Also, hoteliers

FFS all this insight is gratis, folks. Follow @gralefrit.bsky.social, & buy ‘Be Funny or Die’ uk.bookshop.org/p/books/be-f...

A pre-AI take on academic cheating (C.S. Lewis).

Look, plantar fascitis sucks but I think this guy has bigger issues going on

*coughs* UK universities

Spent a plane ride reading Pope Leo's Encyclical on AI. Many thoughts to share later, but this will stick with me: "The quality of a civilization is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer, by its ability to recognize the other as a face not merely as a function."

Ah, Gralefrit is worth a follow about 5 times a day 👏👏

A great video, and now I’m looking for somewhere discreet to puke up my breakfast

Meanness, and greed, and the knowing pollution of the precious trust between me and creative artists. Small things matter

RIP Marcia Lucas, here’s the despecialized version of the final trench run in Star Wars 77 which you will get to see properly next year, behold the greatness of film editing youtu.be/B-0MZZ07dLE

Very nicely done

I love this, and the conversation it’s part of

Brilliant thread!

The bowler hats! Brilliant.

Seconding this. I see so many dormant blogs whose last few posts are full of guilty apologies for not blogging more often. There's no need for that – just do whatever pace suits you. For me and my language blog, that's once a month or two these days. Might get busier, might not

I suppose it’s something about ‘food styling’, and how some dishes are delicious to eat but not photogenic, but I think it’s actually a big problem if the photos in the cookbook show a subtly different presentation from the blooming recipe. And it happens quite a lot.

I spent 20 minutes reading about this man today; he was so courageous against fascism and communism that it is scarcely possible to believe it, but his story is true. He was called Witold Pilecki, and I salute him.

Facebook is still more important than X. And it's been a sewer for a lot longer.

Picked this up from one of my local free libraries: Dean's Premier Book For Boys (published 1960). There's something in it I have been laughing about all weekend...

Today’s Observer correction, a classic, doesn’t do justice to the context of the typo.

Jiminy cricket this is quite a thread

The Delivery Platform Drivers' union (10,000 members strong) announced they will not deliver any Starbucks orders. They goin' BANKRUPT bankrupt.

Satuday's @theguardian.com cartoon #transrights #EHRC #LGBTQ

Cackling at the bus stop reading this in Trump's inflection

While my country indulges its thoughtless anxieties by voting for cruel immigration policies, stories like this need to be broadcast and amplified - I salute Leah Manning!

Well, there’s some #tinyjoys. A couple weeks ago sent my two old Swiss Army knives off to the Victorinox service centre. One I’ve have had over 25 years, broken casing, stiff, hard to open, scissors spring broken. They arrived back today like new, and the price? €4.76. Incredible customer service!

here is the clip:

I love stories like this, and if you don't too have a word with yourself. Joan Hughes FTW

'Beltsville Agricultural Research Centre', Maryland - I was privately commissioned to memorialise the BARC by a past employee after learning it will be shut down by the USDA after over 100 years of research. They wanted to focus of this aerial embroidery to be the field plots... 1/3 (see thread)

Fantastic insight - I often think 'why am I having the argument that I should have had with *that* person then, with *this* person now?' And god knows it explains some puzzling behaviour from other people...

Advert from 37 years ago: Smash Hits, 3/5/1989

Benedict Bandersnatch and Hugh Fearlessly-Eatsitall

Ok I've designed an LLM prompt to make Google AI just give you a list of links. It's longer than you might think because it kept ignoring the instructions. This is efficient. This is The Future™

In other news, I really needed to read this by @naomialderman.bsky.social today

This may be hearsay, but a friend of a friend who works in the world of dating apps says the goal now is to retain customers. So the last thing you want is for someone to meet their life partner. Instead, you want to show them matches that are just plausible enough to keep them coming back for more.

I am happy to accept that my usual position of ‘smartphones are bad for relationships’ is a sloppy, subjective and vibes-based heuristic. Also, this!

As it’s a slow and dozy Sunday I thought I’d re-up my appeal for others’ responses to this footage. Is it me?

A guy we know pitched a story to a mag about former skateboarders going back to their old haunt in middle age. My BIL(52)went with him as part of the story. BIL is now back home with a broken ankle and the writer is home with a broken vertebrae. The only possible way the story could have gone.

woman: *minds her own business while being beautiful* the worst men in the world: this is an attack on me personally. summon the fleet

Just to add: never hurts to take handwritten notes for body language alone. It shows the speaker/presenter you're actively processing what they're saying instead of passively consuming what they're telling you.

if he becomes Prime Minister and governs *really* well, David Bowie and Victoria Wood actually come back to life

A remarkable speech from Naz Shah opening the King's Speech debate: "Someone like me who spent her formative years fighting a campaign to release her mother from prison, who did not have a formal education beyond 12... forced into a marriage at 15... attempting suicide... Yet, here I stand."

And it wouldn't even lead to lower prices at the pump! Here's the legendary @pkrugman.bsky.social writing in 2000.

If any ministers want to resign in protest, then they’re free to use the template I knocked up back when the same thing happened to BoJo.

Fantastic

Look at the replies. You'll be tempted. Everyone is enjoying themselves so much with this new knowledge.

Tron: Endgame

Frustrated with the election pundits talking as if votes only 'swing' from one party to another. I did some analysis of the results, and my modelling (based on votes only, not polls) suggests that the largest movement since 2024 local elections (by a long way) is from 'Did Not Vote' -> Reform

Not personal, but I am aware it’s more common than we might imagine and also that Richard Herring has it and he follows me.

The greatest trick George Osborne ever pulled was convincing people he didn’t exist.