Dr Ian Sturrock

I was down this morning to show solidarity from Teesside UCU. There's a fantastic atmosphere on the Northumbria picketlines! If you're in Newcastle please show your support.

Stick around till the 11am demo on a given day & you get to participate in "Picketline Pilates" which was a lot of fun.

Awh thank you! I was pleased with it, although lots of players hated the sorcerer's defensive blast thing

... and and and and ... @andnull@social.nouveau.community Licensing all my code under MIT + Trans Rights is a fun and silly little thing. I don't understand the consequences of > The above copyright notice, this permission notice, and the affirmation that TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Nor do I have the means to even bring consequences. But it's a silly little thing that might be a legal problem for someone else anyways.

social.nouveau.community/@andnull/115...

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

After submitting a FOIA request UKRI, I obtained success rates by three grant call scheme and I can only say that I am disheartened by the results:

- AHRC Responsive Mode 2025: 2%
- ESRC New Investigator Grant 2025: 1%
- ESRC Research Grant Round 2025: 1%

Two seventh-century people found with west African ancestry – a story of diversity and integration in early Anglo-Saxon society We should not be surprised that there are west Africans in early medieval Britain, the clues were there.

Saving this for next time I see gammon whinging about casting choices in early medieval film & TV.

Two seventh-century people found with west African ancestry – a story of diversity and integration in early Anglo-Saxon society
theconversation.com/two-seventh-...

Woooooooo, landslide victory for Zack in the Green Party leadership elections!

That's a huge blow for the boring centrists who don't believe that radical policies can get support.

Precisely this!

(And obviously Jayanth is cleverer still but, ya know, research is all about standing on the shoulders of giants!)

2/2 ...“for identity, community, self-esteem, challenge, love, joy” are fulfilled through the game, rather than deferred (2021). Citizen Sleeper is, perhaps, at last, one such game.'

1/2 'Jayanth points out the “gun is still the fundamental tool we give players to interact with the world”, advocating instead for games in which our fundamental human needs...

I am proofing an upcoming chapter I wrote, sitting here thinking, I am so clever, which is a pretty nice feeling; way better than thinking I am useless or broken, which, you know, are also options. Here is a relevant passage that I love, but OMG ALL this stuff is so damn good, I am very clever:

How you sound when you say "there's no point in my caring about my personal CO2 emissions because Jeff Bezos is worse"--

"look we already know there's microplastics in the swimming pool so it won't make any real difference if I take a dump in it"

Oh. There's a lot of bad art out there in every medium. But look at Citizen Sleeper, Disco Elysium, Planescape: Torment, Six Ages: Ride Like The Wind, Gris, even God of War: Ragnarok, and tell me videogames don't have multiple ways of telling amazing, subtle stories.

We can't keep making videogame stories for players who aren't paying attention to them Let me get lost, I promise it's okay.

Videogames are capable of telling just as complex and emotionally engaging stories as any other medium -- more so, in some ways -- but not if studios think that consumers only want slop.

www.pcgamer.com/games/we-can...

tldr: do continue to keep your climate apocalypse cupboard topped up with canned beans and such
iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Thanks to a bit of advice from @sturrock.bsky.social , I've been able to strip the fantasy world map back to the basics and repopulate it digitally. Photoshop isn't particularly intuitive to use, but once I got the original scan cleaned up, Paint does the job nicely.
#booksky #book #fantasy #sf&f

Understanding University Finances ... a very short guide

profserious.substack.com/p/understand...

Easily the best Star Wars, probably the best SF TV show ever too (I still have a huge soft spot for Strange New Worlds obviously).

5) Seeing a key Imperial institution fragment & self-destruct with paranoia felt very like watching the Tory Party's implosion over the past 10y; what do you do when your most competent fascists are disgraced & disempowered? Now we know why the Empire of 1-3 is so ineffective in so many ways.

4) The conscious low-tech touches -- radios, flight paths, air traffic control, etc. -- are so much fun thematically, harkening back to the mid-20th century wars and media that influenced Lucas so much.

3) The insight into rebellion is also just astonishing -- we joke about an Andor game being a leftist infighting simulator but it does show how tough it is to get a bunch of traumatised, angry people to work together.

2b) The makeup, esp. S2 E.10-12, shows not so much the aging of a couple of the key characters, as what they have endured. Again subtle and mostly about the contrast with how they looked for the rest of the series. A good indication of how well every single detail is considered in this show though.

2a) The music has been subtly powerful all through and in particular brings a sadness to the final scene that, in the hands of a more schmaltzy director, would have been seen as hopeful rather than adding to the tragedy.

2) Obviously the last three episodes are exceptional pieces of television and the acting, direction, and writing have been heavily praised, quite rightly! I am just gonna single out the music and makeup too though.

Finally finished watching Andor!
No big spoilers below I think.
1) Rogue One is now MUCH better. It was always pretty decent but also always flawed, and Andor S1-2 fixes most of the flaws. (a Jyn prequel exploring her connection with Saw could fix the rest -- I believe there's a novel out already)