In any other context, requiring a high-productivity sector to offshore the production of its highest value-added exports would be seen as the economic illiteracy it so obviously is... www.ft.com/content/a23c...

New research maps the campaign to erase trans people from UK data 🔢 This peer-reviewed article offers the first detailed account of how UK campaign groups have sought to define sex as strictly biological across the census, policing, healthcare and digital ID. doi.org/10.1080/0958...

Writing is thinking Outsourcing the entire task of writing to LLMs will deprive us of the essential creative task of interpreting our findings and generating a deeper theoretical understanding of the world.

Also; when I was at Durham, it was understood that it was *impossible* to score more than 78 on an assignment and 72 was *really good*. Work was done to use the fuller range of grades during my time. This was both a good thing and will see an increase in 1sts.

This is also the classic catch-22 for post-92s: if your students perform poorly, you are failing them; if your students perform well, you are gaming the system because that can't possibly happen.

Beyond Monogamy: What Sociology Reveals About How We Really Relate by @ryanscoatsphd.bsky.social. www.bcu.ac.uk/research/blo...

Please help spread the word on this, especially to those who may be feeling cold winds towards their research. We’ve opened the call for our International Fellowships, enabling early career researchers to work for two years at a UK research institution www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/sche...

It is really important to understand that the asylum hotel chaos of 2022-24 is a *failed experiment in closed borders* (in contrast to the liberal visa policy) The hotel chaos comes from passing multiple laws that all claims will be refused & to stop processing claims bsky.app/profile/pete...

The new special issue of @bsaecf.bsky.social's Sociology is a good one: Sociology Under Attack. Including studies on India, Hungary and Brazil, as well as cross-cutting themes on neoliberalism, and its impact on environmental research and anti-racism. journals.sagepub.com/toc/soca/59/6

This is a key point. I suspect it's because when it comes to sexuality / pornography / similar, the state is very happy to regulate individual behaviour but very wary of regulating businesses. I think this approach is wrong, but its historically been the case.

Good grief

‘If a drug boasted such benefits [as the arts] governments would be pouring billions into it. Instead, funding has been slashed across the culture sector.’ www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Hello Tim Cook I worked at Tumblr when you gave us 48 hours to get rid of all the consenting, adult boobs. Up all night at your whim, out of the blue. But you're still cool with Twitter and its CSAM and revenge porn and whatever the fuck this is? Why do you even HAVE guidelines?

Significant national self harm

Farage: "I believe in vaccinations when they're vaccinations. I don't think what happened with Covid were vaccinations. You have to keep having them every 6 months." Conspiratorial nonsense. Some vaccinations like Covid shots require multiple/seasonal doses because immunity fades & viruses change.

ICE agent allegedly shot & killed a woman driving through an immigration raid in Minneapolis this morning. According to video of aftermath it appears the woman's wife & dog were in the car when she was shot in the head. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

The author of a viral Reddit thread alleging fraud at a food delivery company tried to back up his claim by sending me AI-generated documents. Today I'm publishing those documents in the hopes that it helps other reporter see what we're up against in the age of AI www.platformer.news/fake-uber-ea...

Not being allowed to speak to a human adviser from HMRC really doesn't help with tax returns...

"When faced with such complaints [of porn addiction], clinicians are encouraged to address behaviors without conjuring addiction labels."

The Guardian still pushing this stuff, and never commenting that Porn Addiction is just... not a real thing (1/3) www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

A good point that media outlets misreport this story if they give agency to the AI Grok itself - which generates contradictory statenents whenever prompted to do so www.readtpa.com/p/grok-cant-...

LLM story. Someone submitted a "paper" to SocArXiv, something like a theory of how AI affects the economy. Short and superficial, but not a subject I'm familiar with. I copied a formula and terms, including the invented name for the effect, and asked ChatGPT if it sounded reasonable. /1

PDF pop-up. "This appears to be a long document. Save time by using an AI assistant". Sigh.

Really interesting research showing that while ultra-specialization in a single discipline might lead to better results early in one’s career, multi-discipline training and practice pays off big time in the long run. This applies to a range of professions from scientists to athletes and more

it is almost Christmas which means it’s Muppet Christmas Carol season and that, in turn, means it is time to revisit this delightful interview with Michael Caine, who loves everything about that movie even more than you do

It's become a mantra that the govt are protecting curiosity-driven research It's still the biggest chunk of UKRI's budget But figures out today clearly show it will decline in real-terms, while spending on govt priorities and innovation will rise www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

This is an interesting and illuminating read.

Did you know that from tomorrow, Qualtrics is offering synthetic panels (AI-generated participants)? Follow me down a rabbit hole I'm calling "doing science is tough and I'm so busy, can't we just make up participants?"

Our housing and drugs research project is now entering survey and interview stage! If you - or anyone you know or work with - has experienced drug-related barriers to getting housing and you live in Cardiff, Belfast or Tower Hamlets (London), then we'd love to hear from you.

“Meta has removed or restricted dozens of accounts belonging to abortion access providers, queer groups and reproductive health organisations in the past weeks in what campaigners call one of the ‘biggest waves of censorship’ on its platforms in years.” www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Interesting stats: 1.5m decrease in UK visits to porn sites since OSA but 800k rise in VPN. Given VPN not only way this will have changed practice, upper limit of impact is ~700k and I think substantially lower in reality.

Once again, LLMs can’t believe reality is real.

I’ve written the @resprofnews.bsky.social Sunday Read this week. I’ve looked at the value and importance of the arts, humanities and social sciences and what policymakers might do to support them at a time we are seeing major cutbacks in universities www.researchprofessional.com/news-article...

The UK parliament is essentially addicted to passing strict and sweeping new laws and then not giving regulators nearly enough money to actually enforce them. Or come close. So you get Ofcom, the ICO, the Office for Students, etc, who all prove totally ineffective. So parliament passes a new law…

I did an interview with Mashable about #Pillion, discussing how kink is often represented in popular media. It's a great short contextual insight that you can watch here: mashable.com/video/romcom...

People get extremely annoyed when I point it out (I think they think I’m endorsing the other guy, cause we don’t do nuance) but if this was Biden, it would be the cover image of literally every American newspaper tomorrow.

I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

Young people these days. Being all sensible and moderate and costing the country a fortune in lost tax revenue.

Doing a humanities degree isn't bad for your job prospects

Fascinating

‘We know this funding works. Every £l spent on public R&D generates £8 in benefits for the country over the long term’ says Secretary of State for Science and Technology @lizforleicester.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/article/c9e4...

Today's 70% fall in net migration to 205,000 was not one of the six stories in BBC ten o'clock news. Ta massive assymetry in whether rises in immigration and falls in immigration are considered newsworthy by broadcasters Down by 140k isn't thought to be. Up by 140k undoubtedly would be.

Good grief

Interesting; and a bunch of highly skilled folk just don't use it.

I'd like to see the response to this if the question added "if that that means universities have less money to spend on UK students".

We pour billions into saving an economically tiny steel industry whilst actively destroying one of our largest export industries. (Yes, higher education to overseas students who already massively subsidise UK students, are counted as exports).

Ah, universities. Famously the King Midas of UK economic sectors.

It is indisputable that Brexit has been an economic disaster, and notable that none of its political architects have paid any price.

'The economic impact of international students in the UK surged from £31.3 billion in 2018/19 to £41.9 billion by 2021/22. On average, every parliamentary constituency in Britain benefits by £58 million.' 1/3