Relevant to today's conversation about AI's inherent sexism, here's an email from cognitive psychologist and early AI theorist Roger Schank, arguing to Epstein that women can't be truly intelligent, because they care too much about what other people think.

Bullseyes all over this thread. Wonder what @kirstygrainger.bsky.social thinks.

A part of Akinola Davies Jr's speech the BBC decided not to air

One of the greatest bollard walks in history. #WorldBollardAssociation

The US system at the moment can be imagined with the executive branch as a toddler on a chainsaw rampage, congressional parents watching the rampage in silent fond approval, and the judiciary reluctantly stepping in once a year to make him stop destroying one specific thing in one very specific way.

well this seems like a bad idea

Andrew is eighth in line to the throne, but that’s prison toilets for you!

For those who’ve never seen it Hardwick’s performance is amazingly intense, and worth your time.

Yes! this was always the problem with that book, and Dawkins more generally, long before the more recent and politically unsavoury dynamic in his pronouncements

One of the more hopeful signs in UK politics is that Reform consistently struggles to poll above the mid-to-high 20s - despite a deteriorating economy, the simultaneous implosion of both the traditional parties and a pet TV station. Reform is not some unstoppable force. It's eminently beatable.

"So on a scale of 1–10, with 10 being 'to the roote,' how perced would you say you're feeling this morning"

”This is a world of compensations; and he who would *be* no slave, must consent to *have* no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.”

Relax your toes. You probably don't think you need to, but you do. Done it? Okay now take a slow, deep breath. Breathe out. Now relax your toes again. Because they still aren't relaxed. (Best single universally applicable piece of advice anyone ever gave me. It was from an astronaut)

i often think about this review

Wow! Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report. This is a *big* legal win. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

I learned from my replies over this that apparently folks think you should serve it with something that isn't clotted cream and I have never been more radicalised by posts on this website

Relatedly: kids who’ve never written without strict checklists etc may never experience this at all

we are not, in fact, only interested in 'what is the most of this that can be done'. we are interested in other humans, what we do and how we can learn to do it best. the failure of Sora is at least partly down to this, I think. the purpose of watching movies is 'connecting with other human minds'

The law on universities and free speech prevents speakers from being *disinvited after they have been invited*. It does not require universities to provide a platform to whoever demands one. Let's not mince words: the threat to cut funding to every university who disagrees with them is fascist.

Children need their families. Refugee children are no different. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Careful not to puke. And watch out for their allies in the UK.

I wrote about how I don’t know math but still am somehow a successful computer scientist. I have strong feelings about this. But I also want to understand. togelius.blogspot.com/2026/02/math...

Posting this again to remind you you dont have to be an amazing artist to draw comics!

🧵 Doctored magazine covers from the Matryoshka 🪆 bot farm were featured on the largest state TV channel in Russia. If TV reusing content from 🪆bots becomes a trend domestically, it will soon be exported, at scale, to Russian state's international media efforts, both overt and covert.

How to listen in public

I wrote this quickly last week before my eye op... some musings about #metaphors and #AI and how they relate to each other makingsciencepublic.com/2026/02/06/m...

I need everyone to know that on the crochet subreddit the mods made a big post about how they're taking a week off because there was too much fighting/political posts. so there's currently no mods on r/crochet and people are being absolutely insane

Oh wow what a thread

This watermark graffiti by street artist Mathieu Tremblin is, like, the best thing ever.

the only solution I've found is add "reddit" to your search.

Observing human behavior confirms that for some among us, the perfidious lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest know no bounds and are bereft of human decency. And the rule of law be damned.

Relevant content.

FWIW I thought this comment from Neel Kashkari was probably one of the most interesting ones — and one that we should still be thinking about today.

With apologies to other Wambsgans, I must admit that I thought it was a joke name, made up by Jesse Armstrong for Matthew MacFadyen in Succession

DOCTOR: I told him he needed to get out to a show, that was how he would cure his depression. CHOTINER: So you learned this technique in school? DR: No, not— listen it was good advice. Pagliacci was in town. C: Right. Is it standard to give advice before learning a patient’s name? DR: Now look

...I cannot think of a more self-defeating move for any international broadcaster to make, at a time when it has never been more vital to provide Americans with reporting they can no longer source reliably at home. Now is not the time to be putting barriers of any kind in their way.

Wonderful thread about stories, and ownership

That first sentence offers an incredibly impoverished view of teaching and learning.

Next Saturday, January 31st, from 11.05am BBC2 is showing a brace of Powell & Pressburger masterpieces - first, the absolutely gorgeous restoration of I KNOW WHERE I'M GOING followed by the incredible A MATTER OF LIFE & DEATH... #FilmSky

Key link in a beautifully considered and even-handed thread (read all of it) about some powerful results of AI in genetic research - which usefully points to a few fundamental issues of the technology and without panicking illustrates some of the associated risks.

"Luchs speaks five languages: English, French, Italian, and some German and Russian. She approached grasping Gen Z parlance like she was learning another language. ...An Instagram commenter wrote: 'She’s so natural with it too like it’s not even cringe.'"

Still the greatest video ever made. Sorry. I don't make the rules...

Superb about humans and the meaning in their writing.

Superb, heroic work

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free

The UK version of “Project 2025” by the Reform party includes a British ICE, a concentration camp for 24,000 people, mass surveillance and withdrawing from refugee, anti-torture and anti-trafficking conventions. It’s on their website. That’s how comfortable fascists are in the UK today.