Bob

@bobherc

War Studies at KCL alum. Cyber, Maritime, CNI Defense. Journalism, Film, Music. I know a lot about cocktails. ILoF.

1,208 Following707 Followers379 Posts

Bluesky

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Bob@bobherc· 2d

Manifestly insane and idiotic people are running our government. They are using its tools to punish and humiliate their enemies. What country are we living in?

Bob@bobherc· Jul 24

Great piece over at @bindinghook.bsky.social about the recent OpenAI escape. Highly recommended:

The language of autonomy makes it tempting to treat harmful behavior as something the model did by itself. But the company selects the model, removes its safeguards, gives it tools, defines its objective, and supplies the computing power. Autonomy does not dissolve that responsibility. It makes it more important.

Bob@bobherc· Jul 9

Text stating, 'When someone shows you their Nazi tattoo, believe them.'

Bob@bobherc· Jun 25

www.ft.com/content/5c86...

“The Iranians are insisting on ships using the Iran route and paying tolls," one cargo insurance broker told the FT. “The US is telling ships to go the Omani route and escorting them with close air support. It is all going to end in tears."

Bob@bobherc· Jun 6

Happy D-Day everyone

A bottle of Vat 69 scotch with two small cups.

Bob@bobherc· Apr 17

I'm seeing this at 20 past, so a belated Cheers

Bob@bobherc· Apr 10

The two accusations of corruption-against Biden and against Swalwell-show that Trump isn't just targeting his political opponents. He is willing to work with Russian and Chinese intelligence services to target his political opponents.

Bob@bobherc· Jan 30

edition.cnn.com/2026/01/28/e...

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte told the World Economic Forum in Switzerland earlier this month that Moscow lost 1,000 troops a day in December.

“Not seriously wounded, dead,” he said.

“In the 1980s in Afghanistan, the Soviets lost 20,000 in 10 years. Now they lose 30,000 in one month,” Rutte said.

Bob@bobherc· Dec 25

The missus really knocked it outta the park this year. I've had this book by the wonderful @jonsavage.bsky.social on my list for a while.

Copies of the books 1966 by Jon Savage and Route 19 Revisited by Marcus Gray

Bob@bobherc· Oct 28

Well, closer to two, really: abcnews.go.com/Internationa...

Scene from Hunt for Red October with text: You've Lost Another One?

Bob@bobherc· Oct 28

To quote the estimable @scottjshapiro.bsky.social :

Skeet from Scott J Shapiro stating: If your post is more than an hour old, you were posting from another world

Bob@bobherc· Sep 21

With 267 followers, her Instagram account usually had modest reach but the post of her child attracted nearly 7,000 views, 90% from non-followers, half of whom were aged over 44 and 90% of whom were men.

Bob@bobherc· Sep 21

A good piece about a book that seems to be asking some of the most important questions about modern American life and government:

Constitutional conservatism has frozen the popular constitutional imagination. Beguiled by originalism, more and more people take the Constitution as cast in amber; they have forgotten their intrinsic and inalienable right to amend.

Left hanging in the air at the end of this rewarding book is a dark question: At what cost have we abandoned amendment? Textual change has long been seen as an alternative to political violence. So what happens when a nation rived by polarization, seemingly incapable of addressing its pathological fiscal situation and profoundly unjust legacies of oppression, cannot fix itself by constitutional reform? Does it abide in suffering? Or does it explode?

Bob@bobherc· Sep 10

The gang's leader, Johnny "Taz" Mulford, is a former sergeant in the US Army who was punished for conspiracy to commit bribery, theft and making false statements to military authorities. He is now the "country team leader" running UG Solutions' contract in Gaza.

Bob@bobherc· Aug 1

The Bureau, hands down one of the greats.

Screenshot of a scene from the TV show The Bureau. A man in a suit with the closed caption: Your feelings are your worst enemy.

Bob@bobherc· Jul 29

Stopped by the UK National Archives to check out the MI5:Official Secrets exhibition. Not a huge show, but has some really interesting stuff. Great to see the handwritten papers and gear. I'd recommend if you have an interest in espionage and history. Also recommend the bao at the Kew station!

Photo of a German spy and his typed confession

Courtyard of the national archives on a sunny day

Photo of the first camera purchased by MI5

A spy's secret radio transmitter in a briefcase

Bob@bobherc· Jul 26

This piece has some good stats and references to other papers: doi.org/10.1016/j.en...

Text or an academic article states: We found that cities with lower air conditioning ownership had higher risks of violent crime during hot days compared to moderate temperature days.

More frequent heat waves due to climate change are expected to more adversely impact the well-being of persons living without air conditioners (Huang et al. 2013). A previous study using data of aggravated assault in Dallas, Texas suggested a similar result; an inverted J-shaped relationship was found for outdoor temperature, and a shallow linear relationship was found for indoor climate-controlled temperature (Rotton and Cohn 2004). This impact can be greater for lower-income households, which are less likely to have air conditioners, live in neighborhoods with less vegetation and climate-controlled public buildings, and can less afford to use air conditioning even when it is available (i.e., energy disparity) (Heilmann et al. 2021).

Bob@bobherc· Jul 1

Really liked this quote from Vic:

Text states: Sometimes America seems like everything that's bad in England ganging up on you

Bob@bobherc· May 26

Picture of a man in a hotdog suit with the caption 'We're all trying to find the guy who did this' from I think you should leave

Bob@bobherc· May 1

I think @profsaunders.bsky.social makes a very good point in addition to yours, especially when we consider what effect his appointment will have:

Marco Rubio, Secretary of Institutions that Don't Matter to Trump

Bob@bobherc· Mar 8

Graphic stating: The first transgender suicide hotline is now up and running in the US. You can reach Trans Lifeline at 877-565-8860.

Bob@bobherc· Mar 2

The energy I bring to Bluesky

A picture of director John Ford in his old age with an expression of exhaustion and contempt on his face.

Bob@bobherc· Feb 28

Friday Cocktail Hour: Sazerac Rye Manhattan made Vermut Negre and a twist. And a cherry, because I threw my back out. Cin-cin.

A Manhattan cocktail with a lemon twist on a bookshelf.

Bob@bobherc· Feb 6

Following in @shaneharris.bsky.social footsteps, my wife and I went to Duke's recently and had a couple of dynamite drinks. Highly recommended if you haven't been.

Interior of Duke's cocktail bar showing two cocktails, a martini and a vesper

Bob@bobherc· Dec 24

Xmas Eve Cocktail Hour. Great way to get rid of extra egg whites when cooking.

A table with two cocktails on it, one in a couple and another in a collins glass with rich egg white foam on top of each

Bob@bobherc· Dec 7

Looks like Xmas came early this year!

Photo of a table with the book Maritime Strategy and Sea Denial by Milan Vego and a bottle of campari with a Christmas tree coozie on it

Bob@bobherc· Oct 28

I'm a little late to the party on this piece by @noupside.bsky.social but wow, she nailed it. Incredibly prescient and describes the worldview of someone *who owns* a social media platform: www.ribbonfarm.com/2018/11/28/t...

One thing that all of these groups have in common is a shared disdain for Terms of Service; the rules that govern conduct and attempt to set norms in platform spaces are inconveniences to be disregarded, at best. Combatants actively and systematically circumvent these attempts at digital defenses, turning the very idea of them into a target of trolling: the norms are illegitimate, they claim. The rules are unfair, their very existence is censorship!

Bob@bobherc· Oct 28

It's not a competition, but I must say Southern Maine Community College has a rather nice view as well:

The view from Southern Maine Community College campus: a beautiful, beach cove on a sunny day with boats moored in the water

Bob@bobherc· Oct 18

As @cait.bsky.social noted recently:

Woman staying, "what am I going to do with my thoughts? Keep them in my brain? Where I live?"

Bob@bobherc· Oct 13

Great piece: