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Jon Agar

@jonagar.bsky.social

7.8K followers 590 following 600 posts

historian of modern science and technology

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Philosophy 28%

Physics 19%

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 1d

Footage has just been found of a band I was in, Trotsky's Dog.

We played gigs in Hitchin, Stevenage and Cambridge in the late 1980s. Some of our own material, but mostly covers of Stooges, Spacemen 3 and so on. A racket.

I'm the moody guitarist (r) - with hair!

Faster. Louder. More feedback

Trotsky's Dog Live at Queens' ca. 1988

YouTube video by Jon Morrow

www.youtube.com

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 1d

With Michael Heseltine in the news, saying the right things, I thought I'd share this.

Sarah Hogg, head of John Major's Number 10 Policy Unit, pens a rather charming portrait of what it was like to work with the man

(I'm working on a chapter on science/environment under Major and Blair at the mo)

Reposted by Holger Nehring

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 1d

The @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group is back. Yesterday we discussed Helen M. Rozwadowski @oceanhistories.bsky.social , ‘Ocean literacy and public humanities’, Parks Stewardship Forum (2020) 36(3) escholarship.org/uc/item/11w5... (suggested by Janet Browne & Jordan Goodman)

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 2d

"The Met Police investigation discovered street thieves were being paid up to £300 per handset - and the force said stolen devices are being sold in China for up to £4,000 each, given they are internet-enabled and more attractive for those trying to bypass censorship".
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

One iPhone led police to gang who sent 40,000 snatched phones to China

BBC News is given access to what the Met Police says is the UK's largest operation against mobile phone thefts.

www.bbc.co.uk

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 4d

Not far from the UK’s largest unnecessary infrastructure project

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 4d

Turkmenistan Shrike, Dunwich Heath, Suffolk, being admired by lots of birders

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 5d

Happy Sputnik Launch Day to those who celebrate

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 8d

The @stsucl.bsky.social department on TV #2

A TV still from Slow Horses. STS department in the background

Reposted by Jon Agar

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 8d

We've just selected this as our @stsucl.bsky.social OneBook. (Every year, we ask all of our students and colleagues to read one book together).

Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · Apr 23

Today's the day! My new book MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER is finally out! If you want to understand why tech billionaires are so obsessed with impossible ideas about space and AI — and why that's dangerous — this book is for you. #MoreEverythingForever www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-...

More Everything Forever

This "wild and utterly engaging narrative" (Melanie Mitchell) shows why Silicon Valley’s heartless, baseless, and foolish obsessions—with escaping death,...

www.hachettebookgroup.com

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Reposted by Simon Roux, Alan Richardson, Jon Agar , and 1 more Simon Roux, Alan Richardson, Jon Agar, Evan Roberts

Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 9d

Job at UC-Berkeley: Asst. Prof. in Global History of Technology, apps due 10/10 (so soon). #history #histSTM #histsci #histphilsci

aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05065

Assistant Professor – Global History of Technology - Department of History

University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

aprecruit.berkeley.edu

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 10d

It’s quite common in London. It’s if anything more robust than regular knotgrass so it survives pavements and paths well

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 10d

Yep. As Jo says

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 11d

Bristly Oxtongue, on walls of Lewes Priory for #wildflowerhour

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Reposted by Diane Coyle, Lesley A. Hall, Jon Agar , and 4 more Diane Coyle, Lesley A. Hall, Jon Agar, Paulo Drinot, Jeroen Van Bouwel, François Guesnet, Béatrice Cointe

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 13d

We need an associate lecturer in history of modern science @stsucl.bsky.social www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Reposted by Lesley A. Hall

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 15d

Giving a talk tonight on ‘Science and politics in the national archive’, at the Athenaeum (!)

It’s about how I do history and what I find out

It’s accessible and at times entertaining

Very happy to repeat it for a more public and broader audience. If anyone interested get in touch

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Reposted by Martin Paul Eve

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 20d

Two more chances to see the International Space Station tonight, with clear skies over London: straight overhead at 7.46pm and fairly high up at 9.22pm

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 23d

Space Station going overhead London right now. Look up

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Helene Scott @hscottfordsmand.bsky.social · 23d

Second: Cildo Meireles’ Babel (2001). On how we tell the history of technology, on noise and ways of attending to sound, on the transition from a technology of resistance to one of state communication, and on the return of chaos as the return of the need for households to have transiter radios.

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 23d

Context: we are at an @stsucl.bsky.social away day, looking at art at the Tate Modern, followed by curriculum chat

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 23d

it’s white, but my new shoes are whiter

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 25d

Sticky groundsel (Senecio viscosus) with some Vervain (Verbena officinalis), Hackney pavement, for #wildflowerhour

(pavement plants are #favouriteplants)

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 27d

… I’m helping make a urban botany map of street plants/weeds

Including applying my hobbyist botanical knowledge to the pavement outside UUK offices in Tavistock Square. #unfundedresearch #hobbyist

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 27d

Today I’m part of the Caretographies workshop, handmaking maps of Bloomsbury that are maps as means to care as opposed to means of control or power. Organised by Simon Werrett of @stsucl.bsky.social

It’s a kind of follow up to our Experimental Histories of Science workshop …

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 29d

Excellent informed and amusing comment info on this

Durotriges Dig @durotrigesdig.bsky.social · 29d

The talented Louis Ginnett painted this mural for Brighton + Hove Grammar School Sussex in 1937

Entitled *Hollingbury Camp: Full Circle* it depicts the excavation of a Bronze Age burial

The motorcyclist is TE Lawrence, who died in 1935

Did he really visit a dig in Brighton? 🤔

#HillfortsWednesday

A mural depicting the excavation of a human skull and Bronze Age artefacts from a trench on the South Downs overlooking Brighton and the sea, featuring two workmen, a golfing family, three archaeologists (one with sieve, one sketching and one holding a skull) a grammar school boy holding a Bronze Age dagger, a school master with umbrella and a military man on a motorbike

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Reposted by Iain Davidson, Keith Lilley, Jon Agar

Durotriges Dig @durotrigesdig.bsky.social · 29d

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Sep 8

Preparing reading group for the new term and refreshing history of modern science syllabi …

Any suggestions of recent published work on the topic that has really moved or interested you?

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Sep 7

and this distinctive thistle with the excellent Latin name of Chamaeleon gummifer, the purple flowers are kept everlasting as #seedheads

very dry Portimao wasteland

#wildflowerhour

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Sep 7

I’ve been in Algarve, Portugal where everything is quite parched at t the end of summer, but still some good #wildflowerhour #seedheads

Here’s castor oil plant (Ricinus communis)

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Reposted by Roger A. Pielke, Benjamin I. Cook, Dave O’Brien , and 6 more Roger A. Pielke, Benjamin I. Cook, Dave O’Brien, Lesley A. Hall, Fabián Muniesa, Jon Agar, Paulo Drinot, Daniel Wilson, Jeroen Van Bouwel

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · Sep 4

We're hiring a new lecturer @stsucl.bsky.social. We're looking for someone with particular interests in the environment. Please share widely www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Aug 24

Spear thistle, Old Deer Park #wildflowerhour

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