Chris Kendall

Chris Kendall

@ottocr.at

Anglo-Schwäbisch eurocrat | maker of EU foreign policy & spätzle | guerrilla knitter | cross-Channel commuter | was once @ottocrat | personal capacity | Butlerian Jihad when?

9.7K followers1.8K following14.8K posts

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Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

In case any recent arrivals are wondering what happened to my long-standing Twitter avatar, here’s why I changed it.

Chris Kendall@ottocr.at

My niece Holly is a very talented young artist. So I commissioned her to paint my portrait.

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

I’m not *very* ill but ill enough to feel dreadful and be unable to get comfortable and sleep, and I’m SO BORED 😭😭😭 please send me box set recommendations or hidden youtube gems to improve my algorithm #covid

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

That theatre visit to Stratford on Saturday doesn’t seem like such a great idea in hindsight I sat watching the particulates glimmer in the floodlights and thinking, people (me included) should probably be masked

Chris Kendall reposted

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ
@olivia.science

this why I believe abstinence is the only real way, but I know it's hard we have been here before with smoking, where the best thing is never to start & the second best is to stop as soon as you can — and it doesn't matter if one cig a day is "not that bad" if you can go down to one go down to nil

olivia.scienceWe've been here before!Parallels between AI and tobacco, and other warnings.
Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science

that's what's so worrying! even so-called critical use still elicits the same feelings that draw you back to any use

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

I don’t know why some hotels think I want to listen to piped George Michael over breakfast but I really fucking don’t 😑

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

Now there’s an especially upbeat screechy cover version of The Sound of Silence, clearly they are trolling me

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

said it before will die with it on my lips, curse the people who think life needs a soundtrack and who put them in charge?

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

“A distinctively British approach to artificial intelligence”

Tim Barnett@timbermunki.bsky.social

“A distinctively British approach to artificial intelligence”

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

For the past few years my relationship with high culture has been distant at best, so seeing the RSC’s As You Like It in Stratford this evening was like a thirsty man diving headfirst into a desert oasis, words can’t do it justice. Go see it if you possibly can.

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

Yeah hi, LogosRUs™️? Yeah I need a logo for my new gym. Please try really hard not to make it look like a swastika.

Chris Kendall reposted

TAHK0
@tahk0.bsky.social

Guillermo Del Toro dropping another one liner that’s exactly how I feel about AI slop, the “punishment” is built in

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at
Jason Snell@snell.zone

Just posted on Six Colors: The iPod, which set Apple on its course, turns 25

sixcolors.comThe iPod, which set Apple on its course, turns 25{"text":"We drove down the freeway from San Francisco to Cupertino with a pretty good idea of what Apple would be announcing, but with no idea how it would transform Apple forever. “Hint: It’s not a Mac,” read the invitation to an event at the Town Hall conference center on Apple’s campus at Infinite Loop. Rumors abounded that Apple was going to announce a music player, but the details were hazy. Three of the Macworld editors in the car (but not the other one) were primed to understand what Apple was announcing—we all had multi-gigabyte iTunes libraries already, and when we..."}

Chris Kendall reposted

Peter Adamson
@histphilosophy.bsky.social

My new favorite Han scholar is Fan Ying (106-144 CE): “He was successful in avoiding official posts until 129 when he was appointed Leader of Court Gentlemen for Miscellaneous Uses. After some months he feigned serious illness and returned to his home as Grand Master for Splendid Happiness.”

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

Russia sponsored a UN resolution against “neo-colonialism” which is a sick joke

Vatnik Soup@vatniksoup.bsky.social

To him, Western power is always imperialism. Russian power is always “security concerns”, “multipolarity”, or “historical complexity”. He opposes NATO — but never Moscow’s military blocs, bases, proxies, mercenaries, occupations, or nuclear blackmail. bsky.app/profile/vatn...

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

$1800?

IGN@ign.com

BREAKING: A new report claims that Xbox expects its next-generation console to cost as much as $1,800 and is currently targeting a 2028 release. A new handheld is also rumored to launch next year. https://bit.ly/4yV5IaE

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

14yo wanted to introduce me to Gen Z music and played me Back in Black. I told her I listened to it constantly when I was 14 but she didn’t believe me.

Chris Kendall reposted

Jane
@localnotail.bsky.social

Direct link to opt out of eBay genAI training model accountsettings.ebay.co.uk/ai-preferences

accountsettings.ebay.co.ukOpt out of training generative AI models
Kate Griffin@griffinkate.bsky.social

eBay users! Don't ignore today's email, even though it looks like a boring standard update to the User Privacy Notice. They want to use your data to train AI models. If you click the link over the words "the right to object", it takes you to a page with a toggle button letting you opt out.

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

Trying to imagine the kind of person who might be tempted by Amol Rajan merch

This post is unavailable.

Chris Kendall reposted

Anthony Zacharzewski
@anthonyzach.be

My late mother would be 91 now, and lived through war as a child. She was firmly anti-racist, married a Polish immigrant and would not have wanted to be used as a tissue-thin justification for people being racist in 2026.

Peter Whitewood@pwhitewood.bsky.social

Prejudices so suppressed they can only be ‘whispered’ in a national newspaper.

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

Pope Leo could pull a shit stunt like this and I’d call him a wanker

Alex Hern@hern.bsky.social

do think there's a danger of looking at extremely cool shit like a car driving upside down then doing a kickflip before landing, and convincing yourself it's actually lame because the guy funding it is a white supremacist

Chris Kendall reposted

Smooth Dunk
@smoothdunk2.bsky.social
Alex Hern@hern.bsky.social

do think there's a danger of looking at extremely cool shit like a car driving upside down then doing a kickflip before landing, and convincing yourself it's actually lame because the guy funding it is a white supremacist

Chris Kendall reposted

Ian Bond
@cerianbond.bsky.social

Wise words from @lordrickettsp.bsky.social on BBC R4 Today after Trump’s abandonment of Ukraine: UK gov’t has to start a conversation with the people about the threats from Russia & what it means for us. Europe can’t keep hoping that life will return to normal, as long as Trump & Putin are in power.

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

Don’t know who needs this knowledge and perhaps everyone already knows but It’s Raining Tacos is essentially an arrangement of Pachelbel’s Canon in D

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

Ed Balls is a fucking idiot who doesn’t understand how EU accession negotiations work

John Rentoul@rentouljohn.bsky.social

Ed Balls not holding back on Europe (podcast with George Osborne)

Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

It’s the usual Westminster/Whitehall projection where they want desperately to believe that big members states run everything and so behave as if they do. But they don’t. And it’s another sign that the UK has learned nothing and hasn’t changed.

Chris Kendall reposted

Cllr Dr Alex Powell
@apowelllaw.bsky.social

Absurd. Unhinged. And breathtakingly dumb. All at the same time. It is moments like these where the UK declines to act like a serious country and falls headlong into self-parody. www.rte.ie/entertainmen...

rte.ieSally Rooney's books to be withdrawn from sale in the UKFaber has confirmed it will stop supplying Sally Rooney's books in the UK, saying it cannot pay the Irish author royalties because of her pledge to support the banned group Palestine Action.
Chris Kendall
@ottocr.at

Are you reading John @gruber.foo?

Steve Peers@stevepeers.bsky.social

It's legitimate for the EU, the UK, Canada and others to support their Ukrainian ally. If Musk is going to (in effect) assist Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine's allies should sanction Starlink, X and Tesla. At the very least, governments (and people) should stop using his fucking site already.

Chris Kendall reposted

Nick Craw🇪🇺🇨🇦🇬🇱🇹🇭
@nickcraw.bsky.social

I really dont think we talk about this week enough. This week marked THE critical change in Ukraine war: Trump & USA support for Putin has largely been "by ommision" up to now. This week marked the tipping point when the USA moved to *actively* backing Russia in its war. This is now a new era.

Steve Peers@stevepeers.bsky.social

It's legitimate for the EU, the UK, Canada and others to support their Ukrainian ally. If Musk is going to (in effect) assist Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine's allies should sanction Starlink, X and Tesla. At the very least, governments (and people) should stop using his fucking site already.