Socialist, traveller, itinerant photographer, aspiring stoic, NAFO fella. He/him. Slava Ukraini. Trans rights are human rights. Climate change is real, so is Covid.
Great to see on the front of the Mail, Telegraph, Express, Sun.*
'The no. of young people admitted to London hospitals after knife attacks is down 55% since Sadiq Khan launched a Violence Reduction Unit, with London falling faster than the rest of England.'
*Joke
www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/y...
*NEW* Colossal Biosciencesβ Ben Lamm and Andurilβs Palmer Luckey team up on a new startup to genetically engineer war dogs for the military. Warhound comes out of stealth at $1.2B valuation
For @forbes.com with @iainmartin.bsky.social and @mhunterhart.bsky.socialwww.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...
A large study finds no link between colorectal cancer and ultra-processed food, raising questions about what role these foods play, if any, in rising rates of the cancer among younger people.
I see we're having a debate about whether it's okay to go back to "X," the site owned by a trillionaire fascist who is currently bankrolling the GOP's midterm, throttled Ukraine's war effort, and still winkingly allows vast amounts of CSAM on his service
Answer: No, what the fuck is wrong with you
Q: You said Russia and Ukraine agreed to a ceasefire, but both sides said they have not agreed to that
TRUMP: Well they agreed, you know why? Because I said 'you agree.' That's why.
Friends, I'm turning 40 tomorrow. I can't celebrate now because I'm too damn busy with the election. I'll celebrate afterward.
So, to help me celebrate now, please--oh, please--check your voter registration. It takes a few moments. It's easy. Do it for me: midterms.voteamerica.org/vote/verify/...
Dear tv and radio producers. Thankyou for the invitation. But, no, I do not want to appear on your show to defend the idea that I am English, after 50 years of living and working here, because the increasingly feral right want to turn this into a "debate" and you cannot see how you're being played
A world where movies are made by AI is a world without βIβm walking here!β or βAlright, alright, alright.β Itβs a world where Aragorn doesnβt break his toes kicking the helmet. Most of all itβs a world without βtears in rain.β
If anyone is reading this from Spain or Greece or know people from those countries. Please write or encourage others to insist that the Patriots are donated. Be loud.
Hegseth: βTheocratic regimes should never have access to nuclear weapons. Trump recognises that.β
The man who last week was manifesting the Christian god in the Pentagon and calling for a crusade.
Early voting is already underway in some states. From now until Nov 3, I urge you all to...
1) Help get out the vote
2) Protect our electoral machinery from interference
3) Not succumb to complacency, defeatism, or cynicism
We are the only ones who can end this nightmare.
I'm actually not against this. Missile defence is an important part of modern warfare. But - it needs to be developed alongside our European allies, so we can share interceptors and technology with them.
Hegseth is fucking around and will shortly be finding out. Thing is, modern warfare is complex. Yes, you need rough men willing to do violence. But you also need people who can rebuild a drone with their eyes closed or who know everything there is to know about getting supplies to the Indian ocean.
US horror clown Pete Hegseth said that his department had cut 20% of US admirals, generals and officers who did not fit his vision. "Simple translation of that: no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals."
They should fire Hegseth instead b/c he's a ruthless war monger.
Quite a few of these specialists are going to be beardos or weirdos, etc. itβs kind of tragic. US victories in WW2 were not built on βhigh T warriorsβ dominating the battlefield, but rather the fact that US logistics were capable of pouring vast quantities of manpower and material into the field.
The US was the best in the world at that, and now they struggle to keep a carrier operating off the Straits of Hormuz.
But anyway, weβll soon find out what that 20% actually do.
IMPORTANT: There are 15 states that require in-person registration 28β30 days before an election, meaning this maybe your last week to register. Check your registration at Vote.gov.
It seems to me that the world has changed utterly since the brexit vote. It is obvious that the countries of Europe have to stand together. Yes, NATO is part of that, but the EU is the other half of that particular equation.
We can spend our lives debating the justifications (I more or less have); but we are wasting our time. What we need is a massive clampdown on the influence of money over politics, including lobbying transparency, campaign finance reform, an end to the revolving door between politics and lobbying.
The oligarchs donβt want their platforms to be used for any message they donβt approve of. This is why itβs so important for sports people, musicians, actors, etc. to speak out.
It is 2026 and I really wish Nikon would start acting like it. Every camera that isn't the most basic, budget friendly stripped down choice[1] should come with GPS and Apple Find My out of the box. What are we even doing?
[1] Nikon doesn't and shouldn't make this sort of camera.
I just donβt get this. You can be the most money hungry, morally bankrupt uber capitalist imaginable, but you should still want your workers to be healthy, because healthy workers are how you make money.
Literally voting against their own interests.
So yeah, it's all got a bit heated this week, and on balance maybe I was wrong, maybe politics and music shouldn't mix. People go to concerts for the music, not for politics. So here's a little musical interlude for everyone to enjoy.
So, I almost feel sorry for Ed Sheeran. He's been caught up in a situation that's not of his making, I'm sure he just wanted to play his songs and go home with a big bag full of cash. But that's not how life works and you have to play the hand your dealt.
Speaking as a stoic, I think he was very lucky, he was given an opportunity to show the world exactly what sort of man he is. It's just a shame about the sort of man he actually is.
Found this book on Blackwells the other day. I know what you're thinking "Gareth, you love penguins, 'The Macaroni Penguin Handbook' is right up your street, did you get it?"
No, gentle reader, I did not. That is not a picture of a Macaroni Penguin, which I take to be something of a red flag.
I think we owe a responsibility to those people, to make sure that when they pick up a book, no matter the subject, someone has done their best to make sure the book is accurate.
As a friend said to me the other day, we should treat knowledge with a degree of reverence.
So well done everyone, we've lived through the point of peak human access to knowledge. The knowledge is still out there, but it's about to be engulfed in an avalanche of garbage.
Look after your pre-AI books, they are now the intellectual equivalent of low background steel.
Found this book on Blackwells the other day. I know what you're thinking "Gareth, you love penguins, 'The Macaroni Penguin Handbook' is right up your street, did you get it?"
No, gentle reader, I did not. That is not a picture of a Macaroni Penguin, which I take to be something of a red flag.
I guess for 99 out of 100 people this book will just be another book on their bookshelf. They may not even read it or it might just cause some temporary confusion about where penguins live, etc.
But for 1 in 100 this book will be a stepping stone for a passion that lasts a lifetime.
You know who I'm talking about, the kids whose bedroom is entirely penguin themed, who grow up into adults who take the long road to join the brotherhood of men who know the South.
Found this book on Blackwells the other day. I know what you're thinking "Gareth, you love penguins, 'The Macaroni Penguin Handbook' is right up your street, did you get it?"
No, gentle reader, I did not. That is not a picture of a Macaroni Penguin, which I take to be something of a red flag.
Why does this matter? Well, the creator of this abomination didn't bother checking the cover was right, so I've no doubt that the interior is filled with errors.
And some of these books are explicitly pet "care guides" - someone is going to make bad decisions for a real life animal based on this.
But there's another problem. Maybe you don't think it matters if some kid ends up with a false view of the feeding habits of Macaroni Penguins. But I think if someone pays Β£20 for a book it should be, so far as possible, correct.
Found this book on Blackwells the other day. I know what you're thinking "Gareth, you love penguins, 'The Macaroni Penguin Handbook' is right up your street, did you get it?"
No, gentle reader, I did not. That is not a picture of a Macaroni Penguin, which I take to be something of a red flag.
If you're lucky, a video about Macaronis at least has a clip of crested penguins, but I've seen footage of Emperors on a video that claims to be about Macaronis.
I don't think LLM's know a good source from a bad source and hence, they have no idea what a given penguin species looks like.
It was blind chance I spotted this, LLMs don't know what penguins look like, but I do. If I was interested in a different animal in the "series" the LLM would probably have got the cover right.
And most people buying this book, maybe as a gift, won't notice.
Found this book on Blackwells the other day. I know what you're thinking "Gareth, you love penguins, 'The Macaroni Penguin Handbook' is right up your street, did you get it?"
No, gentle reader, I did not. That is not a picture of a Macaroni Penguin, which I take to be something of a red flag.
(crested penguins can be tricky, but Macaronis have crests that meet in the middle, a "unibrow" if you will, so they are one of the easy ones.)
I checked the author's page and he's published two dozen books on different animals, all published on the same day, so this is AI slop.
Why this happened is interesting. It goes back to a previous generation of human generated slop. Penguins are cool, especially after Happy Feet and Surf's Up, so there are a lot of engagement farming videos on youtube with penguin "facts" presented over whatever random penguin video was available.