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Magsmanston

@magsmanston.bsky.social
244 followers 669 following 2K posts

Personal account of a Biologist. General nerd (computer games, physics, Raspberry Pi, tinkering, stats). Likes frogs and fish. Runner.

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Reposted by Magsmanston
Parody Nigel Farage @parodypm.bsky.social · 16h
"Dear Diary, There were six by-elections in England and Scotland this week and Reform lost all of them. Two of them were seats we previously held. The problem with running councils is that people can see how useless we are."
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Could the "LLMs can't do anything" crowd and the "LLMs can do everything" crowd go somewhere private to yell at each other so the rest of us can have a normal "this new tech can do things previous tech couldn't but is limited in various ways, let's figure out best uses and regulations" conversation?
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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
UAE officials have warned the UK that a severe punishment for Man City could hurt future Emirati investment in Britain, Bloomberg reports. This is the perfect argument for keeping foreign money out of football.
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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I find myself getting quite frustrated with this 'well it's a contested definition'. It's only contested if you think the views of ignorant people are as valid as those who know what they're talking about.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Latest Badenoch: “If [Andy Burnham]’s not calling an election, why’s he talking about things happening in 2030?” - alarming the extent to which so much of our political class cannot process the idea of “planning for events four years in the future”.
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Thomas Ableman @freewheeling.info · 02/10/2026
Seriously?!? After the Labour conference in which Burnham put forward more new ideas than all PMs in the last decade combined, the BBC focuses on a front-page gotcha splash by Chris Mason on football. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Chris Mason: Why Andy Burnham's about-turn on Manchester City matters
The prime minister's comments on Man City were revealing on several levels - and leapt on by many in football, the BBC's political editor writes.
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James Ball @jamesrball.com · 02/10/2026
There is no perfect voting system.
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TeeDixie ✊🏼 @teedixie.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Chris Dixon posted this on LI and I had to share it here. It’s just too good, the @jonronson.bsky.social twist is superb…
The image shows a film poster “The men who stare at Boats” featuring, Nigel Farage, Tommy Robinson, Danny Tommo, Ruper Lowe and Angry Balaclava man.
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Centre for Cities @centreforcities.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Britain is *bad* at getting people into city centres. 🔗 buff.ly/QxcAsZo
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When you have no concept of how people engage with music
nicksaraev ~
@nicksaraev
X.com
I am not joking when I say this.
Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over.
Al music is now very, very good. You just don't know yet because all Al music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago.
Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Me and my grunge friends would’ve killed A.I. with hammers I can tell you that much
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Same with books! I do not want a personalised reading experience centred on myself. I read to catch a glimpse of other people’s souls.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Every private conversation in Westminster: "Well the triple lock obviously has to go at some point". Every commentator on Burnham: "completely mad to propose getting rid of triple lock - political suicide".
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Sean Jones KC @seanjones.org · 29/09/2026
The rush to speculate that asylum seekers are responsible for every crime in the news is a sort of opportunistic informational terrorism. Until it’s disproved it stokes fear and hatred. When it is disproved there are no adverse consequences and they know that they only have to be lucky once.
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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Bloke apparently chooses ti launch himself headfirst at two of the most dangerous bits if political territory he could (and, seriously, the fuck) and this is still the headline. Reflex narratives
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𝔐𝔞𝔤𝔫𝔢𝔱𝔰 🧲 @magnets.eurosky.social · 28/09/2026
God it would be class if the "explosives" were "red diesel" and "a shitload of charcoal" that would be so funny
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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
ahhh if this turns out to be about red diesel, one of my remaining rural obsessions, I will be so happy
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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Hourly Spaced @hourlyspaced.bagpuss.org · 28/09/2026
Must be strange being a woman.
05:34
S02E05 Gone March 30 2001
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Hourly Spaced @hourlyspaced.bagpuss.org · 28/09/2026
Groovy!
11:31
S01E04 Battles October 15 1999
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Hourly Spaced @hourlyspaced.bagpuss.org · 28/09/2026
It's me, the weirdo from upstairs.
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S01E02 Gatherings October 1 1999
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Hourly Spaced @hourlyspaced.bagpuss.org · 28/09/2026
Are you Daisy Steiner? —No.
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S02E01 Back February 23 2001
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Nute @nutedawn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
A cool part of fringe politics is how cranks like Mélenchon and the Le Pens can just keep running over and over again and never face any stigma whatsoever from being losers the way ‘mainstream’ candidates would
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Dan Neidle @danneidle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Luxury retailers want taxpayers to fund a 20% tax break for foreign tourists. They paid consultancy Cebr to claim this will raise £2.6bn for the UK. That convinced Sadiq Khan and Kemi Badenoch. But it's false: a free lunch. Four basic errors mask a £600m loss. Thread:
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Rob Corp @robcorp.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Name your fav dance scene.
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Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 25/09/2026
I have blamed The agents That hacked Your website And which You probably Reasonably thought I controlled Forgive me I am rich And unaccustomed To taking responsibility
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Ros Taylor @rostaylor.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Can we call *this* suicidal empathy?
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This is also my solution to "AI hallucinates caselaw," a few partners find themselves on the out with the SRA and I suspect it becomes solvable.
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Tom Roberts @tpgroberts.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I do think you basically charge a few of them with the cybercrimes they're committing and the "alignment" problem does suddenly start to disappear.
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Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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The Rest Is Politics @therestpolitics.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
And that’s all I have to say on that.
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Kate Bevan @katebevan.com · 24/09/2026
*extremely tired voice*AI agents don't "go rogue". They are not sentient; they don't have agency. They work within guardrails set by humans. If the humans are so shit at building secure sandboxes for the agents to work within, that's on the humans. Stop using this framing.
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Alex Partridge @alexpartridge87.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Also this obviously youtu.be/Ue1U9Se6jQI?...
youtu.be
Mike Skinner Backstage Peter Mandelson Went Mad | Turn The Page Live | The Streets
YouTube video by stan tonkin
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 24/09/2026
You can't stop him grifting but you can take the wind out of them with bail conditions, and a bunch of his supporters will peel away if there's a chance they might get nicked, especially if they have previous, are on parole etc.
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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Two MRPs show Labour losing 100 plus seats and their majority and still everyone is going “DOES THIS MEAN EARLY ELECTION???”
static.klipy.com
Life of Brian: He Is the Messiah!
ALT: Life of Brian: He Is the Messiah!
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Adam Bienkov @adambienkov.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Finally
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Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
fundamentally, it appears very difficult for people to recognize 'hey it's good that the person i don't like is saying this' because they seem to understand it as 'this person is good'
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A jawdropping piece. The pandemic and social media have done huge damage to a lot of people:
bostonglobe.com
A Western Mass. lesbian bar required KN-95 masks. When it changed the rules, all hell broke loose. - The Boston Globe
Last Ditch Bar in Greenfield wanted to build community. They got a firestorm instead.
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Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
If only there was some way of knowing why Nigel Farage is so against a new national centre to tackle disinformation and deepfakes from hostile states such as Russia
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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
And what did he do on that livestream, huh, BBC? What did he do?
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John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 23/09/2026
"There was another carpenter once, who went around with a small group of friends, and said things 'The Establishment' didn't like..."
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Anthony Painter @anthonypainter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The major problem with this reporting - beyond its fundamental inaccuracy - is that when arrests are eventually made there will be no proper context and therefore it will seem like the state is smothering free expression.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A deeply weird thing about entering middle age now is the continual struggle of 'is this just age-related nostalgia' versus 'empirically, a really bad thing happened to the United Kingdom when I turned eighteen'.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
In addition - the sketches are not racist, and it is a sign of a broader malaise that we now treat “jokes about racists and racism” as indistinguishable from “racist jokes”.
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Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Man shows ignorance of entire of human history - very particularly ignorance of entire female human history - film at 11.
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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
This is true of many places - higher education is not only a cultural good, it is a massive driver of economies in otherwise left behind places that politicians and journalists rarely visit. What will happen if/when the financial crisis in HE leads to closures?
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Torsten Bell @torstenbell.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
So much of the right these days have a massive patriotism problem. This guy: - is a tax exile (left long before this govt) - hates his own country while complaining he doesn’t get big enough subsidies from it - laments the manufacturing hit from a Brexit he supported www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Billionaire Manchester United owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe says he has lost confidence in UK
Ineos founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe tells the BBC he thinks the country is "on the slide" and calls for more investment in the North Sea.
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Twlldun @twlldun.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Ok but you moved abroad for tax purposes six years ago so why are we listening to you again? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Billionaire Manchester United owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe says he has lost confidence in UK
Ineos founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe tells the BBC he thinks the country is "on the slide" and calls for more investment in the North Sea.
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Prof. Dr Beth Singler @bvlsingler.bsky.social · 15/08/2025
I will never stop banging this drum! 🥁 There 🥁 is 🥁 no 🥁 AI 🥁 in 🥁 the 🥁 predictive 🥁 policing 🥁 in 🥁 Minority 🥁 Report! Its three psychics in a paddling pool!!
media.tenor.com
a little girl in a red and purple dress is brushing her hair with a brush .
ALT: a little girl in a red and purple dress is brushing her hair with a brush .
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Tom @stealthisbook.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
The thing is that so far the machine has been good about faking surprises for people in the same way as it confidently bullshits them - by drawing from unfamiliar knowledge domains. Each discipline has everyday shit that an AI can present as a breakthrough that will blow an executive's mind
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