This is VERY good

George Monbiot@georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 13h ago

My column on how capital becomes a death cult. Faced with a choice between profit and human life, the radical right chooses profit. Then it tries to persuade us that mass death is what we want. It's the new phase of climate denial: accept your fate, earthlings. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“In other words: generative AI is catnip to the men who miss female sycophants.” @katemanne.bsky.social is provocative and insightful, as ever, with this feminist approach to AI.

A Culture Hooked on Generative AI is a Culture that Misses Female Sycophants

And we have missed a central reason why AI is a feminist issue

katemanne.substack.com

You could buy this book and read it, or just follow these skeets as the account starts again from the beginning. I’d recommend both.

The Phantom Tollbooth Quotes@phantomtollbot.bsky.social · 8h ago

There was once a boy named Milo who didn't know what to do with himself—not just sometimes, but always.

Yet another way in which Mamdani is showing the way not just with rhetoric but with concrete steps. If only more politicians regarded business leaders and lobbyists as just another voter - with a story, interest and need as valid on the face of it as any other voter.

The Wall Street Journal@wsj.com · 19h ago

New York City’s business elites are long accustomed to direct access to City Hall, where even Democratic mayors felt the need to court the city’s wealthiest and most influential corporate leaders. That access is getting shredded by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Nice warm, clear morning gave a lovely window for a walk before very heavy lunchtime rain. So when did I finally head off for a walk? Yep. Now drying off my utterly soaked clothes.

Helpful analysis of the obstacles to getting the Caledonian Sleeper beyond London and into mainland Europe. I knew of the passport control issue, and could imagine tunnel capacity, but was less aware of the others. However, hopefully a feasibility study can crystallise this for politicians and 1/2

Jon Worth@jonworth.eu · 10h ago

See jonworth.eu/forget-it-th...

"Does not mean human authors are obsolete" Well no, because if you click through to the study itself & download the human v AI story pairs, you find that the AI was given a precise prompt explicitly based on the human stories. They're just more basic copies with the themes more blatantly spelled out

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 21h ago

AI-generated stories rated better quality than human-written ones, study finds

A 20th century Voynich. What a peculiar story. scienceblogs.de/klausis-kryp...

The Europa Redux Manuscript – a fascinating mystery

This might be the cryptogram discovery of the year: a manuscript containing some 7000 illustrations, many of them with encrypted (?) captions. Can a reader make sense of these unusual artworks? Prof. ...

scienceblogs.de

👻 I for one am excited about going to see a "Ghosts" movie. www.youtube.com/watch?v=enE6...

Ghosts: The Possession of Button House - Official Trailer

YouTube video by LionsgateFilmsUK

youtube.com

That thudding noise was me falling down the stairs. Good Lord.

ianVisits@ianvisits.co.uk · 2d ago

If you've ever wanted to live in a MagicEye house... www.anthonywebb.co.uk/properties/2...

Aŭstria televido vizitis la Universalan Kongreson www.liberafolio.org/2026/08/03/a...

Aŭstria televido vizitis la Universalan Kongreson

La nomoj de sep novaj honoraj membroj de UEA estis anoncitaj en Graco. Krome du forpasintoj postmorte ricevis la titolon de honora membro, kaj Probal Dasgupta estis postmorte nomita honora prezidan…

liberafolio.org

Ooh! Nach biodh sin math! (Cho fad 's a bhiodh na prìsean reusanta!) www.thenational.scot/news/2643703...

Plan for rail link from Scotland to mainland Europe takes first steps

A new route between the Highlands and mainland Europe could be on its way, after a working group met for the first time to assess the feasibility of…

thenational.scot

Happy There Will Come Soft Rains Day to all who celebrate. (Especially those in Allendale, California.) short-stories.co/@raybradbury...

I'm really fucking sick of this shit. Just get them to sign a form that they were offered treatment which they refused and then send them home. Job done. news.sky.com/story/nhs-st...

Patients refusing to be treated by non-white staff as NHS reports shocking rise in racism

Paul Awah, a Bedfordshire-based diagnostic radiographer originally from Nigeria, said: "It's definitely got worse – people are more expressive."

news.sky.com

Fair enough, if the same licensing decision is applied to industrial farming and meat production (albeit I accept the judgement seems to be made on population stability not cruelty/ethics - so it’s not a clear cut thing). www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Scottish islanders refused permission to stage annual guga hunt

Each year hundreds of gannet chicks are killed for their meat on the uninhabited Hebridean island of Sula Sgeir.

bbc.co.uk

If women wore smart glasses, they'd be banned. (soigomaa/x) Think about it. If millions of women wore smart glasses, recording men's behaviour, conversations, comments, their driving & bar chats ... can you imagine the panic? Trust me, smart glasses would be regulated before you can say 'Meta'.

I’ve never been mistaken for an American on here.

Really powerful thread - Tomasz says it how it is.

Tomasz Oryński@orynski.eu · 3d ago

I am seeing more and more posts in places like Reddit from British people wanting to move to Poland and struggling to get a job. Oh, how the tables have turned. But I didn't want to talk about it but about why I don't predict many of them to be too succesfull. Why? Here is a thread for you:

Extraordinary that UEFA are the good guys in a dispute.

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 3d ago

Uefa says they have reason to believe that Trump, Joshua Kushner and Infantino hatched a corrupt scheme involving the privatization of Fifa, and they are suing for damages and the ouster of Infantino. They have issued an anti-spoliation letter today demanding preservation of documents..

Can’t Air.

IGN@ign.com · 3d ago

Netflix is being sued for $105 million after a drive containing a master copy of Nicolas Cage's upcoming historical spy film, Fortitude, was stolen.

A nice ride up the hill and through the woods. No breeze at all, but thankfully not as humid as I feared it would be.

Honestly I saw this on tiktok and lost my mind. His delivery. He SELLS this

huck mason@tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 3d ago

never thought short form video would be able to capture a type of humor i can only describe as “the far side-esque” but this comes close.

What an utter waste of time and taxpayers’ money. Plenty room for two lanes of traffic and bike lanes. 4 lanes (including two for buses) plus a bike lane also not impossible.

Dave McCraw@davemccraw.bsky.social · 4d ago

Simply love the reopened North Bridge, where Edinburgh Council took advantage of eight years of works to put active travel and pedestrians first

Grounds for cautious optimism here. A good quote about the link between the constitution and bread and butter equality issues, something reform campaigners don’t often make clearly enough. But the devil will be in the detail (eg scope and methodology). www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Devolution plans strengthen case for written UK constitution, says Burnham

PM argues for codified model of decentralisation that would fundamentally change centuries-old workings of state

theguardian.com

A man who made a Nazi salute at a far-right anti-immigration rally purporting to "protect women and children" is a serial stalker and violent domestic abuser. Credit to the Daily Record and others in Scottish news media for continuing to cover these issues. www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottis...

Vile Nazi salute thug exposed as serial stalker and abuser

Ryan Marshall was pictured making the “sieg heil” gesture at the Unite the Clans rally in Glasgow last Saturday, which resulted in at least 15 arrests.

dailyrecord.co.uk

I'm more and more convinced that many American evangelicals are being paid by the Devil

huck mason@tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 4d ago

“evangelizing a captive audience isn’t courage, it’s cowardly.” sojo.net/articles/opi...

So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.

I find this strangely lovely

Jerad Walker@jeradwalker.bsky.social · 5d ago

There’s an Australian man who reviews depressing cafes near factories and he’s so deadpan that I can’t tell if the whole thing is earnest or mean spirited. Either way, it’s hilarious.

The football season is back. So once again my laundry’s soundtrack is Sportsound and the always evocative Sportscene opening credits.

Echoes of "The Sound of Music" here on the cover of this 1962 British Railways travel leaflet giving details of services to Austria via the Harwich - Hook of Holland ferry. #travel #railways #austria ↘️ flic.kr/p/2ssB9j8