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Tom Fisher

@drsamaki

OfDIA/DSIT. Ex-Privacy International. PhD African Studies from University of Edinburgh. Posts on digital identity, DPI, and human rights. Views own.

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Latest posts by Tom Fisher @drsamaki

Preview
UK supreme court hearing interrupted by history podcast played from judge’s phone Proceedings briefly halted after audio from The Rest Is History broadcast over the courtroom speakers

Lord Briggs will forever be kicking himself that he didn’t say, as he turned off the podcast, “The rest is silence”.
www.theguardian.com/law/2026/feb...

07.02.2026 20:11 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
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Farewell, CIA World Factbook; you’ll be remembered most of all for your weirdly precise estimates of country’s Population.

05.02.2026 09:12 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Tautologous headline: King Harold coins could ONLY come from 1066!

…. Too soon?

20.01.2026 14:53 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Preview
Thailand suspected money-laundering scheme investigation pulls in World | Biometric Update Authorities in Thailand have seized several of World's iris biometrics scanners from a partner as part of an investigation into money laundering allegations.

World has unexpectedly had their orbs seized in Thailand. www.biometricupdate.com/202601/thail...

12.01.2026 16:58 👍 1 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1

This is indeed fantastic news. My daughter ended up in ICU with a complication of Chicken Pox. If other kids (and their parents) are spared this, I’m delighted.

02.01.2026 15:11 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Happy “When is Bin Day” Day to all who celebrate.

25.12.2025 08:55 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Sorry! But, thanks for sharing! And thanks to @marcusolang.substack.com

18.12.2025 20:33 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

You’re right on the cause (and, by the way, what a depressing career for someone able to write eloquently in their second or third language).

But that doesn’t take away from the brilliance of that piece from @sirosenbaum.bsky.social! So much now about Kenyan English makes sense now!

18.12.2025 19:31 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Appreciate this piece from Marcus but the piece that’s missing from this essay is the fact that Kenyans and Indians are the primary content moderators or “clean up crew” for the commercially available AI data sets. So yes, he’s right to be upset at the implication but the next step is asking “why?”

18.12.2025 16:36 👍 15 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 0

Die Hard with a Vengeance is also a Christmas movie.

Yes, it’s set in summer, but it has endless Christmas references, jokes, Characters humming carols etc.

02.12.2025 08:48 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Dear Ars Technica,
I wish to draw to your attention the error in the image for this article.That’s no moon.

26.11.2025 10:47 👍 5 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

You’ve earned enough credit by now that I let “favourably quoting the guy who wrote 1421” slide.

23.11.2025 14:54 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Wish I had an interesting anecdote for this. My own career path is just so cliched, you’re seen it a thousand times. (lecturing in North African history at a Tanzanian University/road safety charity in Huddersfield/privacy NGO/civil service).

23.11.2025 14:50 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

We’d miss you, Gary!

12.11.2025 17:38 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I might be being unfair, given that the name:
A) originated, as I understand it, with African Americans;
B) it is appropriate to have a name so closely linked to a particular time and place as Thom shows; and
C) Charles Lindbergh’s views weren’t known at the time.

11.11.2025 14:59 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

But: I’m sorry, I have trouble getting over the name, and the grim irony of something so wedded to African America experience and the Harlem Renaissance is associated with an America First Nazi sympathiser.

Maybe a rebrand is in order?

11.11.2025 14:59 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

A tour-de-force on the history of the lindy hop, written with an infectious joy that appeals even to someone like me who can barely manage the Hokey Cokey.

11.11.2025 14:59 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0

This is good news! The weapon we have against the AIs conquering the world isn’t military resistance, or that humans are capable of love: it’s cat memes.

And if there’s anything the human race is good at, it’s producing inane nonsense on social media. The world is safe.

01.11.2025 18:52 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

I originally included a footnote on this very issue in my PhD on the political history of Kilimanjaro. However, I followed the advice of a friend and removed it.

I have regretted it ever since.

01.11.2025 09:55 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Apple News headline on a click bait article featuring a oharoh’s anus

Apple News headline on a click bait article featuring a oharoh’s anus

I don’t know what to worry more about:
A) the subeditor who decided that “Pharoh’s anus” would make it click bait; or
B) the algorithm that decided I was a Pharoh’s anus kind of guy.

22.10.2025 07:45 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Today in anonymisation is hard:

bsky.app/profile/waff...

16.10.2025 23:26 👍 3 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0

Was a picture of a larger weevil also submitted to the contest; did they choose the lesser of two weevils?

16.10.2025 13:06 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Update: no.

12.10.2025 13:04 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Will I be able to understand MacOS 26 if I’ve not seen MacOS16 to 25?

16.09.2025 17:10 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
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Clever people of BlueSky, help me out:
a) Putnam’s ant on a beach drawing a caricature of Winston Churchill is disturbingly similar to an AI Chatbot, but why isn’t it? And:
b) does that mean I’m a brain in a vat or not?

31.08.2025 16:54 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

They’ve also gone to lengths to capitalise the ‘W’, putting it at the start of a verb-less sentence - grammar be damned - after what clearly should have been a colon.

31.08.2025 12:34 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

My daughter ended up in the ICU after one of the rare complications to chickenpox. While she made a full recovery, I’m delighted that no other kid has to go through that. Brilliant news that the vaccination will be offered on the NHS!

29.08.2025 06:40 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Great stuff. I know that these are in no way have personalities, but I do find it amusing how often AI comes across as just being really lazy.

For LLMs, it’s always Friday afternoon, with a hangover, in a job they hate.

27.08.2025 14:27 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0

Hehe President POO-tihn.

Yes, I have been spending the a lot of time with my 5-year olds this summer holiday, why do you ask?

17.08.2025 15:57 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

This article also flagged to me how many US systems break with the end of birthright citizenship.

30.06.2025 10:46 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0