Every technology problem is three social problems in a trench coat

This is from Iain M. Banks. In the post-scarcity techno-anarchist society of the Culture, there's generally no crime but some individuals do get slap-droned whereby a drone follows them around at all times to prevent them doing any more crime.

AI being allowed to "drive" your terminal/command line is a fast road to cases of the LLM deleting the users OS after hallucinating a wildly incorrect response to a prompt

I'm no professional screenwriter but surely you start the film with Bond in the middle of an action sequence and then continue the story, never bringing up that Bond used to look like Daniel Craig and died because why would you?

there's a moment in PARADISE LOST where Satan arrives in Eden and realizes Hell isn't a place; it's a thing he carries within him and it'll follow him wherever he goes. and i think about that when i see these awful rich men whose monstrous wealth has enriched them not at all

Okay no, absolutely not. We are not doing "Jar Jar Binks is woke, actually"

Returning to @rosegardenofeyes.bsky.social's incredible account of watching LOGISTICS. A wonderful piece of writing.

"[Contrary to my opinion of a few weeks ago,] I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own"

Reminds me of how Coventry University is making staff redundant while also building a new campus in India and, for some reason, a hotel in Coventry city centre. Feels bad to know that your employer cares more about buildings than people.

Solidarity to all colleagues at Lancaster university right now. “The destructive programme of cuts at all while directing money to vanity projects abroad is completely unacceptable.” @drjogrady.bsky.social We must come together. Vote YES. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Oh fuck off

One of my CPC colleagues is speaking at this symposium on AI slop and brain rot at Anglia Ruskin’s Centre for Media, Arts and Creative Technologies on 5th December 2025. Sounds super interesting. https://www.aru.ac.uk/brain-rot

Just thinking about Celebrity Traitors last night and the fact that if they’d been on that train just 10 seconds longer the scenes would have been horrific. Massive relief all round I imagine, it would have put a serious crimp on what has otherwise been a very successful series.

“And then you have librarians who are experiencing a real existential crisis because they are getting asked by their jobs to promote [AI] tools that produce more misinformation. It's the most, like, emperor-has-no-clothes-type situation that I have ever witnessed.” - Alison Macrina

Panera’s moderately caffeinated lemonade was loosely associated with 2 deaths before it was taken off market. This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.

It’s still absolutely wild that the police raided her house like she was Walter White in a huge media event, then came out two weeks later and did a press conference publicly blaming Crown Office for non-specifically ruining their investigation, not granting them a search warrant at the first ask.

Since it became too dark to run in the evenings, I've achieved my two fastest times this year at subsequent parkruns. Conclusion: too much training may have been holding me back this summer.

Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN is beautiful and sweeping but missing some kind of spark, some absent dimension to the actual relationships at the heart of the piece. Maybe I would have been more in it if the guy behind me hadn't continually been making little whispered comments in support of the Creature.

Honestly, how do outlets keep looking at a sector in freefall, at 15,000 jobs lost, at maddening spikes in mental health concerns, and not think 'maybe we should hear from the people who actually care about that sector and what it does, and not just from those who've been wrecking it'?

🎉 Thrilled that the first ever issue of the Scottish Journal of Open Research has published today, #DiamondOA of course! This will be such a great venue to share good #OpenResearch practice. Plus I had my first experience of editing a journal article! 👉https://doi.org/10.36399/f74t5k88

The Scottish Greens stand with Rockstar's workers. ✊

I don't think there's a difference in a partner doing this level of location monitoring or a parent: it's abusive, demeaning and should not be normalised in the slightest

Oh no. I resisted the LEGO Barad-dûr but I don't think I have the strength to resist the Enterprise-D.

The Celebrity Traitors also worked well because the celebrities were more able to treat it as a game rather than taking it personally. A combination of professional detachment from a project and the actual money being for charity rather than to change their own lives.

If you want to build a machine that always wins at debate, then you are not interested in truth, you are interested in rhetoric.

Long overdue new release. A collaborative full-length with @thegnarrator.bsky.social: hairdryerexcommunication.bandcamp.com/album/no-sta... all free/PWYW digitally, and a few cdr copies w/ 5" lathe cut single are available to buy if that floats your boat.

The true winner is men being kind to each other #celebritytraitors

No Joe Dante? Bad. Bad bad bad bad bad. We do not need that Chris Columbus schmaltz unmediated by a guy who thinks it's corny and tiresome

No Joe Dante? Then it's not really a Gremlins movie is it?

No Joe Dante; no deal.

Does Paul Mason think that the current Labour Government has done all of these things?

accessing gender affirming care in the UK

My hot take is that there is probably a very good movie to be made about Michael Jackson, but it absolutely cannot be officially licensed by the estate.

Calling all Glasgow and Central Belt folks - please do join us at the Mitchell Library on Sunday for our event with Tim Ingold. Tickets are only £8! There may be a pub trip afterwards 🤔

Started a simple tarot reading and immediately drew the equivalent of the Joker which probably shouldn't have been in the deck. Seems bad.

[REFLECTIONS] Great write up by Jonathan Gray of the recent symposium on 'collective infrastructures for publishing' convened by our Experimental Publishing Group and ServPub Really looking forward to reading what follows from this gathering! 👉

wow is it possible for seven people to all be wrong about something? www.axios.com/2025/09/02/a...

I imagine this makes things a lot easier for anyone with dementia who regularly has to go to the Oval Office.

"There's a /New/ York now?"

Someone's created a graphic showing all the ways the Coca Cola truck changes shape in the new AI 'Holidays Are Coming' advert www.thedrum.com/opinion/the-...

Facebook has added AI assistants to all groups 😂

🔴 Students working in Edinburgh University were “interrogated” by police at their desks over posters featuring Palestinians killed by the Israeli military, prompting dozens to sign a letter of complaint. theferret.scot/edinb...

Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.

It's ironic and deeply revealing of the anti-left bias on #r4today that on the day Mamdani is being branded a "radical left-winger" at every opportunity by the BBC, Webb decides to coin the word "unradical" to label a Reform UK policy during a very cozy chat with Tice...

This is horrendous and the Scottish and Westminster Governments should take it as further evidence of why they should leave 𝕏 but minor correction: these "AI" tools are supposed to be software products that make money for private companies. That is what they are designed to do, nothing more.

I will support any New York mayoral candidate who admits bodegas are just convenience stores and everywhere in the world has them