Dr Naomi Jacobs

Image of Shax from Star Trek Lower Decks with the words "Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice"

We all know Clarke's "sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

Well we have corollary:

Job Klaxon! PDRA role at @designinf.bsky.social: with the data analytics team at CoSTAR Foresight Lab. Full time, 2026–29, contributing to UK wide #costarnetwork analysis on creative industries and creative technologies. Closes 5th Jan! Please share. elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

My favourite interaction was with two young Mormon women who knocked on my door on my birthday when I was waiting for guests and had nothing else to do. We had a nice chat, I gained a copy of the Book of Mormon, and they left with a copy of Pratchett's Small Gods.

Diane's had a pretty rough year (for reasons outlined in the linked post) and I know many of you love her work, so consider helping out if you can?

Cartoon of two men standing in water up to their calves by a river bank. One is saying to the other: People who say they've swum in the rivers in Paris and Cairo are either insane or in denial.

Rivers

www.worldofmoose.com/products/par...

Thinking of you, get better soon!

Really great that one billionaire bankrolling nuisance lawsuits by cranks can force a restructure of our entire society in order to impose discrimination against a marginalised minority. Real fucking triumph of democracy there.

This cross-pollination IS how new ideas happen. EVERY field needs humanistic thinking, that's why they call PhDs "Doctors of Philosophy"

Ok but also: redoing the cabin wards

I am going to plug our CarveHerName bookshop one last time today. We are very close to having sold enough books to get an affiliate payout that covers our running costs for the year.

If you do books as gifts, there's free shipping on bookshop dot org. My short fic list includes ghosts and crime.

They were just a fantasist.

Sadly, I assume the best ones have already been eaten

A large plate piled with an enormous quantity and variety of thanksgiving foods. Visible items include (tofu) turkey and gravy, sprouts and chestnuts, roast squash, edamame and cucumber salad, macaroni cheese, mashed potato, peas, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, cornbread, regular bread, bread stuffing. Not pictured, the dessert selection which included multiple types of pumpkin, apple and pecan pies, sticky ginger cake, cream and ice cream.

Went to a lovely thanksgiving thing this evening, organised by an American friend, where everyone was given responsibility for bringing different dishes. I think it went quite well.

Welcome to another far too plausible 'massive global disaster' to add to the list of things to worry about that could happen any day! Because we have a lot more things now than telegraph pylons it would disrupt..

(I'm amazed this isn't more widely discussed, far more likely than meteor hits)

I think that's what the 'obviously generated' clause in the original comment is implying. Same way I wouldn't use an image I drew on a slide deck, because I can't draw well! Similarly, I don't have the skill to create an AI image that is a true expression of what I want and not obviously generated.

The lack of confidence in the presentation is thus because it looks careless - so what else was not done meticulously?

Perhaps then the issue is that most people are not doing it well, (because current tools are being promoted as easy and 'magic' rather than something requiring effort and skill?) I'm now thinking of @designresearch.works's 'prompt craft' conception, - most aren't skilled crafters, and it shows.

For me, there's a process of curation in selecting an existing image (gif, etc) that best represents the concept I am trying to represent, vs creating a 'new' image with AI that is a translation of what I ask in the prompt. (If an image I select happens to be AI, there's other issues but not that).

An incredible, must-read piece! “Whether end products created by AI hold legitimate creative value is, in our view, irrelevant here; our concern is with systems of power and their relationship to fan cultures.”

There is simply no medical reason to take a person, cold-turkey, off of a medication they've been stable on for almost a decade, with no offer of anything else - and when the lack of that medication causes irreversible lifelong issues up to and including death.

UNBOUND AUTHORS: Leftover copies of your books in the UK (MacMillan) warehouse will be pulped within the next week or two. DM me for a link to the warehouse stock list and contacts.

If you have no dosh, another publisher (Wilton Sq) is willing to buy the books & distribute on a 50/50 profit split

Is it me, or are this year's high street veggie festive sandwich options particularly uninspiring?

The view of the front cover of a letterpress/linoprinted edition of 'A Rant About Technology', an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's very pretty indeed.

The fold-out internal poster at the centre of the book. Over an orange on white background of matches and flame, it says: '"Technology is the active human interface with the material world. - Ursula K. Le Guin.

Look at this beautiful thing which has arrived from @skeuomorphpress.org! I have used this Ursula K. Le Guin essay in my teaching for several years now and I love creative things done with books and craft so it delights me on multiple levels.

Hmmm @fanstudies.bsky.social...?

Hurrah! (btw I was taking your name in vain today, talking about my Doctor Who 'origin story' at our research away day to a colleague who is thinking of pitching a Black Archive)

Yeah I concur! I also have 'microwave only' veggie bao in the freezer and no microwave and was planning similar with a pan-insert steamer thing but this is basically the same.

The view of the front cover of a letterpress/linoprinted edition of 'A Rant About Technology', an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's very pretty indeed.

The fold-out internal poster at the centre of the book. Over an orange on white background of matches and flame, it says: '"Technology is the active human interface with the material world. - Ursula K. Le Guin.

Look at this beautiful thing which has arrived from @skeuomorphpress.org! I have used this Ursula K. Le Guin essay in my teaching for several years now and I love creative things done with books and craft so it delights me on multiple levels.

World’s biggest Doctor Who fan in 1963 watching second episode of An Unearthly Child.

a man in a wig is saying i wish to go home and read a book Alt: a man in a wig is saying i wish to go home and read a book

My energy, always.

We're hiring a Research Coordinator - Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre Creative PEC is hiring a Research Coordinator based either in Newcastle or London. Closing date: 23/11/2025

📢 We're hiring a Research Coordinator!

This new full-time position based in either Newcastle or London will support the delivery of Creative PEC’s high-profile research programme and our championing of the UK’s creative industries.

Find out more and apply:
pec.ac.uk/job_entries/...