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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 4h

Iain M Banks

/pedantry

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 4h

Inflatable frogs, sir, thousands of ‘em!

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onion person @junlper.beer · 4h

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the babahuck @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 7h

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 5h

Bugger.

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 5h

Seen him solo a few times. He can fill a big venue with just his distinctive voice and a steel string guitar. Incredible.

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 6h

Like… postcodes…?

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Joe Patrice @joepatrice.bsky.social · 6h

Amazing

Tweet: @vexwerewolf
Right-wingers literally straight-up admitting "it's harder to discredit the left because the left is almost always telling the truth"
Scott Jennings @Lum 21h um, yes, that's really a problem
Show this thread
9 paints • 12 hrs
The problem with left-leaning media is they're intrinsically more strict with their propaganda to only using verifiable sources so it's really hard to poke holes in their ideology and arguments in comparison to a lot of low quality rightwing content.
That makes attacking their points with fact checkers not very effective unless the fact checkers use misinformation tactics as well.
In essence people on the right have to work harder and more creatively to push their agendas as statistics and studies frustratingly arent usually on our side.

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-C-M-F- @chrispps.bsky.social · 7h

I have generally tried to ignore Thiel's ravings, but this is basically a batshit libertarian invoking the image of the Antichrist to refer to "public authorities that stand in the way of me using my vast wealth to develop a machine that will immanentize the eschaton."

Fucker is no Monkey D Luffy.

Jake Flores @feraljokes.bsky.social · 14h

I can't believe this is real

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 8h

This is now the approved form of words when asserting something you don’t have any evidence for…

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Joyce White Vance @joycewhitevance.bsky.social · 9h

That’s a nice trick, since Biden wasn’t the president on Jan 6.

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 9h

From one of the Willans & Searle Molesworth books…

Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 9h

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 9h

And all the ads, given permission to emulate tweets… it’s just so visually exhausting.

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Rick Burin @rickburin.bsky.social · 9h

Going to start using “if this is so, which it is”

Donald J. Trump
@realDonald Trump • 1m
+
THE BIDEN FBI PLACED 274 AGENTS INTO THE CROWD ON JANUARY 6. If this is so, which it is, a lot of very good people will be owed big apologies. What a SCAM - DO SOMETHING!!! President DJT

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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 9h

These are agents who were sent AFTER the violent insurrection was well underway. Kash Patel issued a statement that said that after a fringe right wing outlet reported it falsely. But Trump chooses to run with the lie from them rather than the statement from his FBI Director.

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Meidas Sassy™ 🐬 @filosia.bsky.social · 12h

Portland, I love you! 💙❤️💙

This gives me great hope, and a good chuckle.

#StopTheMadness #StopTrump #Resist 👊🏼

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Michael Stipe @michaelstipe.bsky.social · 14h

and I feel fine

jamma10.bsky.social @jamma10.bsky.social · 2d

Toilet, Bristol UK circa 2015

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Ian Betteridge @ianbetteridge.com · 10h

One salient point: How have we managed to bring up generations of young men who (1) think this is a good idea, (2) have so little ability to talk to women that they think a machine can do it better, and (3) believe that dating is transactional: input/output, score.

Alex Ingram @nutty.bsky.social · 10h

Yes, dating can be stressful but I can’t think of anything worse than relying on an AI to change how you express yourself.
Mind you, I got so bored on Hinge a while back that I made a poem out of the prompts. Which at least amused me.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

‘I realised I’d been ChatGPT-ed into bed’: how ‘Chatfishing’ made finding love on dating apps even weirder

Where once people were duped by soft-focus photos and borrowed chat-up lines, now they have to watch out for computer-generated charm. But it’s one thing to use a witty phrase – another thing entirely...

www.theguardian.com

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Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 9h

Or an Annie Hall tribute to Diane Keaton…?

Rupert Stubbs @rupertstubbs.bsky.social · 9h

Double-plus bad.

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Greg Egan @gregegansf.bsky.social · 10h

bsky.app/profile/greg...

Greg Egan @gregegansf.bsky.social · 10d

In a future where the rich kids are being raised with a digital Cyrano beside them to sweet-talk their way into the best jobs, four friends train together for a battle to prove that other kinds of minds might still have the edge.

My new story “Understudies” in Clarkesworld.

Understudies by Greg Egan

Clarkesworld Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine and Podcast.

clarkesworldmagazine.com

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 11h

This is such a clever idea on taking kids to museums/galleries
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Nadia from London has an idea that sounds such fun you'll be booking a day out asap.
"I've always loved museums," she says,
"but they can be overwhelming for children. For decades now, I've done something called 'playing postcards'
We do
the museum backwards, visiting the gift shop first. Each child gets to choose three postcards. Then they take it in turns to find that particular artwork in the museum and give us a little information about the piece from the details on the postcard, or from any gallery plaque. At the end of this treasure-hunt-style activity, we vote for our favourite in the cafe."

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the Mountain Goats @themountaingoats.bsky.social · 10h

One thing that’s funny about how we react to stuff like this is how earnest we are. Workers were as likely to think “census? I’m gonna fuck with this guy” then as now. Taking the piss was not invented in the 20th century

waltydunlop @waltydunlop.bsky.social · 14h

Job occupations, from an 1881 census. Every one of these sounds like something a sorely provoked Captain Haddock would should at someone in times of heavy stress.

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