Simon
@simonxix.com
📚cultural & critical studies 📽️film critic 🐧open source developer 🐦birder 😐he/him
🔗 https://simonxix.com
🔗 https://simonxix.com
Reposted by Simon
AI being allowed to "drive" your terminal/command line is a fast road to cases of the LLM deleting the users OS after hallucinating a wildly incorrect response to a prompt
why is there AI in my terminal app? seriously, who asked for this?
November 11, 2025 at 12:09 PM
AI being allowed to "drive" your terminal/command line is a fast road to cases of the LLM deleting the users OS after hallucinating a wildly incorrect response to a prompt
I'm no professional screenwriter but surely you start the film with Bond in the middle of an action sequence and then continue the story, never bringing up that Bond used to look like Daniel Craig and died because why would you?
James Bond’s death in No Time to Die is causing a nightmare for the next film. Writers are stuck because Bond “was blown to pieces.”
Anthony Horowitz, author of three 007 novels, says:
“You can't have him wake up in shower and saying it was all a dream."
radaronline.com/p/james-bond...
Anthony Horowitz, author of three 007 novels, says:
“You can't have him wake up in shower and saying it was all a dream."
radaronline.com/p/james-bond...
November 11, 2025 at 10:27 AM
I'm no professional screenwriter but surely you start the film with Bond in the middle of an action sequence and then continue the story, never bringing up that Bond used to look like Daniel Craig and died because why would you?
Reposted by Simon
there's a moment in PARADISE LOST where Satan arrives in Eden and realizes Hell isn't a place; it's a thing he carries within him and it'll follow him wherever he goes. and i think about that when i see these awful rich men whose monstrous wealth has enriched them not at all
“whatever club he’s invited to join has been devalued by the invitation”
November 11, 2025 at 6:31 AM
there's a moment in PARADISE LOST where Satan arrives in Eden and realizes Hell isn't a place; it's a thing he carries within him and it'll follow him wherever he goes. and i think about that when i see these awful rich men whose monstrous wealth has enriched them not at all
Reposted by Simon
Okay no, absolutely not. We are not doing "Jar Jar Binks is woke, actually"
November 10, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Okay no, absolutely not. We are not doing "Jar Jar Binks is woke, actually"
Returning to @rosegardenofeyes.bsky.social's incredible account of watching LOGISTICS. A wonderful piece of writing.
I Watched An 857-Hour Movie To Encounter Capitalism’s Extremes
Logistics tracks, in reverse chronological order, the journey of a pedometer from a shop in Sweden to a factory in China.
www.readthemaple.com
November 10, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Returning to @rosegardenofeyes.bsky.social's incredible account of watching LOGISTICS. A wonderful piece of writing.
"[Contrary to my opinion of a few weeks ago,] I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own"
NEW: Rachel Reeves signals she intends to remove the two-child cap *in full*
"I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own," she tells BBC.
"I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own," she tells BBC.
November 10, 2025 at 4:14 PM
"[Contrary to my opinion of a few weeks ago,] I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own"
Reminds me of how Coventry University is making staff redundant while also building a new campus in India and, for some reason, a hotel in Coventry city centre. Feels bad to know that your employer cares more about buildings than people.
November 10, 2025 at 11:59 AM
Reminds me of how Coventry University is making staff redundant while also building a new campus in India and, for some reason, a hotel in Coventry city centre. Feels bad to know that your employer cares more about buildings than people.
Reposted by Simon
Solidarity to all colleagues at Lancaster university right now.
“The destructive programme of cuts at all while directing money to vanity projects abroad is completely unacceptable.” @drjogrady.bsky.social
We must come together. Vote YES.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
“The destructive programme of cuts at all while directing money to vanity projects abroad is completely unacceptable.” @drjogrady.bsky.social
We must come together. Vote YES.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Lancaster University staff to start industrial action over job cuts
The university is looking to save £30m amid rising costs and a fall in international student numbers.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 9:46 AM
Solidarity to all colleagues at Lancaster university right now.
“The destructive programme of cuts at all while directing money to vanity projects abroad is completely unacceptable.” @drjogrady.bsky.social
We must come together. Vote YES.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
“The destructive programme of cuts at all while directing money to vanity projects abroad is completely unacceptable.” @drjogrady.bsky.social
We must come together. Vote YES.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Reposted by Simon
One of my CPC colleagues is speaking at this symposium on AI slop and brain rot at Anglia Ruskin’s Centre for Media, Arts and Creative Technologies on 5th December 2025. Sounds super interesting. https://www.aru.ac.uk/brain-rot
Centre for Media, Arts and Creative Technologies events - ARU
Find out about upcoming events held by ARU's Centre for Media, Arts and Creative Technologies.
www.aru.ac.uk
November 10, 2025 at 9:47 AM
One of my CPC colleagues is speaking at this symposium on AI slop and brain rot at Anglia Ruskin’s Centre for Media, Arts and Creative Technologies on 5th December 2025. Sounds super interesting. https://www.aru.ac.uk/brain-rot
Reposted by Simon
Reposted by Simon
Reposted by Simon
Just thinking about Celebrity Traitors last night and the fact that if they’d been on that train just 10 seconds longer the scenes would have been horrific. Massive relief all round I imagine, it would have put a serious crimp on what has otherwise been a very successful series.
November 7, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Just thinking about Celebrity Traitors last night and the fact that if they’d been on that train just 10 seconds longer the scenes would have been horrific. Massive relief all round I imagine, it would have put a serious crimp on what has otherwise been a very successful series.
Reposted by Simon
“And then you have librarians who are experiencing a real existential crisis because they are getting asked by their jobs to promote [AI] tools that produce more misinformation. It's the most, like, emperor-has-no-clothes-type situation that I have ever witnessed.” - Alison Macrina
AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge
"Fascism and AI, whether or not they have the same goals, they sure are working to accelerate one another."
www.404media.co
November 7, 2025 at 7:15 AM
“And then you have librarians who are experiencing a real existential crisis because they are getting asked by their jobs to promote [AI] tools that produce more misinformation. It's the most, like, emperor-has-no-clothes-type situation that I have ever witnessed.” - Alison Macrina
Reposted by Simon
Panera’s moderately caffeinated lemonade was loosely associated with 2 deaths before it was taken off market.
This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.
This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.
I fully believe in the corporate death penalty and believe we would be a better world if OpenAI lost its corporate charter and was forcibly dissolved.
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
ChatGPT encouraged college graduate to commit suicide, family claims in lawsuit against OpenAI | CNN
A 23-year-old man killed himself in Texas after ChatGPT ‘goaded’ him to commit suicide, his family says in a lawsuit.
www.cnn.com
November 7, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Panera’s moderately caffeinated lemonade was loosely associated with 2 deaths before it was taken off market.
This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.
This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.
Reposted by Simon
It’s still absolutely wild that the police raided her house like she was Walter White in a huge media event, then came out two weeks later and did a press conference publicly blaming Crown Office for non-specifically ruining their investigation, not granting them a search warrant at the first ask.
November 8, 2025 at 9:20 AM
It’s still absolutely wild that the police raided her house like she was Walter White in a huge media event, then came out two weeks later and did a press conference publicly blaming Crown Office for non-specifically ruining their investigation, not granting them a search warrant at the first ask.
Since it became too dark to run in the evenings, I've achieved my two fastest times this year at subsequent parkruns. Conclusion: too much training may have been holding me back this summer.
November 8, 2025 at 1:11 PM
Since it became too dark to run in the evenings, I've achieved my two fastest times this year at subsequent parkruns. Conclusion: too much training may have been holding me back this summer.
Reposted by Simon
Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN is beautiful and sweeping but missing some kind of spark, some absent dimension to the actual relationships at the heart of the piece. Maybe I would have been more in it if the guy behind me hadn't continually been making little whispered comments in support of the Creature.
October 26, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Del Toro's FRANKENSTEIN is beautiful and sweeping but missing some kind of spark, some absent dimension to the actual relationships at the heart of the piece. Maybe I would have been more in it if the guy behind me hadn't continually been making little whispered comments in support of the Creature.
Reposted by Simon
Honestly, how do outlets keep looking at a sector in freefall, at 15,000 jobs lost, at maddening spikes in mental health concerns, and not think 'maybe we should hear from the people who actually care about that sector and what it does, and not just from those who've been wrecking it'?
🚨OUT NOW🚨 Are unis about to collapse? 🎓
Ex-minister Jo Johnson, UUK's Vivienne Stern, Public First's Jess Lister and Russell Group's Sarah Stevens join PolHome's @matildamartin.bsky.social & @alaintolhurst.bsky.social to discuss the strain on higher education
Listen: podfollow.com/politicshome...
Ex-minister Jo Johnson, UUK's Vivienne Stern, Public First's Jess Lister and Russell Group's Sarah Stevens join PolHome's @matildamartin.bsky.social & @alaintolhurst.bsky.social to discuss the strain on higher education
Listen: podfollow.com/politicshome...
November 7, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Honestly, how do outlets keep looking at a sector in freefall, at 15,000 jobs lost, at maddening spikes in mental health concerns, and not think 'maybe we should hear from the people who actually care about that sector and what it does, and not just from those who've been wrecking it'?
Reposted by Simon
🎉 Thrilled that the first ever issue of the Scottish Journal of Open Research has published today, #DiamondOA of course!
This will be such a great venue to share good #OpenResearch practice.
Plus I had my first experience of editing a journal article!
👉https://doi.org/10.36399/f74t5k88
This will be such a great venue to share good #OpenResearch practice.
Plus I had my first experience of editing a journal article!
👉https://doi.org/10.36399/f74t5k88
Vol. 1 (2025)
| Scottish Journal of Open Research
doi.org
November 7, 2025 at 12:40 PM
🎉 Thrilled that the first ever issue of the Scottish Journal of Open Research has published today, #DiamondOA of course!
This will be such a great venue to share good #OpenResearch practice.
Plus I had my first experience of editing a journal article!
👉https://doi.org/10.36399/f74t5k88
This will be such a great venue to share good #OpenResearch practice.
Plus I had my first experience of editing a journal article!
👉https://doi.org/10.36399/f74t5k88
Reposted by Simon
The Scottish Greens stand with Rockstar's workers. ✊
A major protest has been held outside the offices of Grand Theft Auto developers Rockstar Games in Edinburgh after more than 30 staff were allegedly sacked for trade union activity
'We won't stand for it': Workers protest outside Rockstar Games amid sackings
www.thenational.scot
November 7, 2025 at 12:18 PM
The Scottish Greens stand with Rockstar's workers. ✊
Reposted by Simon
I don't think there's a difference in a partner doing this level of location monitoring or a parent: it's abusive, demeaning and should not be normalised in the slightest
My other brother-in-law has a female friend who was in a ten year abusive marriage where. Among other forms of torment, he used the tracking location to constantly interrogate her on any actions when she left the home. He also hid a secondary tracking device on her car
November 7, 2025 at 11:41 AM
I don't think there's a difference in a partner doing this level of location monitoring or a parent: it's abusive, demeaning and should not be normalised in the slightest
Oh no. I resisted the LEGO Barad-dûr but I don't think I have the strength to resist the Enterprise-D.
Star Trek: U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-D™ 10356 | LEGO® Icons | Buy online at the Official LEGO® Shop GB
LEGO® Icons Star Trek model kit for adults
www.lego.com
November 7, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Oh no. I resisted the LEGO Barad-dûr but I don't think I have the strength to resist the Enterprise-D.
The Celebrity Traitors also worked well because the celebrities were more able to treat it as a game rather than taking it personally. A combination of professional detachment from a project and the actual money being for charity rather than to change their own lives.
The Traitors is a very different game when the players are either friends already or in an industry where, if you’re making a project together, you are used to quickly bonding and making fast friends for the duration.
November 7, 2025 at 10:02 AM
The Celebrity Traitors also worked well because the celebrities were more able to treat it as a game rather than taking it personally. A combination of professional detachment from a project and the actual money being for charity rather than to change their own lives.
If you want to build a machine that always wins at debate, then you are not interested in truth, you are interested in rhetoric.
November 7, 2025 at 9:40 AM
If you want to build a machine that always wins at debate, then you are not interested in truth, you are interested in rhetoric.