Congratulations Zihao He! Another @cswcedinburgh.bsky.social student has successfully passing their PhD exam. Thanks to Dr Lars Laaman (SOAS) and Luke Li for serving as examiners.

Modern DRAM is based on a brilliant design from IBM. But, we're still paying for a latency penalty that's existed since the 60s! In this video, I'm introducing my research project (Tailslayer) that immensely reduces p99.99 latency on traditional RAM!

New journal URL www.philosophical-logic.org

Are you an early career social scientist with a PhD looking to develop your publications, networks, research & professional skills? Applications are open for the ESRC postdoctoral fellowships. ⏰ Closes 1 June 2026. Find out more➡️

But... new building? What about the shiny new building? It won an award you know.

Scalzi is such a treasure

'The judgment in the case brought against the Office for Students by the University of Sussex after it was fined more than half a million pounds could not be clearer, or more devastating for the OfS. Whether it can survive only time will tell.' (Sir Peter Scott) 1/2

What happens when we lose a language? A staggering 44% of human languages are endangered – with culture, tradition and whole ways of understanding the world at stake www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

WE DON'T NEED PETROLEUM-BASED PLASTICS ANYMORE! "The [bamboo plastic] outperforms most commercial plastics and bioplastics in mechanical and thermo-mechanical metrics while maintaining full biodegradability in soil within 50 days and closed-loop recyclability with 90% retained strength."

𝟏𝟎𝟎 𝖄𝖊𝖆𝖗𝖘 𝕬𝖌𝖔… The Eye delved into Christopher Harborne's background - his dual identity, his cryptocurrency connections, his enormous political donations - long before his undeclared £5 million personal gift to Nigel Farage. From the Private Eye archive. Issue 1511, December 2019.

One of the most important places of my life: the anthropology library at @unituebingen.bsky.social - I almost cried when I entered it today after 22 years. It smells the same, the bookshelves are in the same order, the old card catalogue is still there. Six years of studying and working here. Bliss!

JK Rowling is now represented by a trans person in the Scottish parliament. Absolutely incredible.

Remember, vote Reform for an entitled prick who doesn't pay his tax and a grifting charlatan who is bought and paid for by a crypto billionaire.

Woohoo, here's my essay with my fav co-author on 30,000 fellowship wins across the Guggenheim, Stanford CASBS, NAEd, National Humanities Center, RSF visiting scholar, and Harvard Radcliffe. Spoiler: it's the people working at prestigious universities www.publicbooks.org/who-gets-gug...

RIP Ask Jeeves. The natural-language search engine founded in 1996 was rebranded as Ask in 2006, and officially shut down May 1. When websites close, the historical record can disappear with them. The #WaybackMachine preserves 30 years of web history: web.archive.org #90s #90sNostalgia #WebHistory

Bring back the ancient knowledge

"Less than 72 hours before Weber State University in Utah was scheduled to host a conference on censorship, presenters were told not to discuss identity politics, or be removed from the official program agenda…" www.404media.co/how-a-univer...

In 1914, workers in a German basalt quarry in Oberkassel found the buried remains of two humans: an older man, young woman, dated to 14,000 yrs old. In the grave with them were the bones of a dog or wolf. To be accurate, we know now there were 2 dogs. Let's talk about the 'Bonn–Oberkassel dog(s)'

New #StrongMessageHere up everywhere you get your podcasts. @shippersunbound.bsky.social. in excellent form on this week’s political cavalcade of bluster. It’s the clearest explanation on record of how nobody knows anything.

The Libraries That Weren't Supposed to Exist Basement libraries and buried archives: a brief history of reading against the state. cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/the-librar... by Hana Lee Goldin

BPL Chief Librarian Edwin B. Maxwell shares his favorite books about libraries in honor of National Library Week.

Opens slush pile. Reads generated story... Bans. Reads generated story... Bans. Reads generated story... Bans... Screams. Closes computer. Screams again. Runs off into the woods. Sees squirrel. Hmmm... Squirrels have never submitted a generated story. Squirrel gets treat.

We are not in the "AI era." We are in the "source: trust me, bro" era.

Read this: epic waste on consultants by uni VCs, superbly critiqued by @gsoh31.bsky.social. We need a positive substitute to this "hawking". There's a gaping gulf between uni practice + real research on the "Big Con" by @rosiecollington.bsky.social[email protected] www.ft.com/content/5032...

Why did OpenAI shut down Sora, and what does it mean for the future? For forensic researchers battling disinformation, it's both a relief and a stark cautionary tale for an industry moving too fast, write Sarah Barrington and Hany Farid. There are lessons for platforms and policymakers, they say.

“Ministers justify cutting help for people too disabled to work by arguing it will remove the “perverse incentives” for benefits, as if a 25 year old bedbound with ME just needs incentivising to get back to the office.” My col. on next week’s Universal Credit cut www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I assume that fabricated citations are a pretty trivial fix for the current GenAI models people are using to write fraudulent science papers. I don't mean this in an optimistic sense.

Rosalind Bucy is in Lecture Theatre 1 reporting on a Library Services and Technology Act grant project to form a cross-sector Professional Learning Community (PLC) to support #infolit for concurrent enrollment students. Bringing school librarians & an academic librarian together. #LILAC26

Two articles/researchers whose papers about political information literacy I really like (and bonus, they are based on actual research rather than click bait) are Simon Cloudesley and @walkyouhome.bsky.social . #lilac26 Try: ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid... and scholar.google.com/citations?vi...

Check out @shoutoutuk.bsky.social

What an inspiring and powerful talk. About vulnerability, creating change by teaching librarians who will then go and teach others, and this! “My first ‘aha’ was her. My whole life changed in that moment.” #LILAC26 #Collaboration #KnowledgeJustice #InformationLiteracy #Librarians

Join Heather Campbell, Lea Sansom & Ashley McKeown in Workroom 2, as members of a knowledge justice research collective at @westernu.ca they will share what they have learned by working across disciplines & professional boundaries, navigating discomfort, & partnering with students. #LILAC26

Join Jane Hammons & Amanda Folk in Workroom 2 as they share preliminary themes & examples from an ongoing research study focused on evaluating the effectiveness & impact of participation in an open, no-cost, online Teaching #InfoLit Certificate program facilitated by librarians. #LILAC26

Really impressed by the posters at #LILAC26. I definitely want to find out more about the new Digital and Information Literacy Framework from @ucclibrary.bsky.social

Interesting focus on ‘wise’- several @jinfolit.bsky.social articles are exploring how IL can also not be ‘wise’ - also, questioning whose understanding of wise prevails #lilac26

At 11.00am we have the pleasure of introducing our second #LILAC26 keynote, Sheila Webber, in Lecture Theatre 1. Sheila will be discussing 'Information Literacy in a time of polycrisis and cherry blossom'.

Fantastic tour of the Western Bank Library this morning, plus a quick peek at the continuous lift in the Art Tour! #LILAC26

Brilliant talk and discussion, shame this session has to end Related - "Resisting AI", Catarina Carvalho⁠⁠ talks to ⁠⁠Dan McQuillan on the podcast, Diversifying and Decolonising the University [in two parts] podverse.fm/episode/9qj3...

If you’re a new professional or attending LILAC for the first time, head over to the First Timers and New Professionals Welcome! Meet other people that are new to the conference or the profession before sessions begin on Level A of The Wave #LILAC26

Join Louise Speakman & Rebecca Beaumont in Workroom 1 as they introduce the innovative Information and Academic Literacies (I&AL) Toolkit. #LILAC26

Have you thought about making a nomination for the @infolitgroup.bsky.social Information Literacy Award? The award is open to all practitioners, researchers & academics working in the #infolit field in the UK. Self-nominate or nominate others before 14 Feb: www.lilacconference.com/awards/infor...

Madelene Logren is in Lecture Theatre 4 discussing findings from a qualitative study of social media content published by a Swedish network of nurses who challenge widely accepted truths about COVID-19 & the pandemic. #LILAC26

Michelle Rawlings @michellerawlins.bsky.social fascinating presentation on Sheffield's Women of Steel at #LILAC26 @lilacconf.bsky.social hforhistory.co.uk/h-for-histor...

Arrived in Sheffield for #LILAC26 @lilacconf.bsky.social yesterday, so naturally went straight to The National Videogame Museum @nvmuk.bsky.social

Join @thatlibraryman.bsky.social in Lecture Theatre 1 for an introduction to TRYangle: a new approach to evaluating sources fit for the AI age. #LILAC26

Lisa Eveson is in Lecture Theatre 1 reporting on @teessideuni.bsky.social library's pilot participation in JISC’s Digital Transformation through a Library Lens project. Exploring how libraries can drive institutional digital transformation. #LILAC26

Today's 'you can't make it up' - Receive Qs & notes for a panel I'm doing next month - Mod happy to say AI wrote them; it seemed 'appropriate' - Fight urge to say I'll use AI to answer them, then... - Check address for event in notes, different to address online - Their AI hallucinated address...

I never used Grammerly, because it never did really understand the point of grammar and just...used a bunch of rules. Grammar (and punctuation and even spelling) is actually really squishy and alive and changing.