Leo Havemann

also extra points for the title

Join us for #ALTC25 Revisited, an online event bringing back the key themes, thought-provoking sessions, and vibrant discussions that made ALTC25 unforgettable, and inviting presenters and participants to take the conversation further. Register now: buff.ly/oLDkY0E

I think they mean 'normal' as in, like a human, likes kids, can laugh and joke, refreshingly not some sort of hatemonger, or even a bot that says 'sorry nothing decent in the world will ever be possible but at least i am a bot, not a hatemonger' - not to take away from his excellent comms

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Save the Date for the London Open Science and Scholarship Festival 2026!

blogs.ucl.ac.uk/open-access/...

I really hope people on this app who get it are talking to people offline who do not still see this huge issue spiralling yet

TRUMP: honk honk honk, I'm a big goose. everyone tells me whenever I enter a room, that's the biggest goose I've ever seen and I say yes. I'm a big goose. in a good way. a lot of Somalians are small stupid gooses but I'm a big goose

BBC NEWS: a disciplined Trump sticks to the script on the economy

I don't think read 'everything' is very helpful advice - and while people say this is the great thing about AI summaries, i also think we already have summaries of articles, they are called abstracts, and they are not very long but give a good sense of whether the article is helpful. Good luck!

Once you have more of a sense of what specifically you are more interested in you can do a more targeted search. Then once you have a collection of stuff you think is probably relevant then read the abstracts to decide if you include the article or not.

I would say look for some review articles that synthesise findings and read those to get a sense of what the main areas are that people are interested in, also sort your results by how highly cited and read the ones with a lot of citations.

If you do use wordpress people can subscribe to it so they get an email when you add a new post. So in that sense it's not so different from substack which promotes itself as a newsletter site but really it's also a blog that sends out emails.

spot how many of these risks are due to/powered by the tech industry

source: www.weforum.org/publications...

YouTube video by Tod Maffin How Canada Actually Picks Supreme Court Judges (It's Worse Than You Think) #government #shorts

#Canadian
#Shade

This is an astonishing admission from Ollie Ilott, the Director General for AI in the British government. He says you wouldn't want an opt-out from AI training to be too easy to use, because the…... This is an astonishing admission from Ollie Ilott, the Director General for AI in the British government. He says you wouldn't want an opt-out from AI training to be too easy to use, because the prim...

www.linkedin.com/posts/ed-new...

If you want to vote for 'classic Tory' you have the perfectly good option of Labour

open plan is planning to fail

Inside Higher Ed The culture of fear created by Senator McCarthy and others served to silence ideas and beliefs that they disagreed with. The future is yet unwritten, but by understanding what political repression looked like then, we can recognize it and figure out how to fight it now. As Mandel noted, once we see censorship for what it is, it's our responsibility to get that across to the American people. The next two columns in this series will focus on the organizations and people that made McCarthyism as effective as it was: the academic elite who worked hand in glove with the rank and file to ensure that, what the government started, higher education would finish.

Kudos to @insidehighered.com for giving @bakerdphd.bsky.social a column. I couldn’t be more excited for what’s she’s choosing to do with it.

www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Sadly I think they do know

There it is.

Farage and Reform would end our NHS.

Millions of people could not afford to be ill under a Reform government.

as long as it is silently and invisibly without flaunting

Yes - this is important to take note of - at least the wikimedia foundation, wikimedians in residence and wiki education people are aware and actually trying to address this rather than just going 'oh well this is what the magic box makes'.

Where Are All the Women? Notability and Digital Discovery Rebecca Northen was called the 'Julia Child of Orchids,' yet her story is hard to find online. Discover why women disappear from digital history and what can be done to change it.

Illuminating piece on the ‘discoverability gap’: “Women make up only 20% of the biographies found on Wikipedia English.”
womenshistory.si.edu/blog/where-a...

Riff Raff Statue in Hamilton The "Rocky Horror Picture Show" character has a hidden camera that broadcasts people doing the "Time Warp."

one of the claims to fame of my sometime home town in NZ is that Richard O'Brien comes from there and there is a statue of RiffRaff on the main street www.atlasobscura.com/places/riff-...

Birkbeck, University of London, is seeking a Lecturer in Medieval Studies to join our dynamic team within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Autumn 2026. As Lecturer in Medieval Studies you will contribute to the teaching of Medieval English literature and Medieval history across the Faculty, within our School of Creative Arts, Culture and Communication, and School of Historical Studies - this includes our BA English and BA History programmes, as well as postgraduate taught programmes in the two subject areas. This post is offered on a permanent contract at Birkbeck, full time 35 hours per week, with a salary of £44,247 rising to £60,858 per year. Teaching hours will vary from 6pm - 9pm, Monday to Friday. To be successful, you will bring research expertise in the literature, history and culture of the Late Medieval period (c.1300-1500), and demonstrate a capacity to contribute to interdisciplinary research and teaching, participate actively in curriculum development, supervise doctoral students, and help shape the intellectual life of our vibrant academic community. We would also welcome applicants who would be able to contribute to collaborative teaching programmes or research in the Faculty, in areas such as identity, race/ethnicity, or gender - experience of collaboration with cultural institutions, whether through research or teaching, is also welcome. Core responsibilities will initially include programme/module administration, teaching, supervision, assessment, student support and pastoral care. You will also be equipped to supervise doctoral students. With a PhD in any area of Medieval Studies, you will contribute the Faculty’s and Schools’ research impact and culture, and to the intellectual and cultural life of the institution and the various communities and partners with whom we work and serve.

Birkbeck is hiring a Lecturer in Medieval Studies (c.1300-1500), full-time and open-ended.

They will be formally based in English but expected to be able to contribute about 0.5FTE to History, including teaching and supervision.

Closing date Feb 23rd: cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/lect...

Ooh where

Not surprisingly to people who actually think about it, students are a low-income group who are worse affected by the cost of living than many people who continue to imagine that students are rich kids, while it must be said at the same time complaining that far too many people go to university now

Guardian article screen shot saying 2/3 Brits wrongly think immigration is still rising

I BEG every smug commentator who praised Mahmood for doing the “tough but necessary thing” to read this.

All the disadvantages of plummeting immigration for the economy & public services, for NO POLITICAL GAIN.

Labour in DESPERATE need of a 180 change of course on immigration

Incidentally, we already have access to a fusion reactor. It's about 93 million miles away and the power can be harvested by anyone on the planet. Doesn't even need maintenance. You can tap in for a ridiculously low cost; no utility company required.

Solar power is really fusion power.

I was stunned by the assertion that as I'm the latest old white guy to run an institution that has only ever been run by old white guys "everything is against me". I mean they are practically bringing out the guillotines.

Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World Uruguay built a power grid that runs 99% on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. Here’s how its bold energy overhaul became a global model.

“Uruguay did what most nations still call impossible: it built a power grid that runs almost entirely on renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere—if governments have the courage to change the rules.”