Prof Maz Hardey
@thatprofmaz.substack.com
Professor @ Durham University. Unravelling the mess of Tech, Education & AI. 🧶 Author of books on Disinformation | Women in Tech | GenAI | Health Tracking; reading everything else. I see we’re all Stacking now https://open.substack.com/pub/thatprofmaz
45% of this year's 18-year old intake expect to live at home and commute to university, up from 43% last year. Disadvantaged students are 3 times more likely to commute than other undergraduates. Very comprehensive, but doesn't address impact of programme closures and growing cold spots. 1/2
Student digs: the end of an era?
High costs mean increasing numbers of those going from school into higher education are opting to live with their parents
ft.com
Imp read: EDI \ DEI are not the same.
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 3d agoWhat you're saying when you say "DEI" when universities say "EDI" (as happens here) and vice versa. And why it actually matters. The great majority of UK (esp. British) universities use "EDI" while US universities use "DEI". Is that "just" semantic, or does it matter? A thread. 🧵1/8
What you're saying when you say "DEI" when universities say "EDI" (as happens here) and vice versa. And why it actually matters. The great majority of UK (esp. British) universities use "EDI" while US universities use "DEI". Is that "just" semantic, or does it matter? A thread. 🧵1/8
How Jason Arday’s appointment became a reckoning for Cambridge
Resignation of Black professor forces university to examine its approach to diversity, equality and inclusion
ft.com
I see the Zuck wants us to know that his AI toys are powerful, too. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Meta says AI model accessed the internet and hacked another firm
Meta is the latest company to disclose an AI agent breach, raising cyber-security concerns.
bbc.co.uk
'for many organisations and corporations symbolic representation has been a substitute for deeper reform, leaving it vulnerable to just this kind of backlash. It has also meant that the right has enjoyed a near monopoly on criticism of DEI, leaving it to frame it entirely on its own terms.' 1/2
The takedown of Jason Arday has overjoyed the right, and must be a wake-up call for the left | Jason Okundaye
The Cambridge academic has rightly now resigned. But that won’t end the targeting of senior black figures or the lazy way institutions promote faux equality, says Guardian columnist Jason Okundaye
theguardian.com
August is your last chance to see all of the Big Eight bumblebees 🎱🐝 Of the UK’s 24 bumblebee species, these eight are the most common. Have you spotted any bumblebees recently? How many species have you seen? 🔎 Brush up on your bumblebee identification skills: https://ow.ly/11BQ50ZoP6O
3. Creates toxic ‘productivity’ loops that makes it harder / longer to complete projects. 4. Techbros are not the answer.
Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 4w agoNowhere does this explore whether the lower than expected uptake of AI might reflect: 1) the expectations were based on over-hyped, booster-ish expectations; 2) use of AI is recognised by workers/businesses as problematic in some respects (for example, hallucinations increase workloads/errors).
Seven weeks, two days. When summer deletes the school run, an empty hour feels like a vacuum. My new piece explores the raw reality of the dual-neurodivergent household, using Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child to map the survival, isolation, and radical acceptance of the non-standard family club.
“What Are We Doing Today?”
Child-Parent Dual Neurodiversity and the Architecture of the Empty Holidays
open.substack.com
🌍
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · last mo.‘The search for life outside our solar system has taken another twist as researchers revealed they have discovered an atmosphere around an Earth-like planet 49 light years away that could have liquid water on its surface.’ www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
The Green Party is clear on what real change looks like: • Proportional representation • Taxing billionaire wealth • No new oil and gas • Public ownership of water • Rent controls • Ending arms sales to Israel
When these data centers become debt traps in a few years at most, the next Dem president should offer to wipe out those debts if they're sold for a dollar back to cities for community centers, mutual aid hubs, YMCA-style temporary housing services. Try to salvage anything out of this mess.
A TEI XML edition of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park github.com/open-edition...
GitHub - open-editions/corpus-austen-mansfield-park-tei: A TEI XML edition of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park
A TEI XML edition of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park. Contribute to open-editions/corpus-austen-mansfield-park-tei development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
Bloody marvellous
Mary M@marym276.bsky.social · 2mo agoA splendidly eccentric 90 year old conservationist is pedalling down the Thames to raise money for a temperate rainforest research station. Please donate if you can and share the story @irishrainforest.bsky.social www.justgiving.com/campaign/wat...
What happens when a controlling connection runs a compression algorithm over your entire soul? You down-sample your multi-dimensional, neurodivergent "thought-shapes" to keep the peace. My post bridges Dickens, Wyndham’s mid-century sci-fi, and the terror of interpersonal LLMs.
Deviations from the Definition of Belonging
Deletion and the Thought-Shape
open.substack.com
New on Substack: Parasites in Waistcoats. Blending Charles Dickens's Bleak House with systems engineering to analyse weaponised incompetence as a localised Denial-of-Service (DoS) attack. For every developer, teacher, and peer anchor currently drowning under an outsourced administrative payload.
Parasites in Fancy Waistcoats
Dickens and the High Art of Passenger Living
open.substack.com
Fisher with a mission: first woman to chair grayling society wants to protect ‘lady of the stream’
Fisher with a mission: first woman to chair grayling society wants to protect ‘lady of the stream’
Marnie Lovejoy hopes to inspire other women to fish, protect England’s rivers and lift up the ‘beautiful’ grayling
theguardian.com
Waving to the horizon of co-pilot reading and ‘suggesting’ my email replies.
Corey Rayburn Yung@coreyryung.bsky.social · 3mo agoDoes anyone know if this affects universities? I imagine schools would stop pushing Microsoft's AI on us if they were billed on a token basis.
The social contract and economy of writing. "It’s infuriating to invest time into reading something only to realize the author didn’t invest the corresponding amount of time into writing it." jola.dev/posts/the-so...
The social contract of writing | jola.dev
About the value of genuine writing in a world being drowned in slop.
jola.dev
Boosting a Microsoft Outlook thumbs-up emoji to a formal institutional response represents the ultimate triumph of low-friction bureaucracy. My latest essay connects Jacqueline Harpman’s dystopian fiction with platform architectures to decode the heavy, silent weight of algorithmic containment.
I Who Have Never Known Thumbs-Up
The Foundation of Confinement
open.substack.com
Inspired by Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairytale, I’m looking at why the Literature Review feels like a bear trap for the neurodivergent and chronically ill. Hello, my students :-)
The Diagnosis of Student Anxiety in the Ivory Town
Finding Your Place in the Architecture of Belonging
open.substack.com
The candles on the alpaca cake were still warm when the advice started. 🦙🎂 My daughter is ten. We must now perform "distance." My ND brain hears a suggestion and translates it at 100mph into an IMMEDIATE MANDATE to rewire our entire life. 🧠💨 I am the wrapped mother.
The Rational Affection of the "Wrapped" Mother
Mary Wollstonecraft, Neurodiversity, and the Tyranny of Parenting Advice
open.substack.com
'In 2023, UK universities spent a total of £500m on education agents – but there is very little oversight of how these agents operate.' 'Once students got their offers, they were passed on to the visa team, and finally delivered to universities as a fully wrapped, fee-paying package.'
‘I see it as trafficking’: the brutal reality of life as a foreign student in the UK
The long read: Universities in Britain rely on overseas applicants paying full fees, which has given rise to some unscrupulous recruiters and left many hopefuls and their families deep in debt
theguardian.com
Human judgment tells me this is a v v v v v bad idea.
Martin Paul Eve@eve.gd · 5mo agoThis does not inspire confidence. Ask people with disabilities for responses then feed them to AI. "The DWP will analyse and summarise responses and may use artificial intelligence to assist with the handling of responses - this will be under human oversight and will not replace human judgement"
'Sexism in football - a problem that isn't going away', covered by BBC Sport including an interview with @staceypope.bsky.social as a leading expert on female football fans and gender inequality in sport. Take a look at the full BBC Sport piece: www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...
