Beef is fine for dudes, but Bro-tein is right there!

I chose a bad week to watch series 2 of Paradise

‘I feel like I’m losing her’: the families torn apart by older relatives going far right It starts with a ‘back in my day’ nostalgic meme – then suddenly your elders are sharing AI-generated ‘boomerslop’ and repeating conspiracy theories …

A sad but important article exploring how older people are being radicalised into supporting Far Right views by the internet www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

It's amazing how many tech bros are uncomfortable just being themselves, and have pursued a macho glow-up as part of their midlife crisis

"Welcome to the Palantir Sports Dome, home of the
Totten-ham Hotspurs!"

It's rarely a good sign when the nerds cosplay as the jocks

I’m lucky in that I’ve spent 18 years writing for kids, so my default state is explain everything simply then build up, but it’s such a difficult challenge if you’re used to broad agreement on ideas

100% this — working with historians who do a lot of public outreach, versus those who don’t, is like night and day in their approach to explaining concepts to a general audience

Channeling this classic XKCD comic (with apologies to Randall Munroe for my edits here) as I review my chapter comments that read "include a map, no one but you knows where these sites are"

Haha, I'm here for the reference

Apart from Troy 'proper COYS' Parrott!

I didn't know there was one!

Delighted to say I'll once again be doing an event at the loveliest book festival for kids -- it's a brilliant weekend for families with book-loving youngsters

Sad that YouGov isn't polling people about whether we should adopt the Spartan diarchy model of two co-kings

love bluesky because the replies to this post immediately descend into people fighting about whether the minions would have worked for stalin

Fair enough!

I like this strategy!

Yeah that makes sense, but I do a lot of in-person signings where the physical book is prioritised, so I was surprised by the data

This is just UK sales, but I'm sure my foreign sales are probably different again!

That makes sense -- but all the anecdotal evidence I get from people is that they don't like reading non-fiction on ebook, so I'm intrigued to see the data disprove that

I was already a podcaster when the book came out in 2020, but yeah -- that's my best guess for the rise of the audio share. But ebook twice as big as paperback surprised me

I guess being a podcaster explains why my audiobook sales have grown, but I'm surprised that the ebook sales have now reached the combined paperback and hardback sales. I guess this suggests that a book's digital tail is longer than a physical one... or maybe it's just an odd quirk with me?

A fun thing about being an author with a longish back catalogue is seeing book sales patterns change over time. My first three books (for adults) all had near identical 25% splits between formats (hardback, paperback, audio, ebook), but my new statement tells me audio & ebook have raced ahead

AI Use Appears to Have a "Boiling Frog" Effect on Human Cognition, New Study Warns A new study claims to offer the first causal link between AI dependency and cognitive erosion. Researchers warn of long-term implications.

“We find that AI assistance improves immediate performance, but it comes at a heavy cognitive cost”
“After just [about] 10 minutes of AI-assisted problem-solving, people who lost access to the AI performed worse and gave up more frequently than those who never used it.”
futurism.com/artificial-i...

Faculty Defect From Texas Publics, Citing Censorship Fed up with the state’s censoring of Plato, Joan of Arc and Romeo and Juliet, humanities professors are leaving Texas public institutions in pursuit of academic freedom.

'Texas A&M philosophy professor Martin Peterson is leaving the university after administrators told him in January that he couldn’t teach Plato’s Symposium in his philosophy class; they said the ancient Greek philosopher’s work violated the system’s restrictions on gender and sexuality content.' 1/3

Two absolutely brilliant guests, wish I could make it 👇

The latest series of #TaskmasterClub (Duck) is out now and features an excellent task from the excellent @gregjenner.bsky.social

Head to our resources page to run your own sessions at your school. taskmastereducation.com/clubs/create

On that note, really loved @gregjenner.bsky.social's You're Dead To Me episode on Alexandre Dumas with @historianmemory.bsky.social & Celya AB

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Amazing! If I may be so bold — I would be thrilled if you explored Avenged Sevenfold one day; they’re in the metal sweet spot of extraordinary musicality, huge melodies, and Meatloafesque drama

Oh wow! Super excited you’re covering metal 🤘