I've said it before but I honestly think part of the solution is for the government/parliament to buy boxes at key venues so it can entertain people at these events, rather than being a supplicant

Peter Geoghegan@petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 6h ago

🔴 NEW: Special advisers accepted hospitality from lobbyists and businesses 700 times + since Labour took power Glastonbury tickets, Taylor Swift, UFC fights + more SpAds sit outside the UK lobbying rules. So no one knows what was actually discussed🧵 democracyforsale.substack.com/p/the-700-fr...

"If you tech bros play your cards right you too can earn the universal respect and popularity enjoyed by those of us in finance," is a sales pitch so lacking in realism and self-awareness that I fully believe it was both real and well received by its specific audience.

Alexander Clarkson@aphclarkson.bsky.social · 5h ago

Really?...Really???

what a time to be alive (derogatory)

Loved her expo in Manchester in 2023

Yayoi Kusama (1929-2026) RIP

It's heartening that the term "pervert glasses" has become so widespread that it's being used in headlines about the pervert glasses and legislative attempts to halt the ability of perverts to buy them.

ABC News Australia@news.abc.net.au · 3d ago

Push for import ban on 'pervert' smart glasses amid privacy concerns

One way you know Dolly Parton lived life the right way: I don’t think anyone’s going to get fired for accurately quoting Dolly Parton today.

Ante Crnac scores! Assist: Jack Stacey #NCFC

Losing my mind at the "CRT filter" for this new release of Manic Miner that was just announced

we are entering time of "derisking" -- from fossil fuels, from globalized supply chains, and importantly for americans, away from american tech, the us dollar, us investments and associated us institutions such as the us legal system

Avi Lewis@avilewis.ca · 4d ago

This trade war should jolt us out of our reliance on volatile fossil fuels and accelerate our transition to clean, secure and reliable energy.

Yes, councils built 130,000 houses pa in the 70s, but they had their own construction workforce, architects, planners, lawyers etc. Thatcher destroyed all of this and it has never been replenished.

A year ago I wrote one of my most popular posts: "the financial crisis theory of everything". It looks at how the 2008 crash led to Trump, the rise of the radical right, Brexit, the war in Ukraine etc... I've taken off the paywall so it's now free to read. samf.substack.com/p/the-financ...

The financial crisis theory of everything

Last month there was a fascinating poll from More in Common asking people to pick the main reason Britain is “on the wrong track”.

samf.substack.com

Optimist: The cup is half full. Pessimist: The cup is half empty. Accountant: You cannot afford the cup.

Optimist: The cup is half full Pessimist: The cup is half empty Historian: The cup can teach you a lot of things that you do not want to know

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2y ago

Optimist: The cup is half full Pessimist: The cup is half empty Science Fiction Writer: The cup is a crystalline super computer and the liquid is hyperintelligent, they want to know why humanity should be allowed to exist, you have 30 minutes to respond and the answer must be danced by a cat

I absolutely love this that someone just posted on linkedin clearly created by AI without even rudimentary checking. Surrey appears to be trying to escape to France. Staffordshire and Oxfordshire have annexed Wales. And Labour are very strong in the county of "Monthiste". Which has never existed.

Not to be glib, but the genuine problem with a lot of the right these days is that they are just dumb? There's just no intellectual apparatus or appetite to build one! It is just pretending to misunderstand things so you can be racist all the way down.

This guy is so much less interesting than the media's bizarre obsession with writing the same story about him over and over

The New York Times@nytimes.com · last wk.

Bryan Johnson, a wealthy tech entrepreneur whose slogan is “Don’t Die,” has called himself “the healthiest person on the planet.” He consumes little meat, but a lot of collagen peptides and supplements in order to defeat mortality. Why is his goal to make it possible to live forever? nyti.ms/4im4Nuj

Porto has made public transport free for all residents. Since 10 July, anyone living in Portugal’s second largest city can ride the metro, buses, trams and ferries across the metropolitan area at no charge, in a bid to coax people out of their cars. EU Today buff.ly/pDRs778 #ShareGoodNewsToo

Porto introduces free public transport for all city residents - https://eutoday.net

Porto has introduced free public transport for its residents, allowing eligible passengers to use metro, bus, suburban rail, tram and river services across

eutoday.net

This is really good. It doesn’t quite say this, but Liddle made his choices, & within a certain media context and an evolving one spinning into a racist and hateful direction that rewarded & distorted aspects of his personality. History is replete with such grim transformations.

Peter Jukes@peterjukes.bsky.social · 3w ago

I knew Rod Liddle and hated what he became. He would have wanted me to say so | Zoe Williams www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

If the salmonella outbreak teaches us anything, it's that there's only one way to cook eggs, and that's until they are rubbery enough to bounce

Great Yarmouth

Martin D.B. Brown@martindbbrown.bsky.social · last wk.

i keep saying this but LLMs are almost ideally shaped for collective ownership. the union idea is a super interesting direction to go with that

Anil Dash@anildash.com · last wk.

I have not seen much conversation about worker-owned AI models, nor have I seen any unions talking about collectively-owned platforms, but that's what a good alternative should look like. I do understand people will say that sounds insane; It usually takes about 7 years until people think I'm sane.

Capybara Onsen #pixelart

At kids Karaoke. Just discovered that the lyrics of How Far I'll Go from Moana has a totally different meaning in French.

Democratic Socialism: Myth Vs. Fact https://theonion.com/democratic-socialism-myth-vs-fact/

If Labour is serious about stopping the authoritarian right, it needs to rebuild the cordon sanitaire and reject racism and the othering of immigrants as legitimate political positions. Not pander to them.

Clive Lewis MP@labourlewis.bsky.social · 4w ago

1/4 If Labour is serious about stopping the authoritarian right, it must rebuild trust by breaking with the very culture that feeds public cynicism. If we fail to change course, the winners will not be the public, but the billionaires.

This. This is fucking capitalism. When the shareholders of the firm that knowingly supplied the flammable cladding that sent 72 souls (18 children) up in a terrifying tower of flame got paid more compensation for 'financial loss' than the victims families for loss of life. Disgusting bastards.

The 2010s began with a great push to reorder things, to remove services and assistance to the poorest people for the gain of people with power and money. This was so disastrous that it became an all-hands-to-the-pump effort to prop up the existing order via all-channels blasting fear and hatred.