Nick Pollard

Mileships book by Ian McQue and Jim Rossignol

World Book Day, is it? Here’s one the mighty @rossignol.bsky.social and me made earlier

The NYT style guide

Because I am unreasonable, I accept this is true, while being annoyed at anyone who says it. Only I, London’s uncrowned king, may publicly express any view other than “greatest city in the world, No. 1 at everything”.

Anyway, I'd strongly recommend it! We also went driving looking for black bears and found one after not too long looking. Alaska is a great place to see bears.

Image of a young bear standing upright on a beach

He's the photo I got of the young bear (I don't think they technically counted as a cub anymore)

My wife and I did a bear tour in Alaska some years ago, it was well worth it. Took a boat from Homer over to the Katmai peninsula where we saw a fairly large number of bears on the beach and foothills, including a 1 year old. Awe inspiring animals.

the European mission to Greenland was fourth in the BBC news running order this morning, which feels a bit like doing a light "and finally..." item about the archduke's motorcade taking a wrong turn in Sarajevo

The Ellison/Weiss CBS News of today would insist they couldn't platform Eisenhower without also platforming Göring and if anyone pointed out how ridiculous it was they'd talk about the importance of "open debate" and if you complained loudly enough they'd say "come debate that on my podcast"

The singer of Iron Maiden registering delight at a thatched cottage.

Think I’ve just found the most English thing.

Aka rewrite a song into a NYTimes headline.

"All things possible for love, bar refusal for item in question"

A black graphic with five candles on it. The candles are in the trans flag colours - blue then pink then white then pink then blue. White text above the candles reads "Trans Day of Remembrance 2025" and the Scottish Trans logo is in the top right hand corner.

Today is Trans Day of Remembrance (TDoR), a day where we pause to remember those who we have lost around the world this year to transphobic violence.

If you don't believe what a politician says is their own thoughts, but what they've been told to say, then what is to stop them being told to say something else in the future? Much easier to trust someone who seems authentic, even if you don't like them as much.

I think a politician that was willing to speak their mind more, even if they are wrong more often, will get much more of a connection from the public. Cf Boris Johnson, Farage etc. "the politician you would most like to have a pint with"

Most politicians these days are so over focus grouped that - even when they say the right thing - you can tell they're saying what they think a politician should tell the median voter, not what they actually believe

I think this is genuinely a large part of the appeal of Trump and other populists - that they have no filter. Trump clearly says whatever comes into his brain, and efforts people might not agree with what he says, I think they are drawn to the authenticity of just coming out and saying it

Burglars warn: door locks and alarms could "financially ruin" the burgling industry

It's less spooky if you document it though

Yeah but it's also the perfect time to drink ale and eat a large pie, sooooo

When you publish a website that posts the names and photos of scholars who have written or said things you disagree with and encourage people to surveil and harass them, you are not, in fact, a “free speech” organization.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. There are dozens of us! Dozens!

Thats awfully unlucky, sorry to hear that man

Excited about this - Dylan, Braeden, and Cole are all huge fans of CATAN, and we're over the moon to be working with them (and to send some CATAN players to see them in concert at an INCREDIBLE venue in London!).

(Note: The contest is just for tickets, winners are responsible for their own travel.)

The first two paragraphs: "Today, a hot day when 22 Palestinians (including journalists) sat in a seafront café were murdered by one Israeli bomb, various national media outlets have contacted us (again) to ask our view of something a musician said. For 636 days now, unprecedented & insufferable horror has been recorded by the brutalised communities of Gaza and shown to us on our phone and television screens. It will not stop. No one, it seems, will stop it."

The last two paragraphs (in part): "As we all watch on aghast, every single day, shouting or typing into an echo chamber of complicity... Given the total ban by Israel on international journalists reporting from Gaza, and the simultaneous murder of hundreds of journalists in Gaza by Israeli forces, Massive Attack would urge the BBC and other media outlets to redirect their considerable news resource to reporting the truth of what is happening, daily, to the people of Gaza, and critically, to explaining the corresponding inaction of western governments (such as the UK) to their viewers.”

Massive Attack via Instagram.

This this this

A sad thing about social media is just how much it is full of people who just need to go outside and enjoy live but are instead radicalising themselves and others into fearing what is objectively one of the best and safest cities not just now but in all of human history.

I have a joke about Theseus but the thread is hard to follow

Goldilocks as a metaphor is only useful when talking about a safe range where both too much and too little are problematic.

Which is to say, these are not the planets where Goldilocks is located, but rather the ones she would choose.

Of course in Huangs speech the whole metaphor breaks down anyway, as surely there is no such thing (from their perspective) of _too much_ AI infrastructure.

One could argue that the "Goldilocks position" refers not to the position of Goldilocks, but the position _chosen_ by Goldilocks. Compare with the concept of the "Goldilocks zone" in astrophysics to refer to the region around a star that could contain habitable planets, neither too hot nor too cold.