Dave Morris
@davemorris.bsky.social
đ€ 507
đ„ 267
đ 931
Writer, game designer, omnicurious.
A prequel to the
#BloodSword
#gamebooks
by lots of talented folks (not me, guv).
fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/11/bloo...
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Blood Sword - the prequel
This may make sense only to our British readers, but Guy Fawkes Night was originally instituted as a day of thanksgiving (with bonfires & s...
https://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/11/blood-sword-prequel.html
4 days ago
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"And Then There's Place-Name Studies" -- a new creepy story for Bonfire Night by Binscombe Tales author John Whitbourn.
#folkhorror
wrong-magazine.blogspot.com/2025/11/and-...
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And Then There's Place-Name Studies
by John Whitbourn author of the Binscombe Tales series âIfâstrange fancyâhe were able to tear himself from his turf prison, rise up from ...
https://wrong-magazine.blogspot.com/2025/11/and-then-theres-place-name-studies.html
4 days ago
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Dom Camus
6 days ago
The nice people at ThinkyCon made me a poster! Also, don't forget ThinkyCon starts on Wednesday 5th - I'm on day two.
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Brian Duguid
6 days ago
I have just released QuestWorlds-on-a-page, my attempt to make visual sense of the rules for QuestWorlds, the genre-agnostic narrative RPG from
@chaosium.bsky.social
. It's Pay-What-You-Want i.e. it is free, unless you want to give me some money to spend on more RPG stuff :-).
tiny.cc/qwoap
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QuestWorlds-on-a-Page - Blue Shaboo Press | DriveThruRPG
QuestWorlds-on-a-Page is my attempt to make visual sense of the rules for Chaosium's genre-agnostic narrative roleplaying system, QuestWorlds. It is intended to help make use of the QuestWorlds core r...
http://tiny.cc/qwoap
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Chaosium
6 days ago
There is only 24 hours left to back the Pendragon Classic Kickstarter! Don't miss out! Back today to get your copy of Greg Stafford's masterpiece, 40 years on:
www.kickstarter.com/projects/cha...
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Fear is the thing with tentacles.
#Cthulhu2050
www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhFa...
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Whispers Beyond The Stars - Official Teaser
YouTube video by Other Worlds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhFazTH18G8
6 days ago
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A reminder that it's safer not to attempt humour on social media...
add a skeleton here at some point
8 days ago
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Some
#roleplaying
ideas as the nights draw in.
fabledlands.blogspot.com/2023/10/hono...
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Honour the dead
To get us into the Samhain mood, here's another of my occasional reposts from my Jewelspider page on Patreon. You're welcome to join us over...
https://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2023/10/honour-dead.html
8 days ago
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"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants." - Alexander Hamilton
8 days ago
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"The Gourmet": an early weird tale from Kazuo Ishiguro, and as a bonus it stars the irreplaceable Charles Gray.
wrong-magazine.blogspot.com/2025/10/samh...
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Samhain delicacy
The darker half of the year begins here, and to mark it try "The Gourmet" by Kazuo Ishiguro. And in a few days' time, on November 5th, there...
https://wrong-magazine.blogspot.com/2025/10/samhain-delicacy.html
8 days ago
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"Love of gold fits neatly within the logic of all dictators. For men who fear being forgotten, it promises permanence; for those with fragile egos, it signals power; and for those who dream of being kings, it gleams like a divine right." I know who fits all three...
archive.ph/a7gyj
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https://archive.ph/a7gyj
8 days ago
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Tim O'Neill - History for Atheists
10 days ago
New on History for Atheists: my long awaited and rather long critical review of Alice Roberts' new book *Domination*:
historyforatheists.com/2025/10/revi...
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Some book recs from
@mathewlyons.bsky.social
. I actually want all of these.
mathewlyons.substack.com/p/ten-books-...
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Ten books to look out for in October
Upcoming history and non-fiction titles that have caught my eye
https://mathewlyons.substack.com/p/ten-books-to-look-out-for-in-october
9 days ago
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For
#Halloween
I summoned up "Dealing With Demons".
amzn.to/438NQvf
9 days ago
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I was one of the first kids in the UK to do trick or treat. In the mid-sixties, that was. Of course, it doesn't work so well if none of the neighbourhood families have ever heard of it.
fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-...
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The darkening land
A poem today to summon the spirit of Halloween. This is by Thomas Hardy : Tree-leaves labour up and down, And through them the fainting lig...
https://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-darkening-land.html
9 days ago
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Five things we know about dark matter. Any MOND advocates care to comment?
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
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5 undeniable, truthful facts about dark matter
Dark matter has never been directly detected, but the astronomical evidence for its existence is overwhelming. Here's what to know.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/5-truths-dark-matter/
16 days ago
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Neglected Books
16 days ago
Some of Georges Simenon's best novels are his romans Américains, a baker's dozen surgical dissections of the American way of life in the 1950s -- most of them out of print, two of them never translated into English.
neglectedbooks.com/?...
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Jonathan Emmett
16 days ago
đ This time next week it will be
#Halloween
! đ§đ»ââïž Find out where witches, monsters, ghosts and ghouls go to look their worst for their big night in
#MonsterMakeovers
, a new picture book by me, Rae Minos & Boxer Books. More info at
jonathanemmett.com/monster-makeovers
#KidLitUK
#HalloweenPictureBooks
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#TheThaumaturge
was my favourite game of the past year, and this is
#DragonWarriors
' 40th anniversary, so here are rules for a DW Thaumaturge
#RPG
campaign set in early 20th century Poland.
fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-th...
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A Thaumaturge campaign using Dragon Warriors rules
HabituĂ©s of these parts will already know that Iâm an unabashed fan of The Thaumaturge CRPG, so it was only a matter of time before I start...
https://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-thaumaturge-campaign-using-dragon.html
16 days ago
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Jackson & Livingstone pioneered
#gamebooks
with series like
#Sorcery
,
#FabledLands
kicked off the
#openworld
#gamebook
genre, and that in turn inspired the digital adaptation of Sorcery. And now
@steampowered.com
has both series in a special-offer bundle.
store.steampowered.com/bundle/61017...
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Saga of Ink and Paper on Steam
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/61017/Saga_of_Ink_and_Paper/
17 days ago
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We'll never have Mars colonies because what would be the point?
@neildegrassetyson.com
explains. (Mining the asteroid belt, though. There could be a business case for that.)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wCC...
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Steven Bartlett: Why We'll Never Go To Mars & The Terrifying Truth Of Black Holes
YouTube video by Journey of a Visionary
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wCC5EqN-c8&t=3s
20 days ago
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Sword of Harmony: a
#BloodSword
prequel adventure. And there's even a companion app for handling character sheet and combat -- we didn't have those 40 years ago.
#gamebooks
www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/5...
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Sword of Harmony : Blood Sword Prologue - Red Ruin Publishing | Blood Sword Adventures | DriveThruRPG
A prologue to the classic gamebooks, originally from the 1980's, Blood Sword For twenty years now, you have wandered the lands of Legend, seeking your fortune wherever the wind takes you. You have se...
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/540254/sword-of-harmony-blood-sword-prologue?affiliate_id=733458
20 days ago
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If for any reason you want to write an open-world
#gamebook
, here's Ruth's handy toolkit.
fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-to...
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A toolkit for open-world gamebook design
The earliest true gamebook (with rules, that is, and disregarding mere multiple-choice texts ) was probably Steve Jackson 's Death Test in ...
https://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-toolkit-for-open-world-gamebook-design.html
20 days ago
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Prime Games' round-up of
#BloodSword
character classes reaches: the Sage.
#rpg
store.steampowered.com/news/app/364...
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Blood Sword - The Sage Class Spotlight - Steam News
Some adventurers master steel, others the arcane. The Sage seeks mastery of both body and spirit. Sages are not bound to one place alone. Some hail from the Monastery of Illumination on Kaxos, where s...
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/3645170/view/553504715299620547?l=english
20 days ago
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Dave Morris
Anne Billson
21 days ago
Trying to make sense of the first paragraph here. Because I am scared by things that I know are not real all the time. Do you need to believe in ghosts (or demons, or gods, or evil pixies) to be scared by them? I don't think so.
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âBlack Phone 2â Review: The Grabber May Be Gone, but His Ghost Is Still Calling in Hypnotic Extension of Retro Franchise
Director Scott Derrickson brings an evocative analog texture to keep the scares coming from Ethan Hawke's devil-masked killer in 'The Black Phone 2.'
https://variety.com/2025/film/reviews/the-black-phone-2-review-1236543100/
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Populism just baffled me. Finally here's an article that explains it.
josephheath.substack.com/p/populism-f...
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Populism fast and slow
It is natural that a person who is both concerned by the rise of right-wing populism and possessed of a bookish disposition might turn to the academic political science literature in search of a bette...
https://josephheath.substack.com/p/populism-fast-and-slow
20 days ago
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Ethan Siegel
24 days ago
Yes, reductionism can explain everything in the whole Universe If we strip reality down to the fundamental particles and their interactions, and add in boundary conditions and initial conditions, can we explain the whole Universe? Reductionism says yes
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space
#physics
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Yes, reductionism can explain everything in the whole Universe
The whole isn't greater than the sum of its parts; that's a flaw in our thinking. Non-reductionism requires magic, not merely science.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/universe-reductionist/
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I did a little chapbook of severed-head creepiness for
#Halloween
.
#ttrpg
#horror
#bestiary
amzn.to/48zA8oK
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Headcases: A Bestiary of Flying Nightmares from World Folklore
Headcases: A Bestiary of Flying Nightmares from World Folklore - Kindle edition by Morris, Dave, Hartas, Leo, Nicholson, Russ. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Headcases: A Bestiary of Flying Nightmares from World Folklore.
https://amzn.to/48zA8oK
24 days ago
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Dave Morris
Ancient Warfare magazine
24 days ago
Coming soon - Ancient Warfare 104 (
chk.me/6UVfF7m
) deals with commanders and generals in the Ancient World
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How did I not know about this marvellous nut until now?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_...
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George Psalmanazar - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Psalmanazar
24 days ago
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A toolkit for
#openworld
#gamebook
design. But don't thank me, thank Ruth.
fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-to...
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A toolkit for open-world gamebook design
The earliest true gamebook (with rules, that is, and disregarding mere multiple-choice texts ) was probably Steve Jackson 's Death Test in ...
https://fabledlands.blogspot.com/2025/10/a-toolkit-for-open-world-gamebook-design.html
24 days ago
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Dave Morris
Roz Morris
25 days ago
How do we keep readers gripped? One scene pulls the reader into the next... How to do that.
nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2025/09/14/a...
#writingcommunity
#writingtips
#authorcommunity
#skywriters
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Age of distraction: two simple principles to keep readersâ attention in longform stories
Is longform fiction dying? Everywhere weâre told attention spans are shrinking, readers want brevity and writers should be adding flash fiction or essays to their repertoire. So today Iâm speaking âŠ
https://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2025/09/14/age-of-distraction-two-simple-principles-to-keep-readers-attention-in-longform-stories/
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Main takeaway from Madsen's brilliant what-if doc The Visit is that humans are rightly nervous of revealing their worst side (xenophobia, war, racism, injustice, prejudice) to aliens. It's probably too late to keep AIs from seeing right through us, unfortunately.
www.imdb.com/title/tt3833...
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The Visit (2015) â 5.9 | Documentary
1h 23m | Not Rated
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3833746/
25 days ago
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Colin Smith
25 days ago
And the same comicâs back cover featuring The Daleks!
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Wouldn't that be a root node problem?
add a skeleton here at some point
25 days ago
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I admit the bits I enjoyed writing most were the bits Mary Shelley skimmed over -- how Clerval's body ends up in Ireland, how Victor and the Creature get to the Arctic, etc. Anyway, great review here by
@hjdoom.bsky.social
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAhI...
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Bonus Episode - Frankenstein
YouTube video by hjdoom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAhIBrwRkNA&t=2s
25 days ago
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Ethan Siegel
26 days ago
Cosmic inflationâs biggest criticisms canât undermine its success There are always lots of arguments to be made against a leading scientific theory. But good ones? Take a close look at the ones against inflation, & see how weak-sauce they are.
bigthink.com/starts-with-...
#space
#physics
#astro
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Cosmic inflation's biggest criticisms can't undermine its success
Inflation's two main criticisms, that it can predict anything and that the "measure problem" remains unsolved, can't erase its successes.
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/cosmic-inflation-criticism-success/
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#DeepMind
made ~1 billion years' worth of Ph.D work on protein folding available to all for free. You're welcome, humanity.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/d...
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Demis Hassabis on AI, game theory, multimodality, and the nature of creativity
Podcast Episode · Possible · 04/09/2025 · 57m
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/demis-hassabis-on-ai-game-theory-multimodality-and/id1677184070?i=1000702834109
26 days ago
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Nature
26 days ago
CRISPR-based tools canât easily access the DNA in mitochondria, but researchers are finding other ways in
go.nature.com/3J94Zhk
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Faulty mitochondria cause deadly diseases: fixing them is about to get a lot easier
CRISPR-based tools canât easily access the DNA in these organelles, but researchers are finding other ways in.
https://go.nature.com/3J94Zhk
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Barns. The E isn't required
27 days ago
Coming soon from Red Ruin Publishing. A prologue to the epic Blood Sword quintet from
@davemorris.bsky.social
, Oliver Johnson, and Jamie Thomson. Cover art and interiors by
@deanspencerart.bsky.social
Two hundred entries of adventure from Martin Dangov.
#solo
#gamebook
#bloodsword
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Nice to come across this at Orc's Nest...
#BloodSword
#5e
www.orcsnest.com/blurber.asp?...
26 days ago
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"Holding rightwing views is associated with strong disgust responses in individuals [...] Populists try to gain power through 'othering', and when they do gain power their first attack is on teachers and education."
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
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Readers reply: Why do people become leftwing or rightwing?
The long-running series in which readers answer other readersâ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific and philosophical concepts
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/oct/12/readers-reply-why-do-people-become-leftwing-or-rightwing
28 days ago
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"Morris gives an arch nod to
#BladeRunner
too." More than one, if I remember rightly.
#Frankenstein
www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-rev...
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Frankenstein iOS - BSECS
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, presented as an app for Apple devices.
https://www.bsecs.org.uk/criticks-reviews/frankenstein-ios/
28 days ago
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Tim Harford
28 days ago
Great fun at the Oxford Half today - and a good warm-up for the London Marathon. Overwhelmed by the support so many people have given to Teenage Cancer Trust. We're through ÂŁ7000 now! Thank you. If you fancy chipping in some more, here's the link:
www.justgiving.com/page/tim-har...
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Roz Morris
28 days ago
Plan smart, write fast, finish strong: my guide to writing a novel in 30 days Soon it will be NaNoWriMo time! The official National Novel-Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) organisation closed earlier this year, but the writing world is still hard wired to Nano in November, come what may. (WhatâsâŠ
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Plan smart, write fast, finish strong: my guide to writing a novel in 30Â days
Soon it will be NaNoWriMo time! The official National Novel-Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) organisation closed earlier this year, but the writing world is still hard wired to Nano in November, come what may. (Whatâs NaNoWriMo? A worldwide event where the aim is to write a work of 50,000 words in just the 30 days of November.) This year there are several official alternatives, if you like to be official.
https://nailyournovel.wordpress.com/2025/10/12/plan-smart-write-fast-finish-strong-my-guide-to-writing-a-novel-in-30-days/
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Dave Morris
Gauthier Wendling - auteur
about 1 month ago
Réédition de la série de
#livrejeu
"L'Epée de Légende" (
@davemorris.bsky.social
, Jamie Thomson & Oliver Johnson) par Alkonost : ça se prĂ©cise ! Traduction corrigĂ©e, rĂšgles revues & peut-ĂȘtre des illus đŹđ§ inĂ©dites en đ«đ· rĂ©tablies. Visuel des couvertures de Laurent Centro:
fr.ulule.com/livres-jeux-...
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"Colossus was the brainchild of a degreeless Post Office engineer named Tommy Flowers." In fact Flowers did have a degree in electrical engineering, earned in his early 20s via University of London evening classes.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...
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Move over, Alan Turing: meet the working-class hero of Bletchley Park you didnât see in the movies
The Oxbridge-educated boffin is feted as the codebreaking genius who helped Britain win the war. But should a little-known Post Office engineer named Tommy Flowers be seen as the real father of comput...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/12/move-over-alan-turing-meet-the-working-class-hero-of-bletchley-park-you-didnt-see-in-the-movies
28 days ago
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Seems to be the thing now to hoist flags everywhere. Here's the only one I want to see.
about 1 month ago
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"If you go down to the woods today..." As a child that always struck me as a wonderfully sinister song, which is probably the seed that eventually grew into Jewelspider.
#ttrpg
www.patreon.com/posts/its-in...
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It's in the trees! | Dave Morris
Get more from Dave Morris on Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/posts/its-in-trees-140167329
about 1 month ago
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