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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · 7d

"Is it a long way to the golf course?"
"Well, it depends on what you mean by a long way."
THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR ASKING DIRECTIONS OUTSIDE THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT PAL.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · 8d

CWA Gold Dagger winner #31: Ruth Rendell, “Live Flesh” (1986). All the hallmarks of good Rendell, but too much psychological "explanation", and thus bad Rendell.

www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/9/30/ruth-rendell-live-flesh-1986

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Ruth Rendell, “Live Flesh” (1986)

This has all the hallmarks of a good Rendell novel. We have a protagonist with a disturbed mind, approached in close third person, allowing us to get inside the wonky thoughts. Victor Jenner has just ...

www.nickwiltsher.com

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Sep 8

It's a good excuse!

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Sep 8

If you've sent email to my Uppsala address in the last couple of months, I won't have got it and you should resend it to my St Andrews one if you want a reply. The auto-response from Uppsala unhelpfully says "out of office" where it should say "this address doesn't work any more" or something.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Sep 2

And time-pressured—he basically had a couple of hours to do this. OK, maybe we can give the guy a break.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Sep 2

Moving office: a time to contemplate your books, thin a few out, rationalise and downsize. Or just hoy them all in boxes and make your future self deal with it. Man my past self was a knob.

Chaotic arrangement of many books on shelves.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Sep 1

No fikarum. Sob.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Sep 1

First day in new job. How do you make a cup of tea around here?

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 28

Dispatch does good, thoughtful journalism—actual stories written by actual people going to actual places. Couple of articles a week by email. They're offering a 57% discount on a subscription via the links in this article. That's about £3.20 a month. Worth it.

dispatch-media.com/margaux-blan...

Margaux Blanchard, the journalist who didn't exist

Dispatch rumbles AI fraud • The power of reporting • Introducing the Blanchard offer

dispatch-media.com

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 26

CWA Gold Dagger winner #30: Paula Gosling, “Monkey Puzzle” (1985). Dense academic business, enjoyable provided you can overlook the homophobia.

www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/26/paula-gosling-monkey-puzzle-1985

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Paula Gosling, “Monkey Puzzle” (1985)

This is dense, complicated, and really quite enjoyable, provided you can overlook a significant degree of homophobia. It’s an academic setting. The deceased, Adamson, is a faculty member in the Englis...

www.nickwiltsher.com

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 21

Oh god I had no idea that existed and I am now going to try my very best to forget it. I politely refuse to imagine it.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 21

Whenever Alain de Botton is booked, quoted, or otherwise invoked, it's a sure sign that whoever is doing the invoking knows fuck all about philosophy, is too lazy or ignorant to bother finding out more, and has just summoned the only name that comes to mind.

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Reposted by Nick Wiltsher

Nome @nome.bsky.social · Aug 19

Let's be generous, here, and assume that by the solar system Altman wants to put the sphere outside the orbit of Neptune, and we'll just exclude the kuiper belt entirely.

That would be a sphere with a diameter of 6 billion miles.

Let's assume that it has the thickness of an eggshell: .3mm thick.

Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · Aug 18

The people dominating our political landscape, culture, and economy are just so stupid and full of shit it's almost impossible to describe

A transcription of a conversation between OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and podcast host Theo Von on Von's podcast, in an excerpt from the Atlantic article "AI is a mass-delusion event" by Charlie Warzel:

"Sam Altman: I do guess that a lot of the world gets covered in data centers over time.

Theo Von: Do you really?

Altman: But I don’t know, because maybe we put them in space. Like, maybe we build a big Dyson sphere around the solar system and say, “Hey, it actually makes no sense to put these on Earth.”

Von: Yeah.

Altman: I wish I had, like, more concrete answers for you, but, like, we’re stumbling through this."

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 17

"What's this philosophy thing about then?", the removal man casually asks during a break from carrying boxes of books. He ends up leaving with a copy of the Nicomachean Ethics to read on his way home. Corrupting the youth and the middle-aged alike.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 17

407364-colorful-autumn-leaves.

Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 16

Ah yeah, I think even in my advanced state of middle-age technology bufuddlement I can manage that.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 16

I'm having trouble with the age verification thing to use private messages, which ironically makes me feel old. Anyway: the brief trip this week was hectic, so I'll be in touch (somehow!) when I properly finally move, very late August/early September.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 11

CWA Gold Dagger winner #30: B.M. Gill, “The Twelfth Juror” (1984). More of a plod than it ought to be.

www.nickwiltsher.com/cwa-reviews/2025/8/11/bm-gill-the-twelfth-juror-1984

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B.M. Gill, “The Twelfth Juror” (1984)

A TV personality, Edward Carne, is on trial for murder. Richard Quinn is one of the jurors. Through improbable coincidence, he is also secretly harbouring Carne’s missing alcoholic daughter, who may b...

www.nickwiltsher.com

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 6

That was quick! All yours. And aye, I anyway had you on a list of people to contact once actually settled in Dundee. I'll be there briefly next week and then more permanently a couple of weeks later. I'll drop you a line about next week next week and see if we can make schedules overlap.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 6

I have a pristine copy of issue 24 of @thefence.bsky.social to give away (I bought a copy, and then took out a subscription, and now I have two, so there we go). Would prefer to just hand it over to someone in/near either Durham or Dundee, but can post if needs be. Who wants it? Someone should.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 3

Certainly accessible.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 2

Yeah... a well-disguised slower ball is a real skill, but I think it's tricky to just slow down your whole action. But what do I know.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 2

Friend is after work accessible to non-academics on the notion of a "real man", as in "a real man does[n't] ..." (and not as in social ontology). What've we got, folks?
#philsky

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Aug 2

Bowling actions are delicate things. I'm not sure it's straightforward to just bowl a bit slower.

I suspect the key to getting Crawley is clever field placings and a disciplined line.

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Nick Wiltsher @nickwiltsher.bsky.social · Jul 29

Shower doors are so passé.

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