Reposted by James AylettNicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 4hI hope another lesson learned from the Cornell case is that college students can’t just “go to the police.” A lot of public and elite private universities have their own police departments with exclusive jurisdiction over their campus. So going to the police still means reporting to your school. 212328
Reposted by James AylettRazzball @razzball.bsky.social · 4hAnnouncing the merger with Titanic footage is an incredible bit 25981611764
Reposted by James AylettRobin Z @firepile.bsky.social · 5hAn interesting side-product of @dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social sending US folks to Blackwells online for his books is that I've also discovered Blackwells online will ship overseas to me for even better prices than amazon in many cases (and they have lovely UK editions of things I can't otherwise get!) 53614
Reposted by James AylettAmy Hoy @amyhoy.bsky.social · 5hgoogle works to destroy the open web, one thing at a time 0193
Reposted by James AylettSwearyMess @swearymess.bsky.social · 5h"Drunk Octopus Wants To Fight!" might be one of my all time favourites and it makes me incredibly happy every time I see one. 1298
Reposted by James AylettUnited Tech & Allied Workers @utaw.tech · 5h7000 members and counting 🎈The UK's original and largest trade union for tech workers has hit a new membership milestone, with 7,000 active members joining our branch to fight for better conditions for workers in tech, and for more responsible deployment of the tech we build. 086
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 5hCould threachery be a thing? (You have to say it out loud for maximum effect.) Like a threat and treachery at the same time. Maybe it's a threat you make to convince someone not to be a traitor. Or when you threaten to betray someone. Or (informally) just operating under the suspicion of treachery. 000
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 11hNot sure why I didn't think this before, but since AIUI Margaret Thatcher's first term was fairly unambitious, and she didn't really unload the biggest changes until the third term, there's a possibility she did a turnaround CEO dead cat bounce play, but with an entire nation. 000
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 11hFollowing the Trusspocalypse I actually have reasonable confidence in the political judgement of most lettuces. 010
Reposted by James AylettAlexandra Lanes @ajlanes.bsky.social · 11hThis is one of those etymologies that sounds like a just so story but is in fact true. 22911
Reposted by James AylettPaul Clarke @paulclarke.com · 11hFrom the archives, 14 years ago: a doomed campaign by a tobacco lobby group, hiding their identity (one might even say they were attempting to pass it off as a dot gov dot uk poster). Fat lot of good it did them, thankfully. 232
Reposted by James AylettAram Zucker-Scharff @chronotope.aramzs.xyz · 01/10/2026AI systems do not have feelings but they are good at tricking our empathy, this is a great example. But treating AI chat boxes like shit is still ethically questionable because of what it does to us to treat something we perceive as humanish in an abusive way www.tomsguide.com/ai/an-ai-tor...tomsguide.comAn AI ‘torture chamber’ went viral — then a developer gave the chatbot constipationA bizarre counterexperiment challenges what we can infer from an AI describing its own suffering 2154
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 11hI think that the impacts (on own mental health, subsequently on others' safety) makes this an unethical project to have actually done. Is there ever a situation where using LLMs to produce transcripts as-if of torture could be ethical? I'm sceptical, but maybe there's a possible valid purpose. 000
Reposted by James AylettDr Duncan Robertson @duncanrobertson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I've gone on Traitors by mistake #celebritytraitors 2538
Reposted by James AylettAnnalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Absolutely incredible. I love to see this digital art history being preserved. 27414
Reposted by James AylettNight of the Abigail @popeguilty.bsky.social · 01/10/2026what if you were a medieval monk dabbling in the occult and you summoned a demon and instead of teaching you magic he teaches you what a Turing Machine is and you don't get it and he's like I am trying to help you here and you're like I really just wanted to poison my boss so I can be the Abbot 839047
Reposted by James AylettMariah McCourt @monsterteatime.bsky.social · 01/10/2026If you see this, post a vampire that isn't Dracula. 063
Reposted by James AylettMariah McCourt @monsterteatime.bsky.social · 01/10/2026100%. As a Gen Xer media when I was growing up was full of situations like this and movies/tv movies about how bad frats are. So it is really horrifying to me that we're STILL allowing this in 2026. They're toxic. 2125
Reposted by James AylettDirk Maggs @dirkmaggs.bsky.social · 01/10/2026From The Times obit for Esther Rantzen. Nothing against Ms Rantzen but us dogsbodies trained for 9 months to “do the chores” and would like to see the obit writer survive “Red Light Fever” and operate the panel in a busy studio live on air or create believable sound effects for a convincing drama. 1517136
Reposted by James AylettAliette de Bodard @aliettedebodard.com · 01/10/2026Just went through this list and basically ordered almost everything Please also read @freyamarske.bsky.social's amazing Bodies of Magic (medicine school plus five disaster students plus murder), @everinamaxwell.bsky.social's Call me Traitor (two unreliable narrators/disaster stabby lesbians) 44517
Reposted by James AylettCaroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 01/10/2026This presents a serious challenge to those of us in 'AI positive' institutions, where we have no choice but to engage with AI to some extent. (Tho' students here have an ethical opt-out, teachers do not.) We must educate our students about ALL aspects of AI, including the (un)ethical underpinning. 22815
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 01/10/2026Periods of torpor, my difficult second darkwave album 010
Reposted by James Aylettj4 @jaffa.bsky.social · 30/09/2026creature Mouth perfec t size for put vicar in to preach! inside very Soft and Comfort 16532
Reposted by James AylettPaul Bernal @paulbernal.bsky.social · 01/10/2026The rulers of post-apocalyptic Cambridge will be the herons. 1220019
Reposted by James AylettBrian G. aka urbanbohemian 🪩🥂💖 @urbanbohemian.com · 30/09/2026We're on Bluesky, put the link in your post. Put the link in your post. Put. The. Link. In. Your. Post. Links in posts aren't buried or de-prioritized here. This is one of the last platforms you don't have to make interested users do detective work to find the link. Just put it in the post. 82052655
Reposted by James AylettChris Farnell @thebrainofchris.bsky.social · 01/10/2026This is why you should never confuse "Elite level poster" with "good person" or "someone who has intelligent or coherent thoughts." 310520
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 30/09/2026Doom gets regressed to a child and sent back in time to be Tony Stark. Avengers: Infinity Loop. 030
Reposted by James Aylettsirosenbaum.bsky.social @sirosenbaum.bsky.social · 30/09/2026thinking about Shakespeare's sonnets about immortality and realizing how weird it is that the AI cult believes in the idea of preserving human consciousnesses while actively destroying the only technology we currently have to do that: Art 6506136
Reposted by James AylettShiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 30/09/2026unpopular opinion: food almost everywhere was worse 250 years ago 3667138
Reposted by James AylettCethan Leahy @cethanleahy.com · 30/09/2026I think we underrate that JCO came up in 20th century New York literary circles where everyone said five most devastating insults before breakfast and as one of the last one standing, her competition is guys who get sad if their chatbot isn't sufficiently nice to them. 202646481
Reposted by James AylettJordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I accidentally spent £17,700 on 400 subscriptions to the LRB for Home Office staff and now the Life in the UK test is asking applicants to rank Derek Jarman films from most to least emotionally resonant? 129572
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 30/09/2026Congratulations to Firefox for giving tabs rounded corners in 2026, changing the visual feel sufficiently that it impacts my tab navigation / management. 10/10 cramped UI feeling, maybe if you added another border box around them it'd really feel like 1997 again. 010
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 30/09/2026If you're an idiot, you may believe that intelligence doesn't require (ongoing) learning. Or if you're an awful person, you may believe that you shouldn't have to pay for that because you're a superior special boy. Or if you're a fascist, you really don't want teachers surviving. 000
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 30/09/2026Normally I'd also be up for fining the execs & board, but in this case we want to nationalise it anyway so let's avoid having artificial compensation inflation for anyone qualified to run them before we do that. (Though some of the people running them don't seem qualified to steward a public good.) 110
Reposted by James AylettREwadent Evil @ewacat.bsky.social · 30/09/2026I suggest that - 'godspeed' means 'i wish you well in your endeavours' - 'god speed' is somewhere just above the speed of light 88317
Reposted by James AylettGwen C. Katz @gwenckatz.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets. 205189315400
Reposted by James AylettAlison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 29/09/2026A 2,300-year-old silver container in the shape of a scallop-shell decorated with an octopus 🐙 It may once have held cosmetics. From Paternò, Sicily. Altes Museum, Berlin 📷 by me #Archaeology 9780201
Reposted by James AylettDr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 29/09/2026unsolicited brag: dug into the data -> ai -> surveillance pipeline in class this morning and received a standing ovation at the end of class. genuinely did not expect it. now i’m in tears. first time for everything 1634042
Reposted by James AylettLaura J Mixon @laurajmg.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Manderon Flavuris sez hi. Have some fruit joy. 171
Reposted by James AylettNicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I’m seeing a lot of posts about talking to your sons in light of the Cornell article. And yes. Talk to your sons. Here are some things you should say, based on anti-violence research about what they need to hear: 81158545
Reposted by James AylettNeil Mullarkey @neilmullarkey.com · 29/09/2026youtu.be/PHOnykmznyo the Better Work podcast… with me as guestyoutu.beCOMEDY LEGEND Neil Mullarkey | How improv could change the way you work | Better At Work Season 5YouTube video by Better@Work Podcast 035
Reposted by James AylettKate Watson @loreandordure.com · 29/09/2026The most stupid, annoying, obvious dark pattern. 1405
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 29/09/2026And somehow it's rarely the reasonable people whose disagreements are promoted. 060
James Aylett @james.tartarus.org · 28/09/2026Apparently my unconscious mind is unaware that there is a different between goats and donkeys. 010
Reposted by James AylettBailey Wolfe, Voice Actor and Lacticide in Progress @bbwolfevox.com · 28/09/2026Eyyyy! 081
Reposted by James AylettDiane Duane @diane.dianeduane.com · 28/09/2026Status report, "Weary Experimentation Mode": I wonder if the 9:16 book trailer for THE ADVENTURE OF THE LIONESS'S MANE will display correctly here? *Let's find out!* (...And yes, you can buy the book! Wait for the QR code. Or go to bit.ly/Lioness-Mane! Whichever you prefer!) 🙂 #booksky #ebook 54414