David Thomson

This #WorldCupDraw is so bad I’m beginning to think I might just go do something else and find out who we get later. Jonathan Pearce making it nearly bearable. #Where’sDrunkRodStewart

Well put. I think social media is a huge factor. Before, the village idiot was ignored. Few would agree with them. They’d lack credibility. Now, outliers can post and connect to like-minded giving mass & reinforcing weak ideas. Humans have herd mentalities that usually protect us but now can hurt.

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Wind power has cut £104bn from UK energy costs since 2010, study finds Reduction comes from energy generated from windfarms and lower cost of gas owing to lower demand

Interesting study from researchers at UCL on how wind power has held down energy costs in the long term.

The key argument is that it has lowered gas prices in Europe by reducing demand for gas. And actually most of the savings are on gas, not electricity bills

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Offshore platform airline files for administration with debts of £25m An airline which takes workers from Sumburgh Airport to offshore oil and gas platforms is days away from going out of business, according to reports.

Show this and the old reports about FlyBe to anyone who ever posts on Facebook about wanting other airlines to “compete” with Loganair. The only reason Shetland has any serious flight service is the ADS. #RealityVsFantasy

There was a quite long tv ad campaign of “You’re so Money Supermarket”. Users of a comparison website being so confident demonstrated by a man strutting in hot pants. It tried to create association that people might use the phrase IRL. Someone has tweaked that to make Gerrard silly.

Analysis: Growth in British renewables cutting electricity prices by… Gas power now only setting the price of electricity around 85% of the time.

25%

New analysis finds wind power reduced the wholesale price of electricity by up to a quarter (25%) in 2024, equivalent to around £25/MWh.
eciu.net/media/press...

YouTube video by Thriving Autistic Lightbulb Moments: Being Autistic

Just out - new educational animation films about Autistic Experiences that I have been working on with @thrivingautistic.bsky.social team - would love to hear your feedback!

Lightbulb Moments: Being Autistic
youtu.be/3O6hy-usIug?...

Annoying in its predictability.

Stuart Hill to face trial over motoring offences - The Shetland Times Sovereignty campaigner Stuart Hill will argue he is not the person accused of motoring offences at a trial in December. Hill was charged with driving...

Just stop giving him headlines. Report the fact that a man (apparently named Stuart) has plead and goes to trial in December. This circus is his reward so he’ll keep doing it.
Maybe the dimwits in Reform are right. He’s an immigrant who washed up on our shores in a small boat. Off to Afghanistan!

Motherfucking wind farms…

POLL: Should we change our spelling of Up-Helly-A'?  - The Shetland Times With many changes happening at newspaper we are taking a fresh look at our style guide – including the spelling of Up-Helly-A’.

“Should we change our spelling of the thing we’ve been stubbornly misspelling for years?”
Yes. Yes, you should Shetland Times.
How they originally spelled things 100+ years ago isn’t an excuse. You’re not the Hjaltland Times.

Weekly Bergen sailing could be included in new NorthLink contract - The Shetland Times A weekly ferry service to Bergen could be considered as part of the next NorthLink contract, a meeting heard.

“could be”
Won’t be.

Haven’t had time for social media recently but seeing notifications for likes on really old posts I made. Wondering if @bsky.app is manipulating to encourage more posts? Possibly too cynical…

🎶 You’ll be back…dum de dum te dum… 🎶

Wanted to let this settle for a moment to see if what followed rose to the occasion but I think many years from now this image will be as famous as the Yalta conference ones.

Will be interesting if he gets Trump’s “I didn’t know him” line taken with others.
Or the John Kelly? ”in over his head” despite previous “He’s the best”.
Or the Steve Bannon? Remorse at exit quickly > disdain.
Or the Michael Cohen? At the heart of everything to a rat traitor.
Or the.. ad infinitum

This Shetland Times headline seems significant. Right up until you read who it is. By my memory she’s heading for double figures of publicly threatening to leave Unst/Shetland. Change the ferry = going. Build the windfarm = going. Increase NorthLink fares = going. etc etc. Yet here she is again.

Twenty Lessons, read by John Lithgow Key selections from On Tyranny, for viewing and sharing

Here is my best guidance for action, rendered beautifully by the great John Lithgow. I first published these lessons more than eight years ago, in late 2016. They open the twenty chapters of "On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century."
snyder.substack.com/p/twenty-les...

To evolve this theory that the mistake was led by confusion within Waltz’ phone contacts, another has suggested it was the wrong “JG” and it might have meant to be US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, given the discussion about making Europe pay economically.

If I knew more about US politics I might have been able to come up with an absent JG name like you excellently have. The theory that it’s led by confusion within Waltz’ phone contacts remains plausible to me.
(Not sure I actually want to know more about US politics).

two men wearing headphones are talking to each other in a stadium . ALT: two men wearing headphones are talking to each other in a stadium .

End scene, Gangs of London, episode 2 of season 3.

Maybe that’s what he was trying. Waltz puts journalist in contacts under shorthand “JG Atlantic”.
Later tries to add the acting Joint Chief to Signal group but saw JG which is nearly JC and Atlantic which is nearly Acting.
Oops, added the wrong person.
No conspiracy. Just laziness.

That’s the clumsy excuse. The stupid excuse is that he sees JG Atlantic as he scrolls past, doesn’t recognise it and confuses it for something real in the Exec Branch so adds it. Not thinking actual “in charge of Atlantic” but actual responsibility in Atlantic area.

I imagine Waltz adding Goldberg to his phone, unsure how to spell Jeffrey and putting it under something like “JG Atlantic”
Later he’s populating the Signal group but used lazy similar shorthand - JD Vice Pres, JR CIAD - and doesn’t realise he’s pressed JG as well as he scrolled.

So let’s have a little look at the Right wing media feeding off its own ecosystem.

Here’s
@TiceRichard
claiming NET ZERO caused the Heathrow shut down, while sharing a Telegraph article that appears to back up his claim

Must be true then, right??

🧐you know the drill…

🧵
1/

HAMVER ̶B̶O̶T̶…PIA?
(It could catch on)
((Poor NOR))
(((It’s fine)))

And that’s where my sympathy for those same ministers evaporates. Many knew it wasn’t being given adequate support. See back the coverage of Sir Kevin Collins’ (Education Tsar) resignation. They chose not to prioritise.

More? Elon. The other one has bankrupted everything he’s ever touched and is only not in jail because he’s lied his way to the presidency. Elon may be a Nazi fan but the other one is an actual fascist leader.
Any other human being added to that picture wins.