Reminder that Henry Hoovers are made in Britain by a unionised workforce

Silence: in Serbia, people are still marking 16 minutes of silence, for the 16 people killed in the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy in November 2024, which sparked nationwide protests. Today I stood in this one, organised by students of Mathematical High School in Belgrade. 1/3

Yesterday, Christians in Gaza celebrated Christmas, carrying with them the spirit of hope, love, and unity, despite all the hardships surrounding them. ✨🎄 Happy Christmas! Every moment of joy blossoming in Gaza is a message to the world: life goes on, no matter the challenges. #Gaza

Frankly embarrassing for a British newspaper to report this without noting that the University of the Third Age has functioned in the UK for decades. It has 400,000 members. www.u3a.org.uk/about

The Government has announced the first of their ‘nine new river walks’: a section of the River Mersey near Stockport. Yet what’s being presented as a national breakthrough is, in reality, a set of long-overdue local council upgrades to existing riverside paths. A skim through the details... 🧵

props to this christmas lad I’ve just spotted on @flightradar24.com

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.

xmas movie posters but with muppets: thread

Yeah, there’s a way around this that doesn’t involve AI. It’s called ‘academia’. We read each other’s work. We read primary sources as appropriate. We go to conferences to discuss it - and get pointed to other work to read. We listen. It’s the job.

Sensible Moderates: And so this worrying escalation in Russian/Iranian/Chinese/Venezuelan aggression must be countered The US President, live on TV every day: It’s about oil. O-I-L, oil. We’re gonna kill them and take the oil, it’s ours. Just watch.

Hi. Court reporter here again. I can confirm about a third of local cases I see are domestic abuse of women and girls. Where do you think the men start? And almost every columnist tells you to look elsewhere.

I heard a bird sing In the dark of December A beautiful thing A sweet to remember "We are closer to Spring than we were in September." I heard a bird sing In the dark of December

I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite

Posting this again because a lot of people said they found it helpful! Guide to ALT text: www.perkins.org/resource/how...

The ratio on this. Truly a politician with his finger on the pulse of the population.

As water bosses keep getting bonuses ... "It’s rained a lot over the last couple of weeks. Areas of the country where water companies are currently dumped sh*t into rivers and on to beaches. Brown, currently dumping sewage. Red, has been dumping sewage within the last 24 hours." via Dianne Drew

David Walliams' reputation was an open secret, junior staff were told to meet him in pairs & never visit his home, yet HarperCollins only dropped him when a Telegraph investigation came out. The problem is not just him. HarperCollins knowingly promoted & funded a guy sexually harassing junior staff.

"Why is everyone SO OBSESSED with the Epstein Files," whined the guy who is in the Epstein Files. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Again, the likes of Hodges are really useful because they will say out loud the stupid things their smarter colleagues also think, but are just savvy enough to keep to themselves

The word we're looking for here is 'caste'.

An analysis of X posts from the UK's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology suggests it is overwhelmingly pro-AI. I analysed the sentiment of every X post from DSIT that mentioned "AI" this year. Of 122 posts, 110 were positive about AI, and only 7 mentioned its downsides. 🧵 1/2

New view sent back from Mars by the Curiosity rover yesterday... love how she can see for miles and miles across the crater floor far below her now... 🙂 Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/S Atkinson

periodically I'll see a backlash that goes a little too far or seems kinda unfair. i never say anything because i think we need to be kinda unhinged and zealous in our response to this shit. I'd take an honest-to-God crusade against this stuff over letting it proliferate.

He never disclosed that he’d visited Epstein in that column and did a lot of hand waving to insist that he and his fellow elites had nothing, nothing at all to do with him.

Deporting foreign criminals won't move the dial much at all because, where it's available, the data shows that the vast majority of VAWG is carried out white British men and (increasingly) boys known to their victims Badenoch knows this, and it's despicable that she fails to make this clear

The standard of political reporting in this country is *appalling* because of this. Actual politics- the relationships between state, labour, capital etc - are entirely invisible to these people. They can only see it in terms of "my team good".

Does anyone - anyone at all - have a plan to get us to a future where councils do have money to fix things again?

Prisoner 4 Palestine Qesser Zuhrah is at imminent risk of death! I've contacted people at HMP Bronzefield They have 2 doctors with them trying to get an ambulance in to take her to hospital The prison has refused to transfer her Justice Secretary David Lammy you must step in. Show humanity

Its always the ones you most suspect.

Having to learn a skill isn't gatekeeping. The internet is literally filled with free resources for you to learn basically anything. Y'know what is gatekeeping? Hoarding eye-watering amounts of wealth while the rest of the world struggles on...

I do think that if the main public health message from the authorities to the population is get the flu vaccine then the flu vaccine should be free and readily available for all. That’s not the case at the moment.

If I had money and time, I would set up a single issue political party around banning the car.

It’s wild how we’ve been getting all this insight into how Britain actually works and the extent to which the country is meaningfully democratic, and all that happens is the odd Guardian article. These hearings might as well be happening on Enceladus www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I do this every single semester. I take my phone to the bathroom in case I need to call my loved ones. I was tenured and i've never known a time before Columbine.

Most of the ill-informed, bigoted, legally actionable hate speech on the Internet comes from verified blue-check accounts with names and faces attached. The best, most incisive social criticism and commentary is invariably posted by anon pfps with names like 'FredEngelsMagnificentMommyMilkers69'.

Number of posts I've been tagged into from hardcore Starmer fans proclaiming Labour "stopped small boats" in the same vein as "our glorious leader caused the sun to rise" is actually pretty funny. The drop in channel crossings had absolutely nothing to do with government policy. The weather did. 1/3

If you see this, post a comics cover you love.

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

Wes Streeting blaming doctors for the chaos from rising flu cases #C4News Wes Streeting did not offer covid or flu boosters to everyone who wanted one Wes Streeting did not care enough to ensure clean indoor air in schools, workplaces, hospitality Both would have brought down cases significantly

It's so fucked up to have been a kid during the D&D is the devil freakout and the Tipper Gore dirty lyrics freakout and live to see the teen suicide machine get such a pass.

If handing someone their arse, was a video clip

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

@fletchjack.bsky.social from the BMA explains they've been trying to get round the table with Wes Streeting for several months but Streeting didn't even bother replying to their letter Now we're in Dec with a Flu epidemic & Streeting is accusing resident doctors of endangering patients

'Skull of St. Thomas Aquinas being transported to Fossanova Abbey.' Photograph by Daniel Ibanez

We'll stop by the drive through on the way. You look like you need to eat something

It's very clear that the goal is to capture people by getting them addicted to AI so that they can then charge us to use it or sell us as products to advertisers. That's why it's so bad for higher ed to be pushing this shit.

Looking forward to what other regional employment tribunals the media will be reporting on en masse today! Race discrimination in Scunthorpe? Sex discrimination in Yeovil? Homophobia in Wrexham? Or is it only GCs who lost their case that get this treatment

no idea