Calling #Skystorians #MedievalSky the 49th Latin and Palaeography Summer School (formerly the Keele summer school) is open for bookings. 27-31 July in Birmingham. 👇 palaeography.uk/study/short-...

“We cannot say that the United States’ actions are against international law, but we condemn Iran’s retaliatory actions as against international law,” is neither a coherent nor a compelling position.

Welsh cakes for St David's day.

I saw a show called Hiraeth at the Priddy Folk festival a few years ago and it remains one of the funniest and most moving shows I have ever seen. There were Welsh cakes!

'And we'll be hearing more from Gerald of Wales later in the programme' was not on my bingo card for this morning, but I'll take it! On @cerysmatthews.bsky.social wonderful 6 Music show...

Of course, it is unlawful. Even the "pre-emptive" justification is half-hearted guff. Of course, it is stupid. Wise US politicians once realised a rules-based international order was in their interests. That is being thrown away. And most of all, and regardless of the above, it is wrong.

Plans to make refugee a status of perpetual limbo will do nothing to stop people who need help seeking it nor make it possible for them to rebuild their lives and contribute. I call for humane and effective asylum reforms because I am true Labour, not blue Labour. www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

Every now and then today I remember Matt Goodwin losing and just have a little happy moment.

Party where key members want to return to household taxation (e.g. Danny Kruger) need to be careful about losing it over household voting. The former will lead to more of the latter.

Those pesky woke progressive sectarian Islamists, apparently.

Hai from this little creepy crawlie, lurking for more than six centuries in this fourteenth-century compilation of religious and other texts now @theulspeccoll.bsky.social (MS Mm.4.41).

Over the past eighteen months, the political science consensus on the nature of Labour's vote has been absolutely correct - and yet also completely ignored by pundits and strategists who continue to get it wrong.

Matt Badloser, in fact.

As the analysis starts of the Gorton and Denton result, I wanted to flag some aspects that my experience yesterday suggests are being over or under-played (Caveats - I went to Longsight, Gorton and Denton town centres and spoke to as many people as I could, but it was mostly during the working day)

Matt Goodwin has been sent back to Substack. The Conservatives have lost their deposit. Keir Starmer has been told left wing voters are not a guarantee for Labour. Overall, British politics could do worse than follow Gorton and Denton.

If Labour has any sense at all it will stop fighting the left and dumping its climate commitments. Dump the blue brigade. Start thinking about alliances, pacts, and voting reform. Expect the next government to be a coalition; make sure they're a big party in it.

: Half of UK universities face a deficit next year. Up to 50 could close. That is a sector in crisis. Simply blaming a tuition fee freeze and nudging fees up with inflation is not a plan. Where is the long-term strategy for higher education? #Universities #HigherEducation

'Research Professional News made FOI requests to all 24 members of the Russell Group and 10 members of the ResearchPlus mission group of universities.' 24 institutions responded: their redundancies increased from just over 2,200 in the 2023 calendar year to nearly 4,400 in 2025. 1/3

Dirty Business is brilliant. Makes me want to riot, but it's brilliant.

I'm teaching the Wife of Bath next week.

Every political call for a public inquiry is an admission that the political mechanisms of accountability failed in real time.

The campus here at @unisouthampton.bsky.social looking alright this afternoon.

This is genuinely really bad, the kind of shit that guarantees a bad outcome. Very dodgy

Insightful reporting by David Allen Green at the Financial Times on why Palantir data-analytics defence contracts with UK government should raise concern.

An idiot. Humans burn the same amount of calories per day whether we read a lot of books, write a lot, do complex calculations, or not. The same is not true of AI models. His argument only makes sense if he proposes to eradicate humans.

NEW How Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence How a close read of public domain documents show how MoD was commercially colonised by Palantir By me, at FT www.ft.com/content/5207...

'It seems time is up for the system that protected the English higher education sector from the worst ravages of austerity after 2012. It was always, as the OBR called it, a ‘fiscal illusion’.' A "Modest Proposal" for rethinking university finance.

Good grief.

But isn't there a third type, that articles like this are showing? That, if this happens, the sector remains viable? Lots of consumption in modern economies is driven by these classes - including products/ services with AI in. Doesn't that mean the AI sector is eating it's own future consumers?

Former public prosecutor Nazir Afzal on the speed at which the police have acted on Andrew's misconduct allegations compared to the Epstein trafficking allegations: "When the state is the alleged victim, the state moves at pace. When women are the alleged victims, the state takes its time"

There is no nothing so stupid that this man won't do it.

Countries that don't eat crisps will die, says crisp salesman.

It took me four attempts to read this headline aloud to my OH because I could not get past the first part of the sentence without laughing. Then I could not stop laughing about what a let down it would be when I got there. (It was).

Hello my friend, the mandatory work laptop update that stops your computer rebooting. It's been a while.

I can’t believe you lefty Luddites hate tech so much that you embrace mRNA vaccines, heat pumps, electric bikes, hybrid work, renewable power (and awesome advancements in storage), space telescopes, and hot/cold running water but reject the planet destroying plagiarism enrich the worst people bots!

Went in during lockdowns cos we were 'key workers'. Got everything online. Remember driving in on deserted post-apocalyptic roads to teach six ppl with their hoods up and gloves on and all the windows open from behind a visor and a mask. And this is how it's written up. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I belonged to a health club during this period and had my use of substantial parts of it restricted. We were limited to 3 visits a week. Was paying about 1.2k per year. There was no thought of asking for money back as they were just following the rules and guidance in place. They then...

When OpenAI released ChatGPT, it was trained on pirated books. This finally came to light in a lawsuit three months ago, but it has gone essentially unreported. 🧵 1/5

I don't even know where to start. With the 'pensions are untouchable so let's stiff the young', with the 'did my essay the night before it was due' excuse, or with the boring fact that I wrote to my Tory MP at the time to point out that once they'd kicked down the door other govts would...

🧪🏺 Update - authors have new paper showing how useless gen- #AI is for archaeological illustration. All 400 images were multiply inaccurate (physically, socially, technologically, environmentally), even with improved prompts. JUST USE HUMAN EXPERTS & ARTISTS www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

It's still a shock to find a new PFAS forever chemical hotspot, even when it's inevitable. A bit of digging around paper mills, which often use PFAS, revealed the banned carcinogen PFOS at levels as high as 3,000ng/l in groundwater in south Cumbria www.theguardian.com/environment/...

!! … ah

God, I hope Gorton and Denton tell him to do one.

It would be nice if my constituency MP had a word or two to say about the tens of thousands of job losses in universities.

So we thought we would invent a big machine to do all the writing and summarise everything so no-one has to read anymore and translate so no one needs to learn languages. There will definitely be no massive cognitive health costs down the line which the companies that did this won't pay.

In Jan OpenAI fired VP of public policy (safety) for discrimination against a male colleague. There are no details about the alleged complaint but she had raised concerns about the ChatGPT’s proposed adult mode and was vocal that co wasn’t doing enough to stop CSAM. She also led mentorship for women

"we have realised that, while we can launch to the Moon every 10 days, trains go to Bedfordshire every half hour. Mars and the moon remain on the long-term roadmap but the immediate priority is now "securing the future of civilization" via the faster route of a city in Bedfordshire."

Interested in working for a think tank? We're taking part in a webinar on Wed 18 Feb hosted by @resolutionfoundation.org for undergraduates or those with similar experience on what it's like working in a think tank and how to apply. 🖥️ Register here: www.resolutionfoundation.org/events/worki...

1/ A very refreshing read, summarising many of the problems this Frankenstein's monster of a system has created. There are so many problems with it that it's easy for even a very good analysis to miss some, and I'd probably add to this 1/ the erosion of the real value of maintenance loans so they...

I'm looking forward to another episode of Question Time or News night with pundits opining on why Net Zero is too expensive, while the local news covers people in Somerset who may have to abandon their homes for good and farmers in despair about damage to their yields.