<bangs 💥 head 💥 on 💥 desk 💥 in 💥 German> Once more for the hard of thinking: social media bans do not and cannot work. All they do is hurt the most vulnerable.

In your daily reminder that academia isn't a neutral space, and that racism, lip service to reconciliation, and misogyny are still prevalent: this looks like a great add to your reading list

Career goal unlocked today: I was quoted in the Guardian! This made my morning over riisipirakka for breakfast www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

...and for a moment I forget to worry

Oh Glasgow, you are lovely

Cò leis thu welcome to #CoLIS2025

Please note, the US isn't the whole world.

i keep saying it but if you think that scientists given the means to work will slack off, you haven't met a scientist

Love studying how people use, abuse, find and manage information? Want to visit Montreal in the summer? The call for papers for Information Seeking In Context is out: www.mcgill.ca/isic2026/cal.... Please don't make your paper too good, though, because I want to go!

At #thewebcobf25 hearing a range of great talks about how we can make the Web safer for women

Australia, watch and learn. The solution to a broken health system IS NOT to privatise it #auspol. See also: New Zealand

The LibGen database contains 35 of my publications. At a conservative estimate that is 3500 hours of my work allowing for data collection, but accounting for co-authorship. Two years of work. That they just took "because it was there". 1/2 www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Australia is missing. Maybe after the election. Bot the countries of which I am a citizen are on this list.

Great opening keynote at #chiir25 from @antmandan.bsky.social. What does data donation mean for the future of studying humans, and how do we respect and protect donors?

Right academia, it's time to think about your travel plans. An academic was just detained at the US border, charged with terrorism, and sent back for having personal opinions on Trump in their email. This might seem like one trip gone wrong, but.... 1/2 www.lemonde.fr/en/internati...

We're not Amsterdam because we choose not to be.

This should have the whole world on notice, but it is also eerie how much Trump's treatment of the US echoes an abusive partner's slow erosion of boundaries

Once again, I want to point out that entering career interruption data often requires those of us doing it to think about the worst times in our careers. This response to losing it is therefore doubly callous.

Many of you will know I am a bit of an AI skeptic, but this is a use I can really get behind. Esafety does important but emotionally gruelling work. Limiting exposure is a really, really good thing. The underlying horror though? They had to have enough images to train the models.

We KNOW that people in their own homes is a good thing for society in many ways. So why isn't anyone standing up for the next generation?

I cried with laughter reading this thread. I also learned a lot, that one day in some pub quiz somewhere, will be useful

I've always maintained that bad times are a good way of figuring out who's who. I'm aware my character is under scrutiny, it should be! I have a lot of privilege. If you do, too, use it for good. Speak up. Reach out. Write to your representatives. Organise in the community. Vote with your money.

When private companies are key infrastructure for disaster information, private interests will almost certainly come before human life some of the time. Facebook are one example of many companies that could do this--I suspect they are the first rather than the only. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03...

In news that will surprise no-one, in jobs where you do not have to be in the office, giving employees flexibility improves productivity. COVID changed the way we work, regardless of the rent paid on high rise office blocks.

This is a really good piece on the history of the notion of a luddite, and why it can be good to be one now. It advocates for the democratisation of tech, and makes the case for some pointers theconversation.com/digital-ludd...

If you know five women scientists, it is a near certainty at least one of them has been harrassed. When so many of us have to live with this--even from within our own institutions--just to stay in the room is it any wonder we leave? theconversation.com/two-in-five-...

I'm so bloody tired of this shit. Companies make tools that are used to harm and scare women, and the public pays to clean up the mess with the legal system at the individual level. I want companies to have to make safer tech. www.news.com.au/technology/o...

I used to work with librarians. There is a lot I could say about that time, but one of those things is that it doesn't surprise me that librarians, most likely women, protected people getting information with their bodies. I'm just disgusted that they had to. theendisnaenae.substack.com/p/manning-up

When ChatGPT came out, it would give you tips on how to abuse and stalk your partner online--I personally confirmed this as part of a research study. Then someone realised that was a terrible idea, and it was 'censored'. Looks like we're going back to bad ideas techcrunch.com/2025/02/16/o...

There is a song for everything, even our times. youtu.be/1ym0qucwpmI?...

Not only that, they have done such a terrible job fiscally that the economy tanked harder than anywhere else in the OECD, so the austerity is really working out well for folks...oh, wait. www.rnz.co.nz/news/busines...

Don't Look Up...

Great advice. I also focus on the rule of 3--what 3 things do I want the reader/audience to know? Intros are 4 Ws--what is the question, why does it matter, what's been done before, what are we doing. In life right now, though, there is a lot to be said for just keep swimming.

So, like, you can use a calculator that can be literally powered by a few minutes of sunlight to do this calculation or....you can burn joules and joules and a significant amount of water while you're at it.

Hot tip, if you still want to use Google, but hate the AI summary, insert an expletive into your search terms. Thanks @bmitra.bsky.social for the tip :)

I agree that this is a useful read. The key message? Be part of real communities, and be ready to do stuff. Be the change.

Nearly all of my research would be unfundable in the US right now. Things may be about to get similarly ugly in Australia. This isn't about free speech or equality, it's about preserving elitism.

"don't be evil" until the money and power goes to your head...

I once tried to comment on lighting on a cycle trail here in Melbourne. Turns out they didn't want my commentary because I hadn't used it before they put new lighting in...talk about sample bias!

Australia has just banned access to DeepSeek on federally owned devices in response to the political landscape in China. I hope they're watching what's going on in the US with caution.

This will be a great workshop, and you can visit us right here in Melbourne!

well you don't have to be a misogynist or have deeply misogynist themes to make a great movie....but it helps www.bbc.com/culture/arti... Polanski. von Trier, and Tarantino, all of whom have a track history of abuse and many of whom have made movies ABOUT abuse make this list.

This is so, so important when politics is changing science

Yes, science is political, and influenced by the views of the day. When a political leader enforces explicit changes to acknowledged science, though, we as scientists need to take note, and make sure what we have learned is kept safely somewhere for after the storm.

Education and self-empowerment is a key platform for supporting people (inc. young people) to make the right choices for them about social media. We must also hold tech companies to account; the fatalism this piece describes is also true of tech narratives theconversation.com/australias-s...

As someone who lived near Te Kaahui all her childhood, I'm glad to see this recognised. That mountain has spirit.

Yup. I had this conversation with a colleague today about desktop AI assistants--so much of what they do would be as good, or better without the AI. Certainly less environmentally destructive

Open source means scrutable AND modifiable. Being able to tinker with weights gives us one of the two. opensource.com/principles

If they are 'employees', where do they go home to? Who pays them? How do they pay tax? Oh. Wait. They aren't employees.

I will always be grateful that love kept me out of harm's way when it seemed like the whole world was there