David Spurrett

MUPPET KNIVES OUT

I’ll NEVER forget reading it 😭

Deep gratitude to @karenattiah.bsky.social for doing the 💔 work so we could read it 🙏🏻

Ev'ry Barry shall be exalted.

I like that the first AI nativity I could find for this has both Mary and Joseph with beards.

Poor AI nativity scene with child's toy style camels, where both Mary and Joseph (?) appear to have beards. Manger is in a structure with snow on the roof, and holly hanging. An image of Theodor Adorno in a swimsuit has been superimposed over the infant Jesus.

Imagine escaping the literal Nazis, making it to America, living three quarters of a century there making your life, and then this:

POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success

Congratulations! (And a pox on those vile jerks.)

O, come let us Adorno him!

He stared at me Kennedyishly with a voice like a rock in Plymouth spinning around in a widening gyre that even his falcon could not hear. He was an affliction with no inoculation.

Iwould take a bullet for you,” the Politician said. He always said that. “Please don’t say that,” I said. I always said that. From his mouth the bullet theoretical launched the bullet possible. I did not like to think about it. About the armed man at his speech. Or the armed man who broke into his home. Or the armed men he paid to guard him from armed men who sought to harm him while the federal government denied his pleas for protection from the security agency whose modern protocols were carved by the same bullets that cut boughs from his family tree and cut the track of the American experiment.

guys.

✨CFA✨

I’m hosting a workshop on Social AI at the Uni of Exeter, generously funded by the Society of Applied Philosophy (10&11 Feb). If you fancy joining us to present your work, please submit an abstract!

Confirmed speakers: Rob Clowes, Pii Telakivi, Joel Krueger, Tom Roberts, & me. #philsky

Atkinson Hyperlegible Font - Braille Institute Read easier with Atkinson Hyperlegible Font, crafted for low-vision readers. Download for free and enjoy clear letters and numbers on your computer!

periodic reminder of the existence of Atkinson Hyperlegible, a free font available from the Braille Institute designed to improve readability for people with low vision

I use it in talks because it's pretty and also because, as an audience member, I am perpetually squinting at people's slides

“Even for an intermediate emissions scenario [which is our current emissions pathway] the probability of AMOC shutdown is way above 50%”

(AMOC shut-down means Europe and parts of South-East Asia become uninhabitable, by the way.)

1/4

Alan Dershowitz redefining the semantics of "pedophile" isn't hairsplitting, according to the plain meaning of "hairsplitting"

by Steven Pinker

There is a line of Trump fragrances. (Seriously - gettrumpfragrances dot com) I feel as though the B3ta crew could expand the range to great effect.

I'm too scared to look. Is there a fragrance called "Wonderful Secret"?

And how long before there's a "Bubba Bath"?

Fair enough. My impression is that the piece I linked really tries to integrate and weigh various sources of evidence, and doesn't take company claims uncritically.

When an AI-powered writing tool was rolled out on a job site, the length of proposals exploded. Signals employers used to identify good candidates — like quality of writing, and relevance of experience — became ubiquitous. That was OK for bad candidates, but terrible for good ones.

Another case of AI speed-running Gresham's Law.

"This woke Me-Too bullshit has gone too far," said the former Harvard President and Secretary of the U.S. Treasury to the billionaire pedophile sex trafficker in a private email that the Justice Department under both parties kept secret for years

KSR-Correa do Lago

An amazing moment tonight when Andre Correa do Lago, president of the UN COP30 climate conference — ie, the literal minister of the future — was introduced to Kim Stanley Robinson. And by my colleague @akshatrathi.bsky.social to boot

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard. The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

We know that the arithmetic done by Meta and Microsoft is telling them to build nuclear reactors. www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

YouTube video by JAGGL113 JESUS CHRIST IN RICHMOND PARK: ORIGINAL UPLOAD

Happy Fenton Day to all who celebrate. Jesus Christ, fourteen years.

youtu.be/3GRSbr0EYYU

International Encyclopedia of Unified Science Royale!

Does Britain value culture any more? Ask the striking workers at the British Library | Zadie Smith The dispute over pay at this great national institution gets to the heart of our misplaced priorities, says novelist Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith, occasioned by the strike at the British Library, but about so much more.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

What is the most profitable industry in the world, this side of the law? Not oil, not IT, not pharma.

It's *scientific publishing*.

We call this the Drain of Scientific Publishing.

Paper: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Background: doi.org/10.1162/qss_...

Thread @markhanson.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy 👇

... the gears turning in the small child's mind. And, sure enough, he spent the rest of his waking evening exclaiming "moist flange" in a taunty sort of way. I just don't see how AI could achieve remotely similar educational effects. /2-fin

I was 'helping' the small child with preparing for a test, and felt it important to mention that some regard "flange" to be a correct collective noun for baboons. Mum heard this, said she didn't like that word, and also volunteered that she wasn't keen on the word "moist". I could see ... /1

This is outrageous for a lot of reasons, starting with the fact that Sarah doesn't know why she was suspended

@aaron.bsky.team, this was either a weird mistake or the result of somebody filing a false complaint. Instead of doubling down, why not just restore account without explanation?