And now a discussion and conversion chart for linear measurement. Here the key measure is a Thorburn, which is 64.2 m (70'8.5") long, named for Paul Thorburn's world record successful penalty kick for Wales v Scotland in 1986

Hugh Jones@hbsj.bsky.social · yesterday

Here's another conversion chart: 1 Wales = 20,782 km2 1 Kilowales = 20,782,000 km2 1 Megawales = 20,782,000,000 km2 The world has only 510,072,000 km2 surface area in total (land and sea) which is about 24.5 Kilowales, so the Megawales is really only used for planetary science

Here's another conversion chart: 1 Wales = 20,782 km2 1 Kilowales = 20,782,000 km2 1 Megawales = 20,782,000,000 km2 The world has only 510,072,000 km2 surface area in total (land and sea) which is about 24.5 Kilowales, so the Megawales is really only used for planetary science

Hugh Jones@hbsj.bsky.social · 2d ago

A handy conversion chart: 1 Wales = 20,782 km2 1 Deciwales = 2,078.2 km2 1 Centiwales = 207.8 km2 1 Milliwales = 20.8 km2 1 Microwales = .021 km2 or 20,782 m2 1 Nanowales = 20.782 m2 1 Picowales = 0.21 m2 1 football pitch = roughly 344 nanowaleses

A handy conversion chart: 1 Wales = 20,782 km2 1 Deciwales = 2,078.2 km2 1 Centiwales = 207.8 km2 1 Milliwales = 20.8 km2 1 Microwales = .021 km2 or 20,782 m2 1 Nanowales = 20.782 m2 1 Picowales = 0.21 m2 1 football pitch = roughly 344 nanowaleses

Invited speaker announcement! We are delighted to welcome Dr Elizabeth Polgreen from the University of Edinburgh to #FMAS2026. Her research explores formal and ML-based synthesis techniques and the use of synthesis to scale verification. polgreen.github.io #FormalMethods #Verification

I have painted something that I’m genuinely proud of! Whitby Abbey, from a reference on Unsplash. Watercolour on Arches Rough (grain torchon), 9” x 12”. #watercolour #aquarelle

Also: I have research time and I want to organise events and get involved in collaborations. So if you've read and liked any of my work and/or you work on similar topics, please let me know!

Matilda Fitzmaurice@matildaf.bsky.social · 2d ago

some belated good news: as of today, I'm a full-time Lecturer in Environmental Politics!

Between the 1970s and 1990s the UK state made a strategic bet to expand Higher Ed. They poured in untold billions of your money. Now it's been handed over to private creditors to burn in a furnace. Then they just laugh at you: at all the taxes you've ever paid or will ever pay. True story. (2/2)

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

*Government: we need a sense of place and stronger regional policy to bring us together! *Also government: it's okay to shut this local uni campus in an area of high deprivation! *Thick-as-mince country. No joined-up thinking anywhere. 🇬🇧 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

University of Essex's Southend campus shuts and staff say goodbye

The university says the closure is due to financial pressures, leading to 400 staff redundancies.

bbc.co.uk

While I have your attention, due to the portrait of Turing on them, I have been trying to nickname £50 notes 'an Alan' for a while now. Please help me to get this to catch on. 'They're £20 each,' you could say, 'or, special offer, I can do you three for an Alan.' Thanks in advance.

If you're arriving at uni this autumn, or maybe dropping your kids, remember that there could be a ghostly phalanx of absent redundant staff, lost modules and degraded degrees making it a very unhappy place. It may *look* the same, but it won't *be* the same. www.ft.com/content/e5b0...

Several UK universities nearly ran out of cash last year, says report

Almost a quarter of higher education institutions were left with less than 70 days of cash to cover costs

ft.com

Recruitment suspended on UG environment & sustainability, mathematics and physics. At postgraduate level, suspended courses include international corporate finance, water & environmental engineering and environmental strategy. If you think your subject is safe because not Humanities, rethink. 1/2

Course closures at University of Surrey raise concerns

Science and maths programmes among those suspended in recent months, with UCU claiming decisions are being made ‘in haste’

timeshighereducation.com

it exists

A deeply destructive and inexpert management consultancy class has emerged whose sole purpose is to shrink Anglosphere universities and to undermine their future - all the better to secure more work. democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...

Inside Britain's university crisis

As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter

democracyforsale.substack.com

Guy who went on holiday to Toontown and made it his whole personality:

Greater Manchester Mayoral By-Election Result: 🌹 Craig | LAB: 47.2% ➡️ Astley | RFM: 21.0% 🌍 Coggins | GRN: 12.2% ◼️ West | RES: 8.7% 🌳 Eckersley | CON: 7.7% 🔶 Kilpatrick | LDM: 2.2% 🙋 Farmer | Ind: 0.6% 2nd Round: 🌹 Craig | LAB: 66.3% ➡️ Astley | RFM: 33.7% Labour HOLD.

A friend reached out this evening to request clarification on an AI apologist’s talking point, and it’s worth reiterating: Digitizing is a process librarians, archivists, and curators understand to preserve the information inside a book as a unique entity. What these bros are doing is destroying.

Because what they are doing is taking that knowledge and dumping it into a crockpot full of nutritious vegetables and also human turds. There’s no separation of those files, and should they try to recreate an ingredient, it will be full of poop.

I have seen a lot of people going “well knowledge institutions have this backlog; the companies are doing us a favor by scanning.” 1. There are zero ethical standards at play in these companies. 2. They don’t intend to keep any of those books’ ideas separate. 3. They’re devaluing labor.

So yeah, sometimes librarians et al do destroy copies that are digitized. But. They do so having informed themselves on the circumstances of that particular volume, title, historical context, overall collection, and—importantly—sustainable digital storage and RETRIEVAL.

They have explicitly said they want to control the flow of knowledge. This is ACTUALLY an idea landlord, not an author wanting to be paid for their labor. Why might a private company destroy a book with few existing copies? The answer is certainly not the rights of readers. You’re the product.

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

New from me: Until recently, the gap between comfortably-off and just-getting-started could plausibly be crossed in a decade or two of hard work. Growth in asset prices means that’s no longer true: even a lifetime of striving doesn’t offer a realistic prospect of feeling you’ve “made it”.

1. Newer writers, just don't fucking use "AI" for anything, ever 2. How odd that being an established writer with a firm "no 'AI'" stance and ample pre-"AI" IP will become a definite competitive advantage over "new, hot, and possibly copyright compromised" deadline.com/2026/07/ai-q...

AI Questions Spoil Book & Movie Heat On 'Call Me, I'll Hide The Body' Novel

That screeching sound you heard from international publishers and film rights buyers was an abrupt application of the brakes after a fevered pursuit of the unpublished debut novel.

deadline.com

This can't be repeated enough, especially for educators. Meta has just ensured that information it provides is unreliable. Pass it on. 🍎📚🗺️🧪#civics #AcademicSky #sschat

Judd Legum@juddlegum.bsky.social · 6d ago

Meta is spending $600 billion+ to build out its AI model. That model is being aggressively integrated into platforms used by 3.9 billion people. This week, Meta announced its AI will be trained on content from Newsmax, the far-right website with a history of promoting pro-Trump conspiracy theories.

Meta is spending $600 billion+ to build out its AI model. That model is being aggressively integrated into platforms used by 3.9 billion people. This week, Meta announced its AI will be trained on content from Newsmax, the far-right website with a history of promoting pro-Trump conspiracy theories.

"A Reuters analysis found the image of the map included ⁠in the presentation contained an artificial intelligence watermark that signals it was made with OpenAI tools." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

US government map of Africa mislabels every country at global conference

State department ‘takes full responsibility’ for erroneous, widely shared chart displayed at Aids conference in Brazil

theguardian.com

Fancy winning a copy of my first book? It’s super easy to enter. Join my Patreon as a free member and read my latest July issue to find out how: www.patreon.com/MirandaKeeling 🎁📚

AI company Anthropic secretly bought millions of rare and out-of-print books to train its Claude AI model. They used a hydraulic-powered cutting machine to remove the pages for scanning before destruction.