Cont'd/ "The energy transition bet everything on renewables replacing fossil fuels and on the promise that growth could continue without much disruption to ordinary life. If ever there were a too-good-to-be-true story, that was it. We should have seen the fallacy long ago—but we didn’t want to." […]

Proof if any were needed that Moleskine is using cheaper paper and the notebook quality is worse. Unusable really. Pages from cahier notebooks circa 2017 and 2024. Lots of bleeding and irregular textures on the newer paper. I’ll never buy another Moleskine […] [Original post on mstdn.social]

This is a good essay, placing the "trad wife" movement in its historical context as a supporting pillar of fascist ideology. It also mentions historian Diana Garvin's book Feeding Fascism: The Politics of Women’s Food Work, which I've bumped to the top of my to-read pile […]

Tiny little block ready for printing 🧬 Two strands of DNA meeting amongst the stars

Now *this* is how to do reporting on the latest for-profit edtech-AI snake oil outfit to promise hyperaccelerated learning through fully surveillant clasrooms and teacherless schooling all the way to big investor injections of capital and raids on families' incomes sfstandard.com/2025/09/19/a...

lol @theonion.com

I've handed off a tedious responsibility to a competent person, and watching things get sorted without me is glorious.

"The “debate me bro” playbook is simple and effective: demand that serious people engage with your conspiracy theories or extremist talking points. If they decline, cry “censorship!” and claim they’re “afraid of the truth.” If they accept, turn the interaction into a performance designed to […]

Oh my God this is so bad and oil companies are celebrating it. https://www.ft.com/content/ef1538bf-2823-4627-96f5-086cd752e258

As a consoling thought, when you look outside of the so-called "Western World", it becomes clear that #fossifuels have already lost. The surge in #fascism around here is in part a last-ditch effort to prop up a failing business model. This might "work" for a while, but it can only delay the end […]

after the 'agentic ai' failure, this is the next grift

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/736415 UK Parilament Petition: Raise fuel duty in line with inflation to raise income for critical services (and to contribute to costs of climate change and other externalities...)

If it's true that violence has no place in politics, then there is no place for the views of someone who consistently advocated violence in politics. Expressing sympathy for someone who promoted fascist views makes you a fascist sympathiser.

Gardening, not architecture #obliquestrategies

If Farage wins the next election, it will be down to one person. His name is Keir Starmer. This thread explains why. 1. Destroying faith in democracy. The UK decisively voted out the Tories, only for Starmer to give us a Continuity Tory government, shamefully beholden to economic power. 🧵

Drowning in academic bullshit today. Colleagues are hosting an event about 'learning from indigenous cultures' and of course everyone speaking is from a colonising culture. :nkoFacepalm: A dissertation student stubbornly continues submitting LLM output as his own work, despite me telling him I […]

Slogging through writing the next paper and considering the connections between the topic (the churn of low quality fast fashion) and the medium (the grossly devalued academic paper). In both cases, the system rewards the worst behaviour, incentivising and rewarding producers of the lowest […]

More from dad’s vintage Playboy collection. This time, a 1975 article by J Paul Getty arguing against the salience of a balanced federal budget and the pernicious household analogy. Apparently this discussion hasn’t advanced one bit in the intervening half century.

I'm spending some time with my elderly mother and responding to her reactionary political opinions is hard work. It's not even like she believes what she's saying! If I get her to think for a moment, she comes around, but it requires constant push back. Exhausting.

My mom is finally going to sell my dad’s old Playboy magazines. This cover art is fabulous, not to mention interviews with Jimmy Hoffa and a confidante of Howard Hughes

I'm away from my lovely partner for two weeks. Almost half way through, I think it miss the #Cat more...

Pulling the lever will stop the trolley but you will have to ride a bike a few miles sometimes and it might rain or be hot or there could be hills or traffic or... really is having a king so bad?

It has been pretty useful reading The Conversation's coverage of generative AI to see just how deep the rot is, in academia. Articles like this, which actively encourage students to rely on a bullshit machine for their work, are wildly common theconversation.com/uni-students...

I've finally got one sentence of this agonising paper right. #academicchatter

Gotta say it sucks to hear over the last 30-40 years how progressive policies that directly help citizens could never be enabled by the stroke of a pen, but in just a few short months a moody dictator can enact any cruel authoritarian idea no one wants or needs and it gets implemented nationwide […]

I've found yet another academic book claiming to explore "global" perspectives on sustainable fashion, cover shows a young brown woman and, obviously, the editors are all white women. 🤢 :vomit: Enough already.

god I hate Elsevier so much. #academicchatter

“Local stores next to the protected bike-lane have seen a 49% increase in sales, compared to an average of 3% for Manhattan as a whole.” (Among MANY other public benefits.) Want To Make More Money? Build A Business On A Bike Lane. #CityMakingMath via @fastcompany.com #BikeLanesMeanBusiness

"Has your favorite AI chatbot driven you nuts yet?" https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.19218

Penelope brought us our first cat gift. Very proud. Sharing this lovely photo of her, rather than the tiny mouse corpse I had to tidy up. #Cats #CatsOfMastodon

zero sympathy for this slimeball, who is now trying to claim that his climate denial was just an act. Doesn't matter what he 'really believed' - what matters is that he was an effective advocate for prolonging and worsening fossil fuel use. FAFO, buddy. www.desmog.com/jeremy-clark...

Using a random text generation program as a replacement for reading and critical thinking results in errors, finds study arstechnica.com/ai/2025/03/a...

I couldn’t find the right colour shoes so I have deglazed and dyed these to the perfect shade

“Air pollution fell substantially as Paris restricted car traffic and made way for parks, people-streets and bike-lanes.” Better for the climate, better for health, better for livability & quality of life. Common sense. Such a no-brainer, it’s remarkable that more cities HAVEN’T done the same.

Learning and Impact Lead applications close Thursday 🚨 Can you help us and our network better understand how change happens and the difference we can make in community organising, narrative change and wider civil society for a more equitable future? jrf.octo-firstclass.co.uk/candidates/c....

Fuck 100% of this and fuck you Howard Levitt. You're insane. Humans are not here to work their lives away and still struggle while fascist billionaires destroy the planet. Eat a trash bag full of dicks. Howard Levitt: Work–life balance is dead, and employers aren't scared | Financial Post […]

Whoever thinks it’s a good idea to force everyone to use their services online or via an app should be forced to give free IT support to every elderly person who needs to use that service

Recently I see people and even organisations describing themselves as 'activist'. And I would love to know what they think they mean by this. Is one an 'activist' if the activities you're doing are part of your salaried job in an institution? Can institutions be 'activist'? One of my […]

In this role you will: - Craft and execute media strategies that influence opinion - Foster relationships with key journalists - Navigate the evolving media landscape Location: London/York/Hybrid Salary: £45,390.80, plus £5000 London weighing Apply: jrf.octo-firstclass.co.uk/candidates/c... 2/2

Rare work post: I'll be hosting a Future Fashion Scenarios Workshop with Charity Super.Mkt x Ravensbourne University London at the NOW Gallery in Greenwich on Monday, 18 August 2025, 11:00am ‐ 1:00pm. Please join me to explore and create bold new ideas for how we shop, wear, and experience […]

Everything we've made will break, buildings and streets will crumble, and cities will be abandoned. But the CO₂ we emit into the atmosphere will persist for centuries, and the climatic impacts will last longer than human civilization has existed. This is our legacy for the future.

Embarking on my third attempt to read Iain M Banks. I’m afraid I did not at all enjoy the previous two. Last try.

Yesterday’s #Caturday charity shop find is this magnificent decorative plate. Absolutely torn about keeping or gifting it

A social sciences and humanities reading list on AI in education 🧵

my god Elsevier is a diabolically shit company. #academicchatter

The business secretary Jonathan Reynolds says the racist protesters intimidating asylum seekers in Epping are "upset for legitimate reasons.” I don't remember any Labour frontbencher saying the same about people protesting the genocide in Gaza. On the contrary, they've criminalised peaceful dissent.

Reading a paper for peer review and it is a master-class in tedious writing: zombie nouns, passive voice, impenetrable language.... I think there may be some good ideas in here, but the authors are doing their damnedest to disguise them. #acadmicchatter

I've received an incredible email from a student saying that he's concerned that doing field work and collecting data will negatively affect the progress of his masters thesis. Genuinely mind blowing.

Reading Before the Coffee Gets Cold, and it’s ok. Lots of similarities to a story by Ted Chiang which I think is much better. Probably unfair to make such comparisons #Books