right, ok, enough self-pity, I need to turn my shit pub around. it's in Stratford, it's got a (small) stage, there has to be someone who has something cool they want a space for queer-run, extremely diverse venue (we even let mumbling old white geezers in) what I'd call 'mostly accessible'
And leave on Swift this grateful verse engraved, 'The rights a Court attack'd, a Poet saved.'
Farewell Bill, most radical of the Goodies. Present at Grosvenor Square with Tariq & Vanessa. Turned his harassment by the Met into slapstick TV comedy for kids. Angry, hairy, furiously talented.
But those who cannot write, and those who can, All rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble, to a man.
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind Are giv'n in vain, but what they seek they find):
The very slightly different way I would put this, building on work with Hahrie Han is that AI is hitting our capacities for _collective agency_ by replacing our tools for collaborating with other humans to figure stuff out with mediated relations to frozen monuments of accumulated cultural knowledge
Charlie Warzel@cwarzel.bsky.social · 2mo agoGot a theory that we are all living through a crisis of agency, at least online. Bots, algorithms, clip armies, & the flood of AI stuff have scrambled notions of popularity, turned everything into a ‘psyop’. AI tools/ agents are reversing the fundamental human, collaborative promise of the internet
the only video worth rescuing from my deleted twtter
Andon labs created AI-Hosted 24/7 radio shows, and Claude absolutely could not stop libbing out
knightcolumbia.org/content/ai-a... Now up at @knightcolumbia.org - Cosma Shalizi and myself on "AI as Social Technology." It says that AI models are really a technology of social mediation that allow humans to connect with thoughts of other humans. Short-ish thread with major points follows.
AI as Social Technology
knightcolumbia.org
Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is, but always to be, blest.
The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."
here's my love & rockets review (xaime mix) for 4columns 4columns.org/sinker-mark/...
Locas: The Maggie & Hopey Stories
4columns.org
THEY HAD THE “NO TAKE ONLY THROW” DOG MEME SIX THOUSAND YEARS AGO
Louis@louisevans.bsky.social · 6mo agoBest joke I heard this past month was eighteen hundred years old
Everybody thinks 'https://' stands for 'hypertext transfer protocol secure' but it actually stands for 'head to this place, sucka' followed by a colon and two laser sounds
RIP & thank you for that way of listening
david sylvian@davidsylvian.bsky.social · 5mo agoÉliane Radigue
The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue”
The Largest Historical Dictionary of English Slang Now Free Online: Covers 500 Years of the “Vulgar Tongue”
'The three volumes of Green's Dictionary of Slang demonstrate the sheer scope of a lifetime of research by Jonathon Green, the leading slang lexicographer of our time. A remarkable collection of this ...
openculture.com
'Nay, if my lord affirm'd that black was white, My word was this, "Your Honour's in the right."
I do like a good river catalogue and Windsor Forest’s is a good one
Popebot@popebot.bsky.social · 7mo agoThe Kennet swift, for silver eels renown'd; The Lodden slow, with verdant alders crown'd;
During the pandemic I built a dumb bot that would tweet all of Alexander Pope’s poetry, couplet by couplet, once an hour. I’ve now rejigged it for Bluesky, because I like having a hobby and the bot is I hope a harmless entertainment in dark times.
Popebot@popebot.bsky.social · 7mo agoYe trees, that fade when Autumn-heats remove, Say, is not absence death to those who love?
A chance to post this perennial festive banger youtu.be/2yUsvt2deSc?...
The Day the "Conducator" Died (An Xmas Song)
YouTube video by Scott Walker - Topic
youtu.be
Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social · 7mo agoMy father in law has done his traditional Christmas Day Facebook post to remind us of the true meaning of the day: Reminding us of the greatest Christmas of all, December 25th, 1989, when they shot that bastard Ceaușescu
New Absolute Units episode is here! We’re back with Professor Paddy Bullard (University of Reading) and Isabel Hughes (The MERL), with a bonus episode marking 250 years since Jane Austen’s birth. Listen below or wherever you get your podcasts: merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...
Absolute Units podcast - The Museum of English Rural Life
Come for the big sheep. Stay for the history of rural England and its people.
merl.reading.ac.uk