Michelle Bastian

To assign even that last glimpse of an individual, the act of converting one’s life into story, to a generic bot summary seems a delicate but grotesque new form of profanity.

Ive been idlely wondering this myself, could I limit future work to only using pre2022 publications? The philosophy side of my work probably could.manage this easily. Or maybe we need a No LLM Use badge for our work.

I saw that it was a free service for companies and parents and so of course its not going to be okay.

Ie there are assumptions arising from these temperate ecologies that are applied inappropriately to other ecosystems and so these underlying assumptions need to be surfaced and rethough

First panel session on methods in phenology. First paper advocating for circular statistics as the norm in phenology was fascinating. Philosophy once again mentioned as needed for a dressing systems outside of Northern hemisphere temperate regions..

Patricia making a strong case for the imbalance between north and south phenology research and asking the field to step out of the comfort zone. Questions about decolonising phenology with a mention of a need for philosophy in rethinking concepts.

Patricia morellato on stage with opening slide behind her3

First keynote now from Patricia Morellato. Towards a global phenology science

Conference opening just now. This is the first phenological conference being held in the global south.

Arrived in Sao Pedro for #pheno2025 pheno2025.com/

And while still a bit woolly ffeom the travel I'm really looking forward to some great talks today about methods, citizen science and strengthening tropical and southern hemisphere phenology #envhum

Do you mean the Stafford prison experiment? If so this was a hoax.

Yes. I was thinking of his work here. It's scary seeing it becoming reality. And see how much on the hook we will be here in the UK

So when the bubble bursts, taxpayers have to cover it.

An unbearably sad statement from the Editorial Committee (SDJ) of the AFP news agency, please read:

"Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die.
AFP has been working with 1 writer, 3 photographers and 6 videographers, all freelance, in the Gaza Strip… /1

JD Vance to spend summer family holiday in the Cotswolds US vice-president also plans to visit London and Scotland next month

'JD Vance to spend summer family holiday in England and Scotland''..
I hope this muck-raking, interfering Maga hillbilly who attacks Scotland, England & Europe with spurious vitriol has a few surprises waiting for him. He's political poison for democracies
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

[Spoilers] Late to the Dept Q party and while Matthew Goode is amazing, and it was nice to see Edinburgh on TV, could someone please explain why Merrit didn't know that her own boyfriend's family had a hyperbaric chamber. Did she.never go to the house, never just knew because small island life?

Getting off US tech: a guide I’m in the process of dropping US tech services. Here’s how I did it, and options you should consider.

Silicon Valley’s alliance with Donald Trump was a mask off moment and showed the world we can’t depend on US tech companies.

For the past few months, I’ve been trying to get off US tech and I put together a guide so you find alternatives too. I hope you find it helpful!

I keep remembering all the critiques of writing versus speech in Of Grammatology and find it amazing that many of the same dilemmas hold here. Looking forward to reading your paper.

I've had many conversations with students who don't want to use AI, for various reasons, and they are frustrated by their universities' efforts to push AI onto them. Many students are more thoughtful and critical about AI than ed and tech leaders and resist the "everyone is doing it" defense.

I've been tracking my work with a time tracker since 2018 and it's been fascinating how off my estimates are for how long things take. It's actually reduced some of my work anxiety in really impactful ways

When AI is allowed, developers spend less time actively coding and searching for information, and instead spend time prompting AI, waiting on/reviewing AI outputs, and idle. We find no single reason for the slowdown—it’s driven by a combination of factors.

We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers.

The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.

Job Opening at the Chair of Philosophy and History of Science and Technology at TUM! Research Fellow for 3 years (renewable). Preferably philosopher w interest in plant, crop & agricultural research (& their history and social studies)
All details: www.sts.sot.tum.de/en/sts/arbei... #philsci #sts

"The big venture-funded AI companies are machines for taking money from venture capitalists and setting it on fire. The chatbots are just the excuse for them to do that. "

Alexander Skarsgård Breaks Down the "Messy and Complicated" 'Murderbot' Finale: "I Quite Enjoyed That Murderbot Didn't End Up Having Answers" Skarsgård also discusses Murderbot's biggest relationships, why he likes the finale's open ending, and more.

For Murderbot Day, a great interview with Alexander Skarsgård! collider.com/murderbot-fi...

Murderbot Has Been Renewed for a Second Season on Apple TV+! - Reactor The season one finale of the show premieres on July 11, 2025

ITS OFFICIAL.

MURDERBOT SEASON TWO.

#Murderbot

reactormag.com/murderbot-ha...

It’s clear the Labour Government is deliberately delaying the peat compost ban - which was ready to action over a year ago - to buy more time for companies selling peat compost to make money from destroying natural habitats. It’s pathetic and harms the good companies that made the switch voluntarily

Measuring the actual impact of AI coding with Abi Noda, CEO of DX (Changelog & Friends #101) Abi Noda from DX is back to share some cold, hard data on just how productive AI coding tools are actually making developers. Teaser: the productivity increase isn't as high as we expected. We also di...

changelog.com/friends/101

Philosophy professor & US Citizen Jonathan Caravello has been brutally detained & effectively disappeared for trying to help a legal observer remove a teargas canister from under their wheelchair during an ICE raid on a California farm.

…is a sentence I've now had to write. What… in the actual fuck

I went and got a booster last month, as I wasn't sure I'd had two doses against measles (and the healthcare advisory for where I grew up as a kid said I might have only had one). It was super quick and easy to book in with my GP. If you can help reduce the risks for others, it's an easy win.

Upcoming events The Heath, Mind and Society programmes events which reflect the diversity of the initiative, with regular seminars, lectures, debates and conferences through the year.

In London tomorrow (Wed)? Come to my book launch event at UCL: www.ucl.ac.uk/social-histo...