'Analytic philosophers often suppose that a training in logic makes people better able to think in other domains – a plausible-sounding idea for which there nevertheless appears to be no evidence' Nice remark from @schuringa.bsky.social 'A social history of analytic philosophy'

At the average university, that's SEVERAL HUNDRED STUDENTS, every year. No wonder some swine keep insisting it's a legitimate perk of the job.

Meanwhile today, absolutely appalling figures on sexual harassment in UK Higher Education, including the nauseating finding that fully ONE PERCENT of all students have been in an "intimate relationship" with a staff member involved in their assessment, IN THE LAST YEAR ALONE.

Traffic lights in Copenhagen are synchronised so a rush-hour cyclist at 20km/h can catch green lights all the way. “It’s so important to have the freedom on a bike to just ride along at a good speed… You can feel the city wants you – and supports you – going on a bike.”

4) Generalised digital IDs have downsides and some upsides. Dematerialising the compulsory ID of most non-citizens in the UK had very little upside and made people vulnerable. That one would have been the policy to actually complain about

See also the one on our street where multiple houses have had cars running into front brick walls since I've lived here. Along where we walk our kid to school.

"Tram Trains for Edinburgh” was set up to campaign to return public transport to the Edinburgh South Sub railway and connect to Edinburgh's tram lines. Click on the link for details of the first Public Meeting on 7/10:- citychambers0710.eventbrite.co.uk

Versions of this could and should be at Craiglockhart, Juniper Green, Nethercurrie, Colinton, St Marks, Longstone or Oxgangs Primaries and at Firhill, WHEC or Currie secondaries.

This picture from the newspaper article looks like an 'artists impression' of what things could like that no-one ever believes, except it's real and it really does look like that.

Be right back, buying popcorn futures "the Board and executives may have breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty, care and good faith by placing improper political or affiliate considerations above the best interests of the Company and its stockholders,” www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...

For 56 minutes Sky News and BBC News interrupted everything else and carried a Reform UK feed live, uninterrupted, unchallenged. The stream spluttered, froze, pixelated - dozens of times - still they stuck with it. FOR ONE HOUR. This is an editorial choice. No other party gets this coverage. ~AA

Podcasts and "deep dive" media will try to convince you that you *now* know things, thanks to them. A PhD, especially one with archival, observational, or observational components, will definitely convince you that you know next to nothing, thanks to the available resources & one's predecessors.

Here we propose adding an 11th criterion to UNESCO’s framework to protect animal cultures—habitat protection alone isn’t enough. Excited to collaborate with philosophers @merikatariina.bsky.social & @birchlse.bsky.social on this! Message me for access ;-) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Really great take, and explains why some colleagues continue to say its so good for initial research (for eg) even in situations where they've had to admit to me that half the refs are fabricated.

Call for Abstracts #HPS of Biodiversity April 30 — May 2, 2026 Copenhagen, Denmark Abstracts of 200-500 words should be submitted through: tinyurl.com/hpsbio. The deadline for submissions is Friday, November 7, 2025. Co-organized by @federicabocchi.bsky.social

The last? second last? time one of these arrives in my mailbox 😭

A German teen told Meta's child safety researchers his under-10 little brother had been sexually propositioned multiple times on its VR platform. Meta deleted the evidence. New internal whistleblower docs indicate that was part of a broader cover-up: www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

"In 2021, African ecologists examined 40 top-ranked journals in their field and found that the average fee to publish an article was US$3,150. The study, published in Nature, also revealed that 75% of the journals did not provide any waivers for researchers from LMICs"

I got off academia dot edu 5 or so years ago, when I discovered it was sending automatically-generated emails in my name without even telling me - I found out when a very senior member of the profession replied to one. It's only gone further and further done this path since, as far as I can tell.

Breaking story by me: The Royal Society’s governing council will debate Elon Musk’s fellowship on 1 October Is Musk’s violent speech at an anti-immigration rally in London a step too far for the UK’s science academy?

Isaac Herzog is named directly in the UN report which states clearly that Israel is committing genocide - he is named as one of the figures inciting genocide. Last week Keir Starmer felt it was fit to roll our the red carpet for Herzog on in a visit to Britain.

My optimism here is limited, but I really hope centrist institutions like universities and major news organizations understand that the plan is for the govt to dismantle them. They do not care if you fire your columnists or discipline staff for accurately quoting Kirk. They just want us all gone.

Well that’s a new one. Have been told on behalf of the convener that if University Court has final say on a matter then it is out of scope for Academic Senate even to request information or discuss the possibility of asking Court to be able to provide input on that matter.

Excited for one of our first panels on Thursday, November 13th - Biding Time: Epochs and Other Durations feat. Maria Frawley, Mary Burke, Carly Lewis, & Trevor McMichael at NAVSA: Aftermaths #NAVSA2025

heads up that the @navsa2025.bsky.social account will be regularly sharing panels & workshops from the upcoming conference, so you all can see the genius work being presented this november. registration is open. come hang out!

Always fun on forms to have a church founded in a year with three figures. In the end we often just default to the year the Diocese of Leicester was created. Makes it easier when. The computer refuses to cooperate.

New episode of the Cultures of Energy podcast! Hannah Knox joins us to talk about the challenges climate change has posed to the concepts and methods of governing a city. Case in point: Manchester! tinyurl.com/3yax7euh @cymene.bsky.social @culanth.bsky.social @4sweb.bsky.social

My department, Sociology at the University of Calgary, is hiring FOUR (4) tenure track professors this fall in the areas of systemic justice and structural harm. Please help us to circulate this widely within your scholarly networks!

Well at least Andor got something at the Emmys: Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series to Dan Gilroy for Episode 9 “Welcome to the Rebellion”. Should have won more though.

Some 'professional' images of our 'Hill Station' exhibition on at RIBA North West Tate Liverpool until 16th November taken by Peter. Images © The Royal Institute of British Architects/Pete Carr hashtag#Sierraleone

Embarrassingly terrible article

A reminder that Elon Musk is still a Fellow of the Royal Society. Surely THIS is the point at which he is expelled @royalsociety.org

The leaves of an oak tree get successively larger the further down you go This allows all leaves access to sunlight, and protect the tree from excessive wind Oak trees know

When 100 thousand trans people rallied in London it was only worthy for the "local news" section.

mods are asleep post rare Lee Pace

🔥 NEW - Troy Kotsur Talks "Preem Palver" In #Foundation Season 3 - Interview Ahead of Season 3's finale, we speak with Academy Award Winner #TroyKotsur about his role in Foundation Season 3! 🔷 Read Here: nerdgazm.net/troy-kotsur-...

Exciting news for #AppleTV #Foundation fans! Who’s watching the season 3 finale this weekend?

There's a lot of other stuff going on but I got to talk to Lee Pace about Foundation!

look Charlie Kirk started, maintained, & promoted turning point usa’s professor watchlist I’ve been on it for over a decade and until this year I was the *only* UVM professor on it which means his life’s work = my death threats

Most humanities research — including the best, most world leading research by people we’ve all heard of — is unfunded, by which they mean produced as part of one’s routine job as a university lecturer, just “not funded by a big competitive external grant”. This would mean the death of research.

Very cool that the province’s new roadmap for education was written using generative AI. Really inspires confidence 🫠

"By one estimate Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Google, & Tesla will by the end of this year have collectively spent $560 billion on AI-related capital expenditures since the beginning of 2024" So enough to globally transition out of fossil fuels spent in one year. www.theatlantic.com/economy/arch...

“I just want people to know that AI is being sold as this tech magic – that’s why there’s a little sparkle symbol next to an AI response. But it’s not. It’s built on the backs of overworked, underpaid human beings.” (From Varsha Bansal in @theguardian.com) www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

"The advisory opinion of the ICJ made it clear that going down the fossil fuel production expansion is an internationally wrongful act under international law," Regenvanu said. www.sbs.com.au/news/article...

A controversial $165 billion data center campus in New Mexico revealed numbers about its water consumption publicly for the first time. Filling up the four data centers would use 10 million gallons of water, and the ongoing consumption would be 7.2 million gallons every year.

#EdinWebcast #CCWEL 12-month monitoring--> democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/documents/s8... History--> www.spokes.org.uk/2022/02/ccwe... Result--> 🚶satisfaction up 🚲greatly up trader support hugely up retail spending up #CllrMacinnes suggests using this as example to other local communities Officer: 👍

We're starting day 4 of the strike with Jack the cat's full support. He also says that this is a manufactured crisis because there is no deficit at the University of Edinburgh. Clever cat.

This old @xkcd.com about physicists could now be written about AI researchers. Why do you need all that expertise when you could just throw the data into a deep learning algorithm? xkcd.com/793/

Hot off the press, the British Academy's Cold Spots: Mapping Inequality in SHAPE Provision in UK Higher Education report. Read it if you care about universities or access to the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences for the rising generation. 1/5

The current structure of HE is only broken for those of us still trying to keep the wheels on the bus. If you live off the largesse of our work, what's broken?