And others that I haven't mentioned. Like I feel right now as a queer woc that I have to keep dancing around the fact that the actual governments don't want my work and also the publishers don't want it cuz they're scared of the government and I'm not allowed to say that cuz it's gauche and too true

I just rewatched this episode The West Wing recently...

Stephen Blackmoore@stephenblackmoore.com · 3d ago

The US has the most fragile fucking egos in the world. Seriously, we're a bunch of goddamn toddlers.

All you have to do is write from the heart, learn the skill to convey it with meaning, and murder anyone who gets in your way.

Right through this whole debacle, the very best and most categorical I’ve heard from the lobby journos about Labour’s behaviour re: the destruction of the Gaza Strip and the horrific behaviour towards minorities was: it’s difficult, it’s tricky, it’s awkward, it’s complicated, it’s contentious.

Gregk Foley@gregk.co.uk · 5d ago

Eventually, it will be widely acknowledged that saying a country had the right to cut off food and water to perpetrate genocide, oppressing those who would oppose it, and dehumanising trans people and immigrants were not incidental missteps but, in fact, provided the exact measure of a man.

I have an odd feeling that in the future this moment when the government went full steam ahead on data centres, asked tech funded think tanks to effectively write legislation and acted as Big Tech's protector against the EU will be seen as a pivotal moment on the journey down an unpleasant road.

The explanation here is that Starmer is an incurious dolt, so he simply believed everything he was told about well-meaning Sensibles being persecuted by thugs and then dug his heels in, when his handlers tried to explain Forde would not understand the Labour Party’s, uh, unique situation.

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · 6d ago

Here’s one to ponder: if Sir Keir was fully in on the joke after all and he wasn’t just a clueless Himbo hired to read words on TV, then why did he hire Martin Forde to investigate that leaked report? A man who would care what internal factional beef he was supposed to turn a blind eye to?

It isn’t a coincidence that many rich countries are accelerating policies to reduce immigration at the same time we are witnessing more natural disasters supercharged by climate change.

Getting my job back at the Washington Post would not have been possible if it wasn’t for me belonging to a union. @postguild.bsky.social and @wbng.org are the unions I belong to. I was able to challenge my wrongful termination because of the collective bargaining agreement / union contract!

I appreciate that Dolly Parton refused to participate in "dress respectability" and, by her own account, modeled her aesthetic after a town "tramp," who she thought was beautiful. She separated aesthetics from character and understood "classiness" to be about how you treat people, not how you dress.

Not long to go until spooky season, and I'll be doing my bit to contribute to those chills with my online course on WRITING GHOST STORIES this September and October! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/writing-gh... #ghosts #ghoststory #ghoststories #haunted #hauntings #spooky

Writing Ghost Stories - 4-week course

A four-week course exploring the essentials of writing a ghost story, taking in atmosphere, characterisation, pacing and much more!

eventbrite.co.uk

We are back! Please join @kitgonzo.bsky.social and myself as we take a look at one of Barker’s more unusual short stories: The New Murders In The Rue Morgue. youtu.be/1XkI9uJHsbw?...

Clive Barker's Books of Blood: The New Murders In The Rue Morgue

YouTube video by ExaggeratedElegy

youtu.be

Because the last years have seen one brainless absurdity after another, the NFT craze feels longer than 5 years ago. I just checked values. The Dorsey NFT, sold in 2021 for $2.9mill, was worth $280 by 2022. From 2021-2025, sales lost 93% of their value. Now, "95% of NFT art has no value at all".

The coda that the kid in the sham ADHD documentary *went back on medication later* and no one thought hmm, "maybe we shouldn't broadcast this" is really indicative of where we are, isn't it.

Yeah. I notice we're entering the 'next, they came for people with disabilities' phase...

Robin Ince@robinince.bsky.social · 3w ago

Wow , just saw a 4 star review of the ADHD Myth ? Documentary in The Guardian - on so many levels it failed as a proper investigative documentary and yet…? It is hard not to despair at just how terrible our journalism is in this country - Relentless damaging mediocrity

Philosophers often bring up the "principle of charity": a willingness to assume good faith in an interlocutor and treat them accordingly. It's good to do in many circumstances. But it is worth formulating a principle of not being a fucking mark. If not during the rise of fascism, then when? 12/

Party with 8 MPs, falling in the polls, whose leader is likely to be posted by the standards committee, sabre rattles to cut essential services. BBC reports this as if it were a positive thing that is likely to happen

Stuart Hemingway@stu31.bsky.social · 3w ago

It’s just a plan with no details and the BBC are treating it as a major story. Disturbing and disgusting that they are doing this

Joined CNBC's Squawk Box to talk about how 70% of AI revenues are coming from Anthropic and OpenAI, NVIDIA's vendor financing by proxy, and how outside of unprofitable AI labs, there's single-digit billions of dollars of demand for AI compute and software. youtu.be/8GWPjTDPVIM

Ed Zitron on CNBC Squawk Box talking NVIDIA, unprofitable AI labs, and the Greater AI Bubble

YouTube video by Ed Zitron

youtu.be

Never a truer word spoken

Whitby Gothic@whitbygothic.bsky.social · 4w ago

+++ A Friendly Word of Warning! +++ For those of you currently in the dust bowl, that is the UK. ;-) #eclipse #solareclipse #theSun

Gods, yes.

Zack Polanski@zackpolanski.bsky.social · 4w ago

Climate breakdown isn't a political negotiation. It's a scientic reality borne out in lives lost and wildfires. Tax fossil fuel giants to pay for firefight helicopters, a cool space in every community and a maximum working temperature.

“Gender-critical” transphobia is not feminism. Transphobes do not represent women… 142 feminist organisations sign a manifesto in support of trans people’s human rights. gcn.ie/feminist-org...

Today on Whatever, @athenascalzi.com offers a rebuttal to my "Guitar Hero" analogy for "AI" - Not because she's defending "AI" (she thinks it sucks) but because she believes I am slandering Guitar Hero. Catch up on this intergenerational clash at the link: whatever.scalzi.com/2026/08/10/w...

Why My Father Is Wrong: A Defense Of Guitar Hero

My father recently wrote a piece detailing some of his thoughts on AI, and in doing so he compared using generative AI to playing Guitar Hero. I shall not let this analogy stand. If you think I&#82…

whatever.scalzi.com

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · last mo.

Over on Whatever today, I'm talking about "AI" and creativity and how, when it comes to learning creative skills, Generative "AI" is rather like the old "Guitar Hero" game, i.e., a really fun way not to actually learn how to do a creative thing: whatever.scalzi.com/2026/08/06/g...

The older I get, the more sure I am that Britain will never have a Prime Minister who is not absolutely committed to automatically obeying Washington, keeping the right tills ringing and never, ever opening the big bulging file marked “Northern Ireland (1969-1998).”

flyingrodent@flyingrodent.bsky.social · last mo.

I think people are going to be disappointed, for the next ten years at least. The entire game since the 08 crash has been “prop up these utterly horrific swine, no matter the terrible damage” and I see not one glimmer that this will end any time soon. I am dubious about it ending in my lifetime.

McGowan: The president's personal defense attorney should not be the attorney general. The man who ignored the Epstein victims and then moved Ghislaine Maxwell from a maximum security prison to where she is now, should not be the attorney general. I think Cassidy is a spineless coward.

This is because the great lesson of the 2010s was: politicians can mostly ignore the collapsing public realm they vandalised and stay in their important jobs, so long as everyone is willing to join in with whatever ludicrously inflammatory horseshit they are shouting into microphones this week.

Also, of course, this, still bsky.app/profile/scal...

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 5mo ago

I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses

There is a certain level of obtuseness in (some) "AI" apologists when they flounce up to point out what "AI" is good for in science, etc, while eliding the fact that almost none of that use is driving the current market capitalization, environmental degradation and resource hogging of the field

This is an indication of an insecurity

Holl🌞@willows-song.bsky.social · last mo.

This is why you dont try to compromise or concede anything to these horrors

When the free-chatbot spigot finally gets turned off and everyone has to pony up serious $$ to keep using these things, we're gonna see a LOT of addicted journalists go through a form of delirium tremens

Katelyn Burns@katelynburns.com · last mo.

There's quite a few content creators that I suspect are suffering from AI psychosis.

I would suggest that cynically indulging the bullshit and horrible behaviour of bad faith, very right wing crackpots is *precisely* how we wound up in this abysmal situation in the first place