Frank Norman
@franknorman.bsky.social
Retired librarian. Interested in science (mainly biomedical), choral music, running, countryside, libraries (of course), literature, the Philippines, LGBTQIA+, neurodivergence.
It’s a great event.
We are at LIS Bibliometrics 2025 in Leicester today.
@mcintold.bsky.social is currently presenting on detecting fraud and impostors in the age of Open Science.
@mcintold.bsky.social is currently presenting on detecting fraud and impostors in the age of Open Science.
November 26, 2025 at 9:42 AM
It’s a great event.
Reposted by Frank Norman
I’m a past winner of the Orwell Prize & won partly because I exposed Vote Leave’s unlawful activities.
Michael Gove was its co-convener & refused to answer a single q. He’s now a judge of the prize & our world is truly one that Orwell would recognise
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...
Michael Gove was its co-convener & refused to answer a single q. He’s now a judge of the prize & our world is truly one that Orwell would recognise
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...
Michael Gove Made Orwell Prize Judge Despite Record of Attacking Journalists and Dodging Scrutiny
Critics say "Orwell would have enjoyed the irony" of the former Conservative minister's appointment
bylinetimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 5:53 PM
I’m a past winner of the Orwell Prize & won partly because I exposed Vote Leave’s unlawful activities.
Michael Gove was its co-convener & refused to answer a single q. He’s now a judge of the prize & our world is truly one that Orwell would recognise
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...
Michael Gove was its co-convener & refused to answer a single q. He’s now a judge of the prize & our world is truly one that Orwell would recognise
bylinetimes.com/2025/11/25/m...
Reposted by Frank Norman
Interesting discussion on the positions taken by some regarding lockdowns and how some rewrite history to excuse their actions 🧵
The shameful attacks on the Covid inquiry prove it: the right is lost in anti-science delusion | Polly Toynbee
There is nothing wrong with questioning the mighty cost of the lockdowns, but we can’t let hardline libertarians rewrite Britain’s pandemic history, says Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee
www.theguardian.com
November 26, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Interesting discussion on the positions taken by some regarding lockdowns and how some rewrite history to excuse their actions 🧵
Reposted by Frank Norman
BREAKING: This is huge news, the EU's equivalent of the 🇺🇸Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.
🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states.
This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺
🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states.
This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺
www.reuters.com
November 25, 2025 at 10:10 AM
BREAKING: This is huge news, the EU's equivalent of the 🇺🇸Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.
🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states.
This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺
🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states.
This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺
I think I need to rewrite my LinkedIn profile and adopt this bro-coding. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Bro boost: women say their LinkedIn traffic increases if they pretend to be men
Collective experiment found switching profile to ‘male’ and ‘bro-coding’ text led to big increase in reach, though site denies favouring posts by men
www.theguardian.com
November 26, 2025 at 7:51 AM
I think I need to rewrite my LinkedIn profile and adopt this bro-coding. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Reposted by Frank Norman
A great intro to academic conferencing.
Not sure how I missed this one.
scienceforeveryone.science/getting-the-...
Not sure how I missed this one.
scienceforeveryone.science/getting-the-...
Getting the most of out a scientific conference
A slightly unconventional guide to your first time
scienceforeveryone.science
November 26, 2025 at 4:47 AM
A great intro to academic conferencing.
Not sure how I missed this one.
scienceforeveryone.science/getting-the-...
Not sure how I missed this one.
scienceforeveryone.science/getting-the-...
Reposted by Frank Norman
Over the next week (what thanksgiving break? lol) I have to read my book again and finalize it before it goes to *print* and I’m literally paying attention to details like colon vs comma and I’m sure most authors are like this and that’s one reason why you should buy our books. We really care.
The Edge of Space-Time by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: 9780593701683 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books
A fresh, charming, socially conscious tour of the mysteries of space-time, from the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos In her highly acclaimed debut, distinguished cosmologist and particle...
www.penguinrandomhouse.com
November 26, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Over the next week (what thanksgiving break? lol) I have to read my book again and finalize it before it goes to *print* and I’m literally paying attention to details like colon vs comma and I’m sure most authors are like this and that’s one reason why you should buy our books. We really care.
Reposted by Frank Norman
tech bro: i have made Artificial General Intelligence
programmer: you fucked up a perfectly good calculator is what you did. look at it. it's got anxiety
programmer: you fucked up a perfectly good calculator is what you did. look at it. it's got anxiety
I’ve been running around asking tech execs and academics if language was the same as intelligence for over a year now - and, well, it isn’t. @benjaminjriley.bsky.social explains how the bubble is built on ignoring cutting-edge research into the science of thought www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...
November 25, 2025 at 5:12 PM
tech bro: i have made Artificial General Intelligence
programmer: you fucked up a perfectly good calculator is what you did. look at it. it's got anxiety
programmer: you fucked up a perfectly good calculator is what you did. look at it. it's got anxiety
Reposted by Frank Norman
1/5: FluView is still monitored by career scientists, but some CDC websites appear to be compromised. One place we can look is our partners at the European Centers for Disease Control (ECDC). Because we live in a globally connected community, what is happening in Europe will likely happen here.
November 25, 2025 at 8:06 PM
1/5: FluView is still monitored by career scientists, but some CDC websites appear to be compromised. One place we can look is our partners at the European Centers for Disease Control (ECDC). Because we live in a globally connected community, what is happening in Europe will likely happen here.
Reposted by Frank Norman
I keep saying, Google intentionally making its search worse is a world-historical fumble, and it's a huge opportunity for so many others across the internet, if they'll just seize it..
Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea
November 25, 2025 at 3:12 PM
I keep saying, Google intentionally making its search worse is a world-historical fumble, and it's a huge opportunity for so many others across the internet, if they'll just seize it..
Reposted by Frank Norman
📢 STARTING SOON - Join us & @royalsociety.org for a live webinar dedicated to improving accessibility for disabled scientists.
Hear from members of our Inclusion & Diversity Committee & watch a panel of invited speakers, discuss improving inclusion in STEM. Watch now https://rsc.li/4o5uCht #ChemSky
Hear from members of our Inclusion & Diversity Committee & watch a panel of invited speakers, discuss improving inclusion in STEM. Watch now https://rsc.li/4o5uCht #ChemSky
November 25, 2025 at 3:00 PM
📢 STARTING SOON - Join us & @royalsociety.org for a live webinar dedicated to improving accessibility for disabled scientists.
Hear from members of our Inclusion & Diversity Committee & watch a panel of invited speakers, discuss improving inclusion in STEM. Watch now https://rsc.li/4o5uCht #ChemSky
Hear from members of our Inclusion & Diversity Committee & watch a panel of invited speakers, discuss improving inclusion in STEM. Watch now https://rsc.li/4o5uCht #ChemSky
Reposted by Frank Norman
Rutger Bregman accuses BBC of censoring his Reith lecture on Trump
Dutch writer says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed
www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
Dutch writer says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed
www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
Rutger Bregman accuses BBC of censoring his Reith lecture on Trump
Dutch writer says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Rutger Bregman accuses BBC of censoring his Reith lecture on Trump
Dutch writer says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed
www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
Dutch writer says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed
www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
Reposted by Frank Norman
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
November 25, 2025 at 9:26 AM
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
Oh, this is awkward then. No doubt the free speech die-hards will be up in arms. Or not. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
Reith lecturer accuses BBC of censoring his remarks on Trump
Dutch writer Rutger Bregman says claim that Trump was ‘most openly corrupt president in US history’ was removed
www.theguardian.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:44 PM
Oh, this is awkward then. No doubt the free speech die-hards will be up in arms. Or not. www.theguardian.com/media/2025/n...
Reposted by Frank Norman
Are you a researcher, editor, journal manager, librarian, or scholarly communications professional looking to develop your skills? Are you interested in learning more about the values, influences, technologies, and standards shaping today’s scholarly publishing ecosystem?
Our courses are for you! 🧵
Our courses are for you! 🧵
November 21, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Are you a researcher, editor, journal manager, librarian, or scholarly communications professional looking to develop your skills? Are you interested in learning more about the values, influences, technologies, and standards shaping today’s scholarly publishing ecosystem?
Our courses are for you! 🧵
Our courses are for you! 🧵
I do like the sound of the 'Veriweb' (from veritas+web) in this near-term futuristic flight-of-fancy. #informationintegrity
In the latest in our imagined history of inventions yet to come, Future Chronicles columnist Rowan Hooper reveals how an ingenious way to avoid being swamped by AI content was invented in the late 2020s
Imagining a future where smart glasses allow 'AI slop' to be avoided
In the latest in our imagined history of inventions yet to come, Future Chronicles columnist Rowan Hooper reveals how an ingenious way to avoid being swamped by AI content was invented in the late 2020s
www.newscientist.com
November 24, 2025 at 11:21 AM
I do like the sound of the 'Veriweb' (from veritas+web) in this near-term futuristic flight-of-fancy. #informationintegrity
Good piece from @nesrinemalik.bsky.social on Labour immigration policies and Mahmood’s own story. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Shabana Mahmood is an avatar of open Britain – that’s what makes her fable about immigration so seductive | Nesrine Malik
‘She is the daughter of immigrants,’ supporters of her cruel asylum policies say. ‘How can she be wrong?’ Let me put them straight, says Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 10:38 AM
Good piece from @nesrinemalik.bsky.social on Labour immigration policies and Mahmood’s own story. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Frank Norman
"Drawing on a corpus of over 15,000 scholarly articles published between 1800 and 2024, we map the linguistic landscape of eugenics in scholarly discourse to reveal its institutional, scientific, and sociopolitical entrenchment"
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
Echoes of Eugenics: Tracing the Ideological Persistence of Scientific Racism in Scholarly Discourse | Proceedings of the 5th ACM Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimiza...
dl.acm.org
November 23, 2025 at 9:24 AM
"Drawing on a corpus of over 15,000 scholarly articles published between 1800 and 2024, we map the linguistic landscape of eugenics in scholarly discourse to reveal its institutional, scientific, and sociopolitical entrenchment"
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...
Reposted by Frank Norman
This focuses on politics. But we should also care about *outcomes*.
In the UK, migrants (both from EU and elsewhere) are more likely to have a job than the UK born. In Denmark, there's a gap of 15-20%. Similarly for education outcomes.
Why would we want to copy that?
In the UK, migrants (both from EU and elsewhere) are more likely to have a job than the UK born. In Denmark, there's a gap of 15-20%. Similarly for education outcomes.
Why would we want to copy that?
After more than 10 years of “the Danish Model”, nativism is hegemonic in the country, the far right polls near level highs again, and the Social Democrats lost Copenhagen and poll at historic low.
European Social Democrats should look at the facts, not the myths!
Me in @theguardian.com
European Social Democrats should look at the facts, not the myths!
Me in @theguardian.com
The ‘Danish model’ is the darling of centre-left parties like Labour. The problem is, it doesn’t even work in Denmark | Cas Mudde
This week’s local elections are the latest reminder that when social democrats move rightwards, they’re making a mistake, says academic and author Cas Mudde
www.theguardian.com
November 23, 2025 at 10:31 AM
This focuses on politics. But we should also care about *outcomes*.
In the UK, migrants (both from EU and elsewhere) are more likely to have a job than the UK born. In Denmark, there's a gap of 15-20%. Similarly for education outcomes.
Why would we want to copy that?
In the UK, migrants (both from EU and elsewhere) are more likely to have a job than the UK born. In Denmark, there's a gap of 15-20%. Similarly for education outcomes.
Why would we want to copy that?
Reposted by Frank Norman
This is the funniest piece imaginable in the dull world of the otherwise sickly sycophantic tech review.
For real. Read it, even if you don’t give a rat’s ass about printers.
For real. Read it, even if you don’t give a rat’s ass about printers.
November 23, 2025 at 1:59 AM
This is the funniest piece imaginable in the dull world of the otherwise sickly sycophantic tech review.
For real. Read it, even if you don’t give a rat’s ass about printers.
For real. Read it, even if you don’t give a rat’s ass about printers.
Reposted by Frank Norman
call me a luddite, but a tool that generates "reports" full of made-up content is not "efficient" no matter how much faster or cheaper it is than having humans write... a real report
A major healthcare policy paper commissioned by @govnl.bsky.social government from Deloitte at a cost of $1.6 million, cites research papers that don’t exist, making it the second major government policy paper called into question in as many months. #nlpoli #AI
theindependent.ca/news/lji/maj...
theindependent.ca/news/lji/maj...
Major N.L. healthcare report contains errors likely generated by A.I. – The Independent
$1.6 million Health Human Resources Plan from Deloitte cites research papers that don’t exist, making it the second major government policy paper called into question in as many months
theindependent.ca
November 23, 2025 at 3:56 AM
call me a luddite, but a tool that generates "reports" full of made-up content is not "efficient" no matter how much faster or cheaper it is than having humans write... a real report
Reposted by Frank Norman
Boris Johnson has labelled the Covid Inquiry report as 'muddled' and 'incoherent'. In what must be the most excruciating irony bypass of all time.
November 22, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Boris Johnson has labelled the Covid Inquiry report as 'muddled' and 'incoherent'. In what must be the most excruciating irony bypass of all time.
Reposted by Frank Norman
Odd coverage of the #covidinquiry by the Today Programme.
November 21, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Odd coverage of the #covidinquiry by the Today Programme.
Reposted by Frank Norman
Future AI viruses will be written in iambic pentameter or sprung rhythm. Go for it, poets! Let your verse burn down the AI house!
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 21, 2025 at 7:32 AM
Future AI viruses will be written in iambic pentameter or sprung rhythm. Go for it, poets! Let your verse burn down the AI house!
Reposted by Frank Norman
And now the new 'fully impartial' BBC is giving airtime to a Covid lockdown & facemask "sceptic"
If you are the sort of person who quotes Carl Heneghan as an expert source for your antivax & anti-anti-covid measures bullshit, heres a reminder that you're a fkn moron
#CovidInquiry
#r4today
If you are the sort of person who quotes Carl Heneghan as an expert source for your antivax & anti-anti-covid measures bullshit, heres a reminder that you're a fkn moron
#CovidInquiry
#r4today
November 21, 2025 at 7:39 AM
And now the new 'fully impartial' BBC is giving airtime to a Covid lockdown & facemask "sceptic"
If you are the sort of person who quotes Carl Heneghan as an expert source for your antivax & anti-anti-covid measures bullshit, heres a reminder that you're a fkn moron
#CovidInquiry
#r4today
If you are the sort of person who quotes Carl Heneghan as an expert source for your antivax & anti-anti-covid measures bullshit, heres a reminder that you're a fkn moron
#CovidInquiry
#r4today