People who don't write books assume writer's block is staring at a blank page with zero ideas. In truth it's invariably the opposite. Writer's block is when a dazzling array of options become tyrannical, team up with an unwillingness to fail, mug you in a dark alley and stick a bag over your head.

"the takeaway is clear: simultaneous interpreting places a unique and immediate strain on working memory. Even when performance does not visibly collapse, the cognitive system is working at full stretch—sometimes too stretched to learn in the moment..." New post on @languageonthemove.bsky.social

Appreciating Zotero once again

What I wish for everybody to remember when Canvas comes back online: The reason OUR data can be held for ransom is because Instructure, their owners (KKR private equity & Dragoneer venture capital), & our own employers (see ASU Atomic) monetize it. It's Canvas that hacked education & stole our IP.

‘The concept dates back to the cold war, but after a hiatus Sweden set up a psychological defence agency in 2022, which tries to work with the public and highlight online disinformation.’ www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Seagrass is rebounding off the coast of France. Wastewater treatment and coastal protections in Marseille have enabled the dramatic recovery of Neptune grass (Posidonia oceanica), the Mediterranean’s most important endemic seagrass. Mongabay buff.ly/En27JIm #ShareGoodNewsToo

Nice burn by proximity @theguardian.com

"It’s a huge milestone that Copenhagen is now a city where public transport is green and neither pollutes nor emits CO2. It makes a big difference to the climate and the air we breathe every day." Sisse Marie Welling, Lord Mayor of Copenhagen buff.ly/9OUNvxB #ShareGoodNewsToo

7/7. It's worth dwelling on this point. It’s hard for Americans to process that their hard right politics is in large measure a Russian and Hungarian import — intellectually and also financially. We should take advantage of the defeat of Orbán to let this basic fact sink in. bsky.app/profile/empt...

NEW—I got an exclusive excerpt from a USAID whistleblower's new book that made me gasp multiple times. It details Trump's dismantling of the humanitarian aid agency & his team/DOGE's shocking ignorance to public health. 'Into the Wood Chipper' by Nicholas Enrich is out tomorrow. Read excerpt here:

"Our interests in Europe and the UK are the same. Our values in Europe and the UK are the same. We need a UK voice in Europe. We really miss you guys." President Alexander Stubb of Finland offers his view on Brexit. Watch the event ➡️ bit.ly/4lGe54k

"The Jazz Pictures the FBI Silenced---Fearing for her safety, Lisette Model buried her photos of artists like Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong, but a new book reveals them to the world" hyperallergic.com/the-jazz-pic...

I wrote a short blog post about this paper, reflecting on my own time as a @carpentries.carpentries.org Software Carpentry instructor blog.stephenturner.us/p/ten-simple...

MacKenzie Scott and Melinda French Gates have the opportunity to do something so hilarious right now. There are 300 recently unemployed journalists who would love the opportunity to help them fight the darkness that is consuming our democracy.

Just a reminder to consider the Library of Babel Group. We have projects afoot and opportunities to network with like-minded folks. www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...

Made a conscious decision to focus on AI/bigtech in early 2025 and I'm glad I did It's a systemic attack on both the means of climate action (evidence-based facts, the written / spoken word, visual communication) and the ends (trying to stop fossil fuel use). I think it's starting to sink in, now

Some much-needed good news, including • renewables overtake coal as source of electricity globally • new oceans protections pledged in the High Seas Treaty • landmark litigation to facilitate accountability for climate breakdown • indigenous wins at COP 🌱❣️🌊 www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...

A thread describing an absolutely fascinating project about the Deep History (and meaning) of Ukraine. x.com/Mylovanov/st...

Poster on way to #ascilite25 @wentale.bsky.social

Very funny 🤣 -- great crypto-chart @crikey.com.au fyi @infobeautiful.bsky.social

i’m not crying you’re crying xkcd: Fifteen Years

Winter is coming ... end of UK summer time means #lthechat is at a more Australia-friendly time

Huge congrats to a real ed-tech hero, @linkletter.org, who survived a five-year legal odyssey after he posted a critique of Proctorio on social media. linkletter.org/update-33-th... I so admire Ian's bravery in the face of corporate bullying. Kudos and congrats, Ian!!!

Turn off Gemini in Google! It's been turned on by default. Go to your Drive, click the gear icon, click settings, go to "manage apps" and uncheck that nasty "use by default" box. www.zdnet.com/article/how-...

Telling moment: I was walking back from the rally, but a couple miles from it, carrying nothing but my gigantic American flag. An eight year old on his bike sees me with it and yells "No Kings!!" with absolute conviction. My friends, they have lost the flag.

Class is in session! Thanks, @drlisacorrigan.bsky.social, for this analysis of the importance of this moment. "This is how you visually dismantle fascist iconography." Yes!

#nokings Portland frog brigade

Purdue to the rescue of IU student newspaper, whose institution was attempting censorship. Details in alt!

Giant copy of the Constitution being carried down Pennsylvania Avenue.

I'd love to see someone try to estimate just how much time and money has gone into research that is either fully undermined by reliance on LLMs or fully pointless --- because obvious if you start from an understanding of what LLMs actually are. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This is wild. I’ve never heard this story before.

USA Government is targeting people who just want things to be normal. Who was Who in Weimar Germany (video) open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p...

bubble dance party

We're launched! In my newsletter this week, I write about our new female-founded media collective @thenerve.news, the fuck you energy that's fuelling it & why the mainstream media's laundering of Tony Blair is *exactly* why you need to read it 👊👊👊 broligarchy.substack.com/p/the-nerve

Speak truth to power, from Professor Tim Snyder.

We all needed this right now 👇🏽 Alt text and info about the author are in the replies

From January 2006. #auspol www.abc.net.au/news/2006-01...

An iSchool colleague who I don’t think is on Bsky shared this article about The Carpentries’ recent refusal of a $1.5 millon NSF grant after they were asked to strip DEI from their programming This feels like the only ethical way forward

Those of us studying edtech platforms and infrastructures in education talk a bit about vendor "lock-ins" - how schools can't get out of a platform once they're on it. This is a magnificent paper about that by @lucascone.bsky.social and Signe Sophus Lai www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

We need a German word for the feeling when you've communicated with another academic in English only to discover that their first language is also German.

NEW investigation: DOGE-Pilled The full story on the transformation of 23 year-old Luke Farritor and how he ended up at the Department of Government Efficiency--slashing, dismantling, undoing--wielding a résumé that "didn’t pass muster” NO PAYWALL! www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

“Australian university students are still paying some of the highest fees in the OECD under a system that punishes them for choosing the ‘wrong’ degree. That system has a name – the Job-ready Graduates package – and Labor has left it virtually untouched.” http://satpa.pe/jwqLqCo

I split AI into 3 non-mutually exclusive types (see Table 1 above): displacement (harmful), enhancement (beneficial), and/or replacement (neutral) of human cognitive labour. More later possibly, but see Tables 2 to 4 (attached or here: arxiv.org/pdf/2507.19960) for the worked through examples. 2/n

This hasn't dated 'The survival of humanities researchers is a political act in itself'

Rooftop solar power in Australia is the cheapest power available to consumers in the world, full stop. I wish more people knew that.

The latest round of cuts at ANU include an outrageous plan to close the Australian National Dictionary Centre (ANDC). ANU has forgotten its vital function as the national university. Please sign this petition urging ANU to reconsider and protect the ANDC: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Make yourselves ungovernable. Brilliant explanation of what we need to do and why, from @graceblakeley.substack.com

🚨This is the most exciting step of my scientific career🚨 25 yrs ago I started a life long interest in navigation, maps & brains I've collected data from >4 m people in 195 nations in SeaHeroQuest In 3 weeks we set off on an ocean voyage to study the amazing spatial skills of Marshallese sailors: