I am honestly sick of being told — at a university FFS — that we need to ‘embrace’ this profoundly unethical and irresponsible technology.

Our next indoor meeting is taking place on Wednesday 19th October starting at 7:30pm. The speaker is Laurence Rose who will be talking about Windhover. All welcome! #Leeds #RSPB

I keep seeing 1.5C described as a goal or a target. It’s not. It’s a LIMIT that we’re about to exceed, with very serious ramifications. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Selling these via CleySpy, if anyone on here is looking for small binoculars #BirdingGear

If I see that quote from the Great Gatsby about Tom and Daisy being careless people one more time… I get it! They were rich and selfish and — look! — some people now are rich and selfish. Now stop being so lazy and post something you’ve thought of yourself!

The most annoying night of the year.

Forgive the direct tags - @tomgatti.bsky.social @robbiemillen.bsky.social @patrickbarkham.bsky.social @questingvole.bsky.social

Ragwort, St Aidan’s nature reserve, West Yorkshire, 2/11/25. One of my favourite plants and unfairly maligned. #wildflowerhour

A really beautiful morning for #UKbirding in the Aire Valley near Leeds. 60ish species, including a kingfisher giving excellent views and 6 great white egrets jostling for flight space with some grey herons. 2 peacock butterflies too. Pleasantly but also worryingly warm for November.

Every day it feels more and more like a zombie apocalypse over on LinkedIn, in which you start a conversation with someone who you hope is an ordinary person and then a couple of turns in discover that they have surrendered their brains to the "AI" mass delusion.

Had a lovely time listening and learning about volcanic sublimity and coping with climate catastrophe last night with @bars.bsky.social 🌋Excellent papers from @dilarakalkan.bsky.social @katlion.bsky.social and Chloe Melvin! And huge thanks to our wonderful chair @davidhiggins.bsky.social

This is quite horrifying to me, especially because I can’t think of a useful application of it for my work without it compromising my research integrity. And in addition, the use of LLMs is so highly unethical for the environment, intellectual property rights, etc.

Spent an hour on the floor in the wood today. Dogs (our own) knocked me flying & leg pain kept me fainting. Some lovely ladies with me (inc Mum) so I just slept for a bit among the golden yellow leaves & mud & was quite content really. Felt a lot like falling off a horse. Then I heard a flock 1/2

Why is this grant application 67 pages long and why did I agree to review it?

I am old.

I just escaped from my office to get a coffee and some nice Lebanese food and, as I walked along Woodhouse Lane, a peregrine falcon dived and soared over the traffic. A long working day considerably brightened.

Seems fine.

Minority representation on TV causes outrage From the new Private Eye, in shops now.

'In refusing to accept that children learn in specific ways, and by shortening the critical development stage for play-based learning, the English education system has gone badly wrong'. Totally agree. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Reminder that I am chairing an online event tomorrow night on 'Volcanic Romanticism'. Featuring talks by @katlion.bsky.social, @womanofclouds.bsky.social, Dilara Kalkan, and Chloe Melvin. You can register for free at the link below. @bars.bsky.social www.eventbrite.com/e/bars-digit...

Every time discover a new piece on the dangers of LLMs, particularly for research and teaching, I add it to a Zotero library. I figure that I might as well share it, so here's my library of Cautionary AI Tales: www.zotero.org/groups/62758...

Quite a stressful situation at work in recent days. One positive: I’ve realised that the world won’t end if I’m not on email all the time. So have removed it from devices and that does seem to be helping keep the stress under control…

"The economic disaster that is Brexit" (A lot worse than I had thought) Will Hutton in @theobserveruk.bsky.social

#UKbirding at Eccup reservoir near Leeds this morning. Very little on the water but otherwise lively on a lovely autumn morning. 28 species, including my first fieldfares and redwings of the season. 5 whooper swans overhead. Notable wood pigeon movement south.

New preprint alert! 🚨 “Let Them Eat Large Language Models: Artificial Intelligence and Austerity in the Neoliberal University”

Just had a short bath that resulted in two book ideas (with titles). I somehow doubt that I’ll get round to writing either of them, but am enjoying the intellectual buzz nonetheless. Never underestimate the creative power of immersion in warm water!

For God's sake, TAX CAPITAL 50 families have as much wealth as HALF the population Maintaining this is indefensible and political suicide www.theguardian.com/money/2025/oct/23/rachel-reeves-is-considering-raising-income-tax-to-reduce-deficit-sources-say

Pleased to have just done some key work for my bittern project. Only took 3 hours but I've not been able to find the time or headspace for weeks. In celebration, here is a video (by Ron Jackson) of a bittern eating a fish bigger than its head (not for the squeamish). www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRS...

One of my favourite internet genres is "rich person buys unnecessary 'smart' device and then it goes wrong"

I'm pretty gutted this was called off, as it would have been nice to get out of the ventilation pipe I call an office, so do please shout if you need an agreeable yet opinionated WRITER at your festival, bookshop, podcast recording, book group, supermarket opening or anything else.

I think this is true in a deep and troubling way. I have been observing this too. I am getting old & maybe I’m wrong, but I really feel basic academic, critical and intellectual, attitudes that were normal and prominent 20 years ago seem to have eroded. I agree, we need to understand how and why.

I'll never understand why people willingly attach their names to quack pseudoscience like this. We should run some psychometrics on the coauthor list.

Things the government should give a shit about: — cost of living crisis — unaffordable housing — ecological degradation — child poverty — social care crisis — NHS crisis — crumbling infrastructure Things the government should not give a shit about: — whether some fans can go to a football match

WTF?! Whatever the rights and wrongs of the ban, does the government not have more important things to worry about?

Part of me wants to read this; part of me fears that it would send all of me to an early(ish) grave.

My fab colleague Sharon Ruston on the new Guillermo Del Toro Frankenstein: theconversation.com/guillermo-de...

This is an important petition on academic freedom, for a professor at Syracuse, NY, USA, who has been indefinitely suspended for a very mildly sarcastic four-word social media post relating to US politics. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Our Dilys Breese Medal winner is Julian Hughes @penrhynbirder.bsky.social! Julian is editor of the Welsh Bird Report, Co-editor of The Birds of Wales and a dedicated birder. Taking part in many BTO surveys he uses his writing skills to regularly share BTO work, including in his BirdNotes column. 📝

Volcanic Romanticism!! 🌋On a Thursday evening with @bars.bsky.social ! What could be more thrilling? Please join me, @dilarakalkan.bsky.social Chloe Melvin, Katerina Liontou and @davidhiggins.bsky.social on 30th October at 7.30pm to discuss the weather of 1816, the Diodati Circle, and more!

112 acres of biodiverse land in the Devon dairy-belt needs saving. Only £10k short now. Can you chip in or share this skeet? Thanks!

OpenAI’s strategy is very clear, it’s trying to get people - especially young people - so reliant on its products intellectually & emotionally (& now sexually!) that going without them becomes unthinkable. And they need signs of that strategy working to keep the funding flowing in

No it isn’t stop complying in advance

been staring at this paragraph in @umich.edu ‘s AI guidance on and off. you have an ethical obligation to feed Sam Altman.

now that we have solved the mental health issue, everybody can fuck a robot with no restrictions, in a very mentally healthy way

He also seems to believe that Open AI have been ‘careful with mental health issues’!

British Association of Romantic Studies digital event: 'Volcanic Romanticism', 30 October, 7pm UK time. I'm chairing, but please don't let that put you off. The speakers will be great! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bars-digit...

Between work and rushing around with small children, I’ve not had much time for birdwatching recently. October highlight has been a skein of maybe 200 pink-footed goose in flight from the garden. We sometimes get hundreds of migrating thrushes over us in October so 🤞

Question for #envhist and humanities peeps: I’m working on an outreach plan supporting a wetland restoration project. Does anybody have recommendations of authors or projects using history to increase public awareness on restoration projects?

AI is clearly anti-productivity given the extent that its externalities create more work for society.

We will soon be announcing a new Fellowship through the British Association for Romantic Studies which supportsthe work of independent researchers. It's a tight deadline but if you fall into this category or know anyone who does, watch this space @bars.bsky.social