Had an intriguing editorial discussion recently: how did people in the past talk about 'minutes' when they didn't have watches or standardised times? How does that affect your thinking? Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me. 1/

Oh wow 48 hours of torture and he still dictated a confession knowing it would be read in court and his comrades would be able to get the info. Wow.

I've never had a Spotify account, now it seems I never will. Like genAI, their mission is to reduce the value of creativity so far that the only way to make money from it is to sell it on a mass basis for micro money, ensuring that only a tiny number of artists can ever make money from their work.

Amnesty International also lists all kinds of writing campaigns they need people for: www.amnestyusa.org/get-involved...

These are the days of miracles and wonder.... 🦣🧬

Found what looks to be an awesome newsletter service! Explicitly no hate speech allowed, and when I asked for a feature they didn't have, it had been implemented like 3 hours later! joyful.to

@lasky.io This looks so good! I am very excited to try it out. Do you have a policy about not platforming hate speech? I would feel much safer setting up a newsletter on your platform if so.

Hello #PortfolioDay! I'm a freelance illustrator from France who likes historical fantasy and monsters~ ✨🕯️I just started working on book covers and looking for more interesting projects! 🔹 violettenouvel.carrd.co ✒️ [email protected]

I love portfolio day.

I want to start a newsletter. Can anyone recommend a good platform? Something simple, free, non-evil. I'd just be putting a blog on my website if that weren't passe.

One of the many, many ways people are fighting ICE in Minneapolis is helping neighbors safely shelter at home during a time when abductions are genuinely rampant. People in Minneapolis are doing *so much* great work

Folks, a website is not the same thing as a town you live in or an ancestral piece of land you fight for because it's yours. A site is a service. You don't keep eating at a restaurant that gives you the runs or shop at a store who rung up false charges on your credit card. Same principal with X

‘A good society feeds its people well’ I talk to Scotland’s inaugural Food Tsar as she launches the nation’s new Food Commission about ‘public food’: the meals in schools & hospitals. She says we must double the money spent if people are to get the food they deserve In @heraldscotland.bsky.social

2026 progress on my novel: decided I couldn't draft any more characters until I knew what percentage of the adult population of Elizabethan England was widowed and single. It's about 14.8%, in case that saves anyone else 4 hours of wheat googling.

Long shot, but does anyone know of any UK triathlon competitions that don't have exclusionary gender politics? The one I raced with two years ago seems to have fallen into line with British Triathlon.

I've noticed more posts missing alt text lately, i suspect because of the influx of newcomers from other sites where alt text isn't the norm. I'd recommend enabling this setting to add a reminder to do alt text before posting. If you want advice/help writing alt text, I'm happy to lend a hand!

you're using a tool that fascism wields like a blunt instrument you're using a tool that guzzles more water than the entire bottled water industry you're using a tool that is turning your brain to mush, even if you don't realise it you're using a tool that is designed to fucking REPLACE YOU

1-page comic

Open up this picture fully. Then look at the surface of Mars. Then look up to the top right. Spot Mars' moon Phobos high in the sky. Then notice the bright spot beside Phobos. That's Earth.

Holy shit!!! Rian Johnson, you magnificent bastard! You cinematically rickrolled us in 2025!!!!

That time of year again!

The only thing ChatGPT ever does.

Also, please remember that ALT text should *describe what is in the image*, not just any text in the image, or just a quip about the image. Think: what would you need it to say if you couldn't see the picture?

I think everybody has their own way of communicating while asleep.

Please share this widely. There have been 13 peer-reviewed critiques of the Cass Review, to the extent that academia regards it as pseudoscience, but so far all have been subject to organised censorship by mainstream media. This is the first time one has broken through. Oz Guardian only still.

Oh look, Star Trek is leaving Neflix, thus rendering my subscription pointless. Maybe now is the time to confront the fact that years of paying £9 a month for access to a £100 box set is not my smartest ever move...

YOUR energy bill... the AI tech bros won't be the ones to cover those costs. Policies need to be implemented asap to protect the general public from this.

my favorite thing about the benoit blanc movies is that they aren't really about benoit blanc. he is not grappling with demons from his past. we are not getting flashbacks to the husband whose murder he never solved. he just shows up and does his job like mary poppins for homicides

last newsletter of the year is just a bunch of books i liked, thinly disguised as a gift guide! buttondown.com/alixeharrow/...

And just like that, SFWA capitulates. Keep fighting. It works.

Alice Sullivan tells universities to suppress pro-trans research to protect GC staff. However, HER OWN DATA shows pro-trans research is already more suppressed. When I told the BBC this, they edited out any reference to the data. They have now corrected the record. www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedb...

This is one of the things that breaks my heart: that *every* industry is becoming so incredibly wasteful (food, energy, money, attention, etc.), while so many people can't cover even their basic needs.

So thing is nothing will stop people using Twitter other then lost engagement. But who knows maybe some will notice things like training rights or handing over DMs to officials may move the needle a little.

A colloquial Russian equivalent to “mind your own business” is тебя не ебут, ты не подмахивай. It means “you’re not getting fucked, so don’t wiggle your ass.”

Another Spanish way of telling someone to stay in their lane, originally borrowed from a Latin phrase, is zapatero a tus zapatos. It means “shoemaker, to your shoes.”

A phrase for when someone's interfering that I learnt from Chilean Spanish (but is also used elsewhere) is quien te dio vela en este entierro? It means “who gave you a candle for this vigil?” A similar one, from Venezuela, is no tienes muerto en este entierro, or “you have no dead in this funeral.”

There’s a great expression from Argentinian Spanish about someone who’s sticking their oar in that goes vos no te peinés que no salís en esta foto. It means “don’t comb your hair because you don’t appear in this photograph.”

The end justifies the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have is means.

Just watched The People's Joker and it is *so good*!!! Smart, hilarious, unbelievably charming lead!

A film/TV manager once told me that he asked his clients to always try to take a note in the best possible faith and ask if it was secretly the most brilliant note ever given. Most times, it won't be, but turning off your kneejerk hostility will often help you find something in it worth considering.

This is how the Irish government will try and sell mandatory online ID to the public; "Do you think your privacy is more important than protecting children online? Why don't you want to keep kids safe from online predators?" As if there is a binary choice, your privacy or child safety.

It needs to be repeated daily that - despite all the best efforts of the tech bros to make it about their dicks, and the medievalist MAGAs to destroy everything - we are in a golden age of discovery. Miracles and wonder and don't cry baby don't cry don't cry....

There is a direct correlation between how fake your job is and how much value you see in AI

It is an absolutely delightful irony that the richest man in the world is universally acknowledged to be a huge fucking loser who not a single living person envies in any way at all

Finished The Rose Field (Book of Dust Volume Three). One of those books that stays forever. Passionately hopeful.

If you are a cis woman attending this conference I'm begging you to get it on the agenda and vote it down. Labour were cowardly over Clause 28. I have bitter memories of the way queer people were thrown under the bus. Don't repeat that disgrace!

this sounds like a joke but it's really not. 'gender critical' is a tiny movement but the ppl involved are all in powerful positions and have megaphones.

God, I am enjoying the new Book of Dust so much. It's just wonderful and enthralling and nourishing. And Michael Sheen's narration continues to be perfect.

Just read the Women's Institute's letter announcing that they have been forced to exclude their many trans members after 40 years of inclusivity. Presumably they've been threatened with serious legal action? And if they're worried enough to go against their principles, presumably by JKR?

(UK) Parliamentary Petition: Require generative AI watermarks & ban using people’s likeness without consent https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/736690