Paddy Alton

@DuncanHegan1 @WalkerMarcus Oh, I happened to write something along those lines just this afternoon open.substack.com/pub/paddyalton… Not sure if my reasoning is the same as @WalkerMarcus but that was also my take.

@WalkerMarcus How so? Am open to persuasion

Just seen The Odyssey and… wow. Probably the best film I’ve seen this decade.

Wrote something about the Odyssey! See next post ...

@yuanyi_z Go on then, slow Saturday: open.substack.com/pub/paddyalton…

@yuanyi_z Watched it yesterday and personally think it's great! Not flawless but a good adaptation. But in particular, it seems to me to be quite small-c conservative in its outlook. Thinking of writing something a bit longer about it.

I have no intention of reviewing a movie I am not going to watch, but the Odyssey thing really reveals the conservative impotence in matters of culture. It's almost as if you can't produce an artistic counterrevolution if you think artists are losers.

sing to me, o muse, of the man who satisfied the Lane-Emden equation—

Another statistically significant Labour improvement. With the Greens in sharp reverse over the last two months and Reform support ebbing slightly (to the Conservatives' benefit I reckon), this is now looking more like a three-horse race.

Well.

LATEST Sir Keir Starmer responds to Argentina displaying a Malvinas banner. His spokesman tells us: "The World Cup might not be ours but the Falkland Islands are." Regarding Sunday's final, Number 10 says: "The PM wishes both teams well in the final, especially Spain." More at @GBNEWS. 🇦🇷🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

@andrew_lilico c.f. Miss Widdecombe's view on free speech, that we should 'drag [fascist views] into the light and destroy them'. (she also opposed 'video nasties', I might add)

@andrew_lilico I strongly believe in free speech. A neglected point is that we've developed societal 'immune systems' around this that have been circumvented by social media. We need to develop these, urgently. (Community notes are imperfect but represent a possible model)

"Social media algorithms drive political violence" seems to me little more than our era's "video nasties" panic. Folk who don't like movie violence say it's that. Those who don't like violent video games blame that. Others blame social media algorithms. Just another moral panic.

Tom Holland meets a fan

@AndrewCurran_ @lymanstoneky As the internet did before that - "nothing ages faster than the future", as they say ...

Watched Project Hail Mary (I liked the book). What immediately struck me was how stupid and useless the ship's computer was. LLMs have probably already broken the vast majority of sci-fi worldbuilding done over the last thirty years. Probably explains some of the author ire.

@stripe Second, even as Companies House numbers have remained flat, there has been an absolutely huge surge in... sign-ups to Stripe's payment systems. And looking at the numbers, they think these are mostly new traders, not them suddenly expanding their market share.

@rcolvile @stripe This is such a great spot - nice job!

Have written today on a fascinating - and v v important - economic puzzle. Either: 1) AI is driving a boom in entrepreneurship everywhere but Britain or 2) AI is driving a boom in British entrepreneurship, but our economic data is too broken to notice. Which is it?

@Phoenix4419 @rcolvile Would you like some counterexamples? e.g. just this week chatted to a guy who founded a recruitment firm a few years ago. Just hit ten employees. Using AI everywhere, reckons they're doing what a firm triple the size could do five years ago.

@rcolvile It's neither. AI isn't driving a boom anywhere as such, except in AI investment & some very large companies. Most businesses really don't have a need for it. It will change the world but not at the level of small businesses in local markets.

@1967Rogerwade @francesweetman Like, you can include references for all sorts of reasons, not just "hey isn't this article great".

@1967Rogerwade @francesweetman Right, but all I did was say "not a fair criticism, they've changed it to be consistent". I'm linking that article literally just to say "and note that your political opponents are officially annoyed by that change". I don’t agree that the info shouldn't be reported.