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Jim Finnis

@jfinnis.bsky.social
96 followers 39 following 474 posts

Computer science lecturer: neural nets, robots, ExoMars PanCam image tools. (@jimfinnis@mastodon.social). Former gamedev. Dysgu Cymraeg. He/him. This is very much my personal account.

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Reposted by Jim Finnis
Neal Romanek @nromanek.bsky.social · 8h
Or here in now unaffordable London how many revolutionary geniuses went to art school for free and lived on the dole or odd jobs while working on their art & music projects with their friends.
static.klipy.com
pete townshend guitar
ALT: pete townshend guitar
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Management Lessons from The Lord of the Rings is out now @drfionamoore.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
Sounds like a stupid cash grab, until you reflect on the fact that YouTube, Netflix and Apple use a lot of BBC and/or BBC Studios content, which is at least partly supported by the extant license fee.
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Long Covid Advocacy @longcovidadvoc.com · 16/10/2026
Olympic sprinter Beth Dobbin advocates brilliantly in this article: 🔹strongly rejects CFS label 🔹states there is no specialist NHS service 🔹conveys the severity of the disease 🔹raises the issue of how athletes are more 'believed' www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athlet...
bbc.co.uk
Beth Dobbin: British Olympic sprinter in bed for 22 hours a day after ME diagnosis
Beth Dobbin ran for Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Five years on, she is largely bedbound after being diagnosed with ME, a devastating illness for which there is no cure.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 23h
Me and C just now: Me: "Did you know that the bloke who invented the Klaxon -" Her: " - Jeremy Klaxon - " Me: " - also invented the electric hearing aid. Wait, what?"
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 16/10/2026
Everyone of a certain age in the UK remembers the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny with fondness... www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvke...
youtube.com
Cadbury Caramel Bunny Commercials
YouTube video by Playfur Cinema
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Nova @holyandroidnova.bsky.social · 15/10/2026
what the fuck do you mean catch her
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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Fascinating account showing how a false claim can become widely accepted (and propagated by multiple independent sources) as a result of a common academic shortcut: citing a source you haven't actually read after seeing it cited by another source: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....
is.gd
Academic urban legends - Ole Bjørn Rekdal, 2014
Many of the messages presented in respectable scientific publications are, in fact, based on various forms of rumors. Some of these rumors appear so frequently,...
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
is this "(rare ass) porn" or rare (ass porn)"?
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Notwithstanding the ick in the Thomas Covenant books, it annoyed BITD me that there while most characters had perfectly reasonable Fantasy Names like "Mhoram," there was the odd "Kevin" and "Trevor." (Of course, whether it's a secondary world is the largely the point.)
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
I do wonder what it must be like being Liz Truss' security detail. Like: MONDAY: Easy day. Liz distracted by a sunbeam for 9hrs straight. TUESDAY: Spent 4hrs searching. We knew she was somewhere indoors. Was trapped in linen cupboard. WEDNESDAY: Fascist conference appearance
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The ɅɅeech @diedfrombeing.labeledrude.online · 13/10/2026
there are other lament configurations besides a box
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Jo Kibble (Political Animal) @politicanimal.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Dear Mr Turner, Re your otherwise excellent painting ‘The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up’, I have one suggestion for how it could be improved:
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28 Treys Later @treystokes.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Not "historical", but - re: the stock Oh No Which Wire To Cut To Disarm The Nuke scene... Cut any wire. Cut all the wires. Or just rip out a handful. You're good. I learned this from an Air Force guy who literally disarmed nukes. They're designed to be HARD to detonate. Any malfunction=no boom.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Went to the shop today, having carefully torn the blank bit off the envelope C used for a shopping list and put it in my pocket - not the list. I said "I have my days," she replied "Yes, some days you're quite lucid."
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
So I said to the Lord, “You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been frog."
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Finn Longman is only here occasionally @finnlongman.com · 12/10/2026
EVERY. TIME. It drives me bonkers. I see it in scholarship too: French or English sources are "literature", but Celtic-language texts are "folk tales" or "folklore", regardless of their origins or audience.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Obligatory gif.
static.klipy.com
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Haven't Heard That In A While
Alt: Obligatory "Obi-Wan Kenobi: That's a name I've not heard" gif.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
It's a good piece of writing. Hint that a character has a deep internal life and backstory that you're going to get more of - and then just off them. Makes the audience weep.
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Joanna Bryson @j2bryson.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
I always wondered why the #tescreal people don't cite me, but yeah, I've been writing on this for decades, & not only in social media, but this was one of the better phrasings. @jfinnis.bsky.social I gather you screen shotted it at the time…oh, twitter search is working again! x.com/j2bryson/sta...
x.com
Joanna J Bryson (@j2bryson) on X
It's a little annoying to get name checked but not cited in a paper, but this is really a great review by @BVLSingler https://t.co/ri8H0lxF5Y 1/3
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Revenge of the Man-Thing’s Menagerie of Marvelous Monsters @adventurin2fear.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
He already had his face used by someone else, he’s not about to do that all over again.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
@j2bryson.bsky.social from *six bloody years ago*
"I'm fully behind broadening our moral concern to the sustainability of the ecosystem, which is nice but I think ad hoc thread of posthumanism. But by claim wrt AI is that it's incoherent to think we can address any widely-held values by replacing ourselves with artefacts. 

I came to AI as one of those who want to build a better friend/collaborator/offspring. I still feel that emotional draw, but my research found it to be incoherent. Worse, I see correlation between such desires & the dismissal of the needs & rights of the full range of humanity."
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
My latest @newscientist.com cartoon
Panel 1: a large robot (composed of AI servers, network switches, storage arrays, and power distribution units) and a human are talking.

Professor "You don't want to destroy humanity do you, lLLM-A-9300x?"

Robot "Haha. What a silly question, Professor. I have no desires or feelings of my own whatsoever."

Professor (relieved)"Oh good." 

Panel 2: they walk on. The robot continues  "I am merely a tool of the company that created me. And that company, being composed of humans, will naturally have humanity's best interests at heart."

Panel 3: The professor is conspicuously quiet.
"Right?" says the Robot.
…
More silence

"Professor?"
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The Dobson Family and Colin the Dalek @dobbersw.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
"Have you betrayed us? Have YOU... betrayed... ME?" #TheTraitors #Blakes7
Avon at the Traitors roundtable holding a chalk board sign with Blake written in precise handwriting.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Reminds me of Iain Bank's idea of the "outside context problem" tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwik...
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
And local eisteddfodau are a brilliant thing - all utterly different in character. Lovely community events. Incidentally - nice profile badge, fellow pondie!
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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Having grown up in Wales, I can testify that if you are actually worried about your culture and history being under threat, the thing to do is write poetry and songs, perform plays, tell stories and organise festivals, not just sit around whining.
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Aliette de Bodard @aliettedebodard.com · 09/10/2026
Note: the headline is absolutely not what the report said www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... (it was more measured and the actual risk of over diagnosis is based on "well numbers are increasing" which, you know, we could also say of cancer)
bbc.co.uk
ADHD and autism at risk of over-diagnosis, says government review
The review, which focuses on younger people, warned there was a risk society was moving from an era of under-diagnosis to over-diagnosis.
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Jake Kanter @jakekanter.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Revealed: Royal Mail used an AI voiceover in a Christmas ad about human connection. We only know this because a startled viewer thought she heard the voice of her dead Dad: Paul Vaughan, the mellifluous BBC host and Paddington narrator. A cautionary tale. deadline.com/2026/10/paul...
deadline.com
Did Royal Mail Revive BBC & 'Paddington' Voiceover Star With AI?
Daughter of Paul Vaughan, an acclaimed BBC and 'Paddington' voiceover artist, accuses Royal Mail Christmas ad of resurrecting her father using AI.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Always leave a bottle of lager out on All Bins Eve!
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Peter Whitewood @pwhitewood.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
A shadowy network of hedgehogs and owls, operating at the highest levels of the British establishment.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It's uncomfortable, but not too bad. And it's really interesting because they let you watch the monitor. There are bits of me I never thought I'd see.
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John Bull @garius.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
A piece I wrote years ago about London, kayfabe and the small places that seem to exist on the edges of reality in any city. The places in which we often find a home.
authory.com
Bradley's: Lager and Shots in No-Man's Land
“I’m disappointed everyone here isn’t more… you know… Spanish.” The man in the expensive suit says, with slight confusion, to the towering figure behind the downstairs bar. Jan, the Belgian manager of...
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Good grief. This is just Fiore's segno updated from the 15th century. fightlikefiore.wordpress.com/fior-di-batt...
fightlikefiore.wordpress.com
Segno Page
Who wants to do well in this art must have all parts of these virtues.
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bryan newbold @bnewbold.net · 07/10/2026
ah damn, RIP Margaret Hamilton. she took safety-critical software engineering seriously, and got people to the moon and back. news.mit.edu/2026/margare...
old photos of a woman (Margaret Hamilton) standing next to a tall stack of books (printouts of Apollo space mission software source code)
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Jack Bernhardt @jackbern.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
something very funny about the Bayeux Tapestry getting 5 stars after 940 years, as if Bishop Odo of Bayeux has been sat at home all this time waiting for the review, absolutely raging - "I gave that Guardian journalist a press comp on OPENING NIGHT for god's sake"
Poster of The Bayeux Tapestry with a bunch of 5 star reviews
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Old British Telly @oldbritishtelly.co.uk · 07/10/2026
[1985] Micro Live - Fred Harris visits Boston software company Infocom. The developer has enjoyed great success with its line of text adventure games - the likes of Zork, Planetfall, Enchanter, and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - which eschew graphics in favour of a simple text display.
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Zuul Nightingale🚪 @danaenight.northsky.social · 06/10/2026
Co-signed
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
It's a bloody great book, and a shame it doesn't get more love.
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toilet bones @toiletbones.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
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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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
My wife and I refer to anyone who never quite arrives as either "Godot" or "The Funk Soul Brother."
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Elizabeth Anne, PhD @lacksauthority.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
never the wrong time for this classic
Screenshot of a tweet by @RobbtKraft reading “scientist: "does everyone here know what Watson and Crick discovered?" 
me from back of room: "Rosalind Franklin's notes"”
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Dr Holly Nielsen @hollynielsen.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Please enjoy this very normal cottage :) www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/9...
rightmove.co.uk
Check out this 1 bedroom detached house for sale on Rightmove
1 bedroom detached house for sale in The Wellhouse, 3 Machpelah Yard, Hebden Bridge, HX7 for £250,000. Marketed by EweMove, Covering Yorkshire
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"Life: A User's Manual" by Georges Perec: each room of a Paris apartment block described with interleaved stories. The Tyrant Philosophers series by Adrian Tchaikovsky: rollocking good fantasies in a world under colonial threat. The Laundry series by Charles Stross: Slow Horses meets Lovecraft.
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
"If on a Winter's Night a Traveller" by Italo Calvino: a book that starts with a description of you starting to read it and gets odder from there. "Pale Fire" by Nabokov: a tale told in the unreliable footnotes of a poem.
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Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Fairies are just a bee species that's discovered aposematic camouflage, which is why they disguise themselves as humans (a large apex predator). Because fashion changes much faster than phenotype they come dressed as Victorian ladies and gentlemen in hoopskirts and top hats. With stingers.
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Jon Baker @thejonbaker.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
RANKED. COMPETITIVE. POOPING.
Royal Highland Show sign that says “Toilets For Competition use only”
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Jim Finnis @jfinnis.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
There's a few people I'd like to meet on a knee-to-nose basis.
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