Very exciting to be shipwrecked on the Holyhead-Dublin ferry. Engines failed for an hour and the Chenin blanc wasn’t quite chilled enough.

It has always been possible to outsource your work to someone who isnt a writer or an artist. Someone who plagiarises the work yet proudly claims its their own. Normally we would wonder if that person was ok, if they were having some kind of breakdown rather than watch as they spin the word rulette

Yes, good clear points from @lukekennard.bsky.social. Being able to fake human prose with an LLM isn’t a reason to do so.

Jeremy Millar@jeremymillar.bsky.social · 18h ago

Good to see @lukekennard.bsky.social spitting truths in The Guardian

Clearing the decks before I go on holiday to Ireland and hopefully rain tomorrow. Finished a pre-viva PhD report; wrote a long book review. Still owe editors a peer-review and an article which I'll do while I'm away. At some point I'll find out whether I still have a job too. That will be fun!

Also worth remembering that Rod Liddle’s response to the death of Nelson Mandela was to rage at BBC coverage and sneer: “Famous nice black man dies!”

Any iTunes experts know why it would put the 13th of 14 songs in a different album, and how to integrate the two? I've been through all the file information to make sure it's identical, with no joy. Grrrr. I have spent all week listening to 10,000 Maniacs and Natalie Merchant albums. Glorious.

Really appreciated a piece that lays out the multiple horrors of UK HE in humane detail.

Peter Geoghegan@petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 2d ago

Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities, are management consultants being paid millions Really proud to have this vital piece on our unis are being gutted from the inside by @jheathershaw.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale. Do read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...

Also, Ireland is right next door and if you get two Irish people in Britain the conversation will eventually turn to how narrow UK curriculums are compared to the Leaving Cert. Then there’s the Transition year…

Dr Dave Hitchcock@davehitchcock.bsky.social · 2d ago

One of the strongest ameliorations this country could use, but doesn't, is actually *less* specialisation demanded of students so early in their progression. Keeping their year 10, GSCE and AS curricula more broad allow a larger proportion of students to find a niche or subject that works for them.

My totally neglected air plant, Marmion, seems to have grown itself a birthday candle.

A fresh, weekly, curse on @crosscountryuk.bsky.social - yet another reason cancelled because they refuse to employ enough staff, resulting in changed plans and a dangerously overcrowded service.

Segregated lunch counters at the National Gallery, reflecting the ethnicisation of outsourced, low-paid jobs. Disgusting behaviour. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

National Gallery security staff segregated like ‘second-class citizens’, curator claims

Exclusive: Outsourced guards, largely from ethnic minority backgrounds, barred from staff hub for mainly white employees

theguardian.com

Definitely the case here. In two weeks we find which 9 of 12 in my group will be gone. The other 3 will then have a month to prepare and find hourly-paid replacements for all the classes across two degrees. And supervise 25 PhDs. Plus admin and pastoral care and research. Management doesn’t care.

Glen O'Hara@gsoh31.bsky.social · 3d ago

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...

Today university fees rise again, while thousands of academics across the country face job cuts, crushing workloads and shattered morale. Students deserve better than this broken system of unfair repayment that widens inequality. Abolish fees and fund universities properly!

Radio 4’s World at One should be ashamed of the interview it ran with a Ceuta representative of Vox, the Francoist party. Fully adopting a colonist’s language of violent masses of ‘migrants’ to ‘Spain’ when these people have merely moved a few hundred metres in Africa.

Fine bollard action in response to parking on a traffic-calming measure, @worldbollardassoc.bsky.social and @yplac.bsky.social

The University of Surrey, which was built up to provide for advanced science and technology in the 1950s and 1960s, has been in difficulties since 2019 and is suppressing... science and maths. Britain really is the thickest country in the world. www.timeshighereducation.com/news/course-...

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

None of the coverage is pointing out the absurdity of a European nation retaining little chunks of land on another continent. www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

Deaths reported as an estimated 49,000 people cross into Spain’s African enclave of Ceuta – Europe live

PM Pedro Sánchez expected to visit territory today as Italy demands Spain be suspended from the Schengen area amid concerns over fresh migration crisis

theguardian.com

Oh god. The woman-who-bangs-on-doors-shouting-Neil is banging on doors shouting ‘Neil’ again. It’s been a full month, random times day and night. It hasn’t yet been my front door but my turn will come.

A months-long thread of things people put on their dating profiles because - presumably - they think it will attract the right person, when actually it explains why exactly they’re alone. Some are jaw-dropping. Sympathies and hat-tip to Sarah.

Sarah Manvel@cairdiul.bsky.social · 7d ago

"What am I doing with my life? Masturbating like a safari park monkey" The internet was a mistake

Thrilled that all graduates are getting a ‘they/them’ pin badge IN LATIN at this week’s ceremonies. I have no truck with any cynics insisting that it’s the product of an institution that can’t spot a plural and doesn’t know that Latin is gendered and it should read ‘alumnus’ or ‘alumna’.

My vice-chancellor is in deep trouble: admin staff tell me his Linked-In feed is all produced by ChatGPT.

Tits McGee@scientits.bsky.social · 6d ago

Oh my God, this is not a drill - LinkedIn has added 'seems like AI slop' as an option on posts Genuinely thought it was a joke until I clicked on a few posts

The scaffolding is coming down from my solar panel installation and the scaffolders - are heatedly debating the merits of Bob the Builder

Bob the Builder: Let Us Start

ALT: Bob the Builder: Let Us Start

static.klipy.com

Meanwhile I just paid £300 for a 2Tb SSD for photographs thanks to data centres hoovering up all the memory. Thanks, I hate it. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Shares in Asian chip firms plunge further as AI sell-off continues

Drop comes after South Korean company SK Hynix’s results undershot investors’ expectations

theguardian.com

Literally all of this has been applied here, bought in from some speak-your-weight consultancy. Neither academic staff nor students were consulted. The result is a far worse degree in every subject, and widespread sackings, which was the point.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · last wk.

'Strip away the grandiose language and a pattern emerges – some combination of fewer, larger modules, almost always wedges of 30 credits, an all-core or heavily prescribed first year, reduced optionality in later years, curated pathways instead of individual module choice... [cont.] 1/4

Well graduation was lovely. Don’t know if it’s my last one yet but it’s definitely the last time my team will be in the same room together.

Episode 127 of Jupiter Moon, BSB's 1990s space campus soap and the cuts are hitting. Unlike more earthbound universities though, they've dispensed with the VC despite the bursar's observation that 'cuts start from the bottom up'. What a refreshing development!

Graduation today. For three-quarters of the department it will be the last one before redundancy, so a chance to say goodbye to each other as well as the students.

This is what colonialism looks like. It’s how the British behaved in their colonies (still do: Northern Ireland and Kenya to this day see British military personnel protected whatever they do), but now the new imperial hierarchy is becoming visible to British people.

Michael H Whitworth@profmhwhitworth.bsky.social · last wk.

Another appalling USAF case. It seems as if the Suffolk and the Cambridgeshire police forces ultimately answer to the Pentagon.

This is an established trope - look at all the Vietnam War movies which feature no named Vietnamese characters and are centred entirely on the American invaders’ noble suffering.

EMILY WILSON@emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · last wk.

7. The film centers Odysseus's guilt over his war crimes, but never shows us the POV of his victims, and instead glorifies the perpetrator for feeling bad about himself. I found this unsatisfying ethically and worse, imaginatively, because Damon's character is given only one mood (Troubled).