Simon Davies

Why does he always do that face 😭

Even now, in 2026(!), most of the marketing for vertical mice is about how they're better than the standard kind. That should be well understood by now, & vertical mice should be the norm. And I've only ever come across two(!!) mice with horizontal scroll – even though it's such an obvious benefit ☹️

There are many things about the present world that baffle me; a small one is the lack of good computer mice. Surely a majority of people use one every day? Yet most are wrist-wrenchingly flat, wireless, & have no horizontal scroll. I guess people just haven't caught on that they could be better?

‘One of the most brilliant technologies in the history of the world’, apparently! 🤔

I haven't read the article because paywall, but I fear it's slightly over-stating the case: they're still making paperbacks, just in a slightly different size (less than 1" each way) and with better paper that'll last longer. Books are still pretty cheap!

Tolkien is the only author I can think of whose textual arcana get such lavish mainstream treatment. Even Shakespeare doesn't get quite this kind of luxury. Not saying Tolkien doesn't deserve it, but it's so clearly a cash grab all the same

Made use of the Harper Collins sale to buy yet more Tolkeiniana (with more on the way!)
Never quite understood what was actually in these books; surely a very misleading title for what seems to be just a bunch of early drafts. But high time I had copies all the same 🧙‍♂️

Extremely minor yet persistant annoyance: when a web form flashes up 'please enter a valid email address' but you haven't finished typing your email address yet. A microscopic yet entirely preventable modern-world irritation.

Announcing our new MHRA Member Benefits We have a new online membership platform, making it easier than ever to join, and many new benefits too.

We're delighted to announce a range of new benefits of being a member of the MHRA, beginning this year: see our blog post for more details. We'd love to have you as a member!
www.mhra.org.uk/news/2026/02...

I initially read this as ‘the mouse behind the screen running Kemi Badenoch’

Love the restrained enthusiasm of this Lego catalogue from 1988: 'A most dramatic effect.'

They are?

Now there’s a text-to-margin ratio I can get behind 😄
(MS of the Quran, C18th, @thejohnrylands.bsky.social www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/MS-ARAB...)

Very important statement from @modernlanguage.bsky.social that will be entirely ignored by university administrators

‘The instructional mission cannot be fulfilled in the absence of faculty expertise, and this expertise extends not only to the “content” of the curriculum but also to the infrastructures and environments—virtual and otherwise—in which learning happens.’

www.mla.org/Resources/Ad...

Well there goes my evening!

Copy of Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible online thanks to @thejohnrylands.bsky.social

Love the alternate colour running heads!

www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/PR-INCU...

Thanks! Didn’t think to check that out

This is great! Where’s it from please? 😀💀

I was wondering what happened to that ridiculousness just the other day 😄

a man is sitting in front of candles and says i 'll find another ALT: a man is sitting in front of candles and says i 'll find another

Book-accurate Heathcliff casting

I don’t see how they can be separated without fundamentally changing what a university is (for the worse)

Rachel Reeves: "It is not right that people who don't go to university bear the cost for others to." I don't use local leisure centres and I don't drive, so will I be made exempt for taxation that pays for all that stuff? Or is it only education we'll be going after

I’ve never understood the point of requiring disclosure of ‘AI’ use. Either ban it or don’t. But in any case, it was always clear that most authors just wouldn’t bother disclosing it even if required to (especially if they used it to cheat).

'Contributing'

Barbara Burns talks to Aggie Fanning, Co-Editor of the MHRA online PG/early-career journal 'Working Papers in the Humanities'.

👉 www.mhra.org.uk/news/2026/01...

I'm looking forward to re-reading the novel with the Companion alongside! Been planning to do that for a long time 😀

Universities sending aggressive letters demanding rights retention + OA for their staff's research (instead of just reading our OA policy), then saying it's part of their commitment to a 'positive research culture' 🙄

I wasn't looking for ebooks, I was looking for 'books and items in the library', hence why I searched only for 'books and items in the library'... But apparently that includes ebooks, which are not 'in the library' at all, but online. I specifically wanted to exclude ebooks from my search.

Parcel of Tolkien books from @harpercollins.bsky.social 😊

One quite upsetting thing about the Fellowship movie that I noticed this time round though was that in the subtitles for the Elvish conversations they use a hyphen in place of a dash 🤦‍♂️
Surely the budget was big enough to get someone with even the most basic knowledge of punctuation to check them?!