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Rick Crawford

@rickcrawf.bsky.social
612 followers 164 following 1.5K posts
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
The inclusion of Rawls on that list is interesting. I guess you might say he was culturally Christian if not believing during most of his career. But yeah, similar. The effect of War on these mid-Century guys is important.
Excerpt from Rawls's biography on Wikipedia. 

Religious views

Raised a devout Episcopalian, at Princeton University while working toward an undergraduate he even considered attending a seminary to study for the Episcopal priesthood, but decided to enlist into the army during World War II. His military service would eventually motivate him to abandon his faith. In his personal 1997 essay, On My Religion, he explained that after the Holocaust and his experiences in World War II, he found it impossible to believe in a traditional, personal God who actively directs human history or answers prayers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Rawls
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
At the time, she was Senator Clinton. Having said that, I think she was happy with people using her first name.
Photo from HRC's presidential campaign.  She is smiling.  Supporters behind her have placards saying "Hillary for President".
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
With the help of DAGs, of course.
A screen grab from the article:

The effort succeeded when we switched to using Prove2Me, an open collaborative platform for formalizing mathematics designed by Tianyi Peng and his collaborators at Columbia University. Prove2Me helped by:

1.  Maintaining a directed acyclic graph (DAG) of theorem statements that agents used to decide what proofs they should attempt next. This was particularly helpful for mitigating memory degradation and allowing multiple agents to work in parallel.
2.  Speeding up Lean compilation and minimizing
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Tricky juxtaposition on my discover feed.
First post shows "seat belt buckle dummy"
Something to 3D print and fool your car that you have plugged in the seat belt. 

Second post says "One thing Online did make better was fixing your own car."
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Stalin and Ribbentrop shaking hands in the Kremlin, after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Had reason to log in to AirBnB for the first time in ages. Decided to look at my old reviews for the first time ever, and one has a reply!
My review: Excellent location, in the courtyard of an old appartment block, with friendly neighbours. Very near Sacre Coeur and and a short walk to Gare du Nord. Clean and pleasently decorated. Generally a very good use of a small space but the shower door handle bangs your arm when you sit on the toilet. Probably best to avoid the bathroom sink and use the one in the mini kitchen. The bathroom tap sends out water, usually into your groin, unless it is set to a very low flow rate... which would be almost OK except that the tap is hard to control so you will end up spraying yourself even if you are trying to avoid it.

The reply: too bad you never mention that in private while you were there and then mention that in a comment
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I've seen lots of comments about the alert yesterday, but none about how if you follow the link the text is in Welsh. And yes that is with English selected, and if you select Welsh you also get Welsh. Was this just on my phone?? I'm in England, although I was in Wales two weeks ago.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Nice juxtaposition on the timeline.
Two skeets. 

One from Per Engzell, about Sam Altmann saying we are already in the singularity. 

One from Jason Gorman: There isn't a shed of evidence for any dev team getting 10x, 5x or even just 2x productivity using AI.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
I've been mulling over the concepts of coupling, continuous integration and microservices for years, then Dave Farley just puts them together on a simple 2 by 2. youtu.be/grPtnrOTP_4?...
A 2 by 2 box plot, with coupling and feedback speed on the two axes.  Continuous integration has fast feedback and high coupling.  Microservices had low coupling, which allows for slower feedback.  The danger zone is slow feedback and high coupling.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
I mean there is some specialisation, but I wouldn't overstate it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackwe...
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Lack of training and casual employment are bad, but not as bad as this, which will sound very familiar to anyone who knows about any of the clerical abuse scandals.
In another instance, a three-year-old boy was allegedly raped by the same monitor who had been moved to a different school after complaints he had been physically violent towards children.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
😢
Tweet from Alex Wickham:

NEW: Another Andy Burnham u-turn appeared designed at dropping his past positions to win Reform votes 

He says he supports the EHRC guidance on single sex spaces and the Supreme Court ruling

Previously he said trans women should be able to use female toilets
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
Sounds great, until...
Screen grab from the article:

The band’s first single was 60 Lies, a song in support of the Waspi women’s pension inequality campaign.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
Does anyone know what is going in here?
Screen grab from YouTube.
It's supposed to be "Simpsons Histories - Disco Stu" but there is a big black screen with a warning from YouTube "The following content may contain suicide or self-harm topics."
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
Apparently I'm a technocrat. I suppose I could have guessed that from the fact that I thought many of the statements sounded more like talking points designed to appeal to idiots than real policy positions.
Screenshot from Find My Politics. 

Your political profile: technocrat
Evidence, experts and institutions - not populist instinct. 

Economic: Slightly left wing
Social: Moderately libertarian
Civil liberties: Slightly pro liberty
Governance: Strongly globalist
System trust: Strongly high trust
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Say that again
Image of Jules Winfield (Samuel L Jackson) in Pulp Fiction.  He is drinking a milkshake through a straw.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
I don't do a lot of AI art for reasons most of BlueSky will understand, but the controversy over Emily Wilson describing Odysseus as a complicated man inspired me to make this image... and... I don't know what ideology this image represents, but I am here for it.
Full image of John Shaft and Odysseus, in the style of the "epic handshake" meme, which I believe comes from Dillon and Dutch in Predator (1984).
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Damn right
The "epic handshake" meme image, but re-imagined with John Shaft and Odysseus.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
The ancient Greeks know this story well.
Screen shot from Red Dwarf VI, episode 1: Psirens.

A blonde woman in tight black attire has the attention of Lister.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
Sadly quite common.
The 3 pane comic "different".
1 - "I want things to be different"
2 - <smashes things up with a baseball bat>
3 - "oh no"
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
In space, no one can hear you scream. On Earth, you gotta hold it in.
Picture of the Artemis crew stood behind a seated Donald Trump, in the oval office.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
I was not aware of Red Vienna until you mentioned it. Reading about it now. Is this just a universal pattern??
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Screen grab of an old tweet from Noahpinion (Noah Smith, 28 Aug 2017)

"15 years ago, the internet was an escape from the real world. Now, the real world is an escape from the internet."
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
WTF @linkedin.com ?? No thank you.
Screen shot of one line of my Outlook inbox.  Email from Linkedin.  Subject: Follow Rupert Lowe MP - Member of Parliament

For context, Rupert Lowe left Reform UK because he was far too racist for them.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Hmm ... They used to be profitable especially in 2021 ... What are they doing wrong now? ... Wasting a load of money on AI? GoPro net income shown below.
GoPro net income chart over time.

Small profit 2013-2015.
Big loss 2016.
Losses reduce over time until...
A profit of $371M in 2021.
This is quickly reversed, such that the biggest loss ever in 2024: £432M.
Much smaller loss in 2025.

Source: https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/GPRO/gopro/net-income
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Excellent imagery for the genre, but I feel it would be better if it rhymed. Ah. There's an answer for that.
Prompt to Chat GPT:
Rewrite the firs

Response:
Who, if I cried out, would hear me in that height
Among the ranked angelic orders bright?
And even if one pressed me to his heart,
His stronger being would tear my own apart.
For beauty is but terror we endure,
Still just bearable, and we feel secure
Because it calmly scorns to ruin us—
Each angel’s terrifying, luminous.
So I restrain myself, and swallow down
The dark, appealing call that would resound.
Ah, whom can we rely on? Not the bright
Angels, nor men; and beasts already sight
How we are not at home in what we claim.
We linger, half-assured, in borrowed frame.
Perhaps the trees beside the meadow stay,
Perhaps the streets we walked retain our way,
Perhaps the river yesterday still flows,
Perhaps the habit of a former closeness grows—
But we, we slip away from all we knew,
No longer held as once we thought we grew.
And yet—when lovers lean into the night,
They shelter one another from our sight.
Do they not taste eternity in breath?
Do they not drink beyond the reach of death?
Ah, gently they conceal it in embrace,
Each promising the other time and space.
But who has truly turned to face that span,
And measured out the limit set for man?
Who speaks of love as lasting, yet can stand
When loss dissolves it softly from the hand?
Strange is it not, how what we hold so dear
Slips into air, yet still remains so near?
Yes—springtimes needed you. Often a star
Waited for you to notice where you are.
Waves rose in longing toward you from the sea,
And in the passing wind, a memory.
All this was meant for you. But could you take
The gift of it, without a heart to break?
Were you not always scattered by suspense,
Expecting something vast and more intense?
What presence could contain you, or remain?
You drifted on, a stranger to your pain.
Even the nights, too tender to define,
Would slip away beneath your searching mind.
So—if you must, go out into the night,
And praise the world, though fleeting from your sight.
...
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Want to be a councillor? Reform'll fix it for you. And you, and you.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
Look at this cutie. Sitting here. Not causing any problems. It doesn't even have its own Wikipedia article.
Graph of the reciprocal of the gamma function.  When x<0, there is a wave of increasing amplitude (as x reduces).  When x>0, there is a bell curve with a long tail.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
I feel like you would be more comfortable with gamma's reciprocal.
Since the gamma function has no zeros, its reciprocal is an entire function.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
I believe it comes from this.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
They have a website with a timer for when the first test data will be released. It's going to look either real or fake very soon.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
This post is followed by many commentators saying of course they know that inflation is high because they can easily compare current prices to those five years ago.
Screen grab from BlueSky

Will Stancil: Fun fact: most people have no good way to tell if inflation is moderate or low or nonexistent, and that means their experience of inflation is almost entirely mediated through social narratives they encounter in politics/media 

Quote poster: Told you he'd just go back to telling poor people they are stupid for not knowing how good they have it.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Old cover of The Land That Time Forgot (1918).  A dinosaur has taken down a woolly mammoth.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Cover of Dinotopia (1992).  A scene that looks a bit like ancient Greece, but with medieval flags and ... Dinosaurs of at least three species
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 13/02/2026
Seeing lots of confusion and anger about why the court ruled against the government and yet it is still illegal to support Palestine Action. No one seems to mention that there is another hearing next week on what happens next
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
Jesse Owens easily winning in the Olympics
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
This is the chess app I use. It is currently saying I can't take en passant, even though I should be able to. What #chess app would people recommend?
Screen grab of a chess app.  Black pawn has moved forward 2.  App is showing one option to move white pawn - forward - not showing the option to take the pawn en passant.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
At one stage in the writing, it may have been that they were in costume, but for some reason they play it as if they don't want people to realise they are in disguise.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
This looks like the best line of attack when confronted with this brainrot. Just say "Thanks Mason".
Excerpt from the Wikipedia article "6-7 (meme)":

6-7's identity as a slang term has allowed it to spread in offline contexts, especially in schools, with some banning its use due to its disruption in the classroom. The numbers are used without any fixed meaning, instead functioning as an inside joke for Generation Alpha. The moniker "Mason" has been used to refer to a stereotypical white boy who overuses the slang.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
You know it makes sense
Picture of shredder from the original cartoon series of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
The worst kind of burn
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
Live scene of a complex system displaying an unexpected behaviour.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 29/10/2025
The person who wrote this is clearly full of shit. So full of shit, they need to be flushed away long before they mention any system.
Screen capped excerpt from text Aubry previously shared.  It includes the line "the women they treasured so much responded by throwing dance parties".
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 26/10/2025
This is the key paragraph.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
No. The computer really had gone insane.
Screen shot of black in checkmate.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
So.. I've just moved the rook and it looks like the computer has gone insane. Then again... if I think the computer has gone insane, it normally means I've missed something.
Black (computer) has moved the queen forward to put white on check, but hasn't taken the rook and the queen can now be taken by the rook (or the king, queen or black bishop).
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Is there a reason this chess app won't let me castle in this situation? (I'm not in checkmate. That's just a banner that's always at the top of the screen.)
Image of a chess board, with the human player as white. White wants to move the king, the options given are to the left.  Moving to the right would place white in check, but castling to the right should be fine... right?
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
It certainly seems important, overturning decades of accepted results. But there could easily be a confounding variable here. e.g. if someone gets a brain injury they will get a different type of education. Would be very interested if there is enough biographical info to tease that out.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
You might think Kemi Badenoch has already had enough of a bashing over not knowing how Northern Ireland voted in 2016. But I feel we need the extra context that HER HUSBAND STOOD FOR ELECTION IN NORTHERN IRELAND IN 2015. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemi_Ba...
A screen grab of Wikipedia:

Personal life

Badenoch is married to banker Hamish Badenoch; they have two daughters and a son.

Hamish works for Deutsche Bank and was a Conservative councillor from 2014 to 2018 on Merton Borough Council. He also contested Foyle for the Northern Ireland Conservatives at the 2015 general election.
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Rick Crawford @rickcrawf.bsky.social · 05/10/2025
Laughed out loud at the last one on this screen grab.
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