Universities have become so easy for everyone to kick: everyone thinks they’re rolling in money, detached from society, don’t generate anything useful. None of it’s true, but I can think of other places you could equally level these accusations at.

How many Bluesky users does it take to change a lightbulb? I TOLD everyone that the lightbulb would need changing and no one listened to me! Look at all these posts I made about lightbulbs!

Open licenses like Creative Commons, GPL, and Copyleft have license terms that you are legally obligated to follow in order to use the licensed content. LLM/GenAI companies refuse to follow the license terms even for something really open like a CC-BY license.

theres a lot of things i hate about that 'Restore' video but: NO you lot didnt love Britain in 1997 you fascist scum bags, you fuckwits were going on about immigration and 'political correctness' and 'the gays' etc so fuck off with your lazy AI bullshit 'nostalgia'

its funny, im seeing a lot of 'visit USA' ads which i cant say ive ever really noticed before...

good, while i voted green in 24 (had i still been living in a marginal i would have voted differently) i was initially hopeful about a Labour government, and they are doing good things (renters and workers rights being the two that come to mind)

Buying into Prince Andrew now being 'Andrew Mountbatten Windsor' is political and palace sleight of hand, and plays into the suggestion he isn't exactly what he is. The son of a prince, the brother of a prince, the uncle of a prince, the father of princesses. He's not the glitch. He's the product.

I am tired of this world-these people. I am tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives.

I dont think Andrew should be removed from succession, if youre going to pick head of state based on hereditary succession you have to just take whatever comes along, if were going to start picking then well surely we get to ask questions about the rest of them!

This is not true. He'd have been shot as a quisling.

as soon as the royals deconsecrated his ass I was thinking "no you fucking don't"

this @holliemcnish.bsky.social piece is perfect. he's still Prince Andrew, and he always will be.

The Roberts Court has a clear set of guidelines: the president can do anything he pleases, so long as it does not violate the rights of the owning class.

really telling as per the @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social communications that the Post-92s are opting to screw over their staff pensions rather than say discuss with government extending the support for the increased costs of the TPS provided to schools to Post-92s...

i mean i get the point but uh UK immigration enforcement isnt that much better than ICE quite frankly...

If Elon Musk announcing plans for a million satellite data centers in space had you screaming into the ether, then this week’s episode is for you! alinautrata.substack.com/p/astronauts...

As we have repeatedly tried to explain to a government intent on punishing universities, graduate outcomes will always be poor if you underpay every sector. (Nb y axis starting at 50)

Damn. Didn't get through round 1 of the ERC starting grant... expected that outcome but still sucks... had hoped to get to round 2 at least! Formal feedback end of April - applied for £2 million worth of grants in 2025, won £0, think I'm going to take a break from grant applications for a bit...

i mean i get the point but uh UK immigration enforcement isnt that much better than ICE quite frankly...

There needs to be a full and public accounting of the lengths that the Royal Family and HMG have gone to to protect this man.

so genuinely: uh, what was Merrick Garland doing with the Epstein files, given uh, it's brought down a royal and multiple Euro politicians/

Thank God. As much as I love your postbox selfies, the postal ballot requirement is a real barrier to participation and democracy. Why should the employer have to agree though?

Good. Hopefully will be the beginning of a road to republic.

can i be real here and say that i don't care what prince andrew was arrested for because i'm glad he's been arrested

my phd viva was the 1st week of lockdown, id just moved house, i did it over zoom, i never got a phd graduation, took 5 years to have a celebratory dinner with my supervisor... hell i went 9 months without seeing another person in person and i still did my job

I imagine it was extremely disturbing

im going to be a rubbish plumber but for the greater good i guess

JFC £21 million! Can we sue for our trauma for having to work through Covid?

In some ways I'm philosophical about The End these days. It is what it is. But for the final wave to hit because of the crisis when we worked the hardest we possibly could, we nearly broke ourselves, and did exactly what the govt told us to do? It seems.. painful.

the "left" broadly advocated for open access community owned gigabit fiber networks while the right coddled monopoly access to the detriment of progress and affordability for four decades

solar, wind, trains (including light rail), buses, district heating, heat pumps, fucking love trams

political class and their media mouthpieces

"The current political class will never find a solution" is an entirely different type of claim to "There is no solution to be found".

also yeah thats the nature of investing, never invest more than you can afford to lose

Striking from home today as yesterdays cold has taken its toll (long covid has mostly passed but exertion still takes time to recover from) - thank you to those who will be on the physical picket line today! #NoPayFreeze #NoPensionCuts #WeAreTheUniversity (and why it was Uni of the Year!)

Dogs know. Dogs always know. Never cross a picket line, especially @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social's @northumbriauni.bsky.social @chionwurah.bsky.social @chroniclelive.co.uk @andylong6.bsky.social @georgeclarke.bsky.social @labourunionsuk.bsky.social @timeshighered.bsky.social @bylinesnetwork.co.uk

yes, i saw it being advertised with 'when did Top Model turn toxic' and uh day 1? i was in middle school when it started and holy hell the impact that kind of show had on teenage girls

This is when I started crying, wondering what thoughts and scenes were whirring through his mind. No, Obama wasn't perfect. But he was the first. How far we have fallen.

Bargaining Support Official role supporting Head of FE at UCU has gone live - great salary (inclusive of London weighting) Ucu.org.uk/vacancies#BSO1

Southampton Solent UCU members are back on strike tomorrow to stop management forcing staff out of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme via a sham subsidiary company and threatening those who refuse with notice without pay. Solidarity from Birmingham UCU ✊

Join the University and Colleges Union branch at the University of Dundee today. Our strike action and lobbying was a major factor in securing additional funding for the University. We consistently protect our members and ask for redundancies to be ruled out. Join now - www.ucu.org.uk/join

Pebble was in fine form - chatting away like a good 'un! Paw-fect pitch! 🐾🐶

UK governments of the 2000s and 2010s managed to buy short term "world-beating" status for British universities through a tuition fees and student loans bubble whose subsequent deflation has destabilised the sustainability of UK higher education. A practical and moral policy failure

Now, the higher education systems of EU states are riddled with many structural and funding problems of their own. But a UK system that manages to combine US levels of student debt with European issues of teaching and research capacity bottlenecks gets the worst of both worlds

Something a little bizarre with a UK debate over a failing funding model with higher education whose primary benchmark of comparison is a high fees US model rather than much nearer EU member state models that manage to put university teaching together with low or no tuition fees.

another excellent morning with @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social, we made quite a bit of noise, now off to warm up for tommorrow! #nopaycuts

'This means that non-STEM Schools, which as a percentage spend comparatively much more on staffing (as opposed to expensive laboratory equipment, for instance) than their science-y neighbours, will face more pressure from the University.' 3/3

'In March 2025, Bristol UCU leadership wrote that the University of Bristol had embarked on a ‘death spiral’ following the ‘50 per cent surplus’ scheme, which says Schools must make a 50 per cent operating surplus.' Calculation includes staff costs but not buildings and equipment. 2/3

'If they choose to take up the Voluntary Severance Scheme, open to all academic staff in the School of Humanities and the School of Modern Languages, staff essentially make themselves redundant in return for a good pay-out.' 9 months' pay; 3 weeks to decide. 1/3

back on strike today, will be a tad chilly, but will be among friends @ucunorthumbria.bsky.social