Working in Scottish politics but somehow still finding the time to tweet about the Labour Party, Generic Nerdy Stuff and, of course, the Kingdom of Strathclyde.
Hen Ogledd
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Was driving, so obviously no photos, but don't think I've ever seen the A9 between Perth and Stirling look so beautiful.
A proper "season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" landscape.
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Wildwood is incredible - always have lits of time for Studio Laika but was not expecting to experience one of the best animated battle scenes I've ever seen
Brutal, magical, enchanting and with surprising emotional weight - you really need to see this film!
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Honestly don't think this is surprising - LLM chatbots tend to give average quality advice, & for a lot of people that's probably better then the advice they would get around them
The crucial thing is to make sure the tools are properly regulated with real protections in place
1 in 5 people use AI for personal or relationship advice, rising to 2 in 5 among Gen Z.
With teenagers increasingly turning towards AI to interpret and manage their relationships are at risk of missing out on the developmental value of figuring things out for themselves.
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Book 26 of 2026
"Mankind and Mother Earth" is environmentally-focused global history from the 1970s that, thankfully, is far more interested in worrying about humanity's ability to make life impossible due to misaligned technology then the usual 1970s overpopulation concern.
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Like all global histories it's too ambitious - the history of mankind is very hard to sum up in 600 pages - but Tonybee really does try to avoid focusing too much on any one area so while I view it as a flawed text, its flaws are in part due to the scope of the very project.
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Me: Opens Up Microsoft Word to view one document.
Microsoft Word: Time to open up every document you've ever opened!
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For all the fans of Establishment out there, today there is a very rare occurrence of the Church of Scotland being included in UK Legislation in Parliament.
publications.parliament.uk/p…
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Fascinating podcast. Try to make sure my AI listening diet is not just doomer-stuff, and there was something nice listening to two guys geeking out over the technology.
Not sure I'm fully convinced about the societial implications, but lots of food for thought.
New pod: 'YOU'RE NOT AGI-PILLED ENOUGH'
I asked @emollick to tell me what I'm getting wrong about AI. We also talked about:
- why so many experts keep underrating the rate of progress for model capabilities
- why so many experts keep *overrating* how rapidly powerful AI will change the macroeconomy
- why the answer to the previous question starts with "O-rings and garbage cans"
- the sociology of AI swarms
- the paradoxes of AI use (or: 'every technological augmentation is also an amputation,' per McLuhan)
- the end of prompting (or: what happens if personal AI agents get so good at anticipating our needs that humans, once the prompter, become the prompted)
- 2027 predictions and ... his excellent new book CO-EXISTENCE
piped.video/watch?v=zthE5Oa8…
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Stephen Watt retweeted
“The Simpsons” was a beloved animated sitcom that ran for ten legendary seasons and concluded in 1999. The show was celebrated for what was widely perceived as a near perfect run that wrapped before it wore out its concept and overstayed its welcome.
Creator Matt Groening and showrunner James L. Brooks famously decided to bring the show to a conclusion after experiencing the negative audience reaction to the season 9 episode “The Principal and the Pauper,” in which it was revealed that the school’s principal was actually an impostor who had stolen the real Seymour Skinner’s identity. Brooks did not want to sully the show’s legacy by doing a bunch of weird episodes as the franchise slid into mediocrity and cultural irrelevance, so the writers and cast decided instead to go out on top and end things on a high note.
However, because of its centrality in 90s pop culture, a long-running Internet joke is to pretend “The Simpsons” is still on the air, a premise that gets more absurd and deranged with each passing year. If this show were still producing new episodes, it would be in its 38th season now, and most of the voice cast would be in their 80s.
The joke is to imagine how distorted this charming show would have become if it had been stretched out to more than 800 episodes. Comedy posters on “weird Twitter” used to try to top each other by making up terrible ideas for what modern episodes of the show might be like.
For example, a viral 2012 tweet imagined an episode where Lady Gaga helps Lisa Simpson with her self esteem. In 2019, popular shitposter Megan Amram originated the premise of Bart Simpson becoming a men’s rights activist to protest a gender-swapped reboot of “Itchy and Scratchy.”
But perhaps the most elaborate Internet “Simpsons” joke was a 2017 YouTube mockumentary “The Problem With Apu,” in which the comedian Hari Kondabolu ironically pretended to be offended by the charming and innocuous convenience store owner character Apu.
Everyone thought this was hilarious, especially since the show had been off the air for nearly two decades when the mockumentary was released. So, Twitter ran with the joke by pretending to “cancel” Apu, and the viral gag memorably resulted in the character’s voice actor, Hank Azaria, recognizing the meme by promising never to perform the character again, which everybody thought was really funny since Azaria had been retired for years.
Now, nearly a decade later, fans are pretending that the show — which has now been off the air longer than most people tweeting about it have been alive— has brought back the “cancelled” character with a new racially-appropriate voice actor.
I actually don’t think this is that funny, and I kind of think the gag of pretending “The Simpsons” is still airing new episodes has overstayed its welcome, a mistake the actual show “The Simpsons” would never have made.
If you haven’t seen this 1990s classic, which — and I cannot emphasize this enough — ended after 10 seasons in 1999, you can watch all the episodes on Disney+ (except the one with Michael Jackson that got pulled from streaming).
Apu has returned to The Simpsons.
The character got a speaking appearance tonight for the first time in almost a decade, with Sunil Malhotra taking over the role.
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"So what made you move up from Southern Britannia to north of The Wall?"
"Well, as a solider I go with the legion - but also rents in Londinium just got really high and I do love the Pictish accent."
Face of man from Roman Scotland revealed in new reconstruction i.stv.tv/4zJCE67
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Though have to admit really looking forward to the new Roman Scotland exhibition that's opening in the National Museum in November.
Can't wait to aggressively sing The Pict Song by Kipling while gazing at awe that is the splendour that was Rome.
piped.video/GeVn18FydgE?si=AGVY…
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Book 25 of 2026
Lots to say on this landmark book on folkloric studies, but my main takeaway is that it's really life-affirming how, basically no matter what happens, folks will always end up creating new rituals, adapt the old to new times & discard that which does not help.
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If you're a fan of "ancient rituals from the dawn of time" you'll be disappointed since Hutton shows pretty conclusively the medieval origins of most British folk traditions.
But if you are interested in seeing how communities change & adapt over time then you'll like this book.
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