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Steve

@notadric.bsky.social
90 followers 88 following 1K posts
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Am always horrified to read about (school) teachers using AI to generate worksheets, the justification seeming to be that worksheet production is an end in itself. There are so many subjects where deciding on a smallish canon of good textbooks, and sticking to it, solves all the problems!
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Zach Weinersmith @zachweinersmith.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Thought I'd share this post from a friend which is a more nuanced version of the frustration among mathematicians about how the "mathocalypse" was executed. karagila.org/2026/openai-... I think all nerds are currently processing it.
karagila.org
OpenAI, the Partition Principle, and mathematics
By the time I got out of bed yesterday, I had three people ask me if I'd seen the OpenAI announcement that the Partition Principle does not (...)
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Outstanding series!
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Lewis @lewiswbt.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Oh great, you've thought of a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet. Too bad it perpetuates harmful stereotypes about dogs and foxes. I hope it was worth it
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Josephine Riesman @josie.zone · 11/10/2026
The Monolith and the Apes from 2001: A Space Odyssey
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Just read Louis Barfe’s Turned Out Nice Again (history of British light entertainment), which reminded me just how much TV was produced by William G Stewart. I remember watching the amazing maximum score achieved by Bill McKaig on Fifteen to One: one of my top telly moments. youtu.be/C9vIGc9uPIQ?...
youtu.be
Unique Maximum Score on 15-1
YouTube video by Martin Penny
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Ste Gordon @sgordonthe87.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Did TVS get their pictures of famous people from the guy who does caricatures on Brighton Pier?
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Dan Douglas @dandouglas.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
yes, i’m sure you could type “make Duke Nukem 3D British” into a prompt box, click a button and accomplish what will probably take me a decade. but you’d be missing the vital step of making yourself very mentally ill in the process
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Today’s Guardian Prize Crossword is by Philistine - gentler than I thought it would be, though with a few nice subtle parsings www.theguardian.com/crosswords/p...
theguardian.com
Prize crossword No 30,134
Prize crossword No 30,134
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Patrick Andelic @pkandelic.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
I don’t know what’s more implausible here: that Keir Starmer laid a devious political trap or that he did it to help Andy Burnham.
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Dr Scarybear 🏳️‍🌈 @jamiebear.uk · 09/10/2026
Just remembered I forgot to post my most favourite of the articles in the @transdiffusion.org #ATVShowBook (transdiffusion.org/atv-show-book/). 3,000 years of Crossroads is celebrated with this **truly insane** feature "written" by Meg Mortimer.
There's a lot of text here. You can read it all at https://associatedtelevision.network/programmes/its-crossroads-3000th-birthday/There's a lot of text here. You can read it all at https://associatedtelevision.network/programmes/its-crossroads-3000th-birthday/There's a lot of text here. You can read it all at https://associatedtelevision.network/programmes/its-crossroads-3000th-birthday/
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
The adder of the Seventies, which also multiplies (by repeat addition). Some prices quoted in gentlemanly guineas!
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Sathnam Sanghera @sathnam.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Dear tv and radio producers. Thankyou for the invitation. But, no, I do not want to appear on your show to defend the idea that I am English, after 50 years of living and working here, because the increasingly feral right want to turn this into a "debate" and you cannot see how you're being played
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Thinking about this a lot with respect to OpenAI’s treating maths as essentially a programming problem, generating huge quantities of code in Lean to close the tickets of famous conjectures. Lean is a genuinely powerful proof assistant but it wasn’t meant to be used like this.
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Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Workers at Burton Menswear, Leeds. The Hudson Road factory became the world's biggest clothing factory, employing 10,000 and producing more than 30,000 suits a week (West Yorkshire Archive).
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Ed Morrish @edmorrish.com · 19/07/2025
another good way of thinking about what cracking value radio 4 is that it makes twenty hours of programming a day - news, drama, comedy, documentaries, a soap opera, arts - for about £90m/yr, while spotify pay joe rogan about £60m/year to listen gullibly to liars for about nine hours per week
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 08/10/2026
OK, I could honestly write about Mork & Mindy all day, but here's just one more tiny piece. A particularly dirty joke, cut from "Mork vs the Necrotons": www.dirtyfeed.org/2026/10/magi...
Mork being stroked on a pleasure machine
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George Potter 🔶 @georgepotter.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Shout out to Sir Ed Davey who, at the time, demonstrated his usual savvy instinct for the public mood by denouncing the Bank of England for wanting to remove Churchill (who wasn't even on banknotes until the 2010s).
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
This one was gnarly fun: took a while but all fairly-clued.
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Heh. Always great to spot someone future-famous in an old law report, it’s like when Patrick Stewart turns up as a fireman in 60s Coronation Street.
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Hang on, is that Michael Howard appearing on behalf of the Respondents?
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 07/10/2026
Brand new on Dirty Feed: even more on Raquel Welch's appearance on Mork & Mindy. This time: unwanted erections, sexy entrances, and the cut material which tried to solve a plot issue, and ended up making it worse. It's your call as to which part is more exciting. www.dirtyfeed.org/2026/10/raqu...
Raquel Welch on Mork & Mindy
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Radio Paradise plays Rivers of Babylon by The Melodians, totally ruined for my generation by the Barron Knights.
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Colin Smith @colinsmith.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Long-distance runner Brendan Foster training for the then-upcoming 1978 Commonwealth Games on the streets of Tyneside, by Tony Duffy. A quite wonderful snapshot of Seventies Britain.
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
University friends were hugely into bridge; I read books on it and they tried to get me involved but if you’re a beginner you’re ruining it for three other people.
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archivetvmusings @archivetvmusings.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Doctor Who: City of Death - Part Two (6th October 1979). "I say, what a wonderful butler, he's so violent."
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New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
"In other words, the giant dark Godzilla of this film is the Unconscious given flesh, and the humanoid (Jesus) is the Superego given flesh." If this movie had ever made it to production, theology students could have had some fantastic watch parties.
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
It’s a charming but odd book: his faith has ebbed and flowed in various directions over the years and I think this particular book was written under the heavy influence of Géza Vermes, whom he no longer sides with.
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I like AN Wilson’s books but there’s amazingly odd stuff in there. In his biography of Jesus he says that Jesus could not have been a carpenter because you can’t actually get a whole beam ‘in thine own eye‘ - and a carpenter *would have known this*, QED.
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Justin Lewis @whenisbirths.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Anyway. RIP George Fenton. Others have shared Bergerac and Newsnight and Films but there’s this one also. m.youtube.com/watch?v=99BC...
m.youtube.com
Shoestring Intro / Outro (1980)
YouTube video by Jonathan Davies
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Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
New Swingometer! Holborn & St Pancras By-election preview swingometer.substack.com/p/the-holbor...
swingometer.substack.com
The Holborn & St. Pancras By-election
Polanski’s big gamble puts Burnham’s revival to the test
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
There’s something very reassuring about how the old DC Thomson vehicles - Commando and The People’s Friend - immortally continue to publish.
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Loved so many US shows of that era but I appreciate that I’ve always missed a lot of cultural context. Growing up in the UK media environment I never really sussed how the complicated US mix of national networks and local affiliates actually *worked*.
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Off-topic, but I’m always struck by how great American life looks in some 70s sitcoms. The Carter era gets retrospectively written off as economically troubled and declinist, but it looks like heaven now. Mork’s antics never undermine the fundamental niceness and decency of the setting.
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John J. Hoare @dirtyfeed.org · 04/10/2026
Brand new on Dirty Feed: how did some dirty jokes in a famous episode of Mork & Mindy change between the shooting script and the final show? www.dirtyfeed.org/2026/10/the-...
Raquel Welch in Mork & Mindy
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David Higham @oldtrotter.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Denis Healey on David Owen
Healey kept a shelf of Spitting Image puppets as latex mementoes of his turbulent political life - among them Margaret Thatcher, Michael Foot, Neil Kinnock and David Owen. As he picked up the Owen puppet and squeezed it to make it squeak, I quoted Owen's view that when Healey stood for the Labour leadership in 1980 he “didn't have the guts to take on the left wing of the party”. “That's absolute bollocks," snorted Healey. “David Owen was a very self-centred person. He was good-looking, he was intelligent, he had immense charm and all these presents were given to him by the good fairy and then the bad fairy came along and tapped him on the shoulder and said, '... but you'll be a shit.”
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Gavadon @gavadon.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I skipped high school to buy tickets for The Phantom Menace. The following day my Dad asked ," how was school?" I replied, " It was fine " He then threw this newspaper at me and asked , " how the fuck would you know?" He was so pleased with himself that I didn't actually get in trouble.
Newspaper where I am on the front page, in line for Star Wars tickets , having given the reporter my full government name Closeup of the photo from the Newspaper where I am on the front page, in line for Star Wars tickets , having given the reporter my full government name .

As one pal put it, " a very John Conner look "Closeup of the text for the photo that says 

" Ticket wars

Left: The line of area residents waitinng for advanced ticket sales for the May 19 release of "Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace" stretched outside the Grand Central Mall's Regal Cinemas onto the sidewalk outside. Above: Inside, Jordan Baker, Joe Peyton, Mat Lyons, Josh Lemley and Steve Roberts passed time by playing Star Wars Trivial Pursuit as they awaited the Lucas epic.

Photos by Tony Kemp
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
“You're not an Ai influencer”, the sickest of burns a pope has ever received
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Gridspotting: identifying crosswords that turn up as TV/movie props www.metafilter.com/214699/A-nic...
metafilter.com
A niche hobby within the already niche crossword community
We can sit here and freeze-frame a show and nitpick it and point out various things, but it’s very interesting to see how crosswords as props are part of this whole world that they’re trying to...
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Old UK Print Ads 70s/80s/90s @oldukprintads7890s.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Oct 1972: Jingler Jeans ad from C&A «jinglers, you either want them or have them»
Advertisement for jingler jeans, in brushed cotton, choice of colours, waist 28-36 inches. The ad includes a photo of a man wearing the jeans. It also features two women. The price is listed at £4.50.

jinglers, you either want them or have them

jingler jeans
In brushed cotton
choice of colours
waist 28"-36"
£4.50
ALL C&A STORES
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Paul’s Guardian Prize Crossword today was fairly tough but I’m glad I persevered. 17d is a gorgeous clue. www.theguardian.com/crosswords/p...
theguardian.com
Prize crossword No 30,128
Prize crossword No 30,128
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The ‘bloodthirsty’ ep of Doctor Who is presumably ep 3 of The Smugglers (24 Sep 66).
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Old UK Print Ads 70s/80s/90s @oldukprintads7890s.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Oct 1981: Shops Opening ad from Supa Shops «DON'T MISS DAVID HAMILTON»
This image is an advertisement for the opening of Supa Shops. The advertisement features David Hamilton. The opening is at 3 Lion Yard in Cambridge, on Saturday, October 17th at 11 am. There will be free giveaways and lots of fun.

DON'T MISS DAVID HAMILTON

at our
OPENING
3 LION YARD
CAMBRIDGE
SATURDAY OCTOBER 17th 11 am
Free giveaways - lots of fun -
Don't be late
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David Brown @davidebrown.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
To get you excited for Swap Shop's 50th anniversary tomorrow, here's an edition which ended with Noel covering the corpse of John Craven with a shroud.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
If you're in my GP's office any time soon, prepare yourself for what many are calling the greatest mnemonic of all time. Come for E and P, but sit down and clap for I.
A screen in my GP's office advertising a mnemonic of signs to spot SEPSIS.

S slurred speech of confusion 
E extreme shivering or muscle pain 
P passing no urine all day
S severe breathlessness
I ot feels like you are going to die
S skin mottled or discoloured
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Steve @notadric.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This ‘Channel [number]’ branding feels weirdly unidiomatic for Britain; always surprising to see it in old ITV promos.
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Michael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Most TV is just this now.
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Darach Ó Séaghdha @darach.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I was reminded of a very Dublin insult this morning - “oh he’s such a martyr, Padre Pio has a picture of him on his windscreen”.
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👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞 @jacktindale.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Crying at how the new intern at work was born in 2005 and knows about the Blair government because "we studied it in sociology".
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
My immediate reaction is to wonder why the laughing cow is breaking up with me.
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