Nicholas Jackson

Also, don't fly with Ryanair unless you absolutely have to.

Happy 30th birthday to all Pokemons who like dancing to Enya

It's beyond Zone 4. It's basically the Shetlands to some of these people.

Also, who are the next George Osbornes? Who are currently gearing up to ruin everything in five or ten years, and can somebody stop them before they get started?

Onfim’s drawing of himself on horseback as a warrior defeating an enemy.

Two of Onfim’s works. On the left is a copy of a passage from the Book of Psalms he did for schoolwork. On the right is an apparently autobiographical depiction of a monster labeled with “I am a wild beast.”

Some more spelling practice by Onfim with some human figures who have round heads and varying numbers of fingers on their big hands.

Onfim’s writing practice accompanied by 7 little people in his particular drawing style, who tend to have very big hands with many fingers.

Nice AI-image-generating tool, but it will never be as great an artist as Onfim, a child who lived in the Novgorod Republic in the mid-1200s and who scribbled these drawings and schoolwork writings on birch bark at the age of 6 or 7.

Oh gosh, I'm so sorry. Best wishes to you all.

Neurospicy people, particularly ADHD people, but all brains welcome to respond: what does your flavour of brain make you GOOD at? I've just spent all afternoon writing down my flaws in excruciating detail for a workplace needs assessment and am feeling a bit low about myself

On the negative side, I really struggle to focus on boring, repetitive stuff, and my email inbox is a bit of a disaster area, for example. But on the positive side, I'm good at focusing on things I find interesting. This was very helpful when I did my PhD, but much less so when I mark exams.

In a recent conversation with a colleague I started talking about heraldry, and after a couple of minutes she asked "how do you know all this stuff?" and I said "well, when I was about 10 I got super-fascinated by coats of arms for about six months, and I think I might have ADHD."

(Undiagnosed but suspected ADHD.) I've always been fascinated by a wide range of random things, and can easily focus on stuff I'm interested in. I remember once saying to a schoolfriend that my brain felt like a ping pong ball, bouncing rapidly from one thing to another.

this is what I hear whenever I hear AI proponents hyped about their products

I just suggested to a colleague that "we should burn it to the ground, salt the earth, and curse OpenAI and all its little wizards yea even unto the seventh generation".

This is lovely!

YouTube video by BipBop - Calm Sensory Adventures Tiny Explorer, Big Heart | BipBop's Desert Adventure (4-Minute Animated Pilot) 🌵

If you or your friends have little ones, please check out ‘BipBop’. A calming animated series that I’m extremely proud to have created alongside Max Brodie, Katie Beesley and the lovely folks at Sycamore Studios.

youtu.be/9mNTZmhBC0Y?...

A cat who once had a big suburban house and a hugely stressful prestigious job and now lives on a cliff instead, free of the trappings of modern life, to the admiration of its friends, who, as they idealise its life, never imagine the terrible loneliness it feels during cold winters, six miles from the nearest shop, cinema and pub.

THREAD.

A collection of photos I have taken of excellent cats I have met on walks.

You will find the all-important captions to the photos in the alt text.

[Scene: exterior of Buckingham Palace. A voice comes from inside] Hello and welcome to the media training session! [Scene moves to Interior, a room in the palace. THE QUEEN stands before a screen, hosting a workforce MEDIA TRAINING session for the Royal Family, who are all seated on chairs.]
 THE QUEEN:  As you know we had to cut the PR budget, so I thought I’d do it myself Now then: today’s topic is a common PR danger: ‘Avoiding Association with Sex Traffickers’. So - Question 1. What is the best way to avoid association with sex traffickers?
 Is it: (a), Don’t associate with sex traffickers. (b) Travel 3,500 miles to stay in a sex trafficker’s house to tell them you don’t like them. (c) Something else? [The Royal family all raise hands, apart from Andrew] THE QUEEN: Ooh what a lot of hands! THE QUEEN: Andrew? ANDREW: Um
 ANDREW: Is it (c)… Release detailed records of your sweating history to Newsnight…? [The Queen stares at Andrew for a beat] THE QUEEN: [Same image as last panel, her face unchanged]: Let’s do the picture round. THE QUEEN: Which face says, “I had nothing to do with the sex trafficker?” [on the screen behind her are two faces labelled (a) and (b), one depicting a normal smiley face, the other depicting Andrew’s massively guilty expression from the BBC interview] [Ends]

From 2019, after the Emily Maitlis interview

(I share a page with something called ‘Kids Quiz' in the guardian, which is why we used the phrase ’sex trafficker’ here, and not ‘paedophile’. You can't really throw that word around on the Kids Quiz page)

If friend, then why not friend-shaped?

BBC Radio 4 - Short Cuts, Series 2, The Space between Us, They're Made Out of Meat A conversation from the outer reaches of the galaxy.

This is brilliant!

BBC Radio did another nice adaptation of this story several years ago: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p...

YouTube video by Stephen O'Regan They're Made Out Of Meat

in honor of the late great Tom Noonan, i want to encourage everyone to watch (or rewatch) one of my favorite things: They're Made Out Of Meat, an underseen sci-fi short film directed by Stephen O'Regan, starring Noonan and Ben Bailey. Worth the 7 minutes!

Although I'm increasingly concerned that somebody is setting us up the bomb.

As an unbaptised agnostic (but former CofE chorister) I sometimes choose to give something up anyway partly for self-discipline, wellbeing and focus reasons. I think I'll give up working at weekends and doomscrolling this time.

Patches @mostly_cheese OFFICER: the victims were dismembered and sacrificed on an altar made of antlers DETECTIVE: dear god OFFICER: most likely yes

i can’t think about deer anymore without thinking of this tweet

Name a videogame you've put 500 hours into.

I can't say for definite, but I did spend rather a lot of time in the 1980s and 1990s playing Elite.

Red Bull gives you Wings. And Lucozade gives you The Plastic Ono Band.

"I have searched the depths of Legal Arguments not yet articulated."

You may laugh, but the Macbeths are a much better role model for a marriage than Romeo and Juliet. They discuss their problems (killing the king of Scotland), share their hobbies (killing the king of Scotland), and resolve their conflicts (by killing the king of Scotland).

Last week I took my daughter (12) along to a Saturday morning maths outreach workshop I was running for year 9 school pupils. It's basically the same. Except with more mathematical puzzles and games, and fewer missiles, I guess.

"I've been though worse."

"Once at Elon Musk's birthday party,"

"I was seated between Silvio Berlusconi and Elon Musk."

Tahani really was a better judge of character than we sometimes gave her credit for.

In addition to various notable people (eg DH Lawrence) my school also includes awful Brexit grifter Lord Frost on the alumni list. He went back to give a talk last year and I briefly considered going along and throwing rotten fruit, but decided I couldn't bear to be in the same room as him.

DH Lawrence, novelist and poet

Captain Albert Ball VC, WW1 flying ace

Fr Henry Garnet, Jesuit priest executed for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot