If HE was free at the point of use nobody would ever think like this - it would be seen, rightly, as a public good in which all can participate. But as a commodity, it just stirs resentment. I have many friends who have regaled me with stories of how their kids aren’t getting what they paid for.

If I was going to speculate, I’d say that the current government’s hostility to universities, and their refusal to consider them as crucial infrastructure, is directly traceable to Labour’s original decision to institute a fee regime which made HE a commodity in England (especially).

Really enjoying this from @helleborezine.bsky.social! (also, intriguing to me that the first story, by Reggie Oliver, incidentally includes a character who was a member of staff at "an art school in Norwich" which is of course the position I also find myself in...)

We’re often asked whether we’re optimistic or pessimistic about technologies. That’s the wrong question. If any of this matters, we need to stop seeing technology like the weather, to be merely forecasted, and instead see it like politics, to be collectively shaped.

In this week's post I make the case for an #AI #metaphor observatory tracking how we think and talk about and act on GenAI and LLMs makingsciencepublic.com/2025/11/14/m...

My first Wordpress blog post was 20 years ago today architectures.danlockton.co.uk/2005/11/16/w... That blog—boosted by links from sites such as BoingBoing (thanks @pluralistic.net.web.brid.gy!)—ultimately led to so many opportunities, a PhD, a job in the US, basically my whole career in academia.

"Nostalgia is a warping gravity."

Was really struck by what a lovely inspiring exercise this is, like a primary school version of Mary Oliver’s Instructions for living a life Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it

No other word has done more damage to the craft of writing in recent years than “content”. Even if you’re using the word “content” ironically, or as a cute little joke, don’t. When someone calls writing “content” they’re pissing on someone’s hard work & passion. “Content” is Technosatan’s henchword.

I know there's more imp things on here today, but anyone have folks/papers I could cite that support to this idea? "Hollywood and mainstream media’s narratives overwhelmingly focus on dystopian climate futures making interventions on what people think is possible more difficult."

New utopian pulse is out! 𝐀𝐈 𝐈𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠? www.uu.nl/en/opinion/a... This post is for anyone who uses AI text-to-image tools or is concerned by their use. It tells an unexpected tale, which led me back to the cornfields of Illinois to interview my dad about 1970s rural America...

From coffee to the White House - how metonymies support and destroy our way of life #metonymy #linguistics makingsciencepublic.com/2025/10/26/a...

Now that em-dashes have been ruined by their overpresence in AI slop, we might as well switch to something better⸻namely Unicode U+2E3B, the 3-em dash⸺or at the very least U+2E3A, the 2-em.

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%

"if your politics is all about offering imaginary solutions to mostly phantasmatic problems, generative AI is the perfect tool for propaganda" — very useful thread

Parents, please check your kids’ candy this Halloween. I’ve just found an ancient metal whistle with the inscription “QUIS EST ISTE QUI VENIT" inside a Snickers bar. I blew it and heard a note of infinite distance, and now I’m haunted by a figure in pale, fluttering draperies. Be safe.

If I were running Labour comms I would commission an app called 'Will the Tories/Reform deport you?' then let the reactions on TikTok and Instagram do their work.

I cannot quite describe how it feels to hear a proposal to deport millions of people coming from the ostensible 'right of centre' party. I cannot tell you how it feels to know this while waiting for my son's heart surgery: a claim on healthcare that would see me deported under this proposal.

All networking events need at least one designated host who goes around looking for people on their own and introduces them to others with similar interests. This takes maybe a couple of minutes per person and is pretty fun and easy if you know what you’re doing!

I'm workshopping my AI & Society course for next semester, and in particular what I've been calling the "conscientious objector" path through the class (though I've given it another name). Thoughts?

It is laughable to think that you can neuter the far right with minor tweaks like this. How many Conservative or Reform supporters even know that immigrants have to pass a language test? They object to immigration on emotional grounds, not because they have dry objections to eligibility criteria.

Join us online on Wed 22 Oct for 'Creative Futures in Education'. We have three amazing speakers: educator-researchers engaging with #futures: ↠ Grace Turtle (Monstrous Futurities, Sandberg Inst) ↠ Christian Petersen (Norwich University of the Arts) ↠ shobhan s (Purdue University & slowstudio)

A very niche post for the #petrocultures historians of East Anglia, but I thought it was interesting to see “carless” as an intentional typo on the Hiscox advert, as I headed on the train towards Harwich,where for 60 years the Carless name hasn’t been a typo at all

the answer to the trolley problem is not to pick who to sacrifice, it’s to dismantle the system that led to an unsafe trolley crossing. if any part of your morality strategy involves picking a group to let die on a hill, throw the entire strategy out. it’s wrong.

if you’ve ever watched the apprentice, that’s the world without arts or humanities degrees

With yet another university hosted event closed to 'non academics' (aka those not employed by a university)* I'm just going to leave this piece by @drhelenkara.bsky.social and myself here blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci... * yes I know it's utter nonsense and academics/researchers exist outside unis

Social media is a utility that should not be owned by private, for-profit companies run by random people who routinely go insane. It should be a publicly owned service, like the post office.

There's definitely a lot here—but I'd argue that the "strange situation in which young designers are situated between activism, performative gesture and a residual urge to create" is exactly because they recognise that design as only "a tool to improve lives" was a naïve approach to "social purpose"

New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft: Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf... 🧵 1/

The “LLM AIs are actually people and you mustn’t bully them” thing is like instituting a full murder investigation into that train that got walled up in Thomas the Tank Engine because it had a face on it.

Billionaires want the worst of the past (college as failson playground) with the worst of the future (everything must be private equity)

people who would sacrifice the human rights of others will get people already in the tent killed

boss: you get that new john cage record for me? me: sure did boss, just like you asked

If you're in #Utrecht, come along on Friday 26 September for the launch of the Library for Transformative Play @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social More info / register: unusualcollaborations.ewuu.nl/agenda/playi... 26/09/25, 12:00–14:00 The Playground, Vening Meinesz C Building Utrecht University

Newsletter for September 2025: Troubling Transitions, Transformative Play, and Between Worlds: imaginari.es/troubling-tr...

Been thinking (again) a bit about how different assumptions and priorities in systems become encoded in the design of everyday experiences, as I travel between the Netherlands and UK so often. This puffin crossing outside #Norwich railway station provides an example every time I use it: (1/n)

Also really hard to set fire to tape without also setting fire to the thing it's taping up

A "bonfire of red tape" probably produces toxic smoke, and leaves a toxic residue that no-one wants to deal with

How to address the rapid evaporation of democratic norms, and engage with sustainability concerns against that backdrop? What can policy do in such a time? Last call for students at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social (and beyond) to sign up for our #MixedClassroom course: www.uu.nl/en/research/...

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Ursula K. Le Guin

We're away from the UK at the moment and I just got this when I tried to access BBC Sounds (on a UK phone and as a licence fee payer, not that either seems to matter). I think this is such a stupid, shortsighted, move. It baffles me that the BBC is willingly abandoning its global reach.

Interesting days at the @tyndallcentre.bsky.social's Our Critical Decade for Climate Action conference tyndall.ac.uk/events/criti... including exhibiting—at the Sainsbury Centre!—a tiny glimpse of Sunsets & Sunrises, people's visions of futures lost & found imaginari.es/wp-content/u...

What are the “growing pains” of designing for sustainability and transitions? Our "Troubling Transitions" track for Design Research Society #DRS2026 in Edinburgh (8-12 June 2026) is open and we'd really welcome your perspectives drs2026.thedrs.org/10-2-troubli... Abstracts: 31/10; papers: 14/11

2. the strange but often repeated cultish mantra that we need to "embrace the future" — this is so bizarre given, e.g. how destructive industry forces have proven to be in science, from petroleum to tobacco to pharmaceutical companies. (Section 3.2 here doi.org/10.5281/zeno...) 4/n

we should all run an informal additional class that’s just ‘how the university works’ — would do wonders for solidarity between staff and students probably

Anyone I know on a visa is 100% of the time nervous about that visa. They're not going to try to just oopsie their way into staying in the UK for longer. All this correspondence does is intimidate an already very intimidated demographic.

The Future, created by Betty Bebbington c.1965, in the art therapy studio at Netherne hospital in Surrey where she was compelled to live. This is one of a small number of her mostly abstract surviving works, several of which feature these drifts & vortices of darkness with notations in her own hand

the slop visuals that have the vague aesthetics in place but nothing makes any sense when you actually look closer is accidentally perfect for the entire Abundance Agenda