Tim Squirrell

ah, monsieur, please take a seat

was this it?! www.instagram.com/reel/DM0bTbz...

no!!!

you mean the EU created VLOP categorisation for a reason? madness

Keir Starmer's Government Still Hasn't Reviewed Use of Musk's X Despite Platform 'Amplifying Hate Speech and Misinformation' Downing Street continues to refuse to explore communicating through alternative platforms, like Bluesky, despite the role of X in last summer's violent disorder

Keir Starmer's Government is still refusing to explore whether it should stop using X, or use alternative platforms like Bluesky, despite Musk's site amplifying unfiltered hate and misinformation, and despite its in-house AI bot referring to itself as "Mecha-Hitler"
bylinetimes.com/2025/07/31/k...

really enjoyed Heretic (2024), a film whose horror can be summed up as “what if a british man watched zeitgeist (2007)?”

i was gonna say, have you *seen* the londoners we’ve got

Well I was wondering why they suddenly suspended the Victoria line after letting us on the train at Vauxhall (saying it was delayed). Guess this explains it.

Interesting to see contrast between IS TONTY BLAIR BEHIND THIS on the right, and much lower salience of Thatcher (inarguably more influential on the country’s direction) on the left. Presumably a recency bias towards Brexit and subsequent changes amongst progressive respondents?

IS TONTY BLAIR BEHIND THIS

at the very least we know that all age filters will predictably fail and kids will once again get that wonderful feeling of having pulled one over on the adults by getting Good at Computers, something that has been missing in our society for too long

i might be in the minority on this platform when i say that i think it might be good, actually, to *try* to age-gate porn and gore.

lgbtq+ and sw content is unacceptable collateral damage, yes. but i disagree that trying to stop kids seeing mature content is intrinsically creeping fascism.

UK Deepens Dependence on US Tech with New OpenAI Partnership | TechPolicy.Press The UK-OpenAI partnership raises concerns about Big Tech’s deepening ties with UK officials and institutions, writes Megan Kirkwood.

As the UK government celebrates OpenAI’s plans to open more offices or data centers, it seems to ignore mounting warnings about ceding more power to tech giants, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Megan Kirkwood.

it’s tough when it’s not even clear what subfield this is in because there are too many options

Ironic, then, that this is an artisanally produced small-batch take.

We put in a full submission on this data centre. It can't meet its renewables quota (by developers' own admission). Anglian won't supply them the water they need for fear of sewage pollution. And it's in an area where you can't get permits for new boreholes.
www.foxglove.org.uk/wp-content/u...

Planned AI data centre would drain local water supply, firm warns Anglian Water has raised strong objections to the planning application by Elsham Tech Park in north Lincolnshire, saying it could cause sewage pollution

We have a story in the Times today about the planned uber hyperscale data centre in Elsham, Lincolnshire. Even the water company is objecting to this one.

Among the litany of issues with the plan, there's the potential for it to cause shit in the drinking water.

www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

we need a campaign to stop people doing their own research

are we getting a freud IBWTR episode?!

the only chatbot we knew was SmarterChild

gonna write one of those boomer nostalgia posts about when bin men were ‘ard but it’s about when google was good, wikipedia was your teacher’s biggest worry, newgrounds and albinoblacksheep were the font of all culture, and you could make friends of questionable age in any IRC server

we used to have a proper internet

Most of the internet used to be like this. This is actually the default, it took companies enclosing the internet and adding weird, soul-killing incentives to make people behave the way they do now. In a way, there is truly nothing special about Wikipedia except that it survived longer.

at this point it’s well known in terrorism/extremism studies to the point of banality that a high proportion of those who engage in mass violence have a history of intimate partner abuse, but it bears repeating

It’s certainly not godly pete

in 20 years time there will be a serious student politics controversy over a “clankers v sloppers” party held during a freshers’ week, and i think that’s beautiful

Right, but “AI is doing it” is a great excuse if you’re looking to pass the buck and not tank your share price!

There’s always time! Until there isn’t.

Epping hotel anti-migrant protests were organised by members of Neo-Nazi groups Two members of the Homeland Party have been identified as administrators of the Facebook group organising the protests

Exposed: the neo-Nazis who are organising the Epping, Essex anti-immigrant protests

I think we should be striving towards a platform which (a) makes extensive use of explicit signals (“i follow this person, i would like to see their stuff”) and (b) makes those explicit signals very easy to give. starter packs are a good example of the latter but deffo more to do