Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · 4d

This is a cat who does not care about the wreckage of fur on the sheets, or the fact that I cannot reach the book without risking terrible injury

4

Reposted by Michael Taylor

ouinne @ouinne.bsky.social · 6d

The only correct take on a fundamentally anti-human technology.

Screenshot of David Simon interview
SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

17 710 2.5K

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · 20d

Nigel Biggar misrepresenting people, while also accusing other people of lying? Surely not

Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 20d

Stephen Mullen, a highly regarded historian specialising in Scotland's links with Atlantic slavery, objects to a right wing scholar's flagrant misrepresentation of his own work and that of Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum's curators in @thetimes.com

alanlester.co.uk/blog/falsify...

Falsifying Heritage: The Denial and Disavowal of Glasgow’s Links with Atlantic Slavery

By Stephen Mullen In a recent article in The Times, (‘Scottish Taxpayers should not have to pay the price for Slavery, 7 June 2025), Professor Nigel Biggar misrepresented an exhibition in Glasgow’s…

alanlester.co.uk

3

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · 25d

How does an Allen Lane paperback by a Wolfson Prize winner get the name of a prime minister wrong?

1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Aug 17

Plotting the chapters for the final section of the book I'm writing and, out of context, it looks like I've finally cracked:

4

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Aug 15

After the Know-Nothings in the 1850s and the Union Party in 1860, the biggest third-party delegation in U.S. congressional history (25 reps) was the Anti-Masonic Party in the 1830s.

They believed that the Illuminati and the masons were corrupting the world. Plus ca change.

1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Aug 12

The Spectator in 1921:

"Mrs. Webster shows what a bad influence certain sections of the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe have played in fomenting revolution ... Our own strong impression is that [she] is getting on the right track in connecting the Protocols and llluminism"

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Aug 6

Serendipitous discovery that the first (and maybe the last) Englishman to meet and write about Adam Weishaupt, the founder of the Illuminati, was Henry Crabb Robinson during his German years

1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Aug 4

Glad you enjoyed it!

1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Jul 24

Yeah, I guess you need to embrace the forces of embalming or perish

1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Jul 24

Dunno ... I think the average age of a Caius life fellow is currently about 107

1 1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Jul 24

Bizarre dream in which I went back to my old college. I was given palatial rooms (study, library, living space, ornate furnishings) for life, free food, and a massive wine cellar.

Then I realised I had just become a fellow.

1 1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Jul 4

Truly the worst day of the year as I attempt to wrestle this creature to the vet for her checkup

5

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Jun 9

Alcaraz dedicating his victory to the Code of Justinian

1 3

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Jun 5

Ahem

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Nov 10

For obvious reasons I would not post this on the other place, but when the Trump-Musk combustion happens, the fallout will be glorious to witness

6

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Jun 2

It's (online) publication day!

Delighted to have edited the latest volume in @royalhistsoc.org's Camden Series for @cambridgeup.bsky.social

@alexpreston.bsky.social

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Latest volume | Royal Historical Society Camden Fifth Series | Cambridge Core

Royal Historical Society Camden Fifth Series

www.cambridge.org

1 3 5

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · May 29

Yep. Immensely learned work, but not sure I agreed or enjoyed it

The English Historical Review @enghistrev.bsky.social · May 29

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social reviews 'Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age', by Peter Harrison

academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...

@cambridgeup.bsky.social

Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age, By Peter Harrison

Having used his 2011 Gifford Lectures to explore whether the very notions of ‘science’ and ‘religion’ are modern phenomena, Peter Harrison’s 2019 Bampton L

academic.oup.com

1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · May 21

Delighted that you enjoyed it - thanks again!

1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · May 21

I endorse this message … and thank you to @nigella.bsky.social!

Nigella Lawson @nigella.bsky.social · May 20

There’s a character in one of Martin Amis’s novels – I can’t remember which –who says “I don’t know much about science, but I know what I like.” I can’t say that I know much about science, but I do like to learn about it, and I loved this book – published in paperback today – when it came out. 1/2

Photograph of Impossible Monsters: How the Discovery of Dinosaurs Changed the World by Michael Taylor

2 21

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · May 14

I think they’re the best stuff full stop!

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · May 8

Do I want to pay £3066 to make a short book review available via OpenAccess? No, I fucking don’t

2

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Apr 11

Such a magnificent book

2

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Apr 9

Men!

What’s stopping you from drinking under the watchful eye of the German imperial eagle?

1

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Apr 8

Holidays are all well and good until you start missing your cat

9

Michael Taylor @mhtaylor.bsky.social · Mar 28

It is a source of endless delight that when the (real) Illuminati collapsed from 1784-87, they were essentially brought down by the Dowager Duchess of Bavaria.

A formidable, acerbic matriarch ...