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Reposted by Mark Jones

Rebecca Long-Bailey @rebeccalongbailey.com · 1d

Good news from Salford City Council and Historic England. An Urgent Works Notice has been issued on the Crescent pub after its shocking deterioration. (1/2)

Decisive action is now being taken to protect one of Salford’s most important historic landmarks.

Salford City Council has today issued an Urgent Works Notice on the Crescent Pub due to the alarming condition of the building. This legal notice sets out the essential repairs required to prevent further decay. While it will not see the pub fully restored at this stage, it is a crucial first step in safeguarding the listed building for the future.

If the necessary repairs are not carried out promptly, the Council may step in to complete the works and seek to recover the costs from the owners.

The Crescent Pub holds a unique and cherished place in Salford’s history, and it is long believed that Engels and Marx were regulars back in the day.

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Zack Polanski @zackpolanski.bsky.social · 4d

This is grim & dangerous over reach.

This is a government that have lost the moral argument & are still selling arms to Israel. Now further cracking down on dissent.

Absolutely the opposite of what they should be doing - so of course this is what the Labour Government choose.

Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 4d

NEW: Home Office announces planned new anti-protest powers, mainly aimed at pro-Gaza protests like those for Palestine Action. Police will be able to consider the "cumulative impact" of repeated protests and potentially order that they be relocated.

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 8d

Anyway, this is probably all very tangential to the book itself but I'm very much looking forward to reading it.

Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 8d

(I do think some corners of the internet are holding on to this more than others. Tumblr and AO3, for example, feel like places where some still post solely for their handful of mutuals rather than trying to reach everyone).

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 8d

The problem is that the internet has always been kinda bad at discoverability and "frictionless" big platforms haven't helped.

We'd also have to accept smaller potential audiences in return for more engaged audiences (and avoid groups that only care about their own niche, restricting creativity).

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 8d

In my optimistic moments, I can see that pushing more people to start putting more effort in to discovery & community building.

Certainly not enough for a massive restructuring of the mainstream but enough to see a flourishing of other stuff in much smaller groups.

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 8d

I believe there's just as much weird, creative output on the internet as there used to be. I'm not even sure it's harder to find than it used to be.

It's just so much easier now to lose an hour to accepting what the algorithms dictate and settle for that rather than seeking out something new.

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 8d

Got me wondering whether we could be on the precipice of an increase in internet counter-culture again (in an interesting way, not more 4chan). It feels like there's an increasing amount of disillusionment with algorithm controlled feeds and censorship on the big platforms.

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 8d

Enjoyed listening to @badaude.bsky.social talk about her new book (Amateurs: How We Built Internet Culture and Why It Matters) at @blackwellsmcr.bsky.social tonight.

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 10d

And feel free to keep up to date with tracking my reading over on Storygraph: app.thestorygraph.com/profile/just...

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app.thestorygraph.com

Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 10d

A Place Called Perfect by Helena Duggan

A quick-to-read YA book about a town where the populace go blind and receive special rose-tinted glasses that shape how they see the world.

Starts a bit twee but becomes an interesting intro to social apartheid and the problem with making things "perfect"

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 10d

Darkly by Marisha Pessl

Fun YA mystery about a reclusive board game designer who hid/destroyed an unfinished masterpiece before she died. In the present, a group of kids are invited to the secret island factory to try and investigate rumours of people going missing while playing the game

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 10d

Life is Strange: Heatwaves by Brittney Morris

Something lighter after those. A YA Life is Strange tie-in with something to say about climate change and the politics of small towns. I enjoyed this but I'm biased towards anything with Steph in

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 10d

Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 by Eman Abdelhadi, M.E. O'Brien

Fascinating fictional history of how the world moved to a commune-based system of organisation through interviews with people who had different exposure to the world before, during and after

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 10d

My previous quote post seems like a good time to mention some suff I've been reading recently so:

Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda. A collection of connected short stories set in Mexico that didn't always work for me but an interesting and quick read nonetheless

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · 10d

As you'd expect from Hannah, some very interesting sounding books here (& some that were already on my vague future wishlist)

Just what I didn't need when I've already broken my "try to stop buying books until you've cleared some of your backlog" a few times in the couple of weeks 😅

Hannah Nicklin @hannahnicklin.bsky.social · 10d

I’m the subject of this week’s “What’s on Your Bookshelf” column at @rockpapershotgun.bsky.social — they reached out when I was on a week off so got deep-reading me. Revolutions, Egyptian alt fantasy comics, citizen assemblies, Luddism and Stewart Lee abound www.rockpapershotgun.com/whats-on-you...

What's on your bookshelf: Saltsea Chronicles, Mutazione and Thronglets' Hannah Nicklin

Hannah Nicklin tells us about the books they love, have loved, and are hoping to love in the future.

www.rockpapershotgun.com

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Samantha Mackenzie Greer @sammgreer.bsky.social · 12d

The best time to boycott Xbox and Microsoft was when BDS called for it, the next best time is now. Focused, targeted boycotts work, this one is working, and all you got to do to support it is go play other games. Literally the least you could do in this moment in history

BDS movement @bdsmovement.bsky.social · 12d

But this win means our collective pressure is working. Palestinians call for increased global BDS and shareholder pressure until Microsoft adheres to international law and ends all complicity in Israel’s atrocity crimes.

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Reposted by Mark Jones

FANGORIA @fangoria.bsky.social · 13d

He may play a CREEP but Mark Duplass is a stand-up guy, as Duplass Brothers Productions is teaming up with the Transgender Film Center to launch the Found Footage Fund for trans filmmakers.

CREEP’s Mark Duplass Launches Found Footage Fund For Trans Filmmakers

He may play a CREEP but Mark Duplass is a stand-up guy, as Duplass Brothers Productions is teaming up with the Transgender Film Center to launch the Found Footage Fund for trans filmmakers.

dlvr.it

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C. Robert Cargill @crobertcargill.bsky.social · 23d

HACK. THE. PLANET.

Ian Coldwater 👻🌿 @lookitup.baby · 23d

Today is the 30th anniversary of Hackers

the cast of Hackers (1995) posing in a series of adjacent phone booths

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Reposted by Mark Jones

Rebecca Jones 🔶 @rebeccajones03.bsky.social · 27d

BREAKING NEWS:

I am thrilled to be able to report that after a discussion with JPAC, JPAC has agreed to update it's position statement to make it clear that trans people haemoglobin levels should be tested against their hormonal levels, not their Sex at Birth.

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Rebecca Jones 🔶 @rebeccajones03.bsky.social · Aug 22

Attention UK Based people, I need YOU to help me challenge NHS Blood & Transplants policies towards Trans & Non-Binary people.

docs.google.com/document/d/1...

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rA…

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Josh Zingher @zingherpolisci.bsky.social · Sep 7

This is trans rights, too. There is no viable position for the Democrats other than “trans rights are human rights.” Trying to triangulate a position where you throw trans people under the bus “just a little” to woo swing voters only feeds the right’s argument that trans people are a threat 1/x

Ed Burmila @edburmila.bsky.social · Sep 6

Tapping the sign

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Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · Sep 1

Certainly doesn't read like it's over 100 years old for the most part. I read the whole thing in a few days and at 120ish pages the pace is non-stop.

(Fair warning: there is some unfortunate racial stereotyping of a pawn shop owner. It only happens a couple of times but it's still unacceptable.)

Mark Jones @justanothermark.bsky.social · Sep 1

Bought and read Claimed! by Gertrude Barrows Bennett after seeing it in a sale for 99p. A good, fun novella from 1920 about a mysterious green box that cannot be opened and might be causing weird events/hallucinations.

The book Claimed! by Gertrude Barrows Bennet as published by Penguin Weird Fiction. The cover shows an illustration of a mountainous island with an eye with bright blue sea below and orange sky above. Above the island is a green box with a mysterious pink cloud escaping from it.

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v buckenham @v21.bsky.social · Aug 29

thinking about how (as mentioned in passing in the linked paper) a Charli XCX song uses samples processed by an open source tool built on Haskell. truly human culture works in mysterious ways.

Mike Cook @mtrc.bsky.social · Aug 29

Small thread for context about this, since it's doing the rounds again. This is dj_dave, who is a livecoder (among other things) in the Boston area. She has a YouTube channel too: www.youtube.com/@dj_dave____

She recently coauthored a paper about 'pop live coding' at ICLC: iil.is/pdf/2024_icl...

Kinell @sinistercinemastudios.art · Aug 28

This is some of the hardest shit I've seen in my life

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Reposted by Mark Jones

Patrick Vallely @pjvphotography.bsky.social · Aug 28

"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?"

Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.

Tighter crop of the same pika, focusing on its head.

An even tighter crop, focusing more on the pika's eye.

An extremely tight crop of the pika's eye, emphasizing their reflection of an early morning mountain scene.

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