Simon Lucy

Time to repeat. It is abundantly clear that we would have the greatest benefit in rights, market access, regulatory participation as well as influence for progress and change by being a full member of the EU.

I was wondering last night whether if we had another Idi Amin and the threat to Ugandan Asians that we would have the same reaction and honour their British identity?

The death of Microsoft as a developer of Operating Systems, the decay of Windows and subsequently Microsoft Business Applications. You don't get rid of a third of the workforce and not damage the fundamentals. If the % of managers is around 80% of the losses, then maybe it's ok.

I have never had a subscription with ChatGPT, I'm unlikely ever to need one.

Nils Frahm, Day Album Track 1, "You Name It" #NowPlaying

Stories about US College Sport just emphasise the different planet that the USA is on.

Late October morning in Kyiv. We were under attack last night. Once again (I’ve lost count), ‘my’ bridge was hit. It’s closed to cars and metro trains. I’m making a warcoffee. Electricity is back. Just for a few hours. So, life has its treats, for sure.

Well if anything shows that it should be addressed it is the panicked reaction of Farage and The Today Programme. Infantilising the electorate is how we got here.

This is just the maddest argument. These people would trap us in poverty to keep a decade old commitment, which no one ever actually made, to an electorate which no longer exists.

I guess there's no new money to buy Anthropic so it will be financed (if it is), by selling something else. According to Buffet and others the US Stock Market is already a bubble. Does this amount of movement de-stable the bubble or will the market refuse the bet?

All the possible stories about a functional AI had been written by 1970, if they were not lesson enough then the stories of dysfunctional AI and simulated AI have gone on. Now they happen in bedrooms and offices glossed with something called performance that turn out to make another void in the day

I have no idea if much of the USA is aware of this but the two terms, so far, of Trump have demonstrated that the US Constitution is fatally flawed. There is no third rail which stops the juggernaut of a populist dictator with a supine Congress. The end of Trump is not the end of this.

One might almost be optimistic that the populist right is being pushed back in general.

Thank you. Here's an example of one of the correct versions: blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...

I watch no more than a few minutes of Celebrity Traitors, usually due to offset TV schedules but no matter how little it is immediately enervating. It is extremely tiring watching people acting a kind of reality, regardless of whether they are 'celebrities'. It must be exhausting to play.

My stuff is about the fall of the American empire . . . I was brought up in an area dominated by Americans, by American cars, by American styles and consumer goods . . .What I've been writing about in a way, is the end of technology, the end of America.

From The Dark on red & black marble vinyl 🩸 Exclusively available in selected record stores - tonyiommi.lnk.to/fromthedark

A fence panel blew out whilst we were out yesterday, J was annoyed because everything was failing, I resisted the "centre cannot hold" and said instead "it's just stuff". This was not a better choice. Another person's Zen can be extremely annoying.

A distinctly British LLM could be seen as ethical, equitable and at all times reasonable. But, given the primitive nature of LLM's that simulate understanding this is not possible. It would also be quite infuriating.

Excuse the self-promotion, but I created a web app a while back that lets you map place names in Great Britain that contain/start with/end with different bits of text - so you can see all the Llan's here: placenames.rtwilson.com#W3sidGV4dCI6... and also play with other options

It is typical and was foretold that in taking Long Wave transmission and aerials out that we would now look for a last resort radio frequency. Long wave reached the entire population including, FM still has black spots, principally in rural hilly areas. And the BBC is attempts to kill radio.

J tells me she has followed Govt advice and stocked staples for when Doom happens (given it only lasts 3 days). We can live on frankfurters and rice pudding for 3 days.

Today was the day that the Guernsey came out. I mean I've put it on, not anything else.

Anything that sets itself up as a safe distributor of FLOSS software has failed to understand the point. And is probably a scam in plain sight. Chainguard seem to have proven that in real time.

Maybe I could parlay this into a new Pizza Restaurant or Wayfair conspiracy theory. Probably not.

In further news the BBC styling will reflect its new slimmer pared down organisation (other than management). Gone are the square black blocks around the strong confident lettering, instead the style is now simply bbc in no particular font or style, it will be fixed at 10pt.

I love to support British theatre, especially when it's so hard to stage new productions. So just want to spread the word on this one. www.whatsonstage.com/news/the-las...

I know that Pictures at an Exhibition was originally scored for piano but it really is triumphant as a large orchestra. Or ELP.

Senses of humour are distributed generally, so is the lack of that sense. Humour has a spark of cruelty, a tiny proxy of anger.

It's 2027, following a global cyber attack on major toilet tissue producers the middle classes in Britain have resorted to using copies of the Daily Mail, pages from their children's JK Rowling books and even the architect's drawing of what their new kitchen would look like after granny passes away.

It's not what or who people are prejudiced about it's the capacity for prejudice itself. Everyone has that capacity; upbringing, education, experience and critical reasoning drain it at its source. Societies and groups that have specific targets are led by those it benefits for the distraction.

I've generally thought that T. H. White was sonewhat tedious in prose. If you want a 'modern' perspective on Arthurian stories then you could do a lot worse than read Steinbeck's "The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights". It was his last book and ends with the disgrace of Launcelot.

Important news of a sentient refuse receptacle variety.

A reminder to all those in the quoted thread that after the Great Collapse it will all be fun again.

If closing surely the least expensive radio channel the BBC has (run by a tiny number of people, broadcasting the work of mainly dead people), bothers you, then why not sign this petition you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...

Idiocy reigns at the top of the BBC: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...

This is the first story in Curious Events Occurring in this Neighbourhood. It’s so good that I paused reading the rest of the book so my partner could read it, and now you can, too, for free!

Still a few signed copies available here from @blackwells.bsky.social (with free delivery): blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/pro...