Once again, I come back to the fact these guys have created a situation where one of the UK's leading, cis female athletes is scared to go to the loo alone, and the fact that they are celebrating this as a step forward for women's rights.

Equality and Human Rights Commission@equalityhumanright.bsky.social · 10h ago

Our code of practice for services, public functions and associations comes into force today. It provides practical guidance on how the Equality Act 2010 applies to services, public functions and associations. Find out more: https://ow.ly/alIf50Zwrkx

Bluesky is a "liberal bubble" because fascist chuds can't get traction without algorithmic assistance and because people here trained themselves to block "debate me" trybois the instant they roll up

The Verge@theverge.com · 2d ago

Bluesky's new CEO Toni Schneider on the platform's reputation for being a liberal bubble: "Yes, we definitely want that to change. It is already changing. It certainly wasn’t designed to attract one specific group of people."

That's bucket 2, targeted science in support of industrial strategy plus a few other bits. The heads of the research councils are the SROs for each of the areas in there, which I think was a mistake. Better to spread the load and have independent SROs (allowing RC heads to focus on their main jobs)

"Fun" aside on #STFC funding crisis that's put #JodrellBank at risk. A friend spotted there's a line in table 2 of www.ukri.org/publications... for "space priority programme" slush fund ramping up to £12M/yr. No details yet of governance, peer review, priorities etc. STFC EC is SRO (logical tbf) 🧪🔭

Explainer: STFC prioritisation outcomes 2026 to 2030

ukri.org

Exclusive: Some EU citizens in the UK have been contacted by the Home Office to say they were granted settlement status after Brexit "in error". If you know anyone this happened to contact me on lisa.ocarroll@theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

EU citizens in UK get letters telling them post-Brexit residency rights were given ‘in error’

After years of building lives in UK, potentially thousands of EU citizens could be told they have no right to remain

theguardian.com

So a whole lot of my talented Humanities colleagues are now unemployed as of today. A lot of understandable concern over Exeter. But for over two decades my Hums colleagues were in the top quartile for their research contribution to society. History top 10. Now gone with only a national whisper.

Few people understand that the UK university system is in crisis, but even fewer realise that many of the people losing their jobs are amongst the best in their fields

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

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)

At a strong lensing meeting in April this year someone asked “How many of you have used [one of these LLMs] professionally in the *past week*?” EVERY hand went up except mine. But then I cracked, used an LLM to look up some python module use/syntax & it’s MUCH easier than stackoverflow/readthedocs 😕

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2w ago

13. Hence our dismal conclusion: rather than finding that LLMs free us to do a better job of what we were doing before they came along, they shift scientific incentives (and the playing field of academic competition) in ways that compel us to do more and more, faster and faster, less and less well.

"There are shades of the departed Starmer government in this saga: @ukri.org wants to tell a big story about science funding going up, but instead is mired in a row over a fairly minor sum.... One does not have to be an astronomer to know that optics matter." 👌🔭 www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The Guardian view on the Lovell telescope: budget cuts to physics are bad science and worse politics | Editorial

Editorial: Funders have picked a damaging fight with scientists and the public. They should reconsider their plans

theguardian.com

"UKRI wants to tell a big story about science funding going up, but instead is mired in a row over a fairly minor sum that has angered scientists and sections of the public. One does not have to be an astronomer to know that optics matter." 💯

The Guardian view on the Lovell telescope: budget cuts to physics are bad science and worse politics | Editorial

Editorial: Funders have picked a damaging fight with scientists and the public. They should reconsider their plans

theguardian.com

your apartment, the sport of basketball, and the Republic of Korea are all social constructs. mere recognition of this fact does not actually make the question of whether you are standing in your own apartment, playing basketball, or a Korean national up in the air until settled by op ed editors

there are a lot of philosophical concepts that get egregiously misused out of the seminar room (and in the seminar room, to be fair). but in terms of sheer pernicious misuse "social construct" has gotta be top 5 somewhere and it's not number 5

Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · last wk.

Channel 4 has announced documentary “The Great ADHD Myth?” It “seeks to determine whether ADHD is a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”

Grim choices made by STFC, including closing eMERLIN, putting the iconic Jodrell at risk. Underlying problem is brutal govt shift in funding "buckets" away from curiosity-driven research. Jodrell is almost inevitable casualty. Yes save JB but fix these damn buckets 🧪🔭 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Jodrell Bank's Lovell telescope faces axe in science cuts, BBC understands

Astronomers warn it would tear the heart out of UK science, and leave a generation untrained.

bbc.co.uk

No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this. theonion.com/translator-o...

Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation

PHILADELPHIA—In a 4,500-word essay published in Harper’s Magazine, Emily Wilson, known for her popular translation of the Minions epic poem, blasted the latest film Thursday as a “sexless, bloodless” ...

theonion.com

Just to say, this is genuinely me, not a baddie cloning my account. Well, unless I count as a baddie, which I hope I don’t

Stephen Serjeant on W@stephenserjeant.wsocial.eu · 6d ago

Hi! This is my backup account in the ATproto universe, on W, the EU’s alternative to X. For the time being I’ll mainly post on @stephenserjeant.bsky.social while I work out how W works.

This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote it Michael Bay perfected it THE ROCK IS OZYMANDIAS IN IMAX 3D Look upon these works

Jesse Hawken@jessehawken.bsky.social · last wk.

Studio execs are going to want to adapt more poems for the big screen now

The argument against proportional representation is that'd it would let extremists into parliament. If we're not careful, first past the post will give extremists a majority with maybe one quarter of the national voting share

You had one job (sacking Shabana Mahmood)

I keep seeing "pencil slop" being said by AI people as rage bait, and I'm like damn even your insults are ungrounded shallow empty ripoffs of something that already existed.

Could some biological scientists on the 🧪 feed help me please? There’s a nice Thread circulating there on “The Reason Men Have Nipples Is the Same Reason Transgender People Exist. No, Really.” It looks roughly but perhaps not exactly ok - could you comment please? TIA www.threads.com/@daniellismo...

Daniel Lismore (@daniellismore) on Threads

The Reason Men Have Nipples Is the Same Reason Transgender People Exist. No, Really. Men have nipples because every human embryo starts identical. For the first few weeks in the womb there is no male ...

threads.com

Read this thread and get very angry about the deliberate cruelty being inflicted on kids by the English Government.

Cal Horton (they/them)@fiercemum.bsky.social · 3w ago

Just had meeting with kiddo's school. She has been fully supported, treated with full equality & dignity for years. All of that changes from September. Full segregation & humiliation across the board. The school staff cried in the meeting. This will absolutely lead to children's deaths 1/2

Under a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface

Is it just me, or did this immedately make you think of William Blake? Honestly I think Hell gets the better write up

Sarah Collins@sarahelizacollins.bsky.social · 4w ago

Jury is still out on whether Burnham, or any British politician, will be capable of doing the hard work of actually listening...

There’s a surprisingly rational argument here for what looks like just a polemical title www.sfgate.com/tech/article...

Google hates you

"The repercussions of Google's pivot to AI will be vast and horrid."

sfgate.com

I'm been wondering if it would come to this and apparently it has. huge move from cloudflare, which hosts a fifth of all websites on earth.

Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search

The nuclear option is gaining traction as web traffic collapses and Google refuses to negotiate with content creators

adweek.com

Breaking: Major science facilities to be scaled back, UKRI confirms Science and Technology Facilities Council will also reduce project spending, despite £135m of fresh money www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Major science facilities to be scaled back, UKRI confirms - Research Professional News

Science and Technology Facilities Council will also reduce project spending, despite £135m of fresh money

researchprofessionalnews.com

This is nonsense. The (tiny) tuition fee rise seen so far is massively offset by over a decade of real terms cuts. Adjusting for inflation tuition fees are lower now than a decade ago - when the teaching grant was much larger.

Times Higher Education (THE)@timeshighered.bsky.social · last mo.

The Department for Education has confirmed that universities will receive £50.9 million less in teaching grants next academic year. Bridget Phillipson, the education minister has defended the reduction in light of tuition fee rises. https://ow.ly/6UWJ50ZkLlf

UK research vandalism update. Surprising that such callous and unnecessary damage is being pushed through by a department ahead of a change in leadership.

Research Professional News@resprofnews.bsky.social · 4w ago

UK research at Cern to shrink as government approves STFC cuts. 🚨Exclusive: Science department approves UKRI’s cost-saving proposal, with major UK facilities also facing cutbacks. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...

Does it count as vibe coding if you spend 3 mins generating the code then an hour unpicking it and working out how it works and debugging it and arguing with the LLM that it obviously has to be wrong because of XYZ. Asking for a frustrated friend who's regretting life choices today