Alix Mortimer
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alixmortimer.bsky.social
Alix Mortimer
@alixmortimer.bsky.social
1.3K followers 1.4K following 1.8K posts
I(i)mpact and engagement for my brilliant colleagues in politics, economics, social sciences @kingscollegelondon.bsky.social. Often I dream of islands.
🚢 ships
🏺archaeology
🏰 medieval history
🇭🇷 učim Hrvatski
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
gabyhinsliff.bsky.social
I read three student newspapers in the course of writing this & on the off chance any student journalists at York, Exeter or Cambridge are reading this; God you’re all so much better than student journalism was in my day www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
If you want to know what Reform would be like in power, look at how it threatened Bangor University | Gaby Hinsliff
A debating society didn’t want to invite two figures connected to the party to speak. Cue an authoritarian response, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
www.theguardian.com
February 13, 2026 at 4:27 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
in-otter-news.bsky.social
BREAKING NEWS: Small Otter does important small otter stuff.
February 13, 2026 at 4:15 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
njbbari3.bsky.social
So at the beginning of the pandemic I said it would take about 5-7 years for people to figure stuff out using heuristic learning methods.

I am a crystal ball.
The BMJ v @bmj_latest X.com Covid-19 is not just a respiratory infection. Cardiovascular symptoms are seen in acute and long covid. Katharine Lang reports on what we've learnt since the onset of the pandemic Why covid-19 is "a vascular disease masquerading as a r...
February 13, 2026 at 1:55 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
eddavey.libdems.org.uk
This ruling shows that proscribing Palestine Action was a grave misuse of terrorism laws.

Labour must accept its mistake, drop its appeal and stop wasting taxpayers' money suppressing civil liberties.

Degrading counter-terror powers is a genuine threat to national security.
February 13, 2026 at 2:31 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
So we get an update on how [he thinks] it’s going yes?
rodger.bsky.social Rodger Sherman @rodger.bsky.social · 3h
GUESS WHO JUST WON BRONZE AGAIN
February 13, 2026 at 2:19 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
mercoglianos.bsky.social
Another idle Chinese shipyard springs back to life as capacity nears 2010’s peak

▶️China Merchants to restart Wuhan Qingshan Shipyard in 2026 after eight-year hiatus
▶️Revival part of broader wave of reactivations pushing Chinese capacity near early-2010’s peak
Another idle Chinese shipyard springs back to life as capacity nears 2010’s peak
Strong demand and full berths at leading yards fuel wave of shipyard reactivations across China
https://www.lloydslist.com/articles/2026/02/12/another-idle-chinese-shipyard-springs-back-to-life-as-capacity-nears-2010’s-peak
February 13, 2026 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
bkleinteeselink.bsky.social
🚨 New research: AI, Automation, and Expertise🚨

We analyze hundreds of millions of job ads across 39 countries to understand how AI is changing labor markets around the world.
January 26, 2026 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
bkleinteeselink.bsky.social
📢 Call for papers!

We are organizing the 6th Early Career Workshop in Quantitative Political Economy on 14-15 May 2026 at King’s College London!

Keynote: Shanker Satyanath (NYU)

No fee, travel grants might become available!

Submit at: tinyurl.com/qpe2026
February 13, 2026 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
urbaneprofessor.bsky.social
I mean look at that!!!
February 13, 2026 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
13sarahmurphy.bsky.social
This is the best explainer I’ve seen on Ratcliffe’s motives for his racist outburst. We shouldn’t enter into any ‘debate’ on immigration on these terms. It’s a deeply dishonest and dangerous call to arms by cynical people who prioritise profit over everything else
www.theguardian.com/football/202...
So yes, there is this point of view. You could very easily be cynical, jaded, lost in realpolitik at the revelation that Ratcliffe feels it useful to pretend Britain is in economic difficulty because of an invading army of foreigners. And that Nigel Farage, arch deregulator, seems, in his disinterested view, an entirely reasonable voice on this topic. Let us be clear about what is happening here. There is very little chance Ratcliffe feels any of this deeply. But he does know that a slash-and-burn Reform government would be good for business. With his Ineos hat on Ratcliffe has spoken publicly about the problems of doing business in the current version of a non-EU UK. He wants a harder out. Immigration is just a wedge issue in this dynamic, a way of pressing those buttons. If Ratcliffe actually gives a personal toss about this, is actually losing any sleep about its effects on "everyday people", I will gladly eat my own arm. This is pre-electioneering on behalf of the super-wealthy. A powerful person with skin in the game is trying to influence people into voting a certain way.
February 13, 2026 at 7:29 AM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
eicathomefinn.bsky.social
UK Humanities and Social Science researchers: If you want DSIT's metascience agenda to include your disciplines and subject areas, this is the prompt to apply by 23 April for up to £350,000 to make that happen. Don't be left out in the cold. #Skystorians
Metascience research grants: round two
Apply for funding to undertake cutting-edge Metascience research into more effective ways of conducting and supporting research and development (R&D), including the impact of artificial intelligence (...
www.ukri.org
February 12, 2026 at 5:05 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Key stakeholders
February 12, 2026 at 4:55 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
The shouty old right used to lay into the BBC for pro-European propaganda and the real reason millennials are pro-Europe was hidden from them all along because we had the volume turned down
joxley.jmoxley.co.uk John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 1d
The year is 1995.

You've finally got a tv in your bedroom. You pretend to sleep, before hearing your parents finally go to bed.

With the thrill of disobedience, you turn it on, volume right down. You cycle through the channels, to number 4.

You see whatever the fuck this is.
February 12, 2026 at 3:57 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
*looks at swathes of colleagues with PhDs, looks at office work that needs to be done, studies interface between the two*

Is this a trick question?
Let that land for a second. If Al is smarter than most PhDs, do you really think it can't do most office jobs?
February 12, 2026 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
badatstuff.bsky.social
I can't be the only one who immediately thought of Belfast when I saw that photo.
British army soldiers patrolling streets of Nationalist West Belfast during The Troubles, May 1973
February 12, 2026 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
omaromalleykhan.bsky.social
Thanks to all the charlatans, quacks and fools who've allowed measles to reach my child's secondary school in London
February 12, 2026 at 11:10 AM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
davidjbradley.bsky.social
What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it
February 11, 2026 at 10:03 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Pleased to say I had never heard of Jim Ratcliffe before but he has wrong’un hair.
February 12, 2026 at 7:32 AM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
ryancbriggs.net
I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.
It must be very hard to publish null results Publication practices in the social sciences act as a filter that favors statistically significant results over null findings. While the problem of selection on significance (SoS) is well-known in theory, it has been difficult to measure its scope empirically, and it has been challenging to determine how selection varies across contexts. In this article, we use large language models to extract granular and validated data on about 100,000 articles published in over 150 political science journals from 2010 to 2024. We show that fewer than 2% of articles that rely on statistical methods report null-only findings in their abstracts, while over 90% of papers highlight significant results. To put these findings in perspective, we develop and calibrate a simple model of publication bias. Across a range of plausible assumptions, we find that statistically significant results are estimated to be one to two orders of magnitude more likely to enter the published record than null results. Leveraging metadata extracted from individual articles, we show that the pattern of strong SoS holds across subfields, journals, methods, and time periods. However, a few factors such as pre-registration and randomized experiments correlate with greater acceptance of null results. We conclude by discussing implications for the field and the potential of our new dataset for investigating other questions about political science.
February 11, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
lukesteuber.com
You can’t offload emotional labor. Believe me, I’ve tried
My friend recently attended a funeral, and midway through the eulogy, he became convinced that it had been written by AI. There was the telltale proliferation of abstract nouns, a surfeit of assertions that the deceased was "not just X—he was Y" coupled with a lack of concrete anecdotes, and more appearances of the word collaborate than you would expect from a rec-league hockey teammate. It was both too good, in terms of being grammatically correct, and not good enough, in terms of being particular. My friend had no definitive proof that he was listening to AI, but his position—and I agree with him—is that when you know, you know. His sense was that he had just heard a computer save a man from thinking about his dead friend.
February 11, 2026 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
wafflecut.bsky.social
“I’ve reviewed over 50 sticky toffee puddings” is an incredibly powerful way to begin a video
February 11, 2026 at 5:15 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Truly incredible number of projects slated to reach some sort of crescendo in late May, no way can this go wrong.
February 11, 2026 at 2:01 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
Right, I missed this, what the what now?
aphclarkson.bsky.social Alexander Clarkson @aphclarkson.bsky.social · 2d
Now that the air travel has been shut down around El Paso for 10 days, the next thing worth looking out for is how far federal forces set up checkpoints around the city towards its links to the North and not just directly at the Mexican border
February 11, 2026 at 12:59 PM
alixmortimer.bsky.social
This is the truth the January-haters cannot face.
daviddylanthomas.bsky.social David Dylan Thomas @daviddylanthomas.bsky.social · 2d
Don't give anything an Emmy until it's as good as this.
February 11, 2026 at 12:48 PM
Reposted by Alix Mortimer
lsangha.bsky.social
#EarlyModern 🗃️

Rosamund Oates is researching the history of early modern deafnes - see her P&P article, book out soon I think.

academic.oup.com/past/article...
February 11, 2026 at 9:18 AM