Me, reading and studying history: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!! Me, realizing I am living through a historical event: Well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

Anyone marking Wikipedia's 25th anniversary today can believe it’s an incredible success story for commons-based peer production and that there're aspects of the site that sometimes piss them off. Let's hope it lasts a while longer. My latest for WIRED:

He seems to certainly know and understand about the Schleswig-Holstein business

Today is 2026-01-08, the sun sets at 16:25:40 and the grand auld stretch tonight was 19 mins and 57 secs. #GrandStretch #TheGrandStretchIsBack

"Almost all the infrastructure we now use to find, access, and read books in virtual environments... has existed for two decades. So why are the vast majority of digitized books still inaccessible on the web?" Monica Westin says it doesn't need to be this way. asteriskmag.com/issues/12-bo...

Found the coolest website that takes random found cassette tapes people submit and digitizes them. I’m listening to an NYC hip hop station from 1994: intertapes.net

This Railway Polka is utterly daft; obviously I love it.

Today is 2025-12-27, the sun sets at 16:11:47 and the grand auld stretch tonight was 06 mins and 04 secs. #GrandStretch #TheGrandStretchIsBack

While I was already in history thanks to Tintin and Sharpe, Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie opened a whole new world for me when I was 14. It was then I started getting interested in archives. One of the first pages I started editing with Wikipedia in 2002 was Peter

‘It’s frightening’: How far right is infiltrating everyday culture

"tell me we didn't just fire a dozen $500,000 missiles at a $200 camel" "sir, no evidence of any camel present, sir!"

North By Northwest is a surprisingly modern movie because it’s about a guy whose explanation for drunk driving is he’s being gangstalked.

I think we need a mega thread of everyone's craziest archive stories.

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

Very pleased that @leedsunilibraries.bsky.social is able to sponsor this competition👇 📸We’d love to see your photos of science and scientists in the UK. Categories are: 🧑‍🤝‍🧑People in Science 🔬Microscopy images 📊Non-photography media 🖼️Image sets 🐛Wildlife & nature 🌃Astronomy 👀General

On the other site, I once quipped that one of the best public outreach activities that historians could do was accurately maintaining Wikipedia pages. This might be more prescient nowadays…

People complain about the January gym goers- well it’s December and I’d like to know what you’re all doing in our pubs.

Thank you kindly, but the Mounties would like a word. youtu.be/mNF8uiVsm0M?...

Good Lord

Please GWR, save me from having to take cross country to get to Milton Keynes

Zero tolerance for doomerism. Stop lazily accepting that everything is screwed forever. Stop normalising low expectations. That’s part of the problem & it’s what the bastards want. It’s also a product of privilege. People in more desperate situations don’t have the option to just sit back & shrug.

My fuel for the last few hours of writing an essay so this tracks

It‘s that time of year again when students ask for extensions. When they do, consider this: do you think academics always submit book manuscripts, chapters for edited collections, reviews or corrections for articles, books and chapters to editors on time? Do you?

I'm hosting this event on Sunday. Please do join

Are you an @openuniversity.bsky.social student interested in speaking to other students about politics? If so, join @oupips.bsky.social – a great way to mark UK Parliament Week! #UKPW Find out more here: oupips.org.uk @ukparliament.parliament.uk

It's time for a real change and you can learn how with a warm welcome from @oupolitics.bsky.social into Parliament Week #UKPW

I've written an article for the @oustudents.bsky.social The Hoot about the event thehootstudents.com/editing-for-...

I've written an article for the @oustudents.bsky.social The Hoot about the event thehootstudents.com/editing-for-...

AND TROY PARROTT DOES IT

I was thinking a few weeks ago about the lack of notable historical deaths due to opium overdose. Don't recall ever reading one in a history book, although it must have been rather regular. Reading The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, & Mughals by Stephen Dale regarding Safavid Isma‘il II

I'm running a Disability History Month edit-a-thon for Wikipedia for @openuniversity.bsky.social @oustudents.bsky.social. So happy that @oulibrary.bsky.social has done a disability history reading list to get students started university.open.ac.uk/library/libr... www.oustudents.com/ents/event/2...

In fairness, occasionally they sell out to the Russians.

The Wikipedia Signpost republished this Grokipedia essay today (from @techpolicypress.bsky.social last week). Signpost is the unofficial (but sorta official) newspaper of the English Wiki community, and is reliably useful for all things Wikipedia "Inside Baseball." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...

My annual post about how the Morning Star reported the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 hatfulofhistory.com/2014/11/07/h...

pre-writing a devastating obituary for your enemy is god-tier hating of a kind you don’t often see anymore. renaissance haterism. beautiful stuff.

The FT again bursts the AI hype with actual reality. AI’s awfully exciting until companies want to use it: Rightmove edition - on.ft.com/491pzLj via @FT

This is how I flirt

Lost grave of daughter of Black abolitionist Olaudah Equiano found by A-level student

A historical parody film that actually looks great and sounds funny. Not sure the last time I've laughed so hard at a film trailer www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4aL...

Once again, @mcsweeneys.net does not miss. ------------------------------------------------ "In 2004, you saw some college guy using me and thought, 'What a lazy cheater.' Now you’d think, 'At least he’s not asking Gemini.' In a few years, you’ll say, 'Wow, look, a human being who can read.'"

Mildly related: I've lost count of how many young women approached me after I appeared on University Challenge. Core message: revelatory for them to see a clever, confident, blue-haired queer woman with a nose ring calmly inhabiting a competition space. Representation matters.

I'm incredibly pleased and delighted to have been elected as President of the new @oupips.bsky.social society for @oustudents.bsky.social. We have a strong leadership team and I'm looking forward to all the events and community building we will be doing over the next year. @oupolitics.bsky.social

A reminder to all, that our AGM takes place at 5pm today. Everyone is welcome, and all committee positions are open for election. Sign up here - events.teams.microsoft.com/event/f504f6...

As I'm spending another Saturday night creating a Powerpoint for @oupips.bsky.social, I'm growing very concerned. Not at my lack of social life, but the fact that I'm getting really good at PowerPoint

WRITE YOUR DAMN LONG BOOK

This is horrifying, but I’m glad the Wikipedians are safe. It could have been far worse, given that the MAGA fascists have been trying to incite violence against Wikipedia editors, and trumpists are defenders of pedophiles like the gunman. gothamist.com/news/gunman-...

This is fabulous & one of the many reasons I’m really proud to be an @openuniversity.bsky.social student! @ougradsch.bsky.social @oulibrary.bsky.social #NeverTooOld

I had a chat with Ashley Mackie, head of the Student Union for Open University Scotland, about loneliness when studying remotely. We also talk briefly about University Challenge and how special it felt to represent the UK's largest student body on national TV. youtu.be/HtGB7CYbXiY?...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_... The coffee drinker outlived the experiment itself.