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Simon Davies

@simonfd.bsky.social

1.7K followers 490 following 750 posts

Publishing Manager, @themhra.bsky.social Co-editor of the MHRA Style Guide Posting about scholarly publishing • History and future of the book • Book design, typography, typesetting 📚 Also work on the history of witchcraft & magic 🌒 • Views here my own

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Reposted by Simon Davies

will o’the wisp pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 5h

The newest volume in the Cambridge Elements in Magic is John Callow’s ‘Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca’.

The PDF is free to download and read for 2 weeks!

www.cambridge.org/core/element...

🗃️ #HexTag #Wicca #Witches #Gardner

Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) provided the central inspiration for Wicca, as a modern, revived, form of Pagan witchcraft. As such, his cultural and religious significance has grown exponentially over the 60 years since his death. 'A Rough Magic' re-evaluates the sources of Gardner's inspiration, redefines his early life within the context of colonial Malaya and the opium trade, and emphasises his vision and ability in fashioning an entirely new synthesis of magical beliefs drawn from both Eastern and Western traditions. In so doing, he stripped away the demonic elements of witchcraft and emphasised Wicca as a creative, mutable and undogmatic nature religion, serving as both fertility cult and a unique source of personal empowerment, that was capable of transforming the world.

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 9h

That’s just every review ever isn’t it 😅

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 1d

Oh no

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 1d

I mean, if we were paid to do those things (UBI?), it wouldn’t be quite so bad

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 2d

Anyone who still doesn’t understand that ‘AI’ is an idiotic bubble, I highly recommend this
www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-aga...

The Case Against Generative AI

Soundtrack: Queens of the Stone Age - First It Giveth Before we go any further: This is, for the third time this year, the longest newsletter I've ever written, weighing in somewhere around 18,500 wo...

www.wheresyoured.at

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 2d

Amazing reporting from the BBC, if you consider it amazing for professional reporters to finally say what has been pointed out for years and obvious to anyone who looked into it. It’s definitely a bubble, and when it bursts it’s going to cause big problems.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A tangled web of deals stokes AI bubble fears in Silicon Valley

Some are worried that the rapid rise in the value of AI tech companies may be a bubble waiting to burst.

www.bbc.co.uk

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 3d

The amount of time I would have saved in my life if Microsoft Word would recognise that checking a document word count is in no way editing a document (and therefore should be available on read-only documents too)
(And I mean the full word count info. box, not just the general count)

Reposted by Simon Davies

Clare Hooper @clarehooper.bsky.social · 3d

Open letter on the future of small press publishing in the UK.

www.thebookseller.com/comment/open...

Open letter on the future of small press publishing in the UK

The industry must work together to ensure the longevity of the UK’s independent presses.

www.thebookseller.com

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 5d

Startlingly modern borders in this Caslon type specimen from 1785. I'd love to know if these were ever actually used in any books.
#bookdesign #typography
Source: archive.org/details/spec...

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 5d

'AI' is a real disaster for the Web. This is a good piece outlining the crawling problem, which should be more widely known.
But sure, tell me how there are actually valid uses for it, people who attack AI do more harm than good, blah blah blah
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/10/07/g...

Guest Post - “Have You Proved You’re Human Today?” Open Content and Web Harvesting in the AI Era - The Scholarly Kitchen

AI web harvesting bots are different from traditional web crawlers and violate many of the established rules and practices in place. Their rapidly expanding use is emerging as a significant IT managem...

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 6d

Love it!

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 6d

Only 926 comments on these proofs to check through today – should be easy enough, right?! 📑📑📑

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 8d

When you’ve bought a really nice set of woodcut initials and you just want to use them at every opportunity
(Florence, 1481)
#bookdesign #typography

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 8d

Who needs notepaper?

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 9d

When you really want people to know who it was that designed the title-page decorations
(1540)

Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 10d

Happy Satan with similarly happy crotch-critter (1561) 😊

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Simon Davies @simonfd.bsky.social · 10d

A couple of wild C16th As for Friday afternoon
#bookdesign #typography

Reposted by Simon Davies

Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 10d

"We live at a time of considerable uncertainty and peril. We believe this future will be easier (if never easy) to navigate with recourse to the skills and temperaments integral to a historical approach to life."

RHS President, Lucy Noakes, writes on the Society's blog bit.ly/3KBX7Fw #Skystorians