🍺 William Ryan
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williamryanpubs.bsky.social
🍺 William Ryan
@williamryanpubs.bsky.social
660 followers 770 following 470 posts

🍺 Sydney, Australia

Pubs | Hotels | Wine | Bridge | Mahjong | Backgammon | Crossword author & solver | Beer | Cricket | Rugby | Dewey Decimal System | Vexillology | Monopoly |
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
anthonyetherin.bsky.social
Emit a tale woven one vowel at a time.

#palindrome
October 1, 2026 at 6:56 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
michaelwestbiz.bsky.social
"Shakespeare declared that she had a “professional relationship with REDACTED”
@sarahrussell.bsky.social FOIs reveal #NACC still beset by conflict of interest woes
#auspol
michaelwest.com.au/the-nacc-sti...
The NACC still doesn't know what a conflict-of-interest is - Michael West
Conflict-of-interest issues continue to trouble the National Anti-Corruption Commission, while questions remain about who it recruits.
michaelwest.com.au
September 29, 2026 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
slate.com
Trump’s mental state just got put on full display. It’s not pretty. slate.trib.al/VCHJRGO
Is Trump All There? A New Interview Gives Us Five Serious Reasons to Wonder.
We just got an unfettered view into the mind of the world’s most powerful person. It’s alarming, to say the least.
slate.trib.al
October 2, 2026 at 9:42 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
youranoncentral.bsky.social
Every time Trump blames Ukraine for the energy crisis
• Left Side: Depicts a screaming, crying figure with a U.S. flag superimposed over Donald Trump, labeled with dialogue pleading for territorial concessions to Russia. • Right Side: Depicts the stylized "Chad" character with a Ukrainian flag overlaid, responding with a dismissal.
October 2, 2026 at 10:04 AM
williamryanpubs.bsky.social
Jentacular libations à the Paris End of Fern Rouge.

Friday’s usual #crosswordsinthepub from the SMH/Age, authored by DA aka @dontattempt.bsky.social

Went soft on us, this week.

**SPOILERS**
October 2, 2026 at 1:32 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
meganwachspress.bsky.social
It's unattractive to brag but I figured out in January 2025 that the entire AI pitch was to professional status-insecure men who wanted secretaries and in a world where women had achieved educational parity and now the CEO of Nvidia says he's offloading cognitively to an LLM rather than his wife/PA.
mford.bsky.social Matt Ford @mford.bsky.social · 11d
Ezra Klein asked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang about AI making kids worse at math and reading. Huang’s reply: “Does it matter?”

Then he said he doesn’t know his own address or phone number. “We’re going to lose some fine intellectual dexterity.” www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/o...
So the message of this research out of China, where you were seeing a lot of kids using A.I. to help them, was that when they were using the A.I., they were getting things done faster. But it turned out that the skills they were learning were not holding, that their actual personal performance, at least in the way we traditionally measure it, was degrading. What do you think when you hear that? The last part — I completely agree. Try to get a kid to do long division right now. The multiplication table is starting to be forgotten. Doing square roots, my goodness. Basic math is being forgotten. Does it matter? That’s my question for you. Yeah. I don’t think it does. I don’t think it does. But there must be some set of skills that matter. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But maybe not those. We’re going to discover new ones. Just maybe not those. There are a lot of skills that don’t matter. My first confession, I actually don’t know my address. And I —— I don’t really believe that to be true. It’s completely true. Janine will tell you and Lori will tell you. One day I had to pump gas — it was a few years ago. They needed my ZIP code, and I panicked. I didn’t know my ZIP code. I don’t know my telephone number. I forget these things. I can live with it. But let me take the other side because I don’t want to fall into a thing where, because some skills can be safely offloaded —— Yeah. I also can’t get anywhere without a mapping system now. Never could, frankly. But I’m a big reader. And one of the skills I really value, one of the capacities I have that I really value is an attention span formed on physical books. You’re a big reader. I’ve read about the kind of reading you do. And there is, prior to A.I., a lot of concern and noticing among college professors and others that the way people use the internet has probably shortened attention spans. Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off. Some skills can be safely given away. Others are valuable. They are capacities that are needed for that flexibility, for that creative thinking, for that focus. It can’t be the case that everything can be traded off. Yeah. Well, I think that we’re going to lose some finer intellectual dexterity, but we’re going to be better systems thinkers. Today’s engineers are far better systems thinkers than I was when I graduated from school. But I was a much better transistor thinker. What do you mean by systems thinker? They think of large systems. Today’s computers have trillions, hundreds of trillions of transistors in them. When I first graduated from school, the first chip I worked on had 200 transistors. I knew every one of them by name. No engineer does that today. Most engineers now work well above the transistor, well above the functionality, and they’re cobbling things together to do things. So you need to think much more about systems and interactions of systems. So some of the lower-level knowledge is gone.
September 24, 2026 at 7:18 PM
williamryanpubs.bsky.social
#crosswordsintheppub on a Friday is usually a jentacular mission; day got away from me.

Five bells in Sydney.
🍊 Negroni time.

The first half went in, very swiftly; next quarter, logically. Last SW sector - wtf, DA?
@dontattempt.bsky.social

Will revisit.

**SPOILERS**
September 25, 2026 at 7:19 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
andrewgigacz.bsky.social
Congratulations to A SONIC DICK.

#BrownlowMedal
andrewgigacz.bsky.social Gigz @andrewgigacz.bsky.social · 14d
To spice up a likely boring #BrownlowMedal count, anagrams of some past winners:
1. ED SAW NAN
2. TERRIBLE SON
3. NO SHAME, JJ?
4. BOUNCINESS
5. DUNNY, NO BATH
6. I TRIM NUTS AND...
7. ...LARGE DICK TIP (FAR END)
8. DOC'S GROIN. LOL
9. IN A SHOWDOWN? EE!
10. MR SHREWD IN AFL. LOL
11. TRAIN/SWEAT
September 21, 2026 at 12:32 PM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
ellisjrosen.bsky.social
Book editor to parrot “does it have to be in third person?”
September 22, 2026 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
sjdictionary.bsky.social
To COMMUTE. v.a. [commuto, Latin.]
1. To exchange; to put one thing in the place of another; to give or receive one thing for another.
2. To buy off, or ransom one obligation by another.

johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/1755/commute...
September 22, 2026 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
dontattempt.bsky.social
From radio listeners, googling a former sweetheart:

ex-ploring
pastporting
orbiting
relapsing
biopeeping
rearviewing
wherenowism
ghost-gazing
ROMO - Regret Of Missing Out
September 23, 2026 at 8:38 PM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
dontattempt.bsky.social
Remember - a musician who ignores the conductor is a floutist. If done brilliantly however, a flauntist
September 18, 2026 at 9:07 PM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
fritinancy.bsky.social
Love this.
kottke.org kottke.org @kottke.org · 17d
Walking Men Worldwide: a collection of pedestrian traffic signals from around the world. I love all of these little people. The Warsaw one reminds me somewhat of Rocky from Project Hail Mary. [kottke.org]
Walking Men Worldwide
Artist Maya Barkai assembled a collection of pedestrian traffic signals from around the world: Walking Men Worldwide. I love all of these little people. The Warsaw one reminds me somewhat of Rocky from
kottke.org
September 18, 2026 at 7:22 PM
williamryanpubs.bsky.social
@dontattempt.bsky.social

Don’t usually rant about the Age/SMH Target - we know they are prudes, out of touch and usually stupid.

But, today…!

No scarily, ibis, iris, bias, risibly, icily, airily
September 18, 2026 at 11:02 PM
williamryanpubs.bsky.social
I resemble those remarks.
dontattempt.bsky.social David Astle (alias DA) @dontattempt.bsky.social · 17d
EGGCORNS (logical malapropisms):

peak your interest
feeble position
pass mustard
wonderlust
mute point
tenderhooks
winfall
free reign
nerve-wrecking
old-timer’s disease
give it your upmost
September 18, 2026 at 8:41 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
shanamd.bsky.social
I am SORRY for sharing something that was posted on the other place, but this is too good.
The future pope at a party with a caption “they don’t know I’m the future pope”
September 17, 2026 at 11:06 PM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
strangerous.bsky.social
The NACC explains why they currently have just 2 case workers managing all referrals, despite having more than enough in their budget for more staff.
Apparently they’ve been mismanaging their own budget.🤦‍♂️
Does anything function correctly at the NACC? 🙄
September 18, 2026 at 2:03 AM
williamryanpubs.bsky.social
Friday’s jentacular edition of #crosswordsinthepub hails (not hales!) from Fern Rouge, Sydney, Australia, cultural home of the Rabbitohs.

DA aka @dontattempt.bsky.social has stopped me with three short.

A couple more vessels of thinking juice, and will reengage.

**SPOILERS**
September 18, 2026 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
altnps.bsky.social
It’s funny, but also not funny at the same time.
September 16, 2026 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
hollyhoye.bsky.social
If we aren’t doing this everywhere, what are we even doing?

Annual Toronto dog swim before they close down the outdoor pools for the season:
September 9, 2026 at 2:48 PM
williamryanpubs.bsky.social
@dontattempt.bsky.social
September 17, 2026 at 8:02 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
anthonyetherin.bsky.social
Rot in a jar of edam I made for a janitor.

#palindrome
September 8, 2026 at 5:59 AM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
dontattempt.bsky.social
My mum (94) asked for a simple definition of “personal algorithm”

I went for “it’s a recipe made of all your traceable choices”. I think she’s even more bewildered. Maybe I am too
September 12, 2026 at 9:45 PM
Reposted by 🍺 William Ryan
secretchimp.bsky.social
An Australian political party needs to make a local equivalent. And force Hanson to watch it on repeat. Not expecting anything from the duopoly though: those hungry ghosts haven't realised they're dead ready.
emathion.bsky.social Emathion 📯 @emathion.bsky.social · 23d
The French made a short film about what could happen after all immigrants would follow the ‘white, angry old man’s’ advice to go back where they came from.
September 12, 2026 at 11:06 PM
williamryanpubs.bsky.social
@dontattempt.bsky.social
September 11, 2026 at 10:26 PM