Ailsa Leadbetter

@CynicalPublius If that's true, why are so many Americans moving over here? newyorker.com/magazine/2025/…

X is currently full of Europeans trying to tell Americans how much better life in Europe is. One of the constant refrains is "Our government makes sure we get XX days of vacation yearly." Euros do not realize that is not the flex they think it is. To us Americans it reeks of indolence, explains why worker productivity is so much lower in Europe, and it kinda pisses us off because that indolence was paid for by 80 years of American taxpayers' money defending their right to be indolent.

@eyckenhorst En België ook

@eyckenhorst Luxembourg heeft dat al gehad.

Stel dat de Premier homoseksueel is... hoe gaat dat dan met islamitische staatshoofden zoals Erdogan?

@HenriOsewoudt @mariekehoogwout Het model in de grafiek niet, dat vind ik ook. Ben wel benieuwd of je een partij vindt die bij je past. Ja/nee is genoeg.

@aylatwork @mariekehoogwout Het model klopt niet.

Het feit dat er twee kwadranten volledig leeg zijn, verklaart imo waarom 35 procent van de kiezers zelfs op verkiezingsdag nog niet weet wat te stemmen

@HenriOsewoudt @mariekehoogwout Vind je dat bij geen enkele partij terug, of denk je dat de grafiek verkeerd is?

@aylatwork @mariekehoogwout Ik ben zelf bijvoorbeeld rechts progressief: voor een markteconomie en beperkte overheid (rechts) en voor individuele vrijheden en wetenschappelijke vooruitgang (progressief).

@HenriOsewoudt @mariekehoogwout Eens, deze twee metrics hangen teveel met elkaar samen, ze zijn niet onafhankelijk van elkaar. Hoe zou links conservatief en rechts progressief eruit moeten zien, vraag ik me af.

@mariekehoogwout Die twee lege kwadranten zeggen iets anders: het model klopt niet. Want de assen links/rechts en progressief/conservatief zijn in dit model gewoon hetzelfde. Het is gewoon een rechte lijn van links(boven) naar rechts(onder).

@xruiztru Interesting that Faen (N) is translated differently than Fan (SE).

What’s the most commonly used swear word in each country? 🤬

@jac_siuhaj Wow! And the plants are still so green. Mine died back weeks ago.

Good afternoon friends. I'm off this week so there won't be office views for you. I've been busy during the week with my new project. I'll tell you what it is when it's done. Meanwhile look how many tomatoes I still have. It's absolutely unbelievable that they are still growing

@ericmmatheny Definitely not unheard of in the Netherlands

Name one country - other than the US - where a foreigner can emigrate, refuse to assimilate, condemn the host country for not catering to the foreign culture, collect welfare, and then call the host country oppressive and intolerant.

Dear @heraldscotland, did Mrs Mackintosh not have a name? 🙄

This might be the most disturbing AI paper of 2025 ☠️ Scientists just proved that large language models can literally rot their own brains the same way humans get brain rot from scrolling junk content online. They fed models months of viral Twitter data short, high-engagement posts and watched their cognition collapse: - Reasoning fell by 23% - Long-context memory dropped 30% - Personality tests showed spikes in narcissism & psychopathy And get this even after retraining on clean, high-quality data, the damage didn’t fully heal. The representational “rot” persisted. It’s not just bad data → bad output. It’s bad data → permanent cognitive drift. The AI equivalent of doomscrolling is real. And it’s already happening. Full study: llm-brain-rot. github. io

@StevenArra Oprechte vraag: welke levens heeft hij "de afgelopen decennia" gered? Zijn eerste termijn begon in 2016, en van de afgelopen 10 jaar was hij er 4 niet president. Heeft hij voor 2016 levens gered?

Ik begrijp dat velen moeite hebben met zijn manier van doen. Zijn stijl botst, zijn woorden schuren, en zijn houding roept weerstand op. Voor sommigen is hij dom, voor anderen lomp of arrogant. Maar laten we eerlijk zijn: weinig mensen op deze planeet worden dagelijks zo openlijk bespot, belachelijk gemaakt en vernederd als hij. En toch, ondanks die eindeloze stroom van haat en miskenning, is er geen mens op aarde die de voorbije decennia méér levens heeft gered, en er in de komende jaren nog méér zal redden, dan deze man.

@feyiszn Aging myself here but it has to be Twin Peaks

What was the first series you were completely addicted to? The series that paused everything?

@allhailtwit The building on the left in this picture, correct? Photo taken in August

East Berlin, Gendarmenmarkt, 31 July 1960. I post photographs taken on my many Berlin visits in the 1950s and 1960s. 180 unique historic street images of East and West Berlin are in my book "Berlin in the Cold War" (Amberley Publ.). #Berlin #DDR #GDR

@simongerman600 Actually, not funny at all.

Kinda funny.

@DeMondige @simongerman600 What is a drerrie? Iemand die aan de weg werkt? Iemand die langs de weg hangt?

@simongerman600 In Belgium it's also drerrie.

@klaasm67 @simongerman600 Had you heard of drerries? That was a new one for me too - although I'm really not sure what the English means either!

@simongerman600 Never heard of straatratjes.

@simongerman600 Never heard either of these Dutch words. Nor the English, come to think of it, and the photo doesn’t help.

@BrokenBritain_7 @therealmissjo That's one of the reasons I dislike the random approach in the UK.

@aylatwork @therealmissjo The banks aren't the problem. Anybody who has access to the payment details is a risk.

I have an elderly friend who is in her 80s. She lives in Cornwall. Mary is very switched on but she struggles with new technology a bit - especially parking apps. All she wants to do is put her car in a space for a couple of hours and pay. She does not want to sign up for a new app. She does not want to verify her device. She does not want to save her credit card information. She does not want to figure out why the app thinks she is in Devon and cannot geolocate the car park she is standing in. She wants to take a few coins and put them in a machine and do her shopping/meet her friends. Now, she finds excuses not to meet friends or shop because she is so worried about the parking situation. It is a disgrace that parking has become so discriminatory and this is just the start. When Digital ID is introduced, her whole world will feel like this.

@BrokenBritain_7 @therealmissjo Bear in mind that European banks have more advanced security protocols than UK banks.

@aylatwork @therealmissjo When you use an App, they are getting a lot more than your bank card number. In fact, almost nobody *should* know your bank details.