Andy Brockman

Brutal(ist) good news from @c20society.bsky.social

After decades of campaigns and threats of unsympathetic redevelopment, the final group of buildings forming the South Bank arts centre have been listed GII.

The vision of an arts complex on the site grew out of the 1951 Festival of Britain.

"There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.

And there are days when The Thick of It happens."

(Not entirely) Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

In spite of the design changes the proposed redevelopment of Liverpool Street Station remains highly contentious.

The Victorian Society, one of the expert heritage groups opposing the plans, is taking its efforts to drive opposition down to the wire.

Of course Archaeology is never political (per the #EAA...).

Perhaps the best lesson Claude could learn would be to understand plagiarism via seeing Momma in the Dock being cross examined over the wholesale theft of intellectual property?

Study of AI generated Neanderthal scenes reveals major gaps with modern archaeological research AI-generated Neanderthal images and text often conflict with modern archaeological research, showing outdated and biased portrayals.

One of those increasingly regular #AI stories pointing out the Pope's religious preference and the personal hygiene habits of bears

"Researchers tested how generative artificial intelligence portrays Neanderthals and found frequent errors, outdated ideas, and clear bias."

Pop star Bad Bunny needed a Puerto Rican history scholar. UW–Madison had just the one. Bad Bunny collaborated with UW–Madison history professor Jorell Meléndez-Badillo on Puerto Rican narratives that accompany the new album “DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS.”

I guess I am not a natural Bad Bunny fan, but what's not to like when he collaborates with a real historian and his Super Bowl half time show makes headlines, not because of a wardrobe malfunction, but because it provoked an unhinged rant from POTUS on the satirically named Truth Social.

You will travel far before finding a better metaphor for the #AI obsession among snake oil buyers.

In the drive to apply #AI to everthing everywhere all at once I am reminded of the American farmer, who allegedly contacted Los Alamos, wanting to buy an atomic bomb to remove a treestump.

Meanwhile in other #AI news...

"botched surgeries and misidentified body parts."

Now the struggle is no longer real, are students becoming stupid? Jim Dickinson explores the growing evidence that AI isn't just changing what students produce – it's changing what their brains are ready to do, and asks whether HE can redesign itself around a questi...

In the debate about #AI hollowing out and devaluing research based scholarship #Heritage world seems at best absent and at worst complicit.

Am I alone in finding that inexplicable when, of all sectors, researching primary, hard copy sources, most not digitised, many never will be, are meat & drink.

Now the struggle is no longer real, are students becoming stupid? Jim Dickinson explores the growing evidence that AI isn't just changing what students produce – it's changing what their brains are ready to do, and asks whether HE can redesign itself around a questi...

"The thing that makes you lazy (#AI theftbots) can also be the thing that refuses to let you be lazy, if someone decides to build it that way."

But who would trust the #AI punting, regulation averse, (in some cases) Epstein chummy, Techbros to design their programmes to teach and challenge?

Archaeology against the clock: the race to salvage fragments of early Brisbane Tens of thousands of artefacts were unearthed not by careful excavation but by the 2011 floods. Now, students are piecing together Queensland’s history

One got into Archaeology after liking dinosaurs as a child and another has not even seen an Indiana Jones movie...the Guardian on the Archaeology students who are physically and literally reconnecting the colonial history of Brisbane through a dump of artefacts recovered after a flood.

YouTube video by Kermode and Mayo's Take Mark Kermode reviews Melania

Mark Kermode on Melania.

TLDR: Soon to be seen on a screen near you in a double bill with Zone of Interest.

Also available from Amazon in a box set packaged with Triumph of the Will.

#DontJudgeABookByItsAdaptation: News

Seems we are supposed to use quotation marks when referring to Emerald Fennell's film of Wuthering Heights.

Presumably that is to differentiate Warner Brothers pretentions for the latest film version from Emily Brontë’s timeless gothic novel Wuthering Heights?

British Museum’s A.I.-Generated Post Sparks Online Backlash The British Museum has been called out for posting images containing A.I. generated content on its Instagram and Facebook.

“We do not post A.I.-created images and, recognizing the potential sensitivity, removed it,”
The British Museum

Artnet on the angry response after the British Museum posted 3rd party #AI generated images, apparently promoting its galleries and the Museum's response.

Kudos to everyone who has worked to raise the issue of the sale of human remains in the UK, including many Archaeologists and expert bodies.

But a caution.

Ten-minute rule bills are primarily a way of testing opinion in the House of Commons. They seldom become Law.

There is a lot still to do.

#WhoNeedsSportBooksAndMiddleEastCoverageAnyway News

What is being described as the Jeff Bezos "catch and kill" of the #WashingtonPost continues.

Ironic the paper which starred in #AllThePresidentsMen investigating political corruption, is being evicerated by one of this President's broligarch men.

Masked thieves steal statue of local hero boxer from London park using three-wheel bike and hi-vis jacket The statue of Teddy Baldock, known as "The Pride of Poplar", was removed from its stone plinth on Sunday night by four suspects dressed in black, police said.

#HeritageCrimeNews

In an attack which bears the hallmarks of a metal theft, three masked thieves have stolen the bronze statue commemorating East End boxing champion Teddy Baldock.

The Guardian corrects a review of Melania to explain the one star review was an error and the reviewer intended the film to get no stars.

The Guardian with a correction de nos jours, to place alongside that other, now legendary, correction where the Mirror explained why Katie Hopkins had really been arrested in South Africa.

"Twelfth Night Till Candlemas" The story of a forty-year book-quest and of its remarkable ending

For Candlemas, a typically wise, wry and captivating post from David Allen Green, highlighting the value of librarians, "holders of the old skills", over the "mischievous demons of our own age – that is ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence".

Potteries Museum seeks £150k to buy Bronze Age dress fastener The Potteries Museum has until the spring to raise the funds needed to keep it in the area.

#ItsAllAboutTheHistory News

The Potteries Museum is attempting to raise £150k to buy one of only seven such gold Bronze Age clothing fasteners found in the UK and allow a metal detectorist and the landowner, to enjoy their Treasure Act casino win.

ATE FARMS LIMITED filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK ATE FARMS LIMITED - Free company information from Companies House including registered office address, filing history, accounts, annual return, officers, charges, business activity

ATE Farms Ltd, the company which was ordered to rebuild the mysteriously burnt out & unlawfully demolished #CrookedHouse pub, was due to be struck off by Companies House, but the strike off has been suspended.

This may be due to an objection by a party in ongoing legal action involving the company.

The IDF admits it killed 70,000 Gazans. What other accusations might be true? The Dispute Over the Number of Fatalities May Be Approaching an End, but the Debate on Their Identities Is Still Expected to Trudge On. The Israeli Public Must Ask Itself What This Belated Recognition...

As the vote at the #EAA over its policy towards Archaeologists affiliated to Israeli bodies comes to an end, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports that the IDF has accepted the figure of 70,000 deaths among Gazans which it previously cast doubt upon.

Melania review – Trump film is a gilded trash remake of The Zone of Interest Dispiriting, deadly and unrevealing – there is a decent documentary to be made about the former model from Slovenia, but this one is unredeemable

In G K Chesterton's famous thriller The Man Who Was Thursday all the anarchists turn out to be undercover policemen.

I get the sense that the audience for Melania is similar and that other person sitting in an otherwise echoingly empty auditorium is either a film critic or a political journalist.

New evidence upends origins of Egypt's Great Pyramid A new study suggests the origins of Egypt's Great Pyramid may be very different from what historians have believed for centuries.

The Daily Mail's satirically named "Science" section with the latest click bait "just asking questions" about the age of the Great Pyramid and who built it.

TLDR: A new dating technique...much older than previously thought...unknown technologically advanced civilisation etc.

With the Honor Frost Foundation in the archaeological news with the publication of a new paper on using satellite data and high tech analysis to help protect underwater cultural heritage here's a share of @gabemoshenska.bsky.social's graphic story honouring #MaritimeArchaeology #Trowelblazer Honor.

YouTube video by Archaeosoup Satellite Data Can Catch Maritime Looters: Is it Too Late for HMS Prince of Wales? - 16th June 2023

We also invites Giles Richardson onto the #WatchingBrief to discuss the pioneering work of the #MaritimeObservatory in developing techniques whereby satellite data can be used to monitor Underwater Cultural Heritage (UCH) and deter and investigate #HeritageCrime impacting on such sites.

THE MARITIME OBSERVATORY: CRANE BARGE HAD FIVE MONTHS AND SIX VISITS TO LOOT HMS PRINCE OF WALES Lead Image: HMS Prince of Wales [Official US Navy Photograph Public Domain via US National Archive 80-G-190724] by Andy Brockman Less than a week after the UK experts at the Maritime Observatory fi…

We followed up with further analysis of the looting of HMS Prince of Wales by the Chinese registered crane barge which was identified via satellite data from the Maritime Observatory and other sources, as the culprit.

The BIG READ: British Government Accused of Five Decades of Failure to Protect HMS Prince of Wales from Looters Lead Image: HMS Prince of Wales in 1941. [Official US Navy Photograph Public Domain via US National Archive 80-G-190724]by Andy Brockman and Giles Richardson The peer asked Her Majesty’s Gove…

The new work is by Jessica Berry and Giles Richardson of the UK Maritime Archaeology Sea Trust (MAST) and #HeritageCrime expert Peter Campbell of Cranfield University.

Here is an article I wrote with Giles in 2023 where he describes their work on the looting of HMS Prince of Wales off Malaysia.

New publication - Satellite Monitoring of Underwater Cultural Heritage - Honor Frost Foundation New publication - Satellite Monitoring of Underwater Cultural Heritage The Honor Frost Foundation is pleased to announce the publication of a new White Paper, Satellite Monitoring of Underwater Cult...

thePipeLine and #WatchingBrief have been covering the work of Archaeologists to protect historic shipwrecks from commercial #HeritageCrime.

Now the Honor Frost Foundation has published a new study of the use of cutting edge satellite technology and data analysis to identify and track bad actors.