/reinforcement issue, or is it something to do with the act of writing (which is maybe best when it deviates from next token prediction)?

This is a cool question. I think I'd lean into learning the 'useless' things that are my current hobbies.

VERY COOL PERSON: It's four-twenty, you know what that means? ME: Hell yeah! [starts shoving blackbirds into a pie]

Holy Fuck. "Evie". From 'Event Beat' (2026). www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aXc...

Three hours in & this has been an absolute blast so far. We're doing this for the joy of it, & because the music is gorgeous, but also to raise funds to secure the future of the choir. So if you're enjoying the livestream, we'd be very grateful for any donations! www.justgiving.com/campaign/tal...

night of the long island iced teas

Everyone who does work that is more formal than mine is lost in trivial details and needs to focus on real philosophy. Meanwhile. anyone who does work less formal than mine needs to get serious and quit being so frightened by a little math.

Still feel like "Musk and his crew of incels destroyed a bunch of stuff they didn't understand and thereby hastened the deaths of millions of children" did not get the public attention it warranted.

Yes, Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky coined the term “dark matter” which is impressive, but he also coined the term “spherical bastard” to describe people who are bastards no matter which way you look at them, and I think that should be celebrated more.

In honor of Earth Day: a thread of environmental wins

Fractures Emerge Between GOP’s Pro-Pedophilia, Extremely Pro-Pedophilia Wings

Writing tip: Make the perfect the enemy of the good. Then it's way hotter when they fuck at the end of the book.

"I’ve never completely freed myself of the suspicion that there are some extremely odd things about this mission." (HAL 9000)

a picture is, it turns out, worth a lot more than a thousand words

"There is no Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, Steve Bannon, or Trump Organization in an era where white collar crime is prosecuted with anything close to the vigor of the lowest-level drug cases in a major US city."

Stacy Mitchell has the best command of this subject. She explains how Amazon's ability to match any discount absolutely shreds competitors trying to give you a lower price. To hide these powers from nosy reporters, Amazon shuts off the magic algorithm during holiday shopping season and Prime Day.

Oh. My. God. Jay Bhattacharya has truly decimated opportunities for early career scientists; I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize just how bad. What a catastrophic failure of leadership. This thread is truly one of the scariest things I’ve seen in a long time. Jay is dismantling US science 😢

These fools are about to be absolutely fuckass mad, just infuriated and offended beyond all belie, when they find out that truth does not consist in a proposition corresponding to facts but rather is a disquotational device used for blind ascriptions.

Do you want to see the "big picture" on climate change? Here it is. Emissions are on the left, and include CO2, CH4, N2O, and f-gases. Natural CO2 sinks (from healthy forests & oceans) are on the right. And carbon removal, what little there is, is on the right, too. All expressed as GWP100.

The decision of a Prime Minister Only one person decided to appoint Lord Mandelson The Empty City blog emptycity.substack.com/p/the-decisi...