gabriel burrow

If your models could solve real-world problems with sufficient compute - and it's a scarce resource - why would you squander it on people generating and sharing silly videos?

A) Because they're not actually very good at solving real-world problems

B) You're morally bankrupt

C) Both

Sam Altman last week: Unless we bring more AI-ready compute online, we might have to choose between curing cancer and free global education

Sam Altman this week: We've launched an AI brainrot engine lol

gizmodo.com/openai-offic...

Cyberspace but it's just really big Mr Beast videos

Metaverse or Torment Nexus? There’s a common joke within science fiction circles derived from a Tweet by author Alex Blechman (2021). It reads, “Sci-Fi Author: In my book I invented the Torment Nexus as a cautionary tale. Tec…

As Mark Zuckerberg continues to humiliate himself trying to capture the AR and VR space, I figured it was worth taking the pulse of the "metaverse".

tl;dr: It’s sub-par escapism for people experiencing a sub-par way of living—cyberpunk with the knobs turned down.

gabrielburrow.com/2025/09/22/m...

The violent criminality...

S-tier Meg episode

Your dad doomscrolling LinkedIn at Glastonbury

Was great to catch up with Birkbeck colleagues at this year's CACC conference.

So many cool projects underway (mushrooms, Cornish knockers, human compost, a breast cancer memoir, Silicon Valley theology, etc.)

Being a humanities researcher in the UK often feels pretty bleak. But not yesterday!

Ok, it's not shit with randoms once you get to the later night lords...

Bloy's riot squad andor

me and 2000 Patriots on our way to go secure home depot

Andor Shows Us What Popular Culture Could Be In an era of banal, homogenous mass media, Andor refuses easy optimism and shows us that building a better world is a hard, necessary task. It’s exactly the imaginative pop culture we need.

Not many places would let me quote both Huey Newton and Marx

www.currentaffairs.org/news/andor-s...

The annoying part is this will become Elon's go-to excuse for SpaceX failing to achieve its various unrealistic goals (Mars etc.)

Elon tweet

Simpsons meme

😞

You're spot on about its coherent and seductive qualities though. A tough - but necessary - read.

The critique of profit-only tech and the Dot-com bubble ("Lost in Toyland" etc.) is bearable... Then he gets onto what he wants to replace it with and it's *deranged*.

🌌 Our latest issue of JOSF is LIVE 🌌

Lots of cool stuff in there, including an essay on science fictional librarians from fellow editor John J. Doherty.

I didn't work on this one – getting stuck into our forthcoming VR special issue. Watch this (virtual) space.
publish.lib.umd.edu/index.php/sc...

Best torso in the game.

Spicy paper reveal:

HEADACHE - "THE HEAD HURTS BUT THE HEART KNOWS THE TRUTH"

Lyric sheet for "THE HEAD HURTS BUT THE HEART KNOWS THE TRUTH"

"In the clown nursery it's always time to dance."

Looking forward to this! I'll be talking about the aesthetics of digital activism in contemporary science fiction.

While novels are not instruction manuals, are you at all receptive to them operating on the level of cognitive map or model (i.e. presenting a miniature world that reflects complex systems)?

I see that as distinct from the technocratic "how to" readings that KSR admittedly courts in Ministry.

More Everything Forever 'Disconcerting . . . a disturbing and important book' NEW SCIENTIST The bad science and sinister ideas behind Silicon Valley's foolish obsession with immo...

My new book #MoreEverythingForever is out now in the UK too! If you're tired of Silicon Valley billionaires forcing their awful ideas on the rest of us, this one is for you. www.hachette.co.uk/titles/adam-...

Pretty sure Star Trek is about how cool it would be to send Katy Perry to space!!!

Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos did a Star Trek cameo without a critical bone in his body...

Jordan from Rizzle Kicks and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

This is my Super Bowl.

This was great 🫡

Tough to take. He was so great at iterating on themes in the later Succession seasons.

a woman in a yellow dress is dancing in front of a disney+ logo ALT: a woman in a yellow dress is dancing in front of a disney+ logo

Late to the party (I was rewatching S1) but the Andor 3-episode premiere ending with Mon Mothma drunkenly dancing to "Niamos!" is inspired. Go off, queen.

a black object is in the middle of a sandy desert ALT: a black object is in the middle of a sandy desert

First couple of articles I've reviewed are about Dune. I like Dune a lot. But if you're writing about something that gets less attention within SF, please do submit!