This is a deeply concerning trend. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

www.theguardian.com/technology/2.... #AI

More from the skate park dig in Glasgow - BBC News - How a chocolate bar wrapper solved an archaeological mystery www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Semiotic paradox alert!

BBC News - 'Brilliant' response to Blenheim Palace ceiling names appeal - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

So why can't we do this with detecting? Why not a license required to own a detector and an online test (to check knowledge of the law and Code of Practice) to be completed before license granted...? #Archaeology #Detecting 🏺 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

No idea who Laurent Brindeau is, but isn’t this caricature of @zackpolanski.bsky.social in today’s @dailymailpolitics.bsky.social ragingly antisemitic?

BBC News - I used Lego to design a farm for people who are blind - like me www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

BBC News - Gorilla statue appears by Kennet and Avon Canal in Great Bedwyn - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"One of my friends was like, 'should we be doing this?' And I said, 'we just drove from London to do this. We're here now, we're gonna do it'," he said. This attitude has killed many in the hills and on the water. If in doubt about it being safe don't do it. You can always give it a go another day

No one says to legit business owners, "hey I see there's an underground market selling toxic knock-offs of your product: how will you incorporate the toxic product AND protect your customers against its harms?" But apparently it's fine to make this suggestion to educators with respect to AI.

I was also completely unsurprised to see the term 'influencer' appearing in this news item.

This is something a lot of Mountain Rescue teams are seeing across the UK. Many people don't realise how quickly conditions can change and how challenging peaks and fells can be. BBC News - Spate of mountain rescues involving young men sparks concern www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It is EXHAUSTING not only being made responsible for coming up with new kinds of assignments for our students; it's also tedious reading op-eds that suggest the core problem is a crisis in teaching. But, as Chris and I lay out here, this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning.

youtu.be/O3FMV3iugeI?... Painfully appropriate for the current time.

A classic grift is one where you create the problem in order to sell people the solution. LLM/AII boosters in general are pushing this exact grift by telling people they are incapable off something they sre inherently capable of and capable of doing better than the product.

Not now, haunted Victorian shoes

Have you ever heard someone go off, and their words are so perfectly chosen, so well said in that moment, that you’re in awe? You think, “There’s nothing to add here,” and you applaud in your head. That’s exactly this. Pure perfection. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

BBC News - Are these AI prompts damaging your thinking skills? www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

AI boosters: AI can teach us so much about history. Historians and Archaeologists: Errrrm, guys... www.france24.com/en/technolog...

Please get vaccinated if you can- this year is already a bad one. If it makes you feel better - getting vaccinated goes beyond protecting yourself - it protects everyone else and the NHS. Consider it a patriotic act if that helps.

Really good thread and linked article #TransRightsAreHumanRights

BBC News - Building 'needs £100k to avoid falling into river' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... #HeritageAtRisk #Canterbury #ThomasBecket

Very similar at universities. Yes, I've been striking to try to save colleague's jobs. But there's so much anger about restructures forced from above, unthinking programme closures, just a feeling that management doesn't understand what a university is and holds its workers in disdain.

Asked directly by Kuenssberg whether a trans woman is a woman Mary-Ann Stephenson can't bring herself to say yes. My role is enforcing the Equality Act, she says, and under that Act, no. This is legally inaccurate - her role is far broader (see below) - and powerful evidence of her bigotry.

My new article has now been published in the 2025 volume of Traditio. I use a little examined episode on the lower Rhine in the late 350s with the aid of agricultural archaeology to reveal fiscal dependency relations between the Empire & Barbaricum, & the consequences of their rupture. #medievalsky

I briefly checked social media in the middle of the night to discover the news an ice hockey team I support have made a trade I was seriously hoping they'd avoid making. In the grand scheme of things, it is a minor one, but still... fits with the day I had.

BBC News - Hundreds of items taken in high-value Bristol Museum archive raid - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Spring programme for the London Group of Historical Geographers is now live. We start again on 13 January with Thermal Horizons: Energy and Infrastructures of British Global Power, c. 1830-1900. In person at the IHR, London and on Zoom. Free and open to the public. All welcome, please register.

Have you been having trouble finding eel testicles? Worried you're doing it wrong? Don't fret...it's not just you! Folks from Aristotle on tried & failed to sex eels. Young Sigmund Freud spent a summer in Italy dissecting 400 eels looking for their testes, without success. 1/6 🗃️🧪

Please get vaccinated if you can- this year is already a bad one. If it makes you feel better - getting vaccinated goes beyond protecting yourself - it protects everyone else and the NHS. Consider it a patriotic act if that helps.

„When colleagues insist ChatGPT is ‘just another tool in the toolbox,‘ I’m tempted to say FB was once ‘just a way to connect with friends.‘ There‘s a difference between tools & technologies. Tools help us accomplish tasks; technologies reshape the environments in which we think, work, and relate.“

#HeritageCrime News Two and a half months after the event Avon and Somerset Police have released images of the theft of over 600 "high value" artifacts from a warehouse holding Bristol Museum's British Empire and Commonwealth collection.

I’ve posted this before but the light was perfect today- a little Victorian cat paw in a brick at the front of the old Norfolk & Norwich Hospital. As this is on the front-facing corner of the main gates, the bricklayer quite clearly put it there on purpose, at a height where children would spot it.

History UK has today released its 'History UK Disability and History Report' (2025): bit.ly/44PH51Z The report aims to raise the profile of issues relating to disability and history in UK Higher Education. Its research and writing were co-funded by the Royal Historical Society. #Skystorians

Just discovered an insane new form of co-intelligence where you briefly share the mind of a great thinker in history and then a portion of their mind travels in yours for the rest of your life. Calling it a "book."

President Trump: 'You're doing better than you've ever done.' Now, where have I heard that before...

#mentalhealth When services are advertised better more people seek them. While these are 'new cases' in the stats they are not 'new occurances'. Also in some areas the waiting list for assessment in adults is anecdotally estimated to be in decades. Classic example of missing the real issue.

The thing with 'over-pathologisation' and 'overdiagnosis' claims is they often misunderstand the relationship between more and better testing and increasing case numbers. When you test more or make treatment more available cases go up because you find them - not because they weren't there.

In the wake of Wes Streeting’s announcement of a review of mental health ‘over-diagnosis’ we have published this new policy paper by Prof Lucy Delap arguing that the government’s priority should be to address the historic stigma against sick & disabled people. historyandpolicy.org/policy-paper...

Anglicans, Catholics and others from liturgical traditions ‐ check out image 7 for a special treat ⚓️

... this is perfect ..

I should add for more on this - and a particularly important thread on this hypothesis the person to go to is @monicamedhist.bsky.social - who has referred to this being a possible factor in 2020.

I talked about plague & the 1257 Samalas eruption in 2020: doi.org/10.1093/ahr/.... (Link to #OpenAccess copy: works.hcommons.org/records/ba3b...)

Since plague historians have the attention of vulcanologists & climate historians/scientists for a hot minute, let me throw out some notes on a #YersiniaPestis study that came out several months ago, but whose historical implications weren't immediately obvious. W/ this graph in mind, here's mini-🧵.