medievalmvb
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medievalmvb.bsky.social
medievalmvb
@medievalmvb.bsky.social
2.1K followers 1.6K following 2.1K posts
medievalist (researching climate in medieval literature) | working remotely at Durham University, UK | lost decade at The SunBreak & Seattlest | outdoor photographer see https://mikevanbaker.myportfolio.com/work
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medievalmvb.bsky.social
Matt recaps a new episode of The Car Company
December 3, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by medievalmvb
hollywoodsteve.bsky.social
Counterpoint: this dog sounds awesome
jael.bsky.social jael holzman @jael.bsky.social · 17h
so i am pet sitting and taking care of my handicapped brother while my father is overseas and, y’all…

he’s forcing me to play soft rock at all times to keep the dog calm. like, the entire time. he said i’m not allowed to turn it off.

i am so tired of christopher cross and mild funk rhythms.
December 3, 2025 at 1:32 AM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
Google has been hassling me for a while that I need to switch from Google Assistant to Gemini so today I gave in and the “seamless” switch broke all 6 of my Google Nest devices and 2 smart bulbs. Had to delete & re-add each one separately.
December 3, 2025 at 1:39 AM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
this is in *reply* to someone saying they use the presence of AI-generated slides in presentations as a proxy for “unreliable” and it’s just perfect

“I don’t see any obvious errors or typos” is immediately followed by ppl pointing out an obvious error. (There’s also a typo: extra hyphen)
Screenshot: skeet text says, “For fun, I asked that the slides be in the style of xkcd. I was astounded at the quality of the results. I don't see any obvious errors or typos. And, some of the slides are exceptionally well-made. This slide is a bit goofy, but it's surprisingly accurate. 2/“ And this is followed by artwork example. Next skeet: “This slide simplified a graph from the text and added a nice callout label. 3/“ As commenters immediately point out, the graph was in fact copied incorrectly.
December 3, 2025 at 12:57 AM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
I went back and got a better photo of the Robson Square ice skating rink, longer exposure to get motion blur and also giant SKA to get you to hallucinate the Might Mighty Bosstones
Photo: Robson Square ice rink, foreground right is a 3-foot tall SKA (TE cropped off), above is geometric (triangles) translucent ceiling, rink is lined with benches and a handrail, on the ice are 5 or so blurry skaters, including a woman (left) using a sort of ice-friendly walker that keeps newbies from falling on their faces, kind of genius
December 2, 2025 at 11:21 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
IBM’s Arvind Krishna doing the math that AI tends to struggle with

This is from an interview with @reckless.bsky.social on @theverge.com
So, let's ground this in today's costs because anything in the future is speculative. It takes about $80 billion to fill up a one-gigawatt data center. That's today's number. If one company is going to commit 20-30 gigawatts, that's $1.5 trillion of CapEx. To the point we just made, you've got to use it all in five years because at that point, you've got to throw it away and refill it. Then, if I look at the total commits in the world in this space, in chasing AGI, it seems to be like 100 gigawatts with these announcements. That's $8 trillion of CapEx. It's my view that there's no way you're going to get a return on that because $8 trillion of CapEx means you need roughly $800 billion of profit just to pay for the interest.
December 2, 2025 at 7:47 PM
Reposted by medievalmvb
matt-levine.bsky.social
This newsletter marks the next step in our evolution, and we believe it will better position us to navigate short-term market volatility while delivering on our vision of being the world’s leading issuer of Money Stuff. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/news...
AI Can Steal Crypto Now
Also Strategy, co-invests, repo haircuts and map manipulation.
www.bloomberg.com
December 2, 2025 at 6:45 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
forever in our hearts 💕
dinfontay.com Dave Infante @dinfontay.com · 1d
"It reached cult classic status thanks to its history of John Wayne marketing campaigns in the 1940s, and was the No. 3 soda brand in the 1960s before largely disappearing out of the public’s mind."
Inside RC Cola’s comeback campaign
Owner Keurig Dr Pepper wants to bring the 120-year-old brand back into the conversation as more soda drinkers gravitate toward nostalgic beverages and classic cola flavors.
www.fooddive.com
December 2, 2025 at 5:22 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
TIL that Vancouver Symphony allows babies? But you have to buy them a ticket? (Kids under six years old are discouraged?) The little person behind me was a talker so we (the staff ‘n’ me, not the baby) agreed to switch seats.
November 30, 2025 at 11:10 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
I meant to circumnavigate Stanley Park on the hotel’s loaner bike but there was a fun run I didn’t want to cross paths with so I improvised, only 10 miles
Map screenshot of north Vancouver BC with red lines of bike ride showing I almost circumnavigated this whole bit except for the shoreline from English Bay to like Hornby Street where I went inland, not bad for just following bike path signage, good for Vancouver
November 30, 2025 at 8:00 PM
Reposted by medievalmvb
mollyknight.bsky.social
Need the kidz bop version of the new Lily Allen album bad

🎵 “I didn’t know it was your puppy palace, puppy palace, puppy palace”
November 30, 2025 at 1:04 AM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
Vancouver-ing via Amtrak, stopped in at #VanArtGallery for cat art and then circled the Sunken Skating Place looking for a shot
Out-the-window iPhone photo from Amtrak Cascades train: foreground is gravel & low, scrubby ground cover, then a line of driftwood logs, then an expanse of gray-blue water lightly ruffled by wind, clouds are low and dark, on the horizon a bit of orange peeps through from setting sun Photo: it’s a blobby-loaf ceramic cat by Thomas Takamitsu Kakinuma, light scratches give fur direction, it’s a beige-light orange except for dark brown ears, and three odd-sized brown splotches on its shoulders and back, whiskers are three umber lines each side of an almost human button nose, eyes look very much like buttons pressed on, it’s a little chonky and is looking up slightly Photo: Robson Square holiday ice skating rink, Vancouver BC, foreground left is the Xmas-light sculpture of a stag with antlers (cropped to head & shoulders), top half of photo is geometric plastic roof, then middle ground right are ice skaters—it’s not a great shot, really vexing set-up, thought maybe the stag would add something but meh
November 30, 2025 at 1:25 AM
Reposted by medievalmvb
tommysiegel.bsky.social
ok this joke might be a little too specific
November 29, 2025 at 7:10 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
Rosencrantz: Do you think Death could possibly be a boat?
Guildenstern: No, no, no... Death is "not." Death isn't. Take my meaning? Death is the ultimate negative. Not-being. You can't not be on a boat.
R: I've frequently not been on boats.
G: No, no... What you've been is not on boats

RIP Tom
November 29, 2025 at 5:47 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
*forest ogre checks his email*

Ah, how nice!
Email text reads: “In an atmosphere of optimism and 'Joie de vivre', we look forward to welcoming you back at L'Hermitage Hotel and creating many more wonderful memories with you.”
November 29, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Reposted by medievalmvb
riotgrlerin.bsky.social
please do not sleep on one of the best christmas movies that has ever been made.
The movie poster for Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale which is a 2010 Finnish fantasy action horror comedy film written/directed by Jalmari Helander about ppl living near Korvatunturi who discover the secret behind Santa Claus.
November 28, 2025 at 11:25 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
hummingbird thanksgiving
iPhone photo: an Anna’s hummingbird waiting patiently on a branch, wings folded, dark hood and iridescent green back iPhone photo: same Anna’s hummingbird at the go-juice feeder, blur of wings, beak inside the plastic yellow stamen
November 28, 2025 at 8:47 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
an absurdist “all the pretty little horses” from Michael Maslin @newyorker.com
New Yorker cartoon by Michael Maslin: three cowboys on the plains in the gloaming, stars out, a jagged one-line stretch of mountains off in the distance, two are seated, leaning against their saddles, one (left) possibly roasting a marshmallow over a tiny fire (two also wearing impossibly tall-crowned cowboy hats), and one cowboy (right) is standing, looking back to the other two, saying “Wow—the horses are really little tonight” and indeed there are three tiny horses the size of terriers looking at him with their little ears forward.
November 28, 2025 at 7:03 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
‘Patria’ (HBO Max) is not a murder mystery but it is about the mystery (quasi-religious) of terrorism-sanctioned murder, here, Basque separatism as experienced by two families over the decades. I’m an easy touch when it comes to indomitable little old ladies so 5 stars.
November 28, 2025 at 5:31 AM
Reposted by medievalmvb
tommysiegel.bsky.social
thanksgiving dinner, candy hearts edition
November 28, 2025 at 12:38 AM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
#entrepreneurs giving this idea away free bc I would like someone to do for pedicures what Sports Clips has done for middle-aged guy haircuts—man-cave situation, go in get your soles sandblasted, toenails filed down etc AOR on the stereo everyone’s got a leather apron full beard maybe hot wings?
November 28, 2025 at 12:15 AM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
Skeletor with speech bubble so that he appears to be saying the quoted skeet
November 27, 2025 at 10:59 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
“We now have a skeleton layer 45 meters long.”
andrewsshi.bsky.social Andrew Reeves @andrewsshi.bsky.social · 6d
Pointed out by my friend @carloshasanax.bsky.social . There's something weird and unsettling about a fairly homogeneous culture spread out across Europe that then collapses into an orgy of genocide.

www.science.org/content/arti...
Headless bodies hint at why Europe’s first farmers vanished
Wave of mass brutality accompanied the collapse of the first pan-European culture
www.science.org
November 27, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Reposted by medievalmvb
asherperlman.bsky.social
November 27, 2025 at 8:49 PM
medievalmvb.bsky.social
I don’t know Mr Sheridan’s personal stance on things but I’m not sure how you’d write a show about people working oil fields *without* lots of reactionary politics & oil apologia? Billy Bob’s character isn’t meant to possess any Olympian perspective, he’s just trying to get his bag
November 27, 2025 at 8:27 PM