Alex MacLaren
@alexmaclaren.bsky.social
đ¤ 173
đĽ 450
đ 1693
Reading, cooking, counting my blessings. Resident of Folkestone, UK
pinned post!
If you care about the meaning of words, the Oxford English Dictionary offers free access to its online version via your local library, something that amazed me when I discovered it and has delighted and reassured me ever since. Libraries are the best. Go here:
www.oed.com/information/...
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Oxford English Dictionary
The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.
https://www.oed.com/information/..
10 months ago
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Eliot Higgins
about 11 hours ago
Even sincere actors get pulled into the same incentive field. Their beliefs may be genuine, but the attention economy doesnât distinguish. To be heard, they must compete with the grifters on the griftersâ terms.
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Benjamin Riley
about 20 hours ago
open.substack.com/pub/stevenmi...
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AI Killed the Take-Home Essay. COVID Killed Attendance. Now What?
Reclaiming Learning in an Age of Distraction and Artificial Intelligence
https://open.substack.com/pub/stevenmintz/p/ai-killed-the-take-home-essay-covid?r=d8xtt&utm_medium=ios
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I LOVE this
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1 day ago
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CrazyMyra
2 days ago
It's that time of year
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I am reading Walter Ongâs âOrality and Literacyâ and it is DEFINITELY the next âbook that I buy copies of and give to peopleâ.
2 days ago
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Chaucer Doth Tweet
3 days ago
New ChatGPT ad copy: "Shallower than Google"
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Anna Bower
6 days ago
âThings happen.â Jamal Khashoggi was a journalist and Washington Post columnist who was literally murdered and dismembered by agents of the Saudi government inside a Saudi consulate. Shameful. So shameful.
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Jonathan Edwards
7 days ago
We lived in a pub when I was growing up and when I was 3 (50 years ago!) we had someone in to draw the pub for a business card. I sat next to him and watched him draw every line. I was transfixed and it was a huge inspiration for me. Iâve dreamt about owning that drawing for yearsâŚ
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Saw this photograph today... It took nearly a year from the declaration of war in 1939 for the British Government to ban Mosleyâs Fascists and intern him.
bsky.app/profile/ianm...
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7 days ago
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Lars Andersen
7 days ago
Hunt For Red October, but Sam Neil is doing a greencard scam in the background.
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Tony Vaughan KC MP
8 days ago
The Prime Minister said in September that we are at a fork in the road. These asylum proposals suggest we have taken the wrong turning. The idea that recognised refugees need to be deported is wrong.
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
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Asylum system in UK âout of controlâ and dividing country, home secretary says
Shabana Mahmood to unveil new proposals modelled on Denmarkâs controversial system
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/nov/16/refugees-established-in-uk-may-have-to-return-if-home-countries-become-safe
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I have been listening to Shabana Mahmood on the BBC talking about the Labour governmentâs new immigration plans, and the consequences for refugees. I feel sick. What the actual,
@tonyvaughanmp.bsky.social
?
8 days ago
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Podcasting is Praxis
8 days ago
At some point, for the love of God, will someone ANYONE at long last take the council funding crisis seriously?!? Because THIS is what will break down a society, not some poor soul escaping incredible dangers, arriving on our shores.
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Moose Allain
9 days ago
"The cat scratched my groin when he saw that woman from Strictly" "Claudia Winkleman?" "No, man, but it was close"
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dag
9 days ago
Every single media lawyer I have spoken with this weeks agree that the BBC is doing exactly the right thing in admitting a mistake without admitting liability.
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Rob DenBleyker
9 days ago
we have a president who only does good things when everyone calls him a pedophile. our mission for the next 3 years is clear.
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Trump v BBC: I canât imagine there being many surprises tbh, but it will certainly provoke a conversation about patriotism and leadership
9 days ago
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Jake Grumbach
10 days ago
Basically saying "if you do crime for me, I won't only pardon you--I'll give you millions of dollars of public money." Truly unprecedented level of corruption
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
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Michael Flynn, DOJ in Settlement Talks Over $50 Million Claim
The Justice Department has been discussing settlements with two former officials from Donald Trumpâs first term who â like the president â claim theyâre owed major payouts from the US government as vi...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-14/michael-flynn-doj-in-settlement-talks-over-50-million-claim
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Liam Hogan
13 days ago
Itâs difficult to underestimate the extra burden that this is placing on our public libraries. For example, on a daily basis library workers are now filling the in-person/human service gap that billion euro banking institutions have abdicated from to maximise their profit margins.
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Alistair Coleman
11 days ago
Happy Fenton Day to all who celebrate. Jesus Christ, fourteen years.
youtu.be/3GRSbr0EYYU
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JESUS CHRIST IN RICHMOND PARK: ORIGINAL UPLOAD
YouTube video by JAGGL113
https://youtu.be/3GRSbr0EYYU
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David Firn
11 days ago
When you're a Liverpool theatre and you need an absolute cert to subsidise your more experimental programme.
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Hilary Mantel story imagining Margaret Thatcherâs assassination to be staged in Liverpool
Short story set in 1983, and published a year after the former prime ministerâs death, considers âwhat happens when people feel they donât have a voiceâ says director John Young
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/nov/13/hilary-mantel-assassination-margaret-thatcher-everyman-liverpool
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Adam Gurri
11 days ago
TV conspiracies: weâve hacked their computers but theyâve perfectly cleaned up the evidence! Real conspiracies: To: conspirator From: famous person Attachment: evidence.png
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This is crucial - and not just a reflection, but a steer.
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11 days ago
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Dan Nexon
11 days ago
Just a note of caution Epstein was sick, perverted criminal who thrived on building social networks with the powerful. Part of that game is pretending that youâre a lot more influential than you actually are. This is also how you scare people into not going to the media or pressing charges.
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William Shakespeare
12 days ago
Vast sin-concealing chaos
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Thank God no nation is alone with its bigots - this is a wonderful thread for Brits of every extraction, and for anyone worldwide with an imagination about their different-accented neighbours
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12 days ago
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Cyd Harrell
13 days ago
uhhh this actually reminds me a lot of how LLMs function at a basic level too - predicting tokens based on proximity & context, etc đŹ ...so we're teaching kids to read like AI & saying AI level is good enough
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Becky Colley, UX Designer
13 days ago
Writing messages as a woman: *Types* *Adds smiley face to seem friendly* *Deletes smiley face to seem professional*
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RIP Tatsuya Nakadai
13 days ago
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Ryan, from MySpace
13 days ago
Damn, lost another.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/m...
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Tatsuya Nakadai, Japanese Star Known for âRanâ and Other Classics, Dies at 92
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/11/movies/tatsuya-nakadai-dead.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0U8.auW3.3UqLvo2Ijsfx
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Sarah Hemming
14 days ago
Good for Mark Damazer standing up for the BBC and the thousands of extremely conscientious people who work for it. We lose it at our peril.
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Naomi Alderman
14 days ago
inspired by this, I have done a free extract of this section of the book here. it is about understanding that *with all its problems* the BBC is as important for our intellectual health as the NHS is for our physical health:
naomialderman.substack.com/p/the-bbc-an...
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dag
14 days ago
Depressing that the BBC has so little inherent institutional strength, it is kicked about so easily. This is not good sign for our polity.
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Tom Freeman
14 days ago
If BBC News's rivals who are today damning it for bias were held to similar standards, most of them would be shut down on the spot.
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archivetvmusings
15 days ago
Alexei Sayle's Stuff (9th November 1989). The latest teenage craze is a rather unexpected one. And Pete Murray has a complaint from 1960.
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Stephen Collins
9 months ago
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Found myself hunting for the source of that line about a liberal being âa man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrelâ; Robert Frost apparently (saying that JFK was *not* that kind of liberal, also an earlier version from W. Hocking).
#BBC
14 days ago
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If youâre a US citizen puking up over the cowardice of your institutions, you can at least take a tiny bit of comfort tonight - you have company.
14 days ago
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Robert Saunders
14 days ago
We are so far through the looking glass that the man who tried to overthrow an election becomes president, the people who attacked the Capitol are turned into martyrs, & it's the BBC that gets punished - cheered on by the worst news outlets in the UK & the two most dishonest politicians of our age.
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Stinking, disgusting pollution being pressure-hosed away, so sharingâŚ. If you get satisfaction from dirty things becoming shiny and new you may like this!
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14 days ago
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ChrisO_wiki
15 days ago
1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. âŹď¸
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Andy Kostrub
about 1 month ago
Updating my LEGO White House
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The Daily Show
16 days ago
New York millionaires: threatening to flee the city since 2009
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James Ball
17 days ago
Incredibly classy move from a WIRED reporter whoâs just been fired (for what seems like protected union activity) â completely commendable way to look out for your colleagues and their work. Feels like the kind of person any newsroom would be lucky to have, tbh.
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God this is superb stuff. Beware mocking the whole thing: it's about public promises and what 'losing face' anxiety can cost, and that's a problem for all democracies in an attention-addicted world.
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18 days ago
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James Ball
19 days ago
Nice to see that media literacy and critical thinking is going to be added to the national curriculum â that was one of the recommendations at the end of Post-Truth, published eight years agoâŚ
news.sky.com/story/bigges...
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This is absolutely inspirational, and far from dated feels really quite modern and almost urgently contemporary in what it is arguing for. Must watch
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20 days ago
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Callum May
20 days ago
Your AI and your LLMs will never write headlines like this.
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