Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 8hWatching a programme on BBC 2 about John Simpson's 60 years at the BBC, and I'm greatly enjoying his description of being given ayahuasca by a Brazilian Indian tribe. "This six foot tall goldfish reached down and put its fin round my shoulder. It was wearing a straw hat, I should say..." 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 13/10/2026Good news: AI cured cancer on 23rd April 2029. Bad news: it hasn't cured the heart disease that you now have an elevated probability of suffering from, also smoking is still lame. 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 13/10/2026Glad there are no existential risks (or non-existential ones) that they need to worry about! 110
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 13/10/2026These do not strike me as people with a healthy risk appetite. 110
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Let's be fair to Mrs Moeggenberg, I'm sure that the Michigan Board of Education could benefit from such an expert in English grammar. 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Absolutely, the incentives for everyone (including the $$$s) are towards low quality material, often with a loose relationship with the truth. 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Nate Silver of all people has clocked this. Bear in mind this is engagement with *all* accounts, not just politics! 271
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Of course, this being a Guardian article, there are a lot of people replying to this who have apparently transcended emotional attachment to material possessions. Who knew there were so many Buddhist masters on Bluesky dot com? 030
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 12/10/2026I've talked to people whose elderly parents are very keen for them to inherit a certain set of crockery or whatever, and without any disrespect they just can't feel the same about these objects that their parents do. It's the cruel truth of wrestling with mortality. 130
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 12/10/2026Conservative Catholicism in America is mostly several flavours of white ethnic grievance politics glued together, pt. 94. 000
Reposted by Public Universal FriendRichy Craven @richycraven.bsky.social · 11/10/2026My online girlfriend was so shocked by the Ukraine drone strike on the Russian data centre that she's been too upset to message me all day. 323658698
Reposted by Public Universal FriendQuoProQuid @quoproquid.bsky.social · 10/10/2026the novel carrie ends with an ominous note about other children like carrie appearing across the country, with a traumatized nation shocked by the violence and Congress struggling to make sense of it while King meant ESP, we've seen new carrie whites appear in a different form: the mass shooter 333844
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 10/10/2026I'm beginning to suspect that Treorchy Comprehensive doesn't even exist at all. (All of the references are to vaguely credible-sounding books and articles, including a book about Roy Jenkins.) 010
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 10/10/2026Ok, I'm going to say it - I think that this (from the Wikipedia page for Treorchy Comprehensive School) is total bollocks. 110
Reposted by Public Universal FriendSam Wetherell @samwetherell.bsky.social · 10/10/2026RIP Chris Wickham. Unlike so many historians who emphasise particularities and contingencies, he was the master of constructing grand, coherent, beautifully rendered worlds out of his evidence. This, from his 2021 Past and Present essay, is a masterpiece of historical writing. 413856
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 09/10/2026Googled the name of a local restaurant. The website of said restaurant isn't in the first two pages of search results (but *is* linked in the dialogue box thing at the top, if you can see it). Incredible how Google have driven their main product off a cliff at high speed. 010
Reposted by Public Universal FriendAda Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 08/10/2026Interesting case of fraud by making automated songs then automated accounts to stream them, pocketing $8M in revenue. Few/no real listeners were diverted to listen to the GenAI songs, but the funds he pocketed drank from a zero sum revenue pool that meant real musicians were paid less. 826575
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 07/10/2026Looking at the Wiki page for Princess Olga Romanoff, and found this inexplicably funny. Yeah, she was suggested as a future bride for Prince Charles by (checks notes) her mother. 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026Didn't post it at the time, but these are some workmen from British Gas repairing one of Britain's few remaining gas lights (around the back of Downing Street). 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026I've just finished series 1 for the first time. It only gets better from here, right? 110
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026I had forgotten that Jeffrey Archer's libel trial involved one of the most bonkers judicial summings up. (See also the judge's remarks at the Jeremy Thorpe trial.) 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Great thread as always. Georgism was a fleeting influence on the Liberal Party in the UK in the 1910s, and a Georgist song is still the unofficial anthem of the Liberal Democrats. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lan...en.wikipedia.orgThe Land (song) - Wikipedia 031
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026As someone who has a cat, this is v plausible. 050
Reposted by Public Universal FriendAdam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 04/10/2026The “crusader march” would be more historically accurate if instead of going to the palestine fest they just robbed and torched a random church bsky.app/profile/unra... 2251673
Reposted by Public Universal FriendElizabeth DeLoria II: THE GHOST DIMENSION @yourdadloves.me · 03/10/2026 174128433015
Reposted by Public Universal FriendMichael Caley @michaelcaley.bsky.social · 03/10/2026this is by far the best "I quit my AI job over safety concerns" essay yet because it is the first one that is able to talk about safety concerns in practical terms and that understands "safety" as a topic with extensive literature in analogous fields www.theatlantic.com/technology/2... 20736177
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Aptly for a song called 'Patient Zero', the tonally repetitive chorus of Taylor Swift's latest song has buried itself into my brain like some kind of parasitic worm. I fear I only have days to live. 000
Reposted by Public Universal FriendSunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Nicholas Garland for the New Statesman 1974 on the Wilson renegotiation with the EEC - via Richard Johnson, QMUL 1254
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 03/10/2026Amol Rajan: I am a trusted broadcaster, so if you recruit me then I can lead the faithfuls off the scent :) The traitors:static.klipy.comSpongebob Meme: How Do We Kill Him?ALT: Spongebob Meme: How Do We Kill Him? 010
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Continuity announcer immediately before The Traitors: '...and this is only possible because of the unique way the BBC is funded. Please, millennials, pay your licence fee. I know this is the only live TV you watch, but we're dying out here.' 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026If nothing else, seeing a second term Republican president flame out and head towards <30% approval makes me feel like I'm 16 again. 010
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Ok, 'Republican wins his House election through fraud because one of the superpowered humans can hack voting machines' is a very Bush-era plotline. 010
Reposted by Public Universal FriendBCP Minus Context @bcpminuscontext.bsky.social · 28/09/2026if we die, we die 04918
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 27/09/2026My old church's social club had a steady roster of Irish c&w performers, probably most of their entertainment, though I wasn't sure what to make of the guy whose posters made liberal use of Confederate Flag... 110
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 26/09/2026The one good British Communist propaganda cartoon. 0104
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 26/09/2026If there's one thing that social democratic/Christian democratic/centrist governments were really good at doing in the thirty years after WWII, it was building motorways. 020
Reposted by Public Universal Friend👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞 @jacktindale.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Every single time I see the "Every Fringe Event At Party Conference" graphic I howl. 57113
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026What this list demonstrates is that streaming has made Prestige Drama™ and sitcoms the dominant TV genres of our time. There are some documentaries and sketch comedy shows on there, but if you were to write a list for 20th century British TV they'd have a much greater place. 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026The impression you get from Taylor Swift's latest songs is someone who is brimming with resentment but wants you to know that they are, in fact, extremely happy. 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026For context, Facebook only began making these payments in 2016, and it's not as if they weren't already making a lot of money from organic ad revenue before then. 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 25/09/2026One of the points at which social media started going wrong was when influencers/'creators'/total randoms started getting paid for posting. Not only does it create terrible incentives, it moved platforms from being peer-to-peer to a more top down. 110
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Average headline about an employment tribunal: 'woman wins £100,000 because bosses didn't give her cake'. And then in paragraph 7: 'Mrs Brown, 42, was also regularly beaten around the head with a newspaper by her line manager and forced into a cupboard known as "The Chokey"'. 001
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 23/09/2026"Oh, it allows for state surveillance and centralisation of power? Wow, this is the best!" 031
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Yeah, I was chatting with a guy in the pub a few months ago who was an electrician doing these kind of hours on the semi-regular on big projects. He was quite open about the fact that he took a fair bit of cocaine to make it happen. It didn't fill me with a lot of confidence... 020
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 22/09/2026The lack of contempt of court laws is actually one of the things which feels most alien about American culture. This 60 Minutes interview is taking place between the end of the first trial (which ended in a mistrial) and ahead of the retrial. It's being shown coast to coast! 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 22/09/2026It's a tragic case (basically: a Massachusetts woman suffering from post-partum psychosis killed her children and is on trial for murder, this is her now ex-husband), which grandstanding prosecutors, it all being televised, and the intensely polarised social media response have turned into a circus. 110
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 22/09/2026The way that there is such a stark online gender divide on the Lindsay Clancy case - including this kind of pseudo-philosophical claptrap below - does not say anything great about the health of US society the incentives of social media. 130
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Anyway, I'm not sure which is my favourite attempt by a large company to jump clumsily on the bandwagon of social progressivism - Burger King's 'tastes of woke' adverts or the slightly earlier 'Kendall Jenner ends American racism with Pepsi'. youtu.be/VogNNsQ3Gmw?... 000
Public Universal Friend @jamesinlimbo.bsky.social · 22/09/2026To be clear, liberals knew that they were endorsing progressive messaging for self-serving reasons, but expected it to be enduring for structural reasons ('they need to appeal to Millennials who actually buy stuff!') rather than being - like every brand strategy - changed up every few years. 110