I do love that AI inadvertently confirms that our brains work like a muscle, too — use it or lose it. In this way relying on AI is like using a robot to lift weights, like running a marathon in a Honda Civic. You get nothing out of it.

Bezos suggests limiting water for human consumption so that AI can be cooled. You first, Jeff. www.msn.com/en-in/money/...

The Shop is open 🌱 First peas, cucumbers and courgettes of the season, plus broad beans, Tamar Valley strawberries, spring garlic, kale, rainbow chard, kohlrabi and lots of fresh herbs. Devon apricots and the first blackcurrants from Hilltown Organics are in too. #LocalFood #TamarValley #Plymouth

"Tell Jabba I'll get him his money..."

Free online tools you don't have to sign up for that run in your browser. Graphics, text, utilities, PDF, privacy, audio and video... public.tools #useful

Broadband goes down, mobile data with it, apparently in sympathy. I cancel a interview set for 11 at 10 because I can't take the chance. Broadband comes back up at 10:45. Modern life with no internet is just being surrounded by stupid energy-guzzling shiny paperweights that can't do anything.

It's a beautiful January morning.

Of course, the broadband goes down the morning I've got a research interview, and Outlook does absolutely nothing to let me know whether any communications I've tried to send through have actually arrived at their destination.

I don't know what this is for, but it's great neal.fun/wiki-spy/

Petition to have picking something up, immediately dropping it, and then picking it up again and then immediately dropping it again as a very specific, diagnosable form of tiredness

Brain broken after spending the day thinking about trees - planting densities, species, protection. Sometimes it's great to be working on such a diverse range of things, exercising so many different muscles. Sometimes it feels like exercising so many different muscles must be why I'm so knackered.

Putting down geotextile topped with gravel is just asking for a really shitty weeding situation a few years on.

A lovely tool for showing you what is in shade for how much of the day, based on the time of year - useful for #permaculture or #agroforestry design or even just thinking about your garden. shademap.app #useful

I used to take the bus from Vauxhall to work in Westminster, went past Thames House coming off Vauxhall Bridge. Heard about the driver once stopping and calling out "SPIES OFF HERE, SPIES OFF" over the tannoy which apparently had several people very quickly sitting back down.

Buster, one of the neighbours. He's staying well out of the way of the younger dogs that are tooling around in the garden (one of them is ours). Sensible lad.

I'm ready to bin the Land App for driving me round the bend. Any recommendations for a decent, straightforward app for designing an #agroforestry scheme welcome! #permaculture #agroecology

I *really* need to better learn QGIS. Any recommendations for good courses, learning resources?

Never seen To Live And Die in LA. Next on the watchlist. #FilmSky

Fake news is putting Dartmoor’s ponies at risk. New deep dive by me into the current furore around Dartmoor's ponies. www.dartmoornature.org.uk/post/ponies-...

I've never seen anything by Harlan Coben, and I'm assuming that it's just a series of clips filmed explicitly to elicit shocked reactions on Gogglebox.

Loving my little cat companion in @mu.social

This morning, the tree tunnels are giving some top mysterious vibes.

Eurosky lets you host your profile in the EU. Your follows, posts and connections all come with you. If you have a bluesky.social username it becomes a eurosky.social username, but if you use a domain handle you keep that. Yay social portability!

Subscription pricing thing you see from more and more services now: Get our Pro plan! Just £8.50 per month* * when you pay for a full year, otherwise it's £56 per month and we get to keep your dog

While Mrs N is away this week, I will be watching Paradise, a fan-edit combining Prometheus and Alien: Covenant jobwillins.wordpress.com/paradise/

Satisfying. screen.toys/firewood/

Ban them from social media and make them do National Service. Politicians, not teenagers.

Veeery free-wheeling research interview just now. It's going to be fun (nigh on impossible) to transcribe...

I don’t know who needs to hear this but ‘Avalanche!’ Please ignore this message if you’re not somewhere an avalanche is about to happen.

Entrenched positions, binaries and excessive focus on technical and infrastructural barriers are getting in the way of the valuable intangibles needed for food system change - another promising looking event from @rootandreason.bsky.social #FoodStudies

Had some audio I needed to transcribe. I'd used Otter years ago and thought it was impressive, so signed up to a paid plan. App was unusable, overengineered, bloated, with constant AI pestering I didn't need. Emailed to say "I want my money back." They're giving me my money back. The end.

Just this again as a PSA: if you want post editing on Bluesky, now, use something other than Bluesky. mu.social lets you log in with your Atmosphere credentials and you have your timeline and follows all there. And it's EU-developed and hosted by @eurosky.social. Screenshot below. Look familiar?

Beside the questionable effectiveness of this ban on under-16s accessing social media, what's not really being said so far is that verification is likely to involve age-gating for everyone. You aren't going to be able to use any of them without showing your face or providing ID - to whom?

Entirely related, because nobody does effective policy around tech. Nobody.

Every time government decides to try and intervene in tech in some way

"We have ended up in a nonsensical food system, with small-scale abattoirs and farms closing at an alarming rate" #FoodStudies

Posting this from mu.social, a Bluesky client built and hosted in Europe from @eurosky.social. It's got post editing by jingo!

That Freedom 250 setup at the Whitehouse really looks like Western civilization dying in a crescendo of vulgarity doesn't it

Took a moment to watch some barley blowing in the breeze today. I do love a nice field of barley.

Group chat! *Turns off group chat immediately*

Taken by surprise by a muntjac popping out of the undergrowth just ahead of me on a dusk dog walk and, not even for the first time, my immediate reaction was JESUS THE SIZE OF THAT RABBIT

I've introduced Mum, whose eyesight is failing, to Google Gemini because it potentially has some very useful features for her. It just read a handwritten birthday card to her, can read the Meals on Wheels menu (which is a complicated grid format), and can answer questions and perform tasks given in

Roots & Routes: Food, Memory, Migration, Heritage. A weekend exploring the journeys that shape what we eat, remember and pass on. 19 and 20 June 2026 in Exeter, hosted by the Devon Ukrainian Association and partners. 🧵👇

Is it too much to hope that we could wean people off WhatsApp communities with this? Yeah, yeah it probably is.

If they're putting Doctor Who out to tender does that mean they're getting three quotes in? One off Checkatrade, one off a recommendation in a Facebook group and one from someone whose name they got from Barry down the pub?

Gotta love mybib.com for a quick bit of bibliography formatting

We thought the swallows had decided not to nest in our garage this year, but they've just made a new nest. OK it's in a precarious spot on top of a tube light, but it's still a result.

I'm both admiring this maize for being so clean and weed free while also horrified to think of the chemicals that have made that possible and all that soil being bare.

Don't want to be political any more than I have to here, so sorry, but I'm curious: were there always as many people on the hard right, the kind who show up for Yaxley-Lennon, as a proportion of society? Were they quieter before Brexit, did it give them permission to be more visible?