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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 1d

It's also nicely illustrative of how, in English at least, humans are very unimaginative in their naming

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 4d

Leicester. Not that we'd get any tourists.

The way they taught us in school was that there's a silent ice in it.

Reposted by Terry Hathaway

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 4d

Incredible.

Jack Posobiec references the earliest version of antifa -- the anti-fascists in the Weimar Republic who were opposed to the Nazi Party -- as the bad guys.

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 4d

I know this is secondary to what he's saying, but I'm not sure I'd ever point to a supercomputer and think "critical thinking skills". I suppose if critical thinking is reduced just to analysis I could vaguely see what he's saying, but GenAI is not even particularly good at analysis.

Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 14d

When being hit by a car, a smaller car going at a slower speed is preferable. Also, try not to be a child.

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 14d

When it comes to road deaths, we often put the onus on people doing the dying rather than people doing the killing.

NPR @npr.org · 16d

In 2024, 7,100 pedestrians were killed on the road, and in recent years, more than 1,000 cyclists have been hit and killed annually. Safety experts explain how bikers and walkers can stay safe.

Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 17d

Ah, microwaved leftover Blairism. Kier, you shouldn't have!

Like, really, Kier, you shouldn't have.

Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 20d

Wait a sec - are the Lib Dems going orange now? I always thought they went with yellow.

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Reposted by Terry Hathaway

Alex Andreou @sturdyalex.bsky.social · 22d

In case you thought I was exaggerating, here is the "debate" on Kimmel from Newsnight.

David Frum explaining the horrific first-amendment-breaching executive overreach.

British right wing hacks: bUt HiS jOkE wAs iNaCCuRaTe!

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 24d

The fact of the matter is that Azerbaijan and Albania are at peace, and Trump deserves recognition for his role in that.

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 24d

Maybe he slipped and the sofa fell 🤔

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 24d

I mean, fucking a sofa seems quite original in my world. Or, at least, highly unusual in a way that can be understood to be original.

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 24d

The no winter of academic life is a nice way to think about it.

Alternatively, the long winter of academic life if you hate your job.

Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 24d

"These people are not political at all, they just have strong opinions on the current political situation."

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 25d

We should stop trying to transmit information through writing (3000BC technology) but should instead directly transmit information using brainwaves.

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 26d

I thought bluesky would appreciate it, even if no one I know in the meat world did

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 27d

I guess the Ovenden window shifted.

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · 28d

Fascists ruin everything. Here I am, trying to enjoy the switch into Autumn and the fascists are off fascing. Why can't they, I dunno, bake an apple crumble or something?

Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · Sep 12

I didn't realise hobbyists were being funded by universities! Here I was thinking that most University staff members have an undergraduate degree, maybe a Masters, and a PhD. Y'know, the 6-8 years of qualifications that make you a professional researcher.

Hierarchy eats people's brains.

Research Professional News @resprofnews.bsky.social · Sep 12

Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ .

Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”.

www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

Ministers ‘want to shift funds away from low-quality research’ - Research Professional News

Universities UK president says institutions cannot afford “unfunded hobbyist research”

www.researchprofessionalnews.com

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Reposted by Terry Hathaway

Political Studies Association @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social · Sep 12

*PSA EVENT* This #Teaching & #Learning Webinar will look at using LEGO® in #PoliticalScience & #InternationalStudies as a Flexible and Effective Tool for Playful Learning’ with Dr. David Wilcox & Dr. Giuditta Fontana @unibirmingham.bsky.social
📆 19 November, 1 - 2pm, online
➡️ buff.ly/VEPbxAy

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · Sep 10

It is always sad to see yet another victim of the horrific levels of gun violence in the United States. I'm sure we all hope that such an appalling incident leads to greater political attention to this epidemic of senseless and needless carnage.

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Reposted by Terry Hathaway

Emeka Dumbili @dremekadumbili.bsky.social · Sep 10

Publication alert:

Commercial determinants of infant and child health: A focus on Nestlé’s baby food products marketed in Africa

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Commercial determinants of infant and child health: A focus on Nestlé’s baby food products marketed in Africa

The transnational baby food industry (TBFI), which operates in Africa, engages in aggressive marketing and deploys corporate practices to maximise pro…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · Sep 8

The new Discworld audiobooks provide a weight of evidence for the latter camp.

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Terry Hathaway @terryhathaway.bsky.social · Sep 8

Man I'm old. After a few weeks of being away on collection day, I just thought to myself "Ooh, the recycling bins will be emptied today"

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Reposted by Terry Hathaway

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
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Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Reposted by Terry Hathaway

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · Sep 5

"Commentary *like this* about a deputy Prime Minister felt politically unsurvivable" - Chris Mason, BBC ten o'cıock news.

This script over these pictures treats vandalism & criminal damage as a legitimate form of democratic voice. The BBC should avoid doing that, esp in broader current climate

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