This is also why teaching history even at school needs to deal with questions of source bias. I show my first years the classic image of Jeanne de Montbaston illuminating manuscripts in the family Paris workshop in the 14c and point out that we only know about her work because her husband died...

Sadiq Khan's team on Trump's comments about London crime The homicide rate in the US is seven times that of London

Just a little bit of research (audiobook listening, even) will inform you how mothers were blamed for autism before. Shaky on exact dates without checking but around 1950s I think (others who know better will I am sure weigh on). It was framed as due to maternal affection deficit.

And if I’m Labour I go after them for ‘deporting granny’ or ‘breaking families up’ as well as just saying numbers don’t add up. Will Labour do that… errr…

If “we’re going to take 100,000s of law abiding residents and make them into criminals overnight and force them out of the country” isn’t extremism beyond the pale of decent society, what is?

Came on here to say this - which I'm yelling at the radio - but of which R4 today presenter seems unaware. Can a journo really be that badly briefed about a story on which he is interviewing?

Yet again, machine learning — even gussied up via the transformer architecture — encodes and reinforces societal biases. This study reveals that LLM-based peer review relies heavily on author institution in its decisions. arxiv.org/abs/2509.15122

'OpenAI released on Monday some research that explained how it’s stopping AI models from “scheming.” It’s a practice in which an “AI behaves one way on the surface while hiding its true goals,” OpenAI defined in its tweet about the research.' 1/2

The point of going to university is to explore research and knowledge, not to start an effing business. The skills and experiences gained might help you start a business, as might the interactions with the people you meet, but it is not the purpose of a degree. Fed up of this manure.

This is a really good question and the answer is: political priorities are dictated by a largely right-wing press that serves the interests of an ageing population. So we get hysteria about winter fuel payments and immigration and crickets about what should be a massive scandal. Media seem...

Holiday reading in our Cumbrian bolt hole.

lolsob (cc @davidgerard.co.uk) arstechnica.com/ai/2025/09/e...

I've been thinking this for a while, TBH

Idk but if you really are stupid enough just to believe the lawyers of the guy accused of child sex crimes when they say he's innocent then maybe you are just too thick to be in the government. Basically, Mandy's reasons must be either: 'I knew and didn't care', or: 'I'm dumb as rocks'.

'As universities close courses and departments in response to financial pressures...students in parts of the North, South West and East of England, as well as large areas of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, are losing access to social sciences, humanities and arts (SHAPE) courses.' 1/2

Google developer #1: "That's it. Our search engine is simple, efficient, and reliable. It's perfect. We're done." Google developer #2, presumably: "But wouldn't it be *more* perfect if the first search result was always a robot who mansplained your search results to you incorrectly?"

While I bridle at the idea that readers of this will have spent their summers on beaches (rather than writing research grants, supporting resit students, supervising MAs, judging appeals and complaints, prepping courses for next year), it's an excellent analysis in many ways. The argument that...

Customer feedback this week; ‘Please can you get some more diversity at the National Trust by encouraging more hot men to visit.’ Ideas for how we do this v welcome. Nothing too racy please - we are the National Trust not the National Tryst.

Worrying long term hidden fiscal drag The family income threshold at which English students maintenance loans start to get reduced is just £25,000/yr. It has been this level since the 2008/2009 academic year. We have had 64% (CPI) inflation since then. So it's been slashed hugely in real terms

"A beacon for the importance of the #Humanities". Perhaps the best thing anyone could have said about my new book. Thank you. ❤️ @ihr.bsky.social

Didn't Reform pick a woman who was literally dead to be their candidate for Mayor of Croydon?

We have a paper on how Labour's strategy is disastrous. There's an exclusive coverage in @newstatesman.com www.newstatesman.com/politics/202...

I disagree on pretty much everything with my local Tory MP and I'm sure he knows it. But there have been terrible problems with the post here in recent months (over 7 days between deliveries, so medical appointment letters arriving too late), and he's diligently and stubbornly followed up...

“Farage claimed last year to have “bought a house” in his constituency but the property is actually owned in the name of his partner, meaning he legally avoided higher-rate stamp duty on the purchase of an additional home – given he already owns other properties” www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

What Glasma is actually saying is 'bury the rule of law', of course. But even his tiny brain knows that that would sound bad.

As I wake up to more mad Labour policy ideas I have reached the conclusion that the party is incapable of learning. Every concession they make is simply pushing the centre further to the right. They will never appease the extremes; they will simply make them issue more extreme demands. So we...

We are running out of time. We need to act now. 🚨 "Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds." https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/aug/28/collapse-critical-atlantic-current-amoc-no-longer-low-likelihood-study

The Welsh for June is Mehefin, which means midsummer. May is Mai which, like the English word, derives from the Roman Maius. However, there is an archaic name, Cyntefin, which means the start of summer. So summer is Wales is 3 months long. It rains in all three.

Accidentally vegan klaxon! 📢

Just over 2 weeks left to apply to the Borders, Boundaries, and Barriers conference! It will take place in Oxford on April 20-21, 2026. We hope to provide bursaries to help with attendance. Email your abstracts to bordersboundariesbarriers[at]gmail[dot]com #medievalsky #skystorians

1. Modeling data does not a historical argument make. 2. Lefebvre might have written an early classic, but his sources are not the complete 'archive' of Great Fear rumors. 1/n

Really good thread here. Interdisciplinarity should bring together the rigour of all disciplines. This caper looks instead like sloppy historical source use combined with sloppy science.

Some friends lived here for a while. Very dilapidated at the time with really antique bathrooms. Chap known as 'Colin the condemner' used to come over from the mainland from time to time and slap 'do not use' signs on the primitive heating and cooking devices. They had otters though.

Don't tell me...let me guess: they've all been reading Jane Nelson's piece on the Dark Ages' from History Workshop (2007) because it's by a respected expert, underpinned by a career of research in the field and freely available online. What's that you say - they are not? I am all astonishment.

As a lit historian I find Jane L. Nelson's piece from 2007 for History Workshop, on 'the Dark Ages' history as a term still great. It also blows out of the water the uninformed reaction by the original poster that this is all just silly modern humanities academics with their silly ideas about...

Subsequent studies will look into what bears do in the woods and the pope's religion.

Oh for f***'s sake!

I hope they all lose.

I'm just back from the local park where families of different ethnicities speaking different languages were walking around the lake, watching the ducks, watching their kids splash each other and yell in the splash pool. Tinderbox Britain my arse.

It is fair to say I've never heard this argument used in the UK to query whether 17 year-olds should take decisions that will result in enormous loans to fund higher education that most will never pay off.

Our next 'Navigating the Maps Website' workshop takes place online on 27 August 2025. Book your place now and learn how to find, view and compare historic maps > www.nls.uk/whats-on/nav...

While we expect children to grow up to work to pay the pensions and health and social care costs of their parents and grandparents generations, as is the case in the current system, children are absolutely the state's responsibility, and not only for moral reasons.

I feel I'm learning a lot about proscribed terrorist organisations in the UK. They apparently don't include this Neo-Nazi group or Combat 18.

I'd really recommend the British Academy Early Career Researcher Network (www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/early-career... ) - you don't need an affiliation to join, but you get access to free workshops & events (the network pays for travel to its own events), & to funding and grants!

To be clear, we write and review stuff for all these publishers for free.

I haven’t been this excited for a bubble to burst since I was a toddler.

Husband likely to stop using eBay because they've rammed it in there, non optionally, to calculate postage. The fact that it can't calculate is a serious weakness- it's ballsing everything up and, astonishingly, eBay has got Royal Mail to agree to pay the difference.

"Sally Rooney is a terrorist, the UVF transporting bootloads of weapons and ammo are not terrorists. Vote Labour." www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/courts/...

I think they should be forced by a regulator to make this a lot easier.

I have got the hump with the BBC because we had nearly finished Series 3 of the Gerry Anderson On the Air animated shorts and they removed the whole lot without warning.