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DavidC (he/him)

@davidtcook.bsky.social
46 followers 123 following 14 posts

Husband, father-of-two, fencer, juggler, programmer, cyclist, SFF Fan, gamer, AFOL.

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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
The Facts in the Case of Dr Dedman @stephendedman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
News Corp celebrates more than a decade of paying zero tax in Australia www.crikey.com.au/2026/10/01/n...
crikey.com.au
News Corp celebrates more than a decade of paying zero tax in Australia
News Corp continues to make serious money in Australia while paying no tax. But even the Murdoch monolith isn't the nation's worst tax dodger.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:
Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads: 

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Goldstein (still not a pseudonym) @goldstein.latinsky.app · 03/10/2026
How many local models do you run?

Pope Leo XIV
@Pontif... 17h
X
In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack th Show more
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@Spectromachina
X.com
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Pope, would you please shut the fuck up about matters you do not understand? You're not an Ai influencer, no one elected you, and you have absolutely no weight in this debate and you're being used as a mouthpiece to sway public opinion. how many local models do you run?
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.com · 02/10/2026
This will never stop blowing my mind. A 12-year sequence of real telescope images of a star 133 lightyears away. And around it, four planets slowly orbiting. Four real exoplanets, each more massive than Jupiter, imaged as they move around their host star.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
maura quint @mauraquint.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Yes every woman has been harassed, many assaulted. But every woman has also experienced invisible loss from moments she avoided harassment. She felt a space becoming unsafe, so she left, while men stayed on. And in leaving, she lost: opportunities, experiences, learning, promotions, even simply fun.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
caitbsky.bsky.social @caitbsky.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Add your Felt Report here: earthquakes.ga.gov.au/event/ga2026...
earthquakes.ga.gov.au
Earthquakes@GA
Geoscience Australia monitors, analyses and reports on significant earthquakes to alert the Australian Government, State and Territory Governments and the public about earthquakes in Australia and ove...
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
GFZ Earthquake Alerts (GEOFON) @geofon.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Magnitude : 4.8 Region: Near Southeast Coast of Australia Time: 2026-10-02 16:01:39 UTC Epicenter : 145.88°E 38.41°S Depth: 10 km *First posted at: 16:08 UTC* geofon.gfz.de/eqexplorer/events/gfz… #GEOFON #GFZ #earthquake #magnitude
Map showing the earthquake of 2026-10-02 in Near Southeast Coast of Australia
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
New Caledonia Seismic Observatory @ncseismicobserv.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
1 minute 59 seconds ago - Near Southeast Coast of Australia MLv 5.3 38.42S 145.89E 10km 2026/10/02 16:01:39 - For updates, see seisme.nc/fr/component/alertes/?ids… #séisme #earthquake #sismo #지진 #地震
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
LastQuake @lastquake.emsc.eu · 02/10/2026
⚠Preliminary info: #earthquake about 30 km NE of North Wonthaggi (#Australia) 2 min ago (local time 02:01:38)❗MAGNITUDE NOT AVAILABLE YET❗Updates at: 📱https://m.emsc.eu/#app 🌐https://m.emsc.eu 🖥https://www.emsc-csem.org
From EMSC
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Senator David Shoebridge @davidshoebridge.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Excited to be chosen as Leader of the @greens.org.au, together with @stephhodgins-may.bsky.social as Deputy Leader. Now is the time to build the Greens as the home for all who want climate action, a fair return on our resources, a secure home and income, and to not sell out to the US or the 1%.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Grant Watson @fictionmachine.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
My 10 suggestions for anybody pitching the new Doctor Who series to the BBC. 1. Doctor Who should frighten eight-year-olds, thrill 12-year-olds, and amuse the grown-ups. 2. The show is serious, but the Doctor is funny. 3. There is always a scientific explanation for things.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
This Machine Kills Hair Bands @she5los.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Hey, YOU! Do you want REALLY GOOD FAR-FUTURE SCIFI? Do you want ORIGAMI SPACESHIPS and HONOR DUELS and COURTLY INTRIGUE in the aftermath of a coup? Do you want a story that assumes you have a large vocabulary, but also tone-switches suddenly to be funny? Of course you do! Read Code and Codex!
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 25/09/2026
Science fiction is currently roughly six percent of the current fiction market in North America and fantasy is (again, roughly) four times that. There's definitely more money in fantasy. In all genres, I will note, the money is very unequally distributed. (Horror... fluctuates)
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
abadidea @0xabad1dea.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 25/09/2026
Well you don’t see that everyday: Chinese plates in Amsterdam. The stickers declare they’re on a journey from Qingyang to Iceland #amsterdam
A van with a 甘M license plate from China, a lot of country flag stickers, and a message in Chinese about Iceland or bust. Also a sticker that says “pizza tour”. Are they traveling the world to sample pizzas? goals.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
samhain ⎔ @personhood.removal.surgery · 25/09/2026
mc escher is old news, have you seen shinjuku station maps
A neon wireframe of Shinjuku Station hangs in a black-violet void. Purple streets stretch toward the horizon above a white-and-cyan knot of platforms, tunnels, and intersecting passages. Corridors cross themselves, divide, and return at heights that no longer agree. The streets describe a flat city; the station beneath them describes something considerably larger. There are no solid walls, only the exposed edges of an interior that has escaped its building. In the upper-right corner, a small control panel offers checkboxes for floors 4F through B3, suggesting that the geometry might become possible again if enough of it were hidden.An English-labelled map of Shinjuku Station compresses an impossible building into a deceptively tidy arrangement of pastel platforms and passages. Parallel tracks resemble the rungs of several ladders laid through one another. Beige concourses bend around them, change elevation at tiny staircases, and emerge on the wrong side of their own walls. B7F lies near the top of the page; B1F spreads through several apparently unrelated interiors. Yellow labels repeatedly promise an exit: West Gate, Central West Gate, JR Central West Gate. Each belongs to a different understanding of west. A bright red ShinjukuStation.com logo presides over the diagram with the confidence of a place that has never had to leave itself.An intricate blue-ink drawing unfolds Shinjuku Station into an impossible architectural dissection. Orange, lavender, pale-blue, green, and pink passages weave between banks of railway platforms, diving beneath streets and resurfacing inside structures that should be outside the station. Stairways stitch together overlapping planes. Buildings stand along the edges of the cutaway, but the deeper the drawing goes, the less certain it becomes which space contains which. Tiny Japanese annotations patiently catalogue the contradiction. A smaller explanatory diagram occupies the lower-left corner, offering another station inside the drawing of the station. The white paper between the corridors could be daylight, solid ground, or further rooms.An exploded diagram of Shibuya Station arranges disconnected floors in white space like an Escher staircase equipped with public amenities. Platforms and concourses hover above one another, linked by dense flights of stairs, sloping escalators, and blue elevator shafts. The labels descend from 3F to B5F, although height appears to be negotiated separately in each part of the image. Several places claim to be B1F. Patches labelled “ground level” occur partway through the machinery. Red accessible routes trace a meticulous course through the impossible structure, passing toilets, ticket machines, and numbered exits. The legend at the bottom explains every symbol except how to get outside.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Brendan O’Kane @bokane.org · 25/09/2026
been a while since I saw a mutant character that really delighted me
new to me: one 或 on top of another 或 that's been turned upside-down. It is apparently writing the homophonous 惑, "confusing."
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Celeste Headlee @celesteheadlee.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
So, Banksy bought a used yacht, repaired it and retrofitted it to serve as a rescue boat to save migrants in the central Mediterranean. The whole project cost the artist $860,000. Since 2020, the boat has saved more than 3,800 people. londondaily.com/banksy-funds...
londondaily.com
Banksy funds refugee rescue boat operating in Mediterranean - London Daily
Exclusive: UK artist finances bright pink motor yacht that set sail in secrecy to avoid being intercepted by authorities
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Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Please give what you can to help this incredible author and wonderful human to find a cozy, livable apartment in his new home in Scotland! Bonus: cats will also be happy.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 24/09/2026
Thread. This was a journey. Literally.
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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Remind me. Wasn't the entire argument for paying for streaming services was that those payments were in lieu of advertising?
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Euan Healey @euanhealey.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Edinburgh University created the first ever Chair in Celtic in Scotland in 1882 (Donald Mackinnon of Colonsay). This is a cultural retreat happening before our eyes where there was once leadership.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Lynn™ @lynn.cat · 19/09/2026
Pedro Pascal's lesser known sibling, Turbo,
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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 18/09/2026
if you EVER get called for a meeting and they say “don’t bring a union rep” bring a union rep
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Jason GRIZZLED Bittel @bittelmethis.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
BREAKING NEWS: New cat species just dropped! 🧪 What is a tilcayo, exactly? Well, it's a small wild cat in the genus Leopardus and a member of the tiger cat species complex, but it is NOT a tigrina, oncilla, kodkod, Geoffroy's cat... www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/arti...
nationalgeographic.com
Meet the First New Cat Species Discovered in 100 years
A small, spotted tiger cat from Bolivia may just be the beginning of a wave of new small cat species.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
AK Faulkner ➡️ NYCC @ravenswordpress.com · 15/09/2026
I find time and time again that people who have experienced deep trauma go one of two ways. 1: Never want anyone to go through what they did 2: Everyone should go through what they did 2 is, IMHO, why people target victims for radicalisation.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
My latest @newscientist.com cartoon
Course: Introduction to Basic Philosophical Astronomy 
Type: Six-week evening class 
Location: Physics Building Roof 

Modules: 
Week One - Whoa, look at all those stars 
Week Two - Dude, there are, like, bajillions 
Week Three - let me blow your mind with some big bang facts 
week Four - d'you think aliens are doing this on their planet?
Week Five - Let's just chill out and take it all in for a while 
Week Six - Seriously, it's crazy how many stars are up there 

Image: figures sprawl on the roof of a building, gazing at a sky filled with stars.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 14/09/2026
A 40-year-old kernel bug got discovered while on stage at DEF CON and the writeup is glorious
yuvalino.com
How can you not be romantic about UNIX domain sockets?
A 40-year-old kernel bug discovered on the DEFCON 34 main stage.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.wsocial.eu · 14/09/2026
Your regular reminder: If the Russians stop fighting, the war ends. If the Ukrainians stop fighting, their land will be occupied, their leaders will be killed, their history and language will be erased, their children will be kidnapped to serve Russia.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Matt Bors @mattbors.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
It was exactly ten years ago today, on my 33rd birthday, that I posted this comic online.
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The Facts in the Case of Dr Dedman @stephendedman.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Why social media looks different in the Netherlands www.thenewdaily.com.au/life/social-...
thenewdaily.com.au
Dutch users get choice on algorithmic feeds – what happened next
The Netherlands is a social media exception, with an Instagram app that really does look slightly different.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
ABC News Australia @news.abc.net.au · 14/09/2026
Enric Mas claims long awaited Vuelta a España title after three second-place finishes
abc.net.au
Mas 'fulfils his destiny' to win historic Vuelta
Enric Mas has finished second overall three times at his home grand tour, the Vuelta a España. But in 2026 he finally ended Spain's drought for a home-grown victor after 12 years.
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Reposted by DavidC (he/him)
Alex White @alexwhite.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Hey. If a small press wants to give you a digital-only, royalty-based multibook deal for books that haven't yet been written, run. Lots of small presses use this royalty structure because they have no assets, and this allows them to offload nearly all risk to you.
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Kate Elliott @kateelliottsff.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I am not first and will be far from the last to say this: I have purchased so many books because I saw them recommended or publicized here on bsky. I cannot urge you all enough to KEEP TALKING ABOUT BOOKS. I know it's easier to talk up someone else's book, but this also means you, the shy author.
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CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 12/09/2026
I use a lot of these words in everyday language. Sometimes I use them in my science paper writing. The problem is that it can't distinguish between outright GenAI crap and assistance tools (with AI-like features) that might help with science writing.
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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Woke up and realised that even before the final sacking next week that my university now employs more people with English Literature PhDs in administration than in the English department. Tells you something about the state of HE.
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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This animated map shows a day of actual UK train movements, delays and all! On 19 August 2026 the network peaked at 1,794 trains moving at once. Even around 3am, at least 141 were running. Passenger services wind down, but freight and maintenance keep rolling. Source: buff.ly/0zrhl41
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Jo Walton @bluejo.eurosky.social · 12/09/2026
Sunlit Uplands, coming next summer from Tor us.macmillan.com/books/978125... I was going to link to the review I put on goodreads, but it seems you have to be logged in to see it, so I'm doing it as a thread.
us.macmillan.com
Sunlit Uplands
Sunlit Uplands is an electrifying found family road trip across a multiverse of Everything Everywhere All At Once from Hugo Award winning author Jo Walton.Wh...
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The Needling @theneedling.com · 12/09/2026
Home Gardening Virtuoso Successfully Turns $800 into a Side Salad: tinyurl.com/4uxmdjtz
Man fondly gazing upon a small garden salad bowl with a giant backyard garden behind him.
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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
These dayes the greatest danger to the future of universityes ys universityes. Remembir the missioun, remembir the studentes, remembir those who have come bifor and will arryve aftir, remembir teachinge and learninge and dialogue. A universitye ys much more than a corporation wearinge a mortarboard.
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Spooky Old Mark Monro | He/Him 🌈 @thatidiotmonro.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Need to harness the power of Bluesky, so reposts are appreciated. If anyone here, or anyone you know attends Bangor University (the Welsh one) and needs a room for the upcoming year, get in touch. One of my son's housemates has dropped out at the last minute, so their house is one short.
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A.J. Wilden🏳️‍⚧️ @wcwit.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
"They're not misunderstanding the film; they're co-opting a message"
Screencap from the interview linked in the quoted post

Marlow Stern (the interviewer):  You have one of the most renowned replies in Twitter history. Elon Musk tweeted out, “Take the red pill,” then Ivanka Trump enthusiastically wrote, “Taken!” to him, and then you replied, “Fuck both of you.” I’m curious how you feel about the co-opting of “The Matrix” by those on the right who don’t really seem to understand its messaging.

Lilly Wachowski: I mean, I can’t sit in a room and explain the movie to every single person who watches it. Even if I did sit in a room with Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump — yikes — it doesn’t matter. They’re not misunderstanding the film; they’re co-opting a message. And that’s what fascists do: They co-opt the messages of progressives and use it to their benefit to confuse and obfuscate what is going on and the intention of their ideology. They do it with everything. They do it with Martin Luther King Jr. Look at how they’ve changed the idea of what antisemitism is.
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Jason Schreier @jasonschreier.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The video game industry has always been volatile (I published Press Reset in 2021!) but the skeleton key to understanding the current state of things is this: Big games now cost 10x to make what they did 15 years ago but most do not generate even close to 10x the revenue. Simple as that
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David Milner @davemilbo.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Naarm/Melbourne at night, reflected on the Yarra River
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August J. Pollak @augustjpollak.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A reminder that evangelical doctrine, up to and including the wildly popular Left Behind book series where the Democratic president essentially does exactly this, has for decades insisted this is how the antichrist will reveal himself.
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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A handful of countries have shown the rest of the world that Hepatitis C elimination is achievable. A program in central Taiwan took screening straight to drug users, dialysis patients and prisoners, lifting coverage from 54% to 90% and curing 99% of those treated. buff.ly/H62vf2q #ShareGoodNewsToo
forbes.com
https://www.forbes.com/sites/williamhaseltine/2026/08/21/what-we-can-learn-from-taiwan-and-egypt-about-ending-endemic-disease/
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longwhitecoats @longwhitecoats.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I recognize the cognitive dissonance here when I previously admitted they were big. Listen. Wout van Aert *is* big... for a cyclist. On the scale of, like, normal human people, or even other athletes, cyclists blow away in a stiff breeze. And that's why I love them
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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Put south at the top and Brazil takes centre stage! Colours show species richness per 100 km², with green marking the richest areas. Brilliant use of cartography by Brazil’s public statistics agency, IBGE. More of this, please! Source: buff.ly/puQ3B50
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Ryan @geekryan.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Scientists have created an actual treatment for prions, the cause of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans, chronic wasting disease in deer, & mad cow disease. "Brainwide silencing of prion protein by AAV-mediated delivery of an engineered compact epigenetic editor". #ShareGoodNewsToo
science.org
Brainwide silencing of prion protein by AAV-mediated delivery of an engineered compact epigenetic editor
Prion disease is caused by misfolding of the prion protein (PrP) into pathogenic self-propagating conformations, leading to rapid-onset dementia and death. However, elimination of endogenous PrP halts...
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Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
well,
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
Title:
Who is Haunting The Library of Forbidden Tomes? 

Image: five panels showing characters in a gothic library 

22% - tormented souls, frozen between life and death (a ghost reading a book)
4% - dank, fetid horrors from the icy depths below (a black slug like creature with a single eyestalk reading a book)
15% - cold, lifeless bones possessed by a corrupt sorcery (a skeleton reading a book)
11% - frigid and malevolent ectoplasmic vapours (a shapeless apparition reading a book)
48% - regular readers happy to away from the heatwave
(A mother, small child and toddler in buggy, all reading books)
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