Dr Naomi Jacobs

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

"We're doing REF differently."

It's actually not very big! Just a mechanical one so sits in a reasonably sized box in a cupboard. I got it from Jelmer and Tamara who for Reasons ended up with a spare.

A bowl of handmade egg taglietelle with a mushroom sauce, topped with grated parmesan.

What to do on lazy Sunday morning when you have leftover creme fraiche and lots of mushrooms in the fridge? Make fresh pasta from scratch, of course.

Not bad for only my second go with this pasta machine!

Just seen Jane Weaver play a fantastic gig to around 100 people, in a room that's probably over 800 years old, in a castle, 5 minutes walk from my house. Lancaster's pretty cool sometimes.

I fear it may be 'the second dark age'. Due to digital decay leading to a lack of (reliable) sources. No other reason, honest...

It's true!! Our #FSNNA2025 virtual #FanStudies conference program is LIVE! (subject to possible minor changes)

▫️Program 🔗 fsn-northamerica.org/fsnna-25/

And if you haven't registered yet to attend, there's still time!
▫️Registration 🔗 www.tickettailor.com/events/fanst...

Cleanse your timeline

Thanks for the heads up, I bought a ticket!

the most delightful version of logging on to see what news you've missed

Who is it? I might be free on Saturday.

Enjoying that this photo includes a row of tulips

John Searle obituary American philosopher whose Chinese Room thought experiment rebuts the idea that computers can think as humans do

I’ve just learned that John Searle, whose Chinese Room thought experiment is often used to challenge ideas of “understanding” in LLMs, died at age 93 on Sunday. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

feels like yet again time to mention that the *videogames* industry (that's a creative industry, which people do creative degrees in) brings in more than twice the amount to the British economy as the fishing and steel industries *combined*

I just don't think there are that many people going "Well I wasn't going to vote for them before, but this policy of driving people out of studying the arts and humanities has changed my mind".

all discourse aside, there is one machine with consciousness. it's printers. they are alive and conscious and they hate you and they'd take your arm clean off if you let them. never trust a printer.

One of the worst bits of screen media I've seen in recent years (and that's saying something)

This is the official return of a native species lost for over a century.

IMPORTANT

All freelancers, self-employed, creatives

This is the first I've heard of this, but the Department for Business and Trade is running a consultation on the scourge of late payments, they want to introduce new legislation to tackle poor practices

Deadline to respond is 23 October

1/2

Assistant Professor of Interactive Art, Performance & Games (Initial Review Date 11/14/25) University of California, Santa Cruz is hiring. Apply now!

Do you find yourself at the intersection of performance, games, and design? Do you want to work with world class artists in research, pedagogy, and games? Then maybe apply to work with me at UCSC! We're hiring a Assistant Professor of Interactive Art, Performance & Games

recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF01998

The Ig Nobel is incredible , one year an Indian guy won it for calculating the average surface area of an elephant and during his acceptance they had an elephant hold up a sign with the surface area of the scientist on it, they do showbiz better than the Oscars

You've already had lots of folks offer the correct answer that there are multiple definitions of species (and biologists often argue about which one to use) but did you hear about the ant species recently discovered where the queen sometimes gives birth to males of an entirely different species?

A wonderful thread involving secret compartments, secret treasures, care and kindness.

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins: Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright (Not sure if I spelled that right) What immortal hand or eye Could fashion such a stripy guy? What the hammer that hath hewn it Into such a chonky unit? Did who made the lamb make thee, Or an external franchisee?

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

Watch this, she's just reading a poem but you won't have seen it read so well

www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKTv...

Thank you!

Don't suppose you've got a link to that statement handy? I'm planning to mention it in my teaching. (I can probably find it myself but i'm being lazy)

No intelligence is general, as the term refers (indirectly & vaguely) to a cluster of distinct capabilities in a given active organism, which vary according to ecological niche, embodiment, cultural valuation and individual variation. We’d get better science by decomposing and testing for these. 3/3

Finally a Large Language Model I can get behind

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes? And I recently read A Victory of Eagles but thats the middle of the Temeraire series so probably doesn't work.

Lady behind me at The Thing screening last night to her partner "why are they shooting at the dog?" and her partner says very firmly "have you never seen a film before? You watch it and information is revealed" -a tweet by Matt The Outlaw 🤠 @CursedGloryHole

Just saw this great post again and it reminded me of my old beef against "spoilers don't matter, a good film isn't spoilable": The timing with which information is revealed is important in every movie! It's as much a part of the art as dialogue or lighting,it matters at least as much as aspect ratio