As America's most pro-business leader in a generation, I will choose one company each week and accuse them of witchcraft

Autistic traits likely evolved 100k years ago and facilitated humans' ability to make tools and other things that conferred advantages. Later, they became useful for understanding things like physics, social systems, and the law. Autistic traits exist for good reason! 5/x

we have gone from a world in which we were told not to cite wikipedia because it was unreliable to a world where wikipedia might be the only reliable source left on the internet and we all owe a lot to the pedantic nerds who got us there

Any journalist quoting this absurd, invented £234 billion number cited by Farage/Reform should make absolutely clear that it has been withdrawn by *its own authors* (the Centre for Policy Studies) after they admitted it contained several major errors (1/3)

Every so often I find seven short poems from new books in my reading pile and put them together with the idea that people might like to read one a day over the week (binge reading is also fine, of course). Here's the latest selection:

My very limited understanding of the technology had me believing that hallucinations were the wrong concept because (1) everything LLMs do is repeat statistical probabilities, and so have no grounding in reality or truth, and (2) LLMs are not beings and do not perceive and so do not hallucinate. 1/

Every so often I find seven short poems from new books in my reading pile and put them together with the idea that people might like to read one a day over the week (binge reading is also fine, of course). Here's the latest selection:

Delighted that the new @stephencollins.bsky.social cartoon for the Guardian pays tribute to the great autumn hymn of British school assemblies, with its jewelled grass and refuelling jet planes. I did a deep dive into its history here: someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/jet-planes...

Sure the new moderation policy doesn't make any sense, but all of us on this website are already in violation of another, higher rule

I’m biased, because it’s Norfolk, but this pingo resurrection project is glorious, joyous & hopeful. Worth a read

Thirty years on, I’ve forgotten a lot about starting university, but I still remember the smell of certain friends’ rooms

Very much enjoying the culture of trust and respect implicit in the installation of room usage monitoring devices on academics' office doors today. Imagine my shock on discovering that managers' doors remain unsullied…

Delighted that the new @stephencollins.bsky.social cartoon for the Guardian pays tribute to the great autumn hymn of British school assemblies, with its jewelled grass and refuelling jet planes. I did a deep dive into its history here: someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/jet-planes...

An actual quote from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade Too often people go to university to ‘explore research and knowledge’ Look forward to Wes S saying 'too often people go to hospital to have operations' or Heidi Alexander saying 'too often people go to the station to catch a train'

Pet Shop Boys are showing their age

Debit the lot to our chequered country, crediting even so her haunted music. Loyal incoherence not official but now and then inspired: when circling Heathrow on hold we are entertained by Windsor’s scaled-down perfect replicas -- Geoffrey Hill

Becoming increasingly clear we’re gonna have to build a parallel infrastructure for all the media we really love. The reason all of this is happening under the color of law is hyperconsolidation, dissent being traded straight up for merger approval, or fear of harassment.

'And that underlying rhythm probably sounds quite familiar: it’s like a heartbeat. Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter because it sounds very close to natural, heart-felt speech': argh, this kind of thing (from Shakespeare's Globe website) drives me mad: someflowerssoon.substack.com/p/10-reasons...

The censorship will continue until free speech improves

📣 Applications are OPEN for BCLT Translators-in-Residence 2026! ✨ We're offering two BCLT translation residencies for UK-based literary translators. Find out more: www.uea.ac.uk/groups-and-c... #LiteraryTranslation #Translation #CallForTranslators

A generation of academics torture themselves in order to boost student satisfaction scores, and then the bosses decide students will be just as well off with a chatbot that tells them "Your work is deeply satisfactory — more than that, it meets the criteria for an upper second"

I thought I saw some auks, but it was just a skua flying backwards.

I collect pictures of gate latches. The endless minute variations and human ingenuity appeal to me greatly, and the countless hands that have moved them. This one is between Near and Far Sawrey, Lake District and has a lovely combination of textures between the iron, wooden gate, and stone gatepost.

If being poor makes people racist, please explain to me why the richest man in the world is very, very racist?

No ideas but in "things"

A man in Washington, DC, plays the Imperial March from Star Wars while following patrolling soldiers. One of the soldiers threatens to call the police.

After making a dumb joke on here about the creative side of academic writing as "unfunded hobbit research", I then wrote a serious post about it

After making a dumb joke on here about the creative side of academic writing as "unfunded hobbit research", I then wrote a serious post about it

I think about this poem by Ian Duhig — about Jo Cox, the Labour MP assassinated by a man shouting ‘Britain first’ — every day at the moment. No other contemporary poet has looked so clearly at the political reality of the far right as a minority who must always be appeased

There is little or no evidence of any significant rise in support for Tommy Robinson during the last 10-15 years. The 4% strongly supportive within the 1/10 who approve are also steady. 4% is a large target niche (2 million people) from whom to raise money and to bring 50-100k out marching

I am having a hard time reconciling "Charlie Kirk was a fierce advocate of open dialogue and free expression" with "we must identify and persecute everyone who is insufficiently mournful"

City of York Council, per a statement by Labour Council leader Claire Douglas, have estimated the cost of dealing with flags and related graffiti at around or over £¼m. That's in just the City of York Council area.

This was by no means a coincidence: theconversation.com/far-right-ex...

The Uncertainty of the Poet, by Giorgio de Chirico, 1913

So after days of Republicans blaming and vilifying Democrats and trans people for Kirk’s murder despite having no clue who the person was, we find out it’s a white guy from a Republican family in Utah who loved guns.

"What's wrong with putting a flag up?" they ask. Like saying, what's wrong with planting a geranium? Nothing wrong with it. But if you're bankrolled to go out, in groups, at night, planting *thousands* on public land and other people's front gardens, it becomes something other than horticulture.

I'd give my eye tooth to know how they did this

I need you to understand what this country feels like right now for those of us who look different. I'm sitting here, trying to plan for Saturday, make sure I don't even need to go to the corner shop for milk, like it's Christmas Day or lockdown. Why? Because I live near where Yaxley-Lennon will 1/

It’s symbolic, discriminatory violence. It’s illegal. It’s condoned by the authorities because they don’t dare act against it. And now it’s spreading UK-wide.

Jesus fucking christ

This is the kind of unfunded hobbit research we need ⬇️

This is a typo, he's actually talking about the bad old days of Tolkien, with his unfunded hobbit research *drops mic*

Just for fun, I'm going to give you some clips of the hate mail I got from being placed on Kirk's TPUSA Dangerous Professor list. Buckle up:

it’s so hard to keep up with mainstream news commentary; earlier this week it was an absolute travesty of justice that anyone should be held accountable for the things they posted on social media as if they meant them but, yesterday, we realised that social media posts reveal how evil you are

My sense of this -- from my own kids (students not here yet) -- is that this is a news event which has fully and suddenly intruded into a place where they (largely) felt safe: their phones. Even if they only knew CK from clips where he gets rinsed and mocked, he was a main character in that world.

University people calm down on the QR codes challenge

Absolutely insane this isn't front page news. Yeah, I know something happened in America last night. Last I checked I don't live there.

"Almost no one will have knowingly encountered someone who illegally entered the country, let alone seen them actually arrive on the beach at Dover. They just think there’s a crisis because other people keep telling them there is."

A Labour milestone. The Employment Rights Bill clears its last major hurdle in Parliament. Labour honours it promise to restore workers rights to help make workplaces fairer. @eastangliabylines.co.uk @stephenmcnair.bsky.social

No clear answers on whether mommy disappeared entirely behind hands during game of peekaboo Mommy's face was not visible from behind hands, and experts say they can't be sure