Shana tova! Happy 5786. May it be a sweet new year for all of you. I have always loved how the Jewish new year comes right as the world accelerates into the harvest, into the chill and energy and spark of autumn. It feels existentially hopeful, despite everything.

Now at last it can be told: If you're in the Massachusetts area (or plan to be!) on October 10th or 11th, book an entry time to see the culmination of my degree: an immersive art installation about my experience with history, science, time, and humanity: www.tinyurl.com/an-apothecary-dreams

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

Opportunity here for a writer on a low income to get access to a nine week novel writing course taught by the great @silvanhistorian.bsky.social www.curtisbrowncreative.co.uk/course/break...

Have you ever purchased makeup or beauty projects based on your fandom? If you are 18 years or older, please fill out this 10 minute survey for a research project on embodied fan identities. Share widely! Contact with any questions: [email protected]. utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

come copyedit for @journal.transformativeworks.org !

I'm really excited that a collection of fascinating work on fandom, fans and AI that @suzannerblack.bsky.social and I co-edited is out today in the new volume of @journal.transformativeworks.org - and as the journal's first 'New Currents' section! Read our editorial here doi.org/10.3983/twc....

Isn’t it splendid that the pub that ACTUALLY has a good claim to be the oldest pub/ inn in England is called the New Inn.

📣 Calling all #FanStudies scholars & nerds! We are officially entering our Registration Era for our 2025 FSNNA virtual conference "Reputation: Influence, Power, & Capital"‼️ Registration 🔗 www.tickettailor.com/events/fanstudiesnetworknorthamerica1/1758163

My lovely friend Naomi Jacobs (@ladylark.bsky.social) and I wanted to explore the repercussions of the new-found prevalence of AI on fans, fandom and fan studies. Some excellent scholars contributed articles to a special section of @journal.transformativeworks.org, which is out now! Enjoy!

I'm really excited that a collection of fascinating work on fandom, fans and AI that @suzannerblack.bsky.social and I co-edited is out today in the new volume of @journal.transformativeworks.org - and as the journal's first 'New Currents' section! Read our editorial here doi.org/10.3983/twc....

Good thread with some interesting suggestions for improving the peer review process... I notice there's a track at DRS this year about innovation in publishing of design research, would be nice to see such things considered.

@jolwalton.bsky.social Hah! I clearly didn't catch your full name at the event and it took linkedin to make the connection to knowing you here. Hello!

Loved (not so much love) being woken up and kicked out a hotel at 7am in my pyjamas by a fire alarm. Like being back at @dwcon.org

Tennessee Williams died in 1983, so he was alive at the same time as Venus and Serena - the other tennis-y Williams

Of *course* my scheduled presentation slot at a 4 day online conference is during the single two-hour period which clashes with my teaching timetable (not their fault!)

I’m seeing a lot of inaccurate info about the Anthropic settlement being passed around as fact, so here’s a good basic explainer from the Author’s Guild that I highly recommend reading so you understand it better if you’re potentially part of the class: authorsguild.org/news/what-au...

I feel like I know people in the Bath area but I can't right now think who... I'm going to be down that way soonish for a work thing!

As if I couldn’t love him more, Ncuti Gatwa trying to explain Ribena to his American co-star is the joy we all need in the world today. You’re welcome.

The first big industry event I went to, someone squatted down, looked at my name tag, and straight up walked away because I wasn't important enough. I hid in the corner and muttered to some guy there about how much I hated it and he hated it and we had an amazing time. That guy was Terry Pratchett.

The Quakers are doing exactly what all public services are legally allowed to do even if the EHRC wants to pretend they're not: say gender-based toilets are inclusive and for anyone bothered by that as a matter of belief, there are stand-alone cubicles that they are very free to use. 1/

Friends, using gen AI to create user personas is a *really* awful idea. 🚩☹️🚩 This suggestion comes from the AI Knowledge Hub prompt library on GOV .uk. Here's the problem: AI is designed to give you back only what you already know. It will generate what it thinks you want to hear.

My fellow authors outside the US! My brethren! Behold and rejoice, for it seems we can *also* sue Anthropic.

Relatable.

This is elegant and incisive as a knife. It's also all true. I sat through it. Thanks for writing it up in this way, @grigorylukin.bsky.social.

As @sashamtl.bsky.social says, it's good we have these numbers, but there is much more that we need & deserve. www-technologyreview-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.tech... >>

Academia may not give you job security, flexibility, or wealth, but it will let you unexpectedly connect to eduroam in foreign cities

"The Fall of Rome Scented Candle smells like cypress trees and red wine. Light it and watch the Roman forum melt into a puddle of wax while you quietly contemplate the impermanence of civilizations and/or candles."

Do you watch TV? Please take this survey to help me understand what audiences think of TV production techniques. app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/edinburgh/... Please share widely, and thanks in advance. #FanStudies #AudienceResearch

"Liver, fava beans and a nice chianti" is a little in-joke for psychiatrists watching/reading Silence of the Lambs because those are three foodstuffs you're not supposed to consume when on monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), the medication most likely used to treat Lecter.

I don't know why this lad is building a subterranean city for cats, but I'm all for it.

Good luck tonight to all the Hugo Award nominees!

Art & Design tumbles from 7th to 10th place in A-level popularity in England by 2025. History also falls sharply, while Literature dips after 2020 and Geography stays near the bottom. Maths? Still number one (!!!).

a university is not for generating profit, it provides cultural enrichment via weird little gremlin people who love visigoths or haikus, and very occasionally a scientist who figures out faster than light travel

So my friend @devinsinger.bsky.social just turned me on to the text of this amazing Terry Pratchett speech from the early 1980s and OH MY GOD it's hysterical and still relevant today. ansible.uk/misc/tpspeec... Also this thing he identifies is exactly why Samarkar is a Wizard and not a witch.

My (early 90s) intro to SFF reading was whatever was cheap and had interesting covers from second hand bookshops I visited regularly. And yes, I did read some Heinlein and Asimov but also Anne McCaffrey, Andre Norton, Mercedes Lackey, E Nesbit, Jennifer Roberson and all kinds of other random stuff

Just gonna state for the record that this is appalling, and the tell it's rooted in bigotry rather than women's safety is that it risks preventing trans men - a group assigned female at birth - from accessing using toilets. It's an unworkable bloody mess, and those pushing it should be ashamed.

I think Altman assumes that “PhD-level expert” means someone who speaks confidently on everything as opposed to saying “it’s nuanced,” losing their keys, and getting maniacally fixated on their current topic to the point of seeing it in everything.

We're growing! The Dyson School of Design Engineering ‪at @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social ‬has 4 assistant/associate/full prof openings: * Behaviour in Design Engineering * AI for Humanity * Cyberphysical Systems * Design Engineering (wild 🃏) All positions here 👉 bit.ly/4lcAxQs

this is widely thought to be because on the current trajectory no one believes there will be any people, culture, or environments to measure in 2029

I might have lost funding but at least I can do what I want. :) And I want to teach people about AI ethics in 90 second increments! bit.ly/ai-ethics-sy...

If more academics started thinking like this, the world would be so much better off. This is what academia *should* be! Even though academia has too many hot dog stand merchants, we can still choose to operate as a borderless, free-sharing, collaborative social ecosystem.

Note: these rules do not protect academic freedom, likely harm academic freedom, and damage the integrity of institutions. If you want to protect academic freedom…fund universities properly, improve research funding and allocation process, and don’t demonize ordinary academic processes.

🏳️‍⚧️ Can anyone help my MA dissertation student? He wants to interview trans (especially non-binary and gender non-conforming) people aged 18+ who are seeking or have sought transition-related medical care in the south of England. Has gone through ethics review. Please DM me for his contact info 🏳️‍⚧️

Job opportunity teaching science fiction in Liverpool. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOC313/l...

Many thanks to @philipcball.bsky.social for doing this beautiful piece for us www.nature.com/articles/d41...

When I think about the stupid mistakes LLMs make with words sometimes, (cf. the strawberry problem, fabricating quotations, or mixing up terms etc.), there's a well-known Old English riddle that comes to mind. It's more than 1,000 years old but I think it has something to tell us about AI... 🧵

We may have the chance to hire an outstanding researcher 3+ years post PhD to join Tarleton Gillespie, Mary Gray and me in Cambridge MA bringing critical sociotechnical perspectives to bear on new technologies. jobs.careers.microsoft.com/global/en/jo...

Waterstones are running a pre-order promotion this week which covers my next novel, The Heist Of Hollow London, out in September. Order before 31st July and get 25% off: www.waterstones.com/book/the-hei...

Tom Lehrer made all of his music 100% public domain so if seeing people sad about his death makes you want to check them out… it’s free. he wanted you to share them. tomlehrersongs.com