Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

thanks @fmeissner.bsky.social for leading me to this wellspring of postmodern chaos

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results: - AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2% - ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1% - ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

"We were excited to have a panel accepted on the role of technology in genocide in Gaza at this year’s Computers, Privacy & Data Protection (CPDP) conference in Brussels. However, CPDP then requested that Access Now & others remove the word “genocide” from panel titles & descriptions. We declined."

Thinking of everyone marching against racism in Amsterdam today, and getting ready for our Tilburg University strike in a couple of weeks…

Okay, this is my newest very very favorite meme.

Get in loser, we're tanking the economy

The Editorial College at the journal Migration Politics seeks proposals from an editorial team that is willing to take on the management of the journal for a four-year term starting in December 2025. The full call is here: migrationpolitics.org/call-for-pro...

Day 1 of the national strikes against cuts in higher education and research 🟥 First op Leiden 💪🏽 @woinactie.bsky.social Students and parents: now is the time to fight for your, your kids’ and future generations’ education.

Nederlanders moeten het bij ramp of aanval minstens 72 uur gezellig kunnen hebben met elkaar

…because all of us out here until now trusted US defence contractors implicitly

Anyone who thinks the words ‘privacy’, ‘trust’ and ‘control’ currently belong in the same sentence as ‘information’ is selling something.

WYOMING: “Thank you, Madam chairman.” “I prefer ‘Mister’ chairman.” “Well you all voted preferred pronouns cannot be compelled speech.”

#ProtectNotSurveil position paper: We demand the full rejection of the #Europol reform! 👎 Here’s why: ❌ Fails to protect migrants or reduce border deaths 👁 Power grab by Europol 🛑 Criminalisation of migrants and solidarity organisers Read more:

"It’s a major complaint of the [Palantir-affiliated] authors of The Technological Republic that ppl today shrink from saying what they think... I agree, and I’m going to break the taboos. The Technological Republic is a terrible book: badly written, tedious, and... full of bad ideas."

Really nice state-of-the-art synopsis from @linadencik.bsky.social on #datajustice, useful for understanding both our current weird regulatory moment, and the more important question of what the notion of justice in relation to datafication and #AI is for: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

This 👇 doesn't grow old! Sacha Baron Cohen is brilliant. (The Dictator, 2012)

For those doing critical research on tech, the abrupt evaporation of 'tech ethics' beginning from the US is not surprising. It was a business strategy (albeit involving good and dedicated people) not a set of beliefs. It's interchangeable with other business strategies, and was always contingent.

Does a single webpage that just lists the latest happenings in the ongoing American crisis/coup, with sources, exist? Or do we need to make one?

Niagree

One of our supporters shared this with us—people are getting creative tonight!

Follow new kid on the block @tilt-tilburgu.bsky.social , the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society!

wow - here are two of the world's serious news outlets musing on how a US annexation of Canada would 'affect U.S. elections'. I checked three times, this is actually #PBS. Guys, it might affect Canadian elections even more than US ones...

Proud to be one of the 350 rabbis signing this statement — an ad in the NYT today and a declaration of our values. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... For more—and to sign— go to saynotoethniccleansing.org

Just read Piketty & Sandel’s dialogue on equality. Funny how their distinct national backgrounds create friction. Sandel wants Piketty to talk about identity politics on the left but Piketty doesn’t take the bait. The French thinker rather criticizes Sandel for not writing about taxes and unions.

Thus begins the #dadjoke thread for 2025 bsky.app/profile/hist...

'Donald Trump, along with a host of Republicans, is suddenly very interested in taking a knee to an African.'

Brianna Keilar: Do you think that calling Elon Musk a dick is effective messaging? Congressman Robert Garcia: Well, he is a dick.

The Digital South Research Lab at Tilburg U are organising a livestreamed discussion on 21 feb, 11–3 CET, w/@jeffhandmaker.bsky.social, @saifshahin.bsky.social and others on the securitisation of research and its implications for research about/with the majority world. register at shorturl.at/1ZDPa

Come do an interactive session at the European Association for Algorithmic Fairness (EWAF) conference in July! 2025.ewaf.org/submitting/c... we're looking for people who want to do workshops, creative sessions, discussions etc on critical approaches to, and social aspects of, fairness in #ML and #AI

😂😂😂😂😂 From Hygge to Hollywood – Let’s Make California Danish! Crowdsourcing initiative to buy California. Trump might want to sell "the ruined state". Negotiation team from Borgen and LEGO. Perks: Organic smørrebrød, Rule of law, universal health care and fact based politics denmarkification.com

Hello, Bluesky! ☀️ We fund frontier research in Europe—bold ideas, unexpected discoveries and science that shapes the future. So it’s only fitting we’ve landed here. Sorry for being late. Follow us for updates on ERC funding, research policy, and our grantees' discoveries.

Last year’s crack down on campus protests was extremely effective at frightening college communities into line. Consequently we won’t see much campus protest against the loss of democracy. The fear is palpable; in the fall when I scheduled my class to reenact a 60s campus protest I was warned not to

"... I found what I’ve found with other large language models: The summary of information is less useful to my thinking than a single source. What I need is someone else’s unique intelligence, their individual perspective. That’s what fuels my own thinking." Well worth your time. 👇

Vandaag heb ik een nieuwe opinie @de-standaard.bsky.social over de nieuwe Europese richtlijnen ivm de verboden toepassingen in de #AI Act en gezichtsherkenning! m.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20250...

The Gangs Matrix was a pre-crime system that disproportionately targeted young Black men. It shows how institutional racism is hardcoded into predictive policing and was rightly found unlawful. Now the Met Police want to cover their tracks by deleting the data. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Tonight staff of Utrecht University who came together to discuss new actions against the budget cuts to higher education, have decided that there will be a strike on Tuesday 11 March. At this moment, a preparation action-comittee is being formed, coordinated by the Union FNV. >

'The Houses at the Back on a Frosty Morning', St John's Wood (1913) by Sir George Clausen (National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne)

Friends, for something to be open source, we need to see 1. The data it was trained & evaluated on 2. The code 3. Model architecture 4. Model weights. DeepSeek only gives 3, 4. And I'll see the day that anyone gives us #1 without being forced to do so, because all of them are stealing data.

@benaaronovitch.bsky.social this researcher is onto you.

An incredibly disappointing day for @tilburg-university.bsky.social as the University Board ignores its own experts, who advised that TiU suspend ties with Israeli partner universities due to the heightened risk of their participation in HR violations and failure to ensure academic freedom.

It is also evidently censors political topics sensitive in mainland China 🇨🇳 (e.g., Tiananmen, Taiwan) And, like other AI platforms, it is unclear how user data is handled or with whom it is shared and for what purposes that may create privacy and other risks...

This Thursday in Brussels, Mark Graham on the hidden human labour behind AI @geoplace.bsky.social fullcircle.eu/event-5977519

Capitoolbestormer vindt Democraten slechte verliezers

You don't have to see this as a bubble to note the astonishing fragility of expectations in the AI industry www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Holy moly. I'm trying to write an academic paper, and nearly every application I'm using is not only offering Generative AI as an option for writing, but *pushing it* -- pervading the design to the point where a simple misclick would make my content AI-generated. Here's why that's a problem. 🧵

When the e-Visa system glitches, whether due to database errors or conflated profiles, migrants are faced with uncertainty. The Home Office must change the scheme to let people prove their right to work offline. Write to your MP ➡️ action.openrightsgroup.org/write-your-m... @jrct.bsky.social