Best description I heard was 'Kitsch beef sandwich business, masquerading as a coffee shop'

I'm not sure how you'd even begin to explain what "Merrie England" was to someone who'd never heard of them before. Imagine a handful of people eating roast beef sandwiches whilst sat underneath a cartwheel festooned with fake candle lightbulbs whilst entirely surrounded by very very VERY dark wood.

Tim Chapman@othersfield.bsky.social · last wk.

The death of Merrie England. This will be of particular concern to M John Harrison fans seeking the mirrored gateway to Viriconium (or London, depending on which version of the story you're reading). huddersfieldhub.co.uk/end-of-an-er...

Not many people know that M. C. Escher used to work as a book binder.

AlanFricker@alanfricker.bsky.social · 2w ago

New CILIP website is a mess of AI slop images. Check out the images of senior professionals and try and imagine the prompt that generated them. All backed by walls of fake books that look like the ones sold by the yard to furnish pubs www.cilip.org.uk/learn-develo...

I'm tempted to write a web browser plugin that changes all mentions of AI in Guardian articles to "Adrian Chiles".

I've been staring at AI bots for so long that I can spot their "tells" a mile off. One is that they fake the "referer" HTTP header in a really dumb way. Everyone likes search engines sending users to their site, right?

Turns out it was that dodgy Israeli-run botnet (mentioned previously) which finally got their comeuppance, so AI companies are now having to find alternate methods to steal content: www.theregister.com/security/202...

NetNut cracked as Google and FBI target 2 million-device botnet

Other residential proxy brands may rely on the same network

theregister.com

Huddersfield Exposed@huddersfield.exposed · 4w ago

Has the AI bubble finally burst? 😁 The last few days have seen fewer requests from bad bots than humans for the first time in ages. huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Hudders...

Has the AI bubble finally burst? 😁 The last few days have seen fewer requests from bad bots than humans for the first time in ages. huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Hudders...

I'm sure that some of you know that I run a tarpit site designed to lure AI bots in and trap them with an infinite labyrinth of plausible yet gibberish text. I was beginning to worry about the recent drop in requests but, woohoo, they're back again 🙂 Drink freely upon the poison, little bots! ☠️

As a bit of a follow up the recent posts about residential proxies -- where AI companies and similar route millions of data harvesting requests to external websites through domestic devices such as TV sets, home routers, etc -- with or without the knowledge of the owner of the device...

Huddersfield Exposed@huddersfield.exposed · last mo.

Today's uptick in unwanted bot requests (all pretending to be human users) seems to be mostly coming from this extremely dodgy Israeli company that has compromised millions of domestic devices, including Samsung and LG TVs, to use as proxies for AI scraping. huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Hudders...

Westgate House, Huddersfield has to be one of my favourite examples of modern commercial architecture. It was originally constructed in the mid-19th century with its famous street-facing exterior being completely redesigned and rebuilt in 1923 by architect Pascal J. Stienlet.

You can find a list of the local men who died on 1 July 1916 here huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Categor...

History and Heritage Yorkshire@handhyorkshire.bsky.social · last mo.

🧵One hundred and ten years ago today on 1 July 1916, Yorkshire bore a devastating share of the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, making up nearly twenty percent of the British force. Spurred by Kitchener’s 1914 call to arms, communities had formed close-knit "Pals" battalions from places like

Yet another Israeli company has cropped up in today's AI bot hits. They boast of having compromised over 85 million domestic devices, however almost all of their traffic is currently being routed through Comcast/Xfinity customers in the US (perhaps that ISP's home routers are easily hackable?).

Huddersfield Exposed@huddersfield.exposed · last mo.

Today's uptick in unwanted bot requests (all pretending to be human users) seems to be mostly coming from this extremely dodgy Israeli company that has compromised millions of domestic devices, including Samsung and LG TVs, to use as proxies for AI scraping. huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Hudders...

Got to love a good stereoscopic card 😁 You can find a few local ones here: huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Stereos...

Orkney Library & Archive@orkneylibrary.bsky.social · last mo.

Today is #NationalCameraDay so here is a very old and unusual item from our Photographic Archive. It's a stereoscopic card featuring St Magnus Cathedral in Kirkwall, and it was created by C. Hubbard in the 1860s, which makes it one of the earliest known photographs of #Orkney.

Today's uptick in unwanted bot requests (all pretending to be human users) seems to be mostly coming from this extremely dodgy Israeli company that has compromised millions of domestic devices, including Samsung and LG TVs, to use as proxies for AI scraping. huddersfield.exposed/wiki/Hudders...

gtbarry@gtbarry.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Bright Data massive web-scraping network turns your mobile phone or smart TV into data-harvesting nodes. The company routes web traffic to corporate clients—often to train AI—through your home internet connection #BrightData #TV #privacy #surveillance #artificialintelligence #AI #technology #tech

Daniel Bellingradt@dbellingradt.bsky.social · last mo.

Oxford goes all in: www.ox.ac.uk/gen-ai

The local rag succumbed to click bait headlines and shockingly substandard reporting years ago, but now they've come for the Luddites (even though the Luddites will obviously be far too fearful of using a web browser to ever read it).

Seems a bit rich coming from a man whose day job is brazenly stealing other people's hard work and content. Apparently their business model is so unprofitable that they need billions or even trillions more in funding asap just to keep the grift alive. It's high time the genAI bubble popped.

Given that some people are wittering on about 1976, I had a quick look in the local newspaper archives. In July at Slaithwaite Carnival it was reportedly around 26 Celsius. Six young girls from Holme Valley Majorettes collapsed from heat exhaustion whilst performing and were rushed to HRI.

Ah, good ol' Penistone Line with your ancient non-air conditioned rolling stock with most windows welded shut. I suspect my juices will be running clear within 10 minutes at this heat 🍗

Happy 10 years of Brexit 💃💃💃

In 1848, Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte (aka Napoleon III) became the first president of the French Second Republic. The event was commemorated by weaver James Coldwell and his wife Mary of Netherton near Huddersfield, who lumbered their newly born son with the name Napoleon Bonaparte Coldwell.

On this day 86 years ago in 1940, twelve Bristol Blenheim light bombers took off from RAF Tangmere (West Sussex) on a ferry pool flight to Malta, accompanied by several Hawker Hurricanes. They ran into severe weather over western France and five of the Blenheims crashed, killing all 15 crew members.

Doing some late night mapping of long lost roads. For example, back in the 1840s, Kings Mill Lane took a different route and connected through to Dog Kennel Bank via Channel Lane. Cocker Lane ran southwards to Squirrel Ditch from a junction.

KPMG report contained AI hallucinations on benefits of . . . AI as.ft.com/r/f5f7934f-1...

KPMG report contained AI hallucinations on benefits of . . . AI

Bogus case studies on UBS and transit systems exaggerated adoption of the technology

as.ft.com

Urk! Pray for me as it looks like I'll have 2 or 3 minutes max to get all the way across Leeds station to platform 16 🏃💨

Anyone aware of UK emergency funds for saving public works of art at imminent risk or of any local (to Huddersfield) companies that might be interested in helping? Ta in advance! The race to save Little Abe and potentially also a second mural is back on. huddersfieldhub.co.uk/community-gi...

Community given just 14 days to raise £40,000 to save historic tiled mural of the 'Bishop of Berry Brow' - Huddersfield Hub

The community has been given just 14 days to raise £40,000 to save a historic tiled mural that could be lost when a block of flats is demolished

huddersfieldhub.co.uk

"The Reform dominated Calderdale Council will not fly the rainbow flag in the grounds of Shibden Hall, where 19th Century industrialist Anne Lister, also known as Gentleman Jack, wrote her famous diaries, including about her love affairs with women." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Calderdale Council making mistake not flying Pride flag - MP

There will be no Pride flag flying at Shibden Hall, home of Britain's "first modern lesbian".

bbc.co.uk

Labour are doing the media circuit today talking about how much money we need to spend to defend against Russia. Meanwhile Russian-based hacker groups have already devastated our cultural infrastructures and I don't see vast amounts of money flowing towards cultural institutions and universities.

Hopefully I'm not the only person who finds themselves writing an email and then having to spend ages deciding if the snark level is appropriate or needs to be lowered by at least 90%