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Tom Freeman

@tomfreeman.bsky.social

1.9K followers 170 following 2.6K posts

Occasional editor and writer. Purveyor of half-baked opinions. Intermittently able to make my nieces laugh. (SnoozeInBrief on Twitter) My blog on usage, editing and suchlike: https://stroppyeditor.wordpress.com

stroppyeditor.wordpress.com

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 6h

Sébastien Le-encore-nu, more like

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 6h

ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh I've got a good one

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 7h

Well OK but surely they have to make him wear glasses and a fake tache

Sophie Pedder @sophiepedder.bsky.social · 7h

France’s new prime minister is…the very one who resigned on Monday, Sébastien Lecornu. It rounds off the most chaotic and absurdist week in French politics in modern times

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 10h

The really funny move would've been to give Trump the Nobel Literature Prize

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 13h

Oh come on, marks for effort at least

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 14h

I finally realised what AI dependency reminds me of

A mock-up of an old D&D guide detailing the properties of magical items, featuring "Altman’s Quill of Artifice". The entry reads:
This enchanted quill, made from the feather of a harpy, serves as a magical scribe and sage, able to answer all its owner’s queries. The owner must use it to write a question at the top of a piece of paper or parchment, such as “Where is the secret entrance to the King’s treasury?” or “How can I cure lycanthropy?” Acting under its own power, it will write an answer. But despite its apparent (and often genuine) usefulness, this item is cursed.
Roll d20 to determine the result of any query: 1 Hopelessly wrong, 2-5 Contains major errors, 6-10 Contains minor errors, 11-16 Accurate but incomplete, 17-20 Fully accurate.
Apply modifiers in line with the rules for consulting sages (see Table 62) depending on the nature of the question (general 0, specific -2, exacting -4) and the availability of relevant knowledge (complete 0, partial -2, non-existent -6). The DM should choose the nature of any errors, as well as the consequences of believing them.
If the answer is less than fully accurate, that will not be obvious, as the quill of artifice writes in a confident and authoritative manner. A reader may scrutinise the answer to attempt to notice any problem, but to succeed they must pass an intelligence check at a penalty of -2. Anyone who has previously failed such a check makes all future checks at -4. The owner of the quill is particularly vulnerable, permanently losing one point of intelligence with each inaccurate answer that is believed. The owner will be unaware of this loss, and will become fiercely possessive of the quill, refusing to give it up and distrusting anyone who doubts its output.
A remove curse spell may make the owner willing to part with it, but the loss of intelligence is irreparable.

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 14h

I finally realised what AI dependency reminds me of

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Reposted by Tom Freeman

Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 2d

oh hell yeah youtu.be/nGZOFyLrCwk?...

Slug Eating Spaghetti Time Lapse (With Stopwatch Timer)

YouTube video by Nature's Fantastic

youtu.be

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 20h

I would say Caius, but tbh most of us who grow up locally make the same mistake too.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 2d

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 21h

Yeah, the main way I enjoy s5 is to treat the subplots (Marlo's takeover, etc) as the main event and the serial killer thing as an awkward excuse to spend a bit more time in the company of Jimmy and Lester.

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 21h

"Great idea! A fake serial killer storyline would both showcase a new side of McNulty's character and create challenging moral dilemmas for other officers. It would enhance The Wire's reputation for gritty realism — and the fans would love it."

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 1d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 1d

Speaking of a bit of a dick that ought to be removed,

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 1d

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 1d

"Sured up" is a mistake, but one with some intuitive sense behind it - especially as the literal meaning of "shored up" is kind of obscure

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 1d

"Shored up" or "sured up"? A homophone mix-up that I hadn't come across before today, but it's more common than I might have guessed stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/a...

A shore thing?

Rhyl Sands by David Cox, 1854. This was posted on social media today by the BBC Newsnight account: Kay Burley says Kemi Badenoch’s performance at party conference has sured up her position as…

stroppyeditor.wordpress.com

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 1d

The world's in a bad way, but now and then something goes right

Headline: "Man who appealed Pelicot rape conviction handed longer jail term"

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 1d

"Shored up" or "sured up"? A homophone mix-up that I hadn't come across before today, but it's more common than I might have guessed stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/a...

A shore thing?

Rhyl Sands by David Cox, 1854. This was posted on social media today by the BBC Newsnight account: Kay Burley says Kemi Badenoch’s performance at party conference has sured up her position as…

stroppyeditor.wordpress.com

Reposted by Tom Freeman

Ian Martin @ianmartin.bsky.social · 1d

'Sured up' is it Newsnight you fucking pillock.

BBC Newsnight @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social · 1d

"Will it be enough? I would be surprised..."

Kay Burley says Kemi Badenoch's performance at party conference has sured up her position as leader for the time being.

#Newsnight

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Reposted by Tom Freeman

Tom @tomvictor.bsky.social · Nov 28

A thread of some of my bookmarked tweets. This will be updated with no real regular pattern but it *will* be updated

A cartoon entitled ‘The Land Before Time’. One dinosaur asks a second ‘did it take a long time to put that bow tie on?’. The second dinosaur, wearing a bow tie, replies ‘did it take a long what?’

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Reposted by Tom Freeman

Pighill @pighill.bsky.social · 1d

...

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 1d

|￣￣￣￣|
| BLOG |
| POST |
| IDEA |
| ＿＿＿＿|
(\__/) ||
(•ㅅ•) ||
/ 　づ

Reposted by Tom Freeman

Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 2d

"Mr President, a second naptime is approaching your afternoon schedule."

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 2d

"Mr President, a second naptime is approaching your afternoon schedule."

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 2d

The US is really in very deep trouble.

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 2d

Apparently there are people who spend time thinking of natural-sounding set-ups for their puns, but those people are losers and I feel sorry for them

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 2d

If I had a bunch of beads and one of them was considerably older than the others, I would call it the venerable bead

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 2d

While China was building a massive network of "re-education camps" to imprison and torture Uyghur Muslims and wipe out their culture, Britain was welcoming refugees from Hong Kong.

John Rentoul @rentouljohn.bsky.social · 2d

“While Britain was redefining what a woman is, China was building five nuclear reactors.” Kemi Badenoch www.conservatives.com/news/kemi-ba...

Kemi Badenoch announces Stamp Duty Abolition Policy

In her remarks closing Conference Kemi made one more major announcement

www.conservatives.com

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Tom Freeman @tomfreeman.bsky.social · 2d

"Ethnicity" is something that happens to other people

Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 2d

"You go to some places like Handsworth.. parts of Dewsbury, Bradford, Leicester, where you see.. a single ethnicity.. we don't think that's healthy thing"

Kevin Hollinrake is MP for Thirsk and Malton, which according to the 2021 census is 98% white.

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