Free broadband: absurd communism, what would they even use it for Psychosis Wormhole Premium in every home: Mr Altman, you’ve charmed me

Laurie Anderson anticipating AI at the Hirshhorn Museum

People are lonelier than ever, so here is a robot you can talk to. It won't make you less lonely but it will drive you insane. That will be five thousand dollars.

never take freedom of the press or access to news for granted. www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/...

Hot take: most online courses taught in universities right now are not designed to maximize student learning. Why not? Because instead of spending money on recruiting and training excellent educators, universities are spending their money on Learning Management Systems that don't work.

remembered this today, which I wrote back at the end of 2023, and thought about how most of the people in the images and videos that prompted it will likely be dead now. My son is about to turn 7

Absurd, and deeply troubling. Anyone with even a passing concern for basic democratic norms should be alarmed at what is happening in the UK at the moment. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

Read the entire thread! Very perceptive analysis.

In a week when the divide between direct action protest and terrorism disappeared for the UK Government, Anne Alexander, @aliceellafinden.bsky.social and I share our thoughts on the dangerous chilling effect for Art 10/11 ECHR rights with @opendemocracy.net: www.opendemocracy.net/en/palestine...

This is a *really* extraordinary story from @kenzabryan.ft.com www.ft.com/content/84d9...

Research from us looking at how social media platforms once again failed to take action on content inciting violence in Northern Ireland last week

Baubi Urquhart of Yell, Shetland: "photographs of Baubi were once used to illustrate two quite different stories – one about folklore, specifically tales of ‘seal women’ or ‘selkies’ from the Northern Isles of Scotland, and the other about women’s work in the rural economy of the 19th century."

Seems today is the day for Irish politicians to use technology to make a holy show of themselves. www.thejournal.ie/ciaran-mullo...

The EU was asked 15 months ago by Spain and Ireland to consider suspending the favourable trade deal it has with Israel. They were ignored.

Trying to get my head round how this could make it to print. Many warning signs for all of us

I didn’t realize that *every* literary arts grantee, all 51, were terminated by the NEA. lareviewofbooks.org/article/we-d...

“The inmate must never know whether he is being looked at at any one moment; but he must be sure that he may always be so.”

Local journalism is one of the cornerstones of a democratic society. @manchestermill.bsky.social's work on the University of Greater Manchester (formerly Bolton) is a reminder of just what we're missing as so many local papers become hollow shadows of themselves manchestermill.co.uk/the-universi...

The epilogue from my book. Siva said it best - “what Powell says today, the Tories say tomorrow and Labour legislates on the day after”

Worrying days for The Shetland Times and all of us. We hold all the editions on microfilm and it’s an essential historical resource. If we lose our newspapers it gets much harder to find and preserve consistent output by trained journalists.

The Irish Journal of Anthropology (IJA) has just released its special issue on "Islandness", which will be of interest to all scholars of Ireland, and of islands more broadly. The IJA is open access and hosted by University College Cork on behalf of the Anthropological Association of Ireland (AAI).

It's nearly 9 years since I moved to Shetland, so it must be at least 8 since my first Sunday Tea, which happened to be run by the Ex-Whalers Association. Delighted to have somehow snuck them into Irish Pages, via a poem called 'Swallowing the Anchor'. Looking forward to reading this Scotland issue.

📣 Islands Symposium registration is now OPEN 📣 Book your place for Island Narratives of Kinship, Place and the Weather, bit.ly/3F0ESa0 📆 3-4 April 2025 📍 Hosted at Cnoc Soilleir with Ceòlas Uibhist & UHI North, West and Hebrides (South Uist) and online

look my ALCS payment isn’t going to be life changing but you know what it’s a lot more than any of the corporations paid me to rip off my work for their LLMs

Another day, another set of claims from the oil & gas industry lobby that don't withstand scrutiny and put O&G executives interests above the public's: 🧵 www.thenational.scot/news/2503389...

TIL that most modern heavy metal logos are designed by a guy who works at the Co-Op in Exeter www.devonlive.com/whats-on/wha...

Luckily nothing with great historical resonance is happening in international geopolitics at the moment, so this is just the expertise to shrink. Sure genAI will plug the gap 👌

"The First Nations requested that donations be deducted from their government annuities and added to the relief fund, according to Dr McGowan, with the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation even making their contribution while being removed from their own homes."

Yet another scandal brewing within UK Higher Ed: universities can get research money for everyone they've sacked. Big ghost fleets of lecturers who don't exist will be launched into the next Research Excellence Framework. Unis will laugh and cash in (1/2). englishassociation.ac.uk/ref2029-conc...

Approx 50 miles as the crow flies from Grangemouth, where the coming loss of approx 400 refinery jobs (rightfully) created an outcry. I await equivalent noise. But I won't be holding my breath while doing so.

I realise the math here is a moveable feast, but... £10m = 200 jobs (Durham) £23m = 400 jobs (Sheffield) £35m = 632 jobs (Dundee) What exactly is Edinburgh thinking £140m equates to?

Sympathies with all the staff threatened with redundancy - and those who will be left trying to make things work. Grim!

If you're at the point of anti-woke moral panic that you're questioning whether NORTHERN IRELAND needs public investment in equality and inclusion initiatives, it's safe to say you're out of your fucking mind.

one great mystery of our age is how the only way to motivate rich people to work is to give them loads of money for no reason but the only way to motivate poor people to work is to take away loads of their money for no reason

This is a fantastic tale!! "the Shamrock Hotel boasted a 50 by 43 metre pool, complete with Kelly-green water...it was so big it could host exhibition water-skiing events. It had a three-storey high diving platform and the hotel had its own synchronised swimming team – the Corkettes".

Forugh Farrokhzad trans Elizabeth T. Gray, Jr #internationalwomensday

We're on the brink of stopping new oil and gas, but the oil & gas lobby will stop at nothing to protect its profit. This week, people across the country are meeting their MPs/MSPs to tell them we need to #StopNewOilandGas. Join us, take action now 👇 www.stopcambo.org.uk/rosebank-mp-...

Genuine question to Wes Streeting - why do we need to hand our health data over to the US to do research with? Why don’t we do it here? (Even leaving aside the obvious points about what’s going on with medical research & people’s data in the US right now)

These stories pop up every other week here in Northern Ireland. Pretty much constant at the moment, and follows severe rioting last summer. It must be absolutely devastating for those affected by this behaviour. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

As a lawyer who does Equal Pay law it is interesting to note that the prospect of young men falling behind young women is causing a sense of societal crisis that the reverse position consistently failed to invoke.

Yay! Congratulations to all the new New Writers, especially James Sinclair, one of Shetland’s finest!

A shameful story about immigrant business people’s experiences in Belfast, from the paramilitary protection racket to council inaction after racist riots www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

You don't have to answer every question, but please lend your voice. Don't let AI continue to erode the protections for creators and their work!

"Some colleagues were told that offering to teach in Kazakhstan might save their jobs. Apparently the university will decimate itself in Cardiff and rebuild itself in Astana." voice.cymru/two-weeks-in...

Sure, Google's data centers consume tens of billions of litres of water yearly and emit more carbon dioxide than many nations, but on the other hand, you can look up Uranus and AI will show you a picture of Neptune. Never in the history of humanity, have we reached such speeds in making mistakes

. @bridainep.bsky.social is a PhD researcher & is working on the issue of cultural erasure in refusal to accept accents like the fada. If you've an #Irishlanguage name (particularly a fada), fill in this short survey aiming to understand people’s experiences with their names in different contexts.

Looking forward to reading at this, and hearing all the other New Writers. Come along or tune in online!

thar aon rud eile, is lá maith é d'fhoclóireacht na Gaeilge