CALTON HILL:—December night. Edinburgh sky aglow. #Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news

Here's me for @newstatesman1913.bsky.social arguing that the only way to forestall a Reform government is to make a more decisive break with neoliberalism than Starmer is ever going to, or most of the parliamentary 'soft left' still seem capable of imagining. www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-...

If you happen to be looking for bad redactions in a large set of data files today for some reason, there's an open source tool for that.

Titanfall 2's campaign is nothing short of a masterpiece, and what a gift it was for all of us. Such heart, incredible design, impeccable mechanics. Nearly ten years later it more than holds up, it remains arguably the pinnacle of the genre. If you've never played it, please do so.

This is exactly what the DnD community has made of itself. People trying to figure things out in a broader spectrum than the readily available options. It's a beautiful community and one of the reasons I love it. I'll add to this, "Play to the players, not just yourself."

@marjoryfrauts.bsky.social and I have put up the main Christmas decoration.

this is cyberpunk, as experienced by ordinary people in universe

As part of the 5 trees, 5 walks, 5 poems launch @abs.ventures, Fiona and I read my speculative fiction story ‘There’s a Fungus Among-Us’. If you are a fan of art celebrating trees I recommend getting yourself a copy! www.artwalkporty.co.uk/publication/...

Various pictures of Stonehenge from many sources

Over the last five years, the number of independent bookstores in the U.S. jumped by 70%. In 2025 alone, 422 new bookstores opened, according to the American Booksellers Association. You love to see it. 📚💙

God Rest You Scary Gentlemen… Papercut by my husband #GothicAdvent

We fail to acknowledge how much the media / politicians drive public concern rather than reflect it; this happened with Brexit too. I’d love to see a chart tracking increased negative media coverage of the trans community with people seeing them as a threat. I’ve no doubt the former came first.

Pretty stark stuff.

The Winter Solstice alignment at Stonehenge today. Photo credit: Nick Bull x.com/i/status/200...

Fire on the mountain shall find the harp of gold Played to wake the sleepers, oldest of old. Power from the Green Witch, lost beneath the sea. All shall find the Light at last, silver on the tree. Happy Winter Solstice, and Happy Birthday, Will Stanton. /end

Heartsblood Horse (for Ways and Means)

I heard a bird sing In the dark of December A beautiful thing A sweet to remember "We are closer to Spring than we were in September." I heard a bird sing In the dark of December

“First things first... We're having fish every Friday."

‘Yer da shouts at hotels’ theres been a murder

This is a personal favourite, heard it a while ago and love it from so many directions.

Hope to see some of you there for our end of year social!

Ho ho ho it's our December Social Salon, a festive return to our original home of the #WashBar #Edinburgh on Tuesday December 23rd from 6.30pm, free as always more info, at www.edinburghliterarysalon.org/post/decembe... #Christmas #Literary #Salon #Books #Writing

The @newscientist.com Book Club is reading the #scifi masterpiece THE PLAYER OF GAMES by Iain M. Banks. In this video, Iain’s friend & fellow author @amendlocke.bsky.social discusses Iain’s schooldays, his literary influences, & his idea for a final Culture novel 💙📚 www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7OW...

Hope. But so hard.

Attention Citizens! The holiday season is upon us and the Brilliant, Handsome, Famous Ultraviolet citizens at Mongoose have deemed you worthy for a new complimandatory adventure! Download and enjoy today! Or else. #ttrpg #paranoia

This really sucks, and we are underestimating the massive demand for AI-free *anything* out there. It's a massive cultural, political and business opportunity, though one that'll require effort and the skills of old-school journalism, verification and fact-checking

The year is 2035. There are three game studios left. Each one produces a game every 10 years, killing 250+ developers in the process. They all accidentally make the same game because they used genAI in preproduction. They sell 500 million units each, missing quarterly targets. Everyone is laid off.

Hey, new announcement for DIE RPG. Next year, @rowanrookanddecard.bsky.social will be crowdfunding DIE RPG: THE METADUNGEON - a huge dungeon where each level is explicitly about a different period of RPG history. @mytholder.bsky.social has gone berserk. Sign up! www.backerkit.com/call_to_acti...

Sinclair User Jan 1987: Festive quiz, simulations feature, 1986 lookback, how to begin your own games company, Crisis At Christmas adventure game type-in. READ: (1/2) #zxspectrum #retrogaming

Drew a fucking massive transformer for the Battersea power station shop.

Next week, Tuesday 23rd December at 6.30pm we have our Festive Social Salon back at our spiritual home of the Wash Bar. Free as always, more info at www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/decembers-...? #EdinburghLiterarySalon #Edinburgh

Yesterday I meet with constituents who are amongst the 34 staff dismissed by @rockstargames.com . This situation raises serious concerns about workers’ rights and potential anti-union discrimination.

Way to kill your entire fucking brand, wow

Sometimes people ask me how to get better at improvising in TTRPGs and I shrug helplessly, saying "...uhhhhh.... Ummmm," and things like that. To improve this response I rolled on a spark table and followed the prompt "write a blog post about it".

In a world where you can be anything, be kind to nature. From climate change to disasters, our planet is under pressure — yet nature holds the key to resilience and life itself. Let’s act with kindness towards nature, which sustains us all: www.unep.org/topics/natur...

Merriam-Webster’s human editors have chosen ‘slop’ as the 2025 Word of the Year.

Yesterday's Word Count = 617 Oh I spent so much time traipsing across this map and dying from bonkers random encounters...

PSA: there’s been an exploit for Signal and WhatsApp released that can be used to silently track you. Temp fixes for both can be done in your settings: For WhatsApp: Settings>Privacy>Advanced>Block unknown messages. For Signal: Settings>Privacy>Phone number>Who can find me by number>Nobody

Today's #UnexpectedEbayFind in this button badge featuring "Peter Puddock", the one-time mascot of Edinburgh's Royal Commonwealth Pool (aka The Commie) 🐸🎀🏊, created as a result of a 1987 competition by Edinburgh District Council...

They used to "laugh and call him names." Now they're all dead

Oh yes. Stuart Maconie’s freakzone on 6Music is two hours of alternative cover versions of Christmas songs. Already had Low, Can and Jethro Tull Would pay the BBC license fee for Freakzone alone

as much as I understand the appeal of a Doctor Who spin off for hitting that family viewing target dead on, sorry but this just means it's another December without the four-part BBC prestige tv adaptation of The Dark Is Rising with Timothy Dalton's sonorous Welsh tones doing Merriman that I REQUIRE

The Ghost Story for Christmas Eve this year is M R James's "An Episode of Cathedral History". It'll be livestreamed at 7pm (UK) but available to watch anywhere, anytime after that. Simply register and pay-what-you-can here christmascathedralghosts.eventbrite.co.uk

One from the festive vaults! The legendary 2000 AD released many classic annuals in the 1970s and 1980s, and recently has started doing old-school annuals again! Zarjaz!

Learned today that “Galápagos” comes from a Spanish word for tortoise, meaning that “Galápagos Tortoise” is, in fact, a tortology

The fact is no presenter has ever had to leave the BBC for expressing conservative views, or even explicitly endorsing a right-wing party. Was never a problem for Jeremy Clarkson. Was never a problem for Andrew Neil. Was never a problem for Alan Sugar

reading thread 2025, hwfg!

Sam Altman: hey I made a machine that stole literally all your stuff in order to make CSAM of your child actors, sometimes it encourages people to kill themselves Disney: Holy shit here's a billion dollars Altman: the machine loses more than that each week but thank you. Soon it will become god.

I'm starting to think it wasn't a good idea to put all the world's communications in the hands of three American companies www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Alasdair kept digging and identified most of the photographs at the ending that are shown in montage before the ballroom photo is zoomed in on. Turns out that Ronald Regan is in multiple photos. www.reddit.com/r/StanleyKub...