Students, I like semi-colons. I like em-dashes. I like all sorts of punctuation. But if you're going to use 'fancy' punctuation in assignments, learn how to use it properly. Otherwise, just stick to commas* and full-stops. *Make sure you learn a few things about using commas too.

‘Anthropic described the project as “our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books” in an internal memo, which noted “we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project”.’

Eli Valley@elivalley.bsky.social · 7d ago

Dystopia www.news.com.au/technology/o...

“AI has become a blunt instrument in the enterprise to impose precisely this form of sanctioned ignorance about America’s past...Taken together, [Trump’s & Musk’s] plans amount to a one-two punch, history in the hands of the corporate state.” My latest on AI & history: www.salon.com/2026/07/28/t...

Trump and Musk both want to control America's history

The frenemies' strange obsession with historical "accuracy" has disturbing connections to big AI

salon.com

One of the things I research is the cooperation of cultural institutions like museums in pitching tech products--specifically AI--to the public. This is advertising for the capacity of AI to educate and thus to reshape education itself as a project better left to private tech companies. 1/n

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 2mo ago

“The installation, unveiled in February 2024, allows guests to ask Douglass questions through an iPad. Using a closed database of Douglass’s autobiographies and speeches, the artificial intelligence generates responses based solely on Douglass’s recorded words.”

1996: can't use the internet without your phone 2010: the internet stretches before you like the vast expanse of a new frontier. You dance through it, unhindered. Unburdened. You have never heard of 2-factor authentication. 2026: can't use the internet without your phone

Historians of borders and migration - looking for work that discusses border externalisation in historical perspective, such as case studies from pre-1990s

If you don’t let us steal everything we’re not going to build our massive theft-recycling machines in your backyard

Anthropic tells Chalmers: $21b investment hinges on copyright

Chief executive Dario Amodei met with Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese when AI giant Anthropic launched in Australia in April.

afr.com

Frankly, I'm gutted by this announcement. This is laying down a red carpet for Western chauvinists and white supremacists. I will be desperately searching for a new academic job next year, but I would never be able to bring myself to apply for one of these. www.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/new...

University of Melbourne launches transformative Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation Scholarship in the Humanities

Faculty of Arts students at the University of Melbourne will benefit from one of the most generous undergraduate scholarships in Australia through the establishment of the Ramsay Centre for Western Ci...

unimelb.edu.au

I have just resigned from the board of "Statistics and Computing", along with 17 other Associate Editors. This was a difficult decision: this great journal has published many tremendous articles under the leadership of EiC Ajay Jasra, and before him David Hand, Gilles Celeux, and Mark Girolami.

Live footage of me running my consulting business

Mesmerizing Plate Spinning Act

ALT: Mesmerizing Plate Spinning Act

static.klipy.com

new metaphor just dropped

As long as I can get 12 hours of work done between now and the end of the day I should be able to get close to achieving everything I wanted to do this week.

Frantic Multitasking Workaholic - THIS ME

ALT: Frantic Multitasking Workaholic - THIS ME

static.klipy.com

NEW BLOG FOR YOU Google's energy consumption numbers in their new climate report are mind-blowing. 2 years ago they flipped from linear to exponential growth, and their climate impact is blowing out, too. A WILD testament to the obscene bloat and waste of GenAI: ketanjoshi.co/2026/07/01/g...

Oh!

German court holds Google liable for fake AI answers

Judges in Bavaria drew a distinction between standard search engine results and AI-generated summaries. They ruled that tech giants themselves are responsible for the content of answers provided by AI...

dw.com

But that is exactly how the suffragettes operated. With a nationwide organisation of sleeper cells of arsonists and bombers. I’m gratefully people have reached out and referenced my work today. I remain (I believe) the only academic expert on the terrorism of the suffragettes. Links below:

Roland Smith@rolandmcs.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Strong statement from the Court of Appeal re Palestine Action. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Processing an archival collection in a storage facility while listening to The Orbweavers. Hope everyone else's week is off to a good start.

Excerpts from Verhoeven et al., Ch 12 (“Reproducibility & Contestation in Humanities Digital Infrastructure”) in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_ dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @bestqualitycrab.bsky.social @mikejonesphd.bsky.social @uminnpress.bsky.social

@bestqualitycrab.bsky.social @mikejonesphd.bsky.social Toby Burrows & Ann Borda: see this article cited in ‪@timelfen.bsky.social's reply, whose argument of "generativity" vs "reliability or reproducibility" is tangent to yours in "Reproducibility &Contestation in Humanities Digital Infrastructure"

Tim Elfenbein@timelfen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

cc @inter-apero-bility.bsky.social @marcellaflamme.bsky.social

Just saw someone use the term 'screenshotted.' Surely that should be 'screenshat.'

Breaking in a new pair of Docs. Thankfully the parts of my feet that are in pain are nicely balanced by the parts that have gone slightly numb.

I know online security is important, but some days the amount of time I spend wrangling with various multi-factor authentication system makes me wish for a return to simpler times.

Finally made it to the National Communications Museum this afternoon. One of the displays challenges you to pick AI generated news stories from human. I got 4/4 but would struggle to tell you why other than ‘vibes’.

My article, co-written with Catherine Kevin, is open access: Full article: ‘We Marched in the Streets One Day, Wrote Submissions the Next’: Feminism, Domestic Violence and International Women’s Year www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

‘We Marched in the Streets One Day, Wrote Submissions the Next’: Feminism, Domestic Violence and International Women’s Year

The Whitlam government and International Women’s Year (IWY) coincided with the feminist ‘discovery’ of domestic violence and the start of the feminist refuge movement, beginning with Elsie, a refug...

tandfonline.com

The Guardian's tool for searching the budget doesn't even list Education (or Science or Research) as an option.

ARC Tracker@arc-tracker.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Nothing in the Budget last night for the ARC. Despite review after review recommending ARC funding be increased, nothing. Year on year, the same thing, no matter who's in Government.

For context, $4 billion cut from climate and energy, $46 billion on fossil fuel subsidies and $36 billion cut from the NDIS.

Cool, Cool, Cool - Detective Jake Peralta (B99)

ALT: Cool, Cool, Cool - Detective Jake Peralta (B99)

static.klipy.com

Friday and I have an evening out of the house. Currently enjoying a pint of hand pumped brown ale at the Charles Dickens and reading about natural history heists. Later I’m off to see the new Iron Maiden doco in the cinema. #Friday

They may take Julie Bishop's job, but they'll never take her $800,000 office located 3,092km from where her job was. We'll never see her like again.

“In 1813 John James Audubon once travelled for three straight days under a single eclipsing horde of Passenger Pigeons .. In 1914, Martha, the last Passenger Pigeon on earth, died in the Cincinnati Zoo” (Johnson, The Feather Thief, 2018). Oof.

Blocking the Internet Archive Won’t Stop AI, But It Will Erase the Web’s Historical Record www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

Blocking the Internet Archive Won’t Stop AI, But It Will Erase the Web’s Historical Record

Imagine a newspaper publisher announcing it will no longer allow libraries to keep copies of its paper. That’s effectively what’s begun happening online in the last few months. The Internet Archive—th...

eff.org