Will Tattersdill

Hello from strike day 7 over redundancies at my institution.

Settings > AI controls (need latest version)

Huge relief to see that there's one piece of software (Mozilla Firefox) whose designers get it

Omg they noticed

I teach a science fiction course with two weeks on AI, and *I* still resent how much time I'm having to yield to this nonsense

It's less the legal claim & the quest for compensation that makes me sad (though that does. The sector is already on its knees). It's the comments and attacks that are coming with it. The idea that a degree is a product that was faulty. What do people really think could have been done differently?

New fossils may settle debate over mysterious sail-backed spinosaurs Spinosaurs have sometimes been portrayed as swimmers or divers, but a new species of these dinosaurs bolsters the idea that they were more like gigantic herons

In which I provide a few thoughts on the new Spinosaurus species, S. mirabilis.

www.newscientist.com/article/2516...

I also stressed the deep connections between one of the study authors - Nathan Myhrvold - and Geoffrey Epstein to New Scientist. They didn't mention it, neither has anyone else.

Monstrous Science: How the Yeti gets research funded | Vanessa Heggie In a Halloween special Vanessa Heggie tells a surprising story about the Yeti’s role in funding modern science, with a guest appearance by James Bond and some missing plutonium

TIL there is a new Yeti movie out this year! This is a heads up that if anyone wants me to talk about actual real yeti hunts (in the hImalaya rather than alaska, obvs) by Edmund Hilary et al, I am available for popsci pophistory chats
#WomenAlsoKnowHistory
www.theguardian.com/science/the-...

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland.

And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

Managed to miss that Darren did a Sherlock Holmes post! (petition for him to turn to the swamp adder, the lion's mane, and all the rest of the insane Holmes bestiary)

Actually no! I've taught Witches Abroad and Good Omens, and PGR seminars on Hogfather and a couple of others. I don't share the OP's concerns - some of the humour is hard for some non-brits but TP's cunning and humanity shine through to most of them!

UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws

I urge your attention on this news story www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

If you want to know what Reform would be like in power, look at how it threatened Bangor University | Gaby Hinsliff A debating society didn’t want to invite two figures connected to the party to speak. Cue an authoritarian response, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff

If you want to know what Reform would be like in power, look at how it threatened Bangor University | Gaby Hinsliff

A ballet dancer with the caption Fatima's next job could be in cyber. (She just doesn't know it yet)

Fatima's next job just ended on an all-hands zoom with the AI head of HR.

Image displays the front and back jacket of 'Unsettling Extinction', a book in the Global Challenges in the Environmental Humanities' series. The jacket image depicts a bird on a perch in a bell-jar with a spike through it. Jacket blurb reads: Biodiversity loss threatens to transform the ecological foundations of all biological life on the planet, yet solutions to this crisis are fiercely contested. This book addresses extinction by exploring species decline and conservation with a particular emphasis on divergent cultural framings, temporal scales, and media. Drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, cultural geography, environmental history, philosophy, literary studies, media studies, and studies of religion, this book explores how the engagement with biodiversity loss challenges basic assumptions in these disciplines and opens up new avenues of thought and activism for shaping the multispecies communities of the future. Featuring contributions from key names in the field alongside some of the most exciting new voices, this collection presents cutting-edge work on species extinction from a wide variety of perspectives across the environmental humanities.

Really nice to see the final paperback jacket proof for the latest in @bloomsburylit.bsky.social 'Global Challenges...' series. Edited by Roman Bartosch, Ursula Heise & Kate Rigby, 'Unsettling Extinction': www.bloomsbury.com/unsettling-e...

to be fair I would also accept the casting of a lasagna cat in this film

AND TO NOBODY ELSE

Praying to whatever divine force will listen that Garfield sees the casting call

You've seen that Monty Python sketch where they're trying to get rid of a surplus of string? "Due to bad planning, the string is in six-inch lengths"

"huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhu have you tried genAI? all the COOL kids are using it" listen Adobe I am just trying to ride the bus without your cankerous breath scorching my ears

Screenshot of a PDF open in Adobe, highlighting the five parts of the screen pushing genAI on unwilling users

If it were a tool, there'd be a button you'd press to use it. When it non-optionally appears in five separate parts of the window every time you open a document, it's a CULT

PhD students in the UK with a Victorianist bent will want to take particular note of the placement titled "Illustrated Newspapers: Beyond the Illustrated London News": cdn.sanity.io/files/v5dwki...
@rs4vp.org #Victorian

‘Silent decoupling’ under way as Elsevier talks near crunch point York and Swansea latest to decline publisher’s offer, with latter also walking away from Springer Nature deal

'The University of York and Swansea University have became the seventh and eighth universities to confirm they will not take up a three-year deal with the world’s biggest academic publisher'. Sheffield, Lancaster, Surrey, Kent, Essex and Sussex have already opted out.

Oh no what unpleasant news! Fortunately William Morris has a great suggestion

Yes; yup; yisss; yeah; oh yes; yes

Highlighting the speaker who stood in front of the Surprise mayor and told him to consider what the Mayor of Ohrdruf must’ve thought before he died by suicide: “He might have thought ‘how is this my fault I had no jurisdiction over this’ maybe he said ‘this site was not subject to local zoning.’”

My inaugural lecture from November is live! If you want to listen to me talk about poetry and the Book of Jonah for the best part of an hour!
www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2026/po...

Why are UK universities failing? - LSE Impact The HE sector in the UK faces the prospect of a university going into administration. How have universities fallen so low and is change possible?

Why are UK universities failing? A pretty good analysis that chimes with my experience as a governor.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

The British Labour Party has broken with even the most basic social democratic values... There are loads of public services I don't use and some I hope never to have to use but I want them to be there for those who need or want them. You'd imagine *the Labour Party* would understand that...