Neill Cameron

If you wanna be radicalized against GenAI, try running an online business while these thieving shitbricks try to scrape your site at all hours of the day, creating a looping, endless DDoS.

Fuck generative "AI." It's all slop built on wholesale theft.

Calling AI "slop" has been one of the most effective instances of the public rebranding a product and it pisses them off.

Reform win a seat: The true Volk have spoken and we all must listen.

Greens win a seat: Early reports that Muslims may have ‘voted’ (an ancient Islamic practice designed to steal elections). How severely should the franchise be limited in response?

Their Instagram posts which have about 2 likes each, raising the question: was it really worth it?

Baffling to me to see an organisation that’s stated purpose is to promote and celebrate children’s books and their creators, using shitty generative ai for their instagram posts.

Remember that in the UK, in space year 2026, it is *still* illegal to rip a CD you bought with your own money to play the resulting MP3s (or whatever) on your computer. That is not considered fair use. But AI companies eating all of our creative work for free soon will be.

Fuck off, Labour.

“No stupid rules of engagement” is a hell of a thing to say after killing 165 little girls at school in Minab, Iran.

Dentists, I’m kidding, I love you, don’t get mad at me. Any dentists who see this and want some free comics for your waiting room, give me a shout 😂

A surprising outcome of this morning’s chat is that we have identified the real culprits behind the crisis in literacy development: DENTISTS

I think just having stuff around is really underestimated, stuff that's not especially designed to maximise learning or "high quality" but that is in some way part of everyday life already. Stuff on paper was great for that.

You can always tell the kids who just had to be reading _something_ at all times, because they know what Riboflavin is.

Riboflavin: the Shibboleth of the Nerds

I don’t know if this is as true or ubiquitous as it used to be! Or maybe my dentist is just rubbish. I think the (fair) assumption these days is that everyone is just going to be on their phones.

This is not nearly as beautiful and meaningful, but to this day I’m very excited when we go to stay with my in-laws and I get to read their tv listings magazines full of extensive plot descriptions of soap operas I do not watch.

Reading stuff that wasn’t “for” you: so, so important, in so many ways.

A beautiful snapshot from a golden, prelapsarian world.

God I must have read so much Woman’s Own as a kid. See THIS is what we’ve lost as a culture.

That’s so perfect. And I’m sorry for your loss pal. ❤️

Big poster saying “this month, Neill read… [ten back issues of White Dwarf magazine]”

*bullying commences*

Exactly. Like I get the thinking behind Rewards Schemes and Celebrating Achievement and stuff, but so much of what I was reading as a kid I’d have been absolutely mortified to have a teacher even know about, let alone put on like a big chart on the wall. Can you IMAGINE?

EVERY DAY SHOULD BE A FUNDAY

Yeah, absolutely, I think the stakes thing is crucial. Getting to read stuff that no-one’s going to tell you off for not finishing, but equally that no-one’s going to praise you and give you a sticker for finishing. Stuff you get to actually just form your own private relationship with, no judgments

Please note I am not a qualified educationalist.

The book I’m in the early part of (Ada Palmer’s big book about the Renaissance) says that even during the Renaissance people were like ‘these times are apocalyptically shit and the future needs to know how we blew it’. The Renaissance wasn’t a self-description, it was applied afterwards.

Things you can just dip in and out of. Things that don’t require a bookmark. Things that nobody is *telling* you to read, that it doesn’t matter if you never finish, things you can just rest your brain on for five minutes while you have your Rice Krispies. This is how you embed reading as a habit.

It must be nice to be a sociopath, because all the new products are for you. The smart glasses will give you that woman’s address, the betting apps will finally let you make bank on war crimes.

You know what, yeah, I was thinking too small with my ‘they should do the Funday Times again every week’ thing. EVERY DAY! 👍

And just the simple physical fact that it’s a lot easier to read a comic or a magazine than a book while, for example, you eat your breakfast. You just lie it flat on a table! Hands-free! A perfect technology!

Absolutely true, and I think something that’s been a real casualty of the changes in how we consume media - we’ve lost that casual, low-stakes ubiquity of Stuff Lying Around To Read.

Sorry to everyone I ran out of room to tag, there was simply TOO MUCH AWESOME STUFF