Dan Swinhoe

The Spectator is just a few columns away from endorsing Advance UK

You couldn't make Trigger Happy TV today. Not because of woke. It's simply that most of the audience wouldn't understand that the loud guy with the big phone was doing something bad.

So, uh, first off, the US gov't getting a $10b stake in Intel (by converting grants to equity) is not "giving us $10b." And, second, this is insane. Nationalizing US businesses used to be the sorta thing that Republicans freaked out about.

As a former Intel employee, I find this all very stupid.

Today I learned Victoria Beckham's album was the fifth most expensive ever recorded for some reason?

Walking map around West London

It might be quicker than you think to walk station to station—TfL’s new walking maps show just how long it actually takes to get around the West End and the City on foot.

tfl.gov.uk/modes/walkin...

a conical castle trampling around on four legs

a castle on legs shaped like a plant pot walking through a desert

a castle on legs shaped like a potbelly stove walking through a burned wasteland

I'm just real dang happy with these little guys

Viral AI-Generated Summer Guide Printed by Chicago Sun-Times Was Made by Magazine Giant Hearst The Chicago Sun-Times said "we understand this is unacceptable for us to distribute."

Turns out that AI-generated summer guide printed by the Chicago Sun-Times was made by magazine giant Hearst. We spoke to them.

www.404media.co/viral-ai-gen...

There are certain things that AI is particularly and notoriously bad at and this is one of them.

Wait, is this -- is this real? They actually published a list of books that may or may not exist? (The Last Algorithm by Andy Weir is, for example, not an actual book!) Please, jfc, tell me this isn't real. I'm not finding it online anywhere, which makes me hope it's fake? Gotta be fake, please?

Microsoft has created an AI-generated version of Quake | The Verge You can now try out Microsoft’s new Muse AI model

This might be a sleeper among the stuff Microsoft showed at its 50th anniversary event: Quake generated entirely through AI. www.theverge.com/news/644117/...

A lot of investigative reporting relies on @archive.org, which is an invaluable resource for journalists of all stripes. But don’t sleep on the alternatives. The coverage provided by any.run or @domaintools.bsky.social isn’t nearly as comprehensive but the pair can fill in crucial gaps.

Blackwell GB200 NVL72 is in full production. #GTC

Poles apart: Building the Arctic's first subsea cable Could going directly through the North Pole finally deliver the Arctic Circle an underwater Internet cable?

🌨️Here's a long feature from me on efforts to build a subsea internet cable directly through the North Pole. This is a project which could have big upside for connectivity, but also comes with myriad problems. It was a fascinating one to research:
www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/analysis/...

Photo of a bald eagle under the headline "Bald eagle in Massachusetts euthanized after testing positive for bird flu"

Allegory alert!

Apropos of literally everything … time to reflect on this post from a year ago.

Finally some good news

name a more iconic safety engineering duo than Boeing and Elon Musk

Agree with this (unsurprisingly) - it's such a bad habit, wastes huge amounts of time and you just look a bit worse when it comes out.

I'm a huge fan of the FOI Act for letting people ask for the information they're intested in, but I'm also a fan of not having to ask.

I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers | Rebecca Shaw Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s desperation to be cool as they suck up to Donald Trump is so cringe it makes my skin crawl

The perfect headline doesnt exi—

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Today I Learned.

Lemon pigs originated in the latter half of the 19th century as a children's amusement, subsequently adopted for the dining table, re-emerging only recently with good luck associations for the New Year.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_pig

A cartoon by Stephen Collins. Script as follows: 1 THE SCENE: is BBC Television centre or wherever that is these days. HARRY STYLES is getting out of a limo to enter a studio. An autograph-hunting FAN accosts him. Also, a DATE STAMP appears ‘on screen’, like it used to do in the X-files, reading: OCTOBER, 2024: Maidstone Studios, England FAN 1: That’s Harry Styles! FAN 2 [Approaching Harry]: Can I have a selfie, Harry? 2 FAN: What are you doing at Maidstone Studios on this finbe day in mid October, Harry? 3 HARRY STYLES: Why, I’ve come here in mid-October to record ‘Jools Holland’s New Year Hoote-‘ 4 *FSHW* [Harry Styles is suddenly vaporised by a LASER BEAM] 5 [We see the culprit; a hi tech flying DRONE has zapped Mr Styles to death. The drone has a camera eye on the front of it] 6 [Cut to: JOOLS HOLLAND in his Hootenanny lair, watching a screen which has just alerted him to the elimination of Styles] [Legend on screen]: ARTIST ELIMINATED HOLLAND: Goddamn it 7 HOLLAND: Why can’t they keep their mouths SHUT? 8 HOLLAND: Tim Davie! TIM DAVIE [Director General of the BBC]: Y-yes Jools? HOLLAND: Who’ve we got left for this year? 10 TIM DAVIE: The Boomtown Rats, one of Sister Sledge and Marc Almond HOLLAND: Almond *again*? 11 TIM DAVIE: We’re running out of artists to call, sir… M-must we keep killing… so many…? HOLLAND: You know the rules, Davie. The secret of the Hootenanny must be protected at all costs. All who divulge it… 12 HOLLAND [close up on his evil face, eye twitching]: Must be eliminated

An explanation, for tonight

If you've been good this year, Kirk Windstein will come to your house and leave you a big bag of tasty riffs. If you've been bad, Lars Ulrich is gonna add nine unnecessary riffs to every song you've been working on.

GoDaddy screen saying it might be able to buy Facebook.com on my behalf for a $119.99 brokerage fee

GoDaddy will charge a mere $119.99 to try and buy Facebook.com on my behalf.

Yeah me too. I'd love it. Bit of pocket money, go in when you like, look fabulous in robes, do some light legislative work, enjoy the subsidised booze. The perfect retirement.

Why do they *always* time this when it's useless as a Halloween costume?

shittest ever photo of the moon it looks like total crap

This is the first ever photograph of the moon. It was taken in 1840. It's SO shit. If I'd taken a photo of the moon that looked like this I wouldn't be bragging about it.