I was talking briefly to @kjsanders.bsky.social last night about how engaging with computer architecture and systems through e.g. installing Linux, reshapes to some extent the way that you think about your interaction with computers. It helps strip away the obfuscating layers of the GUI...

I'm going to share two carves from previous years today. These are both of Pittenweem Pier, but in the right one, I added some details of the Scream by Munch to be funny... And I don't think anyone noticed it was Pittenweem Pier in the background. #PumpkinCarving

🌟 New preprint 🌟, by @olivia.science and me: 📝 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025). *Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists*. doi.org/10.31234/osf... 🧪

The Ig Nobel is incredible , one year an Indian guy won it for calculating the average surface area of an elephant and during his acceptance they had an elephant hold up a sign with the surface area of the scientist on it, they do showbiz better than the Oscars

New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft: Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf... 🧵 1/

Hey... You, yeah you. Psst, over here. *Opens grimy trench coat* Gay aliens, want some gay aliens?! Some trans pirates for ya missus? Lesbian witches? Yeah, check out these beauties! ✨Preorder Queer As Folklore from @manchesterup.bsky.social!✨ manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781807070397/

"We're going to create superintelligence" How about making outlook search work first. How about that

Reminder: anyone can found and edit a SFF magazine. There’s no regulatory body or hoops. You create the position for yourself. Many of these people are amazing— But mag Editors are just guys who decided to spend a lot of time on something they love. Just people.

Ah yes, because if there's one thing the youths on BookTok love, it's *checks notes* garlic aioli

Just gave my first proper lecture, teaching about systematic reviews and meta-analysis, to MSc students today and it was so lovely ⭐️ Really want to do more teaching now

If you want to be a good data manager, you have to get really comfortable with asking a lot of questions. When something is unclear or doesn't seem right, you can't settle or make assumptions. That's how you end up with bad data. Stay curious.

'Fellows and Foreign Members shall not engage in any form of discrimination, harassment, or bullying.' Royal Society Code of Conduct, Section 2, point 11: royalsociety.org/-/media/abou... See also Section 5, point 21. Hmmm.

Digging for dinosaurs, unearthing the impact of Women in Archaeology, Building equity in Engineering, showing resilience & determination in Comp Science after fleeing a war-torn home & more! Come celebrate the amazing achievements of Women in STEM this Ada Lovelace Day blogs.ed.ac.uk/ada-lovelace...

Happy Halloween Month to you all! I'm Moti and I'm a pumpkin carver, so I'll be posting lots of photos of my carved pumpkins this month. Below is my favourite ever carve: 'Low Light' on The Isle of May. Please check out my pumpkin images on my RedBubble shop! www.redbubble.com/people/MotiB...

This piece by @olivia.science et al is a fantastic read for anyone navigating AI in academia — I’ve included it in the reading for the lecture I’m giving to MSc students later this week

It seems unbelievable that some journals still keep digitized versions of journal articles from over a hundred years ago *paywalled*!

Add to this worrying list “Library Washing” - persuading very prestigious university institutions to contribute their digital library collections to OpenAI’s model, to lend legitimacy, in exchange for a handful of (reduced cost!) magic AI beans.

Sometimes I think about all the novels I judged in years past as ham-fisted, lazy writing because they had some cartoonish billionaire character prone to constantly confessing their most sociopathic and diabolical plans for humanity oops my bad

While I had been using rainbow parentheses for a while, I only recently found out about rainbow indentation thanks to @ijlyttle.bsky.social and @3mmarand.bsky.social 🌈 #rstats

“An emotional research team became tearful as they described how data shows the disease was slowed by 75% in patients.” What an absolutely incredible, joyous achievement for everyone involved. Hurrah for science and scientists! www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hello wonderful humans! Outwith would like to introduce you to their wonderful friends and research Partners in Participation. Join us on the 8th of October at 4pm to explore some collections, and hear about mental health, creative methods, and a whole bunch more! outwith25.eventbrite.com

#Edinburgh folks: free hackathon for 15-18 year olds on Sat 27th Sept. Build a project in a day. Free, beginner-friendly, and open to secondary students. Food, drinks, snacks, and swag are provided. At @codebasetech.bsky.social, Castle Terrace. Sign up at: lochdin-edinburgh.netlify.app Please share!

🚨ARC GIVEAWAY🚨 🌊 Locked boat murder mystery 🌊 A world haunted by digital ghosts 🌊 Dark Academia after the world ends Drop a wave 🌊 in the comments, like, repost and subscribe to be in with a chance to win an ARC of @rainewilson.bsky.social 's THE SALT ORACLE! UK/IE only, closes 23:59 BST 30/09

Things were better when computer was in room. Now everywhere is computer. This is bad. Computer should never have escaped room.

General submission open on Monday 22 September. We are looking for speculative fiction 5000 words and under. Our remit is very broadly fun, but don't self-reject - a truly superb story offers an enjoyment of it's own.

A plea to academic publishers: please stop publishing articles formatted in columns. It’s a pain for people using screen readers and is generally more difficult to read on a screen, which is likely how the majority of articles are read these days.

Will be interesting to see what replaces it. As I have said many times, Impact Factor/WOS and PubMed are the main barriers to innovation in sci comm [that's a statement of fact not a judgment] because most academics ignore anything that isn't included 2/2

Just passed my viva with minor corrections 🎉 Thanks so much to my examiners, my supervisors (Emily Sena, Malcolm Macleod, and Peter Kind), and to my lab mates for supporting me and organising a post-viva party

🚨 We are hiring! 🚨 Are you a software developer interested in supporting #OpenAccess publishing initiatives? Apply to be our Digital Library Software Developer, working across Edinburgh Diamond and the @scurlscottish.bsky.social Open Hosting service. elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Reminder: The existence of these in most Scottish supermarkets and corner shops is proof that anyone shilling for the notion that multiculturalism can't work on this island is a charlatan

"next-generation ‘end-to-end’ AI-powered solution" is today's compu-global-hyper-mega-net

If someone says you should do less of the art you love doing, they are not looking out for you. I love the below analogy because the people who love your art aren't going "I wish you'd do less, BE less." Especially if you're taking risks & developing your craft. There's always more to the journey.

THE K STANDS FOR KINDRED???? This whole time?

This is incredibly bleak, and incredibly sad. How is it possible to do responsible research assessment when research is produced and assessed in inherently exploitative and inequitable contexts? Is it possible?

A reminder that books exist. I say this because we have an opportunity to not make similar mistakes in the ecology of OA books that have collectively been made on journals. Community-led and collective funding are viable and operational alternatives to the more conservative approaches of APCs/BPCs.

@nlisn.bsky.social is attempting to assess the proportion/spread of neurodiversity across across all UK library sectors. If you identify as neurodivergent, with or without a formal diagnosis, or suspect you may be - please fill in our short survey! Reblogging/signal-boosting much appreciated!

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"We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically." www.ru.nl/en/research/...

Time for our annual update of "Open Research across disciplines". pdf: www.ukrn.org/disciplines/ K Reproducibility Network (UKRN) webpages: www.ukrn.org/disciplines/ Resources to add, please use (by 30/09/25): docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... @camillakgilmore.bsky.social @priyasilverstein.com

I see so much of this in academic funding calls ‘we are looking for projects that explore how AI can help to solve … hunger, violence against women and children, poverty, etc.’ But there’s no space in there to say: ‘um, what if AI is not the right tool for this’

Attention, sophonts! We've finished changing the locks and Escape Pod is now OPEN to all your amazing, amazing submissions! Consult our submissions page if you want to refresh your minds on what we're looking for - ignore that "CLOSED" bit at the top - and we hope to see rad work from you all!

Today's #PumpkinCarving is from 2019, the year I carved 31 pumpkins (mostly in October).

Check out our recent blog post, it's all about our training programme for the Autumn. Click through for more details and sign up or share with anyone who needs data management training in their lives. libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/datablog/202...

Funny, I thought that a guy using his social media platform to call for the overthrow of the UK government would be news

Essential reading: “AI Scraping of OA Content Warrants a Collective Response” doi.org/10.21428/ae6... from @punctumbooks.bsky.social

To call any research hobbyist is to deliberately demean it, as if what really has value is 'stuff which flatters the plans of a here to day gone tomorrow Minister' Specialisation is one thing, but what of breadth, of truly supporting a community? You can't build a University for Current Fads & hope

Why is it always a children's book? When do we get a celebrity who decides to edit a Festschrift or prepare an annotated edition of a primary source text?

As ever, threats from the right are the real risk to academic freedom - and we need to make a concerted effort on the left to wrestle back that language from the people who have successfully monopolised it over the past few years.

Wrote this on the train home from Metascience. Can’t quite believe this one needed saying, but I really think that if conversations about research integrity and open science don’t take academic bullying seriously, we’ll keep perpetuating the same system that science reform was trying to change.