Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 11/10/2026When a Christian, the pragmatics of the religion were partly responsible for my subsequent atheism. Christians did things that made no sense when compared to the teachings. “I was a stranger and you invited me in,” being the case in point here. To misquote Satre: Hell is other Christians. 020
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 10/10/2026There’s a real ‘everyone should just pull their socks up and act normal’ thread to this discourse around growth in diagnoses of neurodivergence. As if it isn’t dystopian to expect all humans to think the same way. 110
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Next time pretend you are writing music about fluffy baby bunnies playing in a meadow of pink flowers on a balmy summer evening. 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 09/10/2026The US are certainly not in the World’s best company with this proposal. 010
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Nice to find someone else randomly who shares a concern that when discussed with some colleagues leads to the blank stare and fixed smile that suggests they think I’ve lost my mind. 021
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 28/09/2026This is a worry for me too. Even for mundane stuff like Word and PowerPoint (both of which I’ve now stopped using by default because I do not like my IP being locked up in a proprietary format). Some of my colleagues think I’m a sandwich short of a picnic, so thanks for raising the point! 100
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 27/09/2026‘Bare’ nails a cover for white supremacy!? Reading articles like this makes me wonder if ‘The Patriarchy’ isn’t just a discourse blaming men for the appalling ways women treat each other. In the ‘Health’ section: “How the bare nails trend became a class issue” www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...bbc.co.ukClassy or classist? How bare nails became a hot issueBare nails - or nails that appear that way - are a growing trend. But is it as innocent as it seems? 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 21/09/2026If AI just increases the volume of papers and proposals, I am wondering if anyone has thought through the implications of that for the free peer review service offered to academics. I am increasingly minded to refuse to review for journals and funders who allow AI generated contributions. 🧪 070
Reposted by Gary PolhillComputational Social Science Society of the Americas @computationalsocialscience.org · 12/09/2026Early registration discount ends soon! Presenters: confirm your attendance by registering before the rates go up! computationalsocialscience.org/conferences/... (computationalsocialscience.org/conferences/...) 011
Reposted by Gary PolhillComputational Social Science Society of the Americas @computationalsocialscience.org · 07/09/2026September Webinar! Leigh Tesfatsion (Iowa State University): Completely Agent-Based Modeling (c-ABM): A Right Mathematics for an Increasingly Agentic World? on Tuesday, September 22, at 11 am (ET). Click here to register for the webinar. (www.tickettailor.com/events/compu...) 022
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 28/08/2026I thought for a happy minute the USA had finally given up on Fahrenheit 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Looking forward to this talk at the European Social Simulation Association’s annual conference! Love a rant! 020
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 24/08/2026Ooh can I snapshot this for use in my next talk…? 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 03/08/2026They want what they want regardless of the truth, and will invent ‘facts’ to support what they want. This is why education, evidence and scientific research — often touted as the means to resolve disputes — are ineffective in resolving these fundamental divisions. Cohesion needs deradicalisation. 020
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 03/08/2026It is of course silly of me to hate _all_ the even numbers, so I have decided not to mind those with an odd factor. Except 6. And other even numbers with a 6 in. 010
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 01/08/2026If I wrote a computer program that hacked other companies and then said it was an AI straight up guv, and not my fault, I don’t think my defence would stand up in court. 020
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 29/07/2026Society has indeed spent forty years or so with its head in the sand about sustainability matters. 020
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 29/07/2026FWIW reading through replies given to responses to his message, I think he already does quite a lot for the environment, but is just fed up of being told what to do. However right one may be, sometimes insights into sustainable living will rub some people up the wrong way. 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 29/07/2026People engage with sustainability in different ways and it is definitely off-putting for many to be told what (not) to do all the time. There is a neopuritan air about some of the behaviours and attitudes around living sustainably. Life does need to be fun. 110
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Tell your bosses you’ve earned your supper. I just subscribed. 120
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 26/07/2026I think that trajectory ends up with DNA tests, cloning and incest in pursuit of ever greater white ‘purity’. 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Instead, laws, norms and mainstream opinions changed around reactionary Gen X, who self-censored. (Progressive Gen Xers were part of the movements for change, of course.) A resurgent right has now led to those views the reactionary Gen X had suppressed becoming something that could be said openly. 010
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 26/07/2026Personally, I am not convinced Gen X were ‘radicalised’ as such. Rather, I think we have forgotten how prevalent and mainstreamed racist, sexist and homophobic opinions and norms were during the formative years of Xers, in the 80s and 90s. 270
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 19/07/2026The last ten to fifteen or so years have been very strange politically. Leaders are humans not heroes, and I think we should _all_ be thinking what we can do to make things better rather than waiting for some magic personality to inspire us. 010
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 11/07/2026Criticising your successors after you’ve retired? Classy. Really classy. There was always that annoying sense he thought he could do better than anyone he interviewed when he presented Today. 070
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 08/07/2026It’s a fair question. But then again… How do people not know that climate change is being caused by human activity? Or that we are living through a major extinction crisis? Or that evolution is the best account we have of the emergence of life on our planet? Or that our planet is an oblate spheroid? 021
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 02/07/2026Today I am working from home, with the intention that I would have a concentrated space to make progress with my work. But instead I’ve spent two hours wrestling frustratedly with a recalcitrant PC, and now I’m too annoyed to concentrate on work. 020
Reposted by Gary PolhillComputational Social Science Society of the Americas @computationalsocialscience.org · 29/06/2026CSS 2026: Deadline Extended Now accepting both submissions and student fellowship award applications until July 15th! More info: computationalsocialscience.org/conferences/... (computationalsocialscience.org/conferences/...)computationalsocialscience.orgCSS 2026 Santa Fe | The Computational Social Science Society of the AmericasCSSSA 011
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 17/06/2026If I have the belief that I need to get up to go to work, but the desire to stay in bed to get some more sleep, how am I to compute my intention? 010
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 29/05/2026I’m watching Stargate SG1 so it’s starting well… 010
Reposted by Gary PolhillBruce Edmonds @bruceedmonds.bsky.social · 29/05/2026Upcoming workshop 24-26th June, Groningen, NL on "Power to the People: Participatory Modeling for Societal Resilience". www.rug.nl/rudolf-agric... #participatory #modeling #resilience #societyrug.nlPower to the People: Participatory Modeling for Societal ResilienceWhen communities face their most pressing challenges—managing disaster risk, adapting to climate change, navigating energy transitions—solutions rarely... 111
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 20/05/2026It is for occasions like these that the word schadenfreude was invented. 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 17/05/2026Well, you can always check his publications for hallucinated references and contact retraction watch… 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 16/05/2026It’s basically an unimaginative amalgam of English Literature syllabuses. Of the handful I’ve read, the majority are because I was made to by a teacher or a girlfriend 020
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 15/05/2026And they must have decided that Snow Crash is in the top twenty then, since it is not in 21-100. Awesome! 110
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 13/05/2026Brend Parsons from Bristol, your country needs you. 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 11/05/2026Anyone know the secret of listening to the news and _not_ having an hour-long panic attack because of all the stupid? 010
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 11/05/2026I am having one of those days in which other people’s ‘systems’ have not been designed imagining that someone like me could exist. 020
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 03/05/2026It is indeed hard to imagine a parallel situation in which CofE schools and churches have to be surrounded by barbed wire, and commentators bringing Trump into any conversation following the attempted murder of some people wearing crucifixes. 110
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 03/05/2026How to shoehorn “sex” into a headline for a few extra clicks… 000
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 18/04/2026I’m still waiting for the paper claiming an AI can work out how long your job will run for before submitting it to a cluster… 010
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 17/04/2026Thing is though, they aren’t computer scientists. 210
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 14/04/2026I had one elderly individual of what I imagine to be a similar demographic respond to my (pathetic and negligible) efforts to ‘save the planet’ with, “Who are you saving it for?” 261
Gary Polhill @garypolhill.bsky.social · 22/03/2026Does anyone else find the music they are now playing over scenes of destruction in Iran on the news (e.g. Laura Kuenssberg) — what’s the word — trivializing? I’m reminded of scenes from B movies and video games, rather than being given pause to reflect on the suffering of real people. 000