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Andrew

@generalising.bsky.social
253 followers 77 following 889 posts

Not another one to try and remember. We'll see. Librarian. Scholarly communications, historic MPs, Wikipedia, inter alia other things. Misplaced Scot.

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Reposted by Andrew
Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 29m
One thing I find endlessly funny about the rise of AI is that it has revealed that there is a large number of people who believe that the reason they wrote essays at school or university is their teachers were desperately waiting for them to provide a definite answer to “Lear: what’s up with him?”
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James Chalmers @jameschalmers.bsky.social · 8h
Macron: I will lend the Bayeux Tapestry to the United Kingdom to celebrate the unique relationship between our countries. The United Kingdom: thank you so much for this spotlight you have shone on our national culture: queuing discourse will reach heights never before imagined.
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toilet bones @toiletbones.bsky.social · 12h
Found the email I sent when I got accidentally added to the faculty listserv of an orthopedic surgery clinic and nobody would remove me so I sent this email to all faculty/staff/med students and they removed me almost immediately
Hello Bone Colleagues, 
I have invented a new type of ankle and I'm very excited to show it to you. Early raccoon trials suggest a 60% increase in scurrying speed and dramatic increases in fine motor banditry. I know we are not supposed to create super raccoons, but I think you'll change your mind and professional ethics when you see how cute they are. I believe we are on the cusp of a new era in advanced human scurrying because if medical science has taught me anything, it's that improvements in raccoons correspond 1:1 to improvements in humans. 

--
[My name]
Chief Bone Inventor
Chair, Department of Foot and Leg Innovation
Lord Mayor, Musculoskeletal Medicine 
Hartford HealthCare,
The Bone & Joint Institute at Hartford Hospital.
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"the actual benefits are, of course, that I am now untouchably rich"
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
A couple of new details have emerged: * The "delineator" story was doing the rounds a month or more earlier than I thought * There does exist, *somewhere*, a detailed official report about this - someone recalled reading it in a war diary. But exactly where remains a mystery!
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Hobson (of the eponymous choice) seems to have become known for hiring out horses in Cambridge circa 1600, and it feels plausible that if that was a business model that worked OK there, then it might well also have been going on in London - not exactly direct evidence though!
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
two hundred years from now, we will either be taking weekend breaks to the moon or hoping the barley crop in the rubble of Camden doesn't fail again, and yet in both timelines somehow the government will still be putting off deciding whether to expand Heathrow www.theguardian.com/environment/...
theguardian.com
Burnham dodges questions on Heathrow third runway as project faces four-year delay
Airport chiefs say 2035 deadline unachievable with 2039 more likely as critics say delay makes case for project ‘even more dubious’
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
That said I suspect it could also be implemented quite informally - an editor that thinks a particular author is pushing things can always desk reject or say "we'll send that for review when we're finished with your last one" without having to make a statement of policy about it
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I feel like it is rare, given the wide range of journals people use, but I've never seen numbers on it.
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Well this was sadly inevitable
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Bell had some theories on that - seems a combination of "tampering with the original" and "wishful thinking by the end user"
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
About a year ago I dug into the story of James Shearer, a corporal in a field hospital in WWI who thought he'd invented a revolutionary new medical device. He hadn't. But ... things got a little out of hand. Finally wrote it up: www.generalist.org.uk/blog/2026/ja...
generalist.org.uk
James Shearer and the “delineator” – Andrew Gray
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Thanks! I think there seems to be some indication that contemporary rumour had cast it as a death-ray as well, though he himself never presented it as one. Difficult to say at this distance, though.
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Brett Holman @airminded.org · 02/10/2026
A terrific deep dive by @generalising.bsky.social about James Shearer, a soldier and serial fantasist who in 1916 falsely claimed to have invented a new type of medical imaging device - something like an X-ray machine, but for soft tissue and internal organs rather than bones
generalist.org.uk
James Shearer and the “delineator” – Andrew Gray
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The original thread of trying to figure this story out bsky.app/profile/gene...
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Featuring, among other things, fraudulent impersonation of a clergyman, alleged death-rays, the first retraction in the BMJ (possibly), and the chair of the Flat-Earth Society.
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
About a year ago I dug into the story of James Shearer, a corporal in a field hospital in WWI who thought he'd invented a revolutionary new medical device. He hadn't. But ... things got a little out of hand. Finally wrote it up: www.generalist.org.uk/blog/2026/ja...
generalist.org.uk
James Shearer and the “delineator” – Andrew Gray
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Wrote a 3000 word blog post last night. Trying to post it has got to "if I can get this server to stop thinking it's WinSCP when I ssh in, then I can get at the underlying configuration files and reset the password to the Wordpress admin account". self-hosting: endless enrichment!
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
My abiding memory of Waverley as a kid is those orange seats. Somehow more memorable than the actual trains.
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Greater Anglia doubling down on the inexplicable adverts. Are they randomly generating the numbers? Polling driving directions at different times?
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 26/09/2026
always hilarious when stuff that people insist must be a signifier of an optimistic techno-utopia turn out to just kinda suck
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Getty Images is going under with $2bn in debt. How do you run a boring licensing company and yet lose that much money? octus.com/resources/ar...
octus.com
Getty Images Preparing Chapter 11 Filing as Soon as Month’s End
Getty Images is preparing for Chapter 11 filing amid financial issues and missed payment obligations. Find out more here.
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
🍿 so, everything about this is the most interesting thing ever to me. If you think having to read other people's AI-generated documents is boring, at least you can skim those. What happens when someone gives a circuitous and overblown AI-generated speech? You just have to sit and listen.
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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 23/09/2026
Like Mike, I have a degree in Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science (mine's a little older). Here he articulates what I've felt but not quite understood about why the new AI explosion doesn't excite me in the way I'd have expected.
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Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Kitty map! This is how cats migrated to Europe. Great little writeup in the post too: buff.ly/3ttaUWg
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
you would bloody well hope not, surely www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Not all AI workers think the tech could kill everyone
In text exchanges and conversations, multiple people who have worked for leading companies are sceptical of the warnings.
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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 19/09/2026
Today, 19 September, is Batman Day. You’d think there would be a signal or something but Anyway, here’s “Batman’s Aff His Nut”, by Robert Florence #poem #poetry #Batman #BatmanDay mothdancepoetry.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/b...
Batman’s aff his nut
Robert Florence

Batman’s aff his nut
Have you seen the way he cuts aboot
Dressed up as a mad fuckin bat
Batterin guys
I was lit at:
“Mate, I’m worried aboot ye
I know your ma and da died
But everybody’s ma and da dies
And we’re no aw runnin aboot
Hookin muggers and
Kickin psychopaths in the baws.”
And that was when Batman went
“Aye, but do ye ever feel like it?
Do you ever look at the world and feel like it?
Like having a big mad base under your hoose?
Do you ever feel like drivin a big mad motor
that turns intae a tank?
And leatherin fuck oot of guys aw night?
Scarin the fuckin shite oot of them?”
And that’s when I was lit at:
“Aye. Fuck it. Ah dae.”
And that’s the Secret Origin of Robin
And everyone else.Blurry photo of a man (possibly a stunt-double?) in a (partial? certainly no cape) Batman costume, in daytime, on a wet Glasgow street – probably taken during the filming of the 2022 movie THE BATMAN, where Glasgow was a stand-in for Gotham City.

Text:
She’s turned the Waynes against us…

She’s turned the Waynes against us
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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 18/09/2026
Gentlemen! You can’t fight in here! This is the War Room! Good catch. You *can* fight in here. That’s on me. I’ve updated the list of rooms that it’s confirmed you can fight in.
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Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · 17/09/2026
Happy #NationalFoxDay to all who celebrate! 🦊 #fox #poem #poetry Ian Hamilton Finlay FOX see me wan time ah wis a fox an wis ah sleekit! ah gaed slinkin      heh an snappin      yeh the blokes aa sayed ah wis a GREAT fox aw nae kiddin ah wis pretty good had a whole damn wood in them days hen
A page from a book, printed in a reddish-brown ink. The top left contains a stylised papercut picture of a slightly scrawny, scraggly-looking fox. Beneath it is the text of the poem, “Fox’, by Ian Hamilton Finlay, published in GLASGOW BEASTS, AN A BURD, HAW, AN INSEKS, AN, AW, A FUSH, with papercuts by John Picking & Pete McGinn (The Wild Flounder Press, 1961):

see me
wan time
ah wis a fox
an wis ah sleekit! ah
gaed slinkin
heh
an snappin
yeh
the blokes
aa sayed ah wis a GREAT fox
aw nae kiddin
ah wis pretty good
had a whole damn wood
in them days
hen
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
LNER coming up with a strong contender in the baffling train advert stakes bsky.app/profile/cart...
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Sometimes, the big camera isn't quite the right tool for the job
A large green bird perched on a table, a few inches in front of a camera lens
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Comfortably Numb @numb.comfortab.ly · 13/09/2026
So they realized they're in the gutter, no revenue in sight, operating at a tremendous loss, and suddenly decided to slow down "to save the humanity."
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
(We also identified someone's entire secret second family through newspaper reports, a century later, but that's another story...)
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A few years back, I used a similar UK phenomenon (exhaustive visitor lists in holiday towns) to successfully pin down the death of a minor Victorian MP - the families were named in enough detail we could confirm it was him by identifying his wife, her sister, her niece, various other relatives...
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Dr Jo Kershaw @mthrjo.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Older U.K. readers will remember what happened to Ratners, and perhaps in that one way the eighties were a better time.
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Alison Eales, Nerves of Steel @alisoneales.com · 09/09/2026
me when I'm trying to choose a healthy breakfast
A screenshot of Prime Minister's Questions with the subtitle 'Mr Bacon, I don't need advice from you.'
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
On the one hand, still a terrible advert. On the other, apparently they're... A/B testing it?
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
look, in retrospect, maybe yes, we could have thought to ask literally any questions at all about why we were suddenly getting a new PM and what might be different vis-a-vis the old one, but that seemed boring, so oh well here we go again.
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Steve Horton 🚀 The Comic Book Story of Space Exploration @mst3k.fan · 04/09/2026
Lesser known Philip K Dick sequel!
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👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞 @jacktindale.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
One of the more interesting graphs I've seen, something that seems really counter-intuitive until you think about it. England only having about 15 percent forest coverage at the time of the Doomsday book (about half of what France and Germany have today) is wild, isn't it?
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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Victorian author: In my book I invented Ebenezer Scrooge as a cautionary tale. Tech Company: At long last, we have created— Sci-Fi Author: Told you, Chuck.
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
They even tweak the numbers for some reason, I spotted this version a week ago.
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Congratulations to Greater Anglia, who are running the least compelling advert for public transport ever devised
Travel from Broxbourne to Cambridge in 60 mins by train vs 1h 3mins by car
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Sian Bayley @sleighbayley.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
For the last five months the @fullfact.org team has been asking AI chatbots about false claims circulating online before we publish our fact checks. We found the LLMs often parroted the misinformation we're trying to combat. Read more about our experiment here 👇
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I have given into the demon on my shoulder and sent an email back explaining why an AI-generated response has moved me from "mildly annoyed" to "offended by this disrespectful reply", and my goodness I am middle aged
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Of all the many indignities of the LLM era, services that reply to a complaint email by summarising it back to you and promising they "understand your concerns" are the absolute worst.
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
"denies any wrongdoing" and "agrees to pay seventeen billion dollars" are quite the pairing www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Meta agrees to major changes to Facebook and Instagram as it settles US trial over teen addiction for up to $17bn
US tech giant agrees to establish further protections for teens such as daily usage limits and blocks on nighttime use
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Some former colleagues of mine did this, and then discovered they had forgotten to enquire about the seal's holiday plans.
When the elephant seal was tagged on Signy Island, it was hoped that this animal would range deeply into the ice-covered Weddell Sea in winter, thereby providing data from a region inaccessible to ships and from which very few hydrographic measurements have been collected. Unfortunately, the specific elephant seal that was tagged (Fig. 2) was not quite the enthusiastic adventurer that we had hoped for, choosing instead to spend the following months very close to the South Orkneys, and venturing only briefly beyond the shelf slope adjacent to these islands. This behaviour seems toA very fat and happy seal with a transmitter on its head, "not the intrepid adventurer that we had hoped for"
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Andrew @generalising.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I turned up one of these (early 90s) at work a few years back which went on for several pages of technical detail and then provided troubleshooting advice in case it all got too hard.
General antidote to electronic-mail problems

Ingredients for sangría for 6: 6 bottles of red wine; 2 peaches; 2 pears; 2 oranges; 1 lemon; 1 sliced banana; 1 sliced apple or pear; sugar. Slice and core the 2 peaches and 2 pears, peel the 2 oranges and the lemon. Liquidise and pour into a glass bowl. Add the sliced banana, sliced apple or pear, the peel from an orange and the wine. Add sugar to taste and stir. Serve cold.
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