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Neville Morley

@nevillemorley.bsky.social

3.9K followers 1.5K following 3.4K posts

Classics & Ancient History at Exeter, Leverhulme Major Research Fellow; much Thucydides, Marx and decadence, but also beer, cats and obscure European jazz. STILL trying to keep the blog going: https://thesphinxblog.com.

thesphinxblog.com.

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · Jul 26

One like, one Thucydides opinion.

Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · Jul 25

One like, one history opinion

Kerstin Hall @kerstinhall.bsky.social · Jul 25

one like, one writing opinion.

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 4d

Possibly a side-effect of finishing a draft of a paper on nostalgia, decadence and mos maiorum for a trip to Bloomington, though the Roman Republic faced more dangerous threats than giant insects.

Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 4d

I have suddenly had a powerful flashback to the Airfix ‘giant praying mantis rampaging through city’ kit I constructed and painted once, which was completely brilliant. I have no idea why.

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General Boles @generalboles.bsky.social · 5d

*googling 'can I trademark K Lamity?'* www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Next Tory leader? Rise of Katie Lam reflects rightward shift on migration

Shadow Home Office minister who tweets in language of hard-right populism is talked of as future of conservatism

www.theguardian.com

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 6d

On the Anthropic plagiarism and intellectual theft settlement.

thesphinxblog.com/2025/10/03/c...

Can’t Do Nuttin’ For Ya, Man!

So, all the books I’ve ever written or edited appear on the LibGen pirate website (among others) – I haven’t bothered to check for books to which I’ve contributed a chapter – and theref…

thesphinxblog.com

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Jason Sanford @jasonsanford.bsky.social · 7d

Instead of the Authors Guild and the plaintiffs working to include as many writers as possible in the settlement, they agreed on arbitrary and minimal definitions of which books would be included. They wanted a quick win even if they screwed over most authors. 11/

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Jason Sanford @jasonsanford.bsky.social · 7d

What's left unsaid is that most countries don't require official copyright registration to receive protect and the ability to sue for damages. The USA is evidently the only country to require this. 9/

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 7d

🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 CAT

Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 7d

Just so long as you’re synergistically aligned.

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Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 8d

I think this might be a problem of not knowing what a median is

Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 8d

There is a complete absence of any evidence here for this set of assertions that the median voter feels they would be called racist when Nigel Farage is called racist (or, in this case, when Farage isn't called racist but jumps up to claim that he has been)

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Will Jennings 🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 8d

What company to keep. What a journey.

It's really something to read Goodwin's 'impact case study' from REF2014. Far right extremism: against it before he was for it.
impact.ref.ac.uk/casestudies/...

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 8d

The median voter doesn't identify with Reform + doesn't see Reform as racist or not racist, but does think they have problems with racism, so why would they "feel attacked" by an attack on Reform

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 8d

"The cult of lethality captures a central conviction of Hegseth’s school of thought (if it can be called as much): that the key to victory is killing people. Reciprocally, that defeat can be explained by failure to kill enough people."

Phil Klay @philklay.bsky.social · 8d

‘The appeal to the mystical image of the “warfighter” is that it avoids having to discuss war in concrete terms. It sells the attractive myth that by doing more of the parts of war that look cool and really make you feel like a man, you can actually win wars.‘

www.deadcarl.com/p/clausewitz...

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 8d

If your institution requires you to use Blackboard for teaching (like me), be aware its parent company is broke and it's getting new private equity owners whose plans for the platform, and how they'll capitalize on it, remain unknown (bet it includes "AI") onedtech.philhillaa.com/p/anthology-...

What This Means for the LMS and EdTech Markets

For campus leaders: Blackboard will continue operating through the case, but the ownership and investment thesis behind the LMS are changing. This could affect long-term product direction and stability.

For EdTech executives: This is a textbook example of distressed-debt control in our sector. It shows how private equity cycles, first driving aggressive expansion, now dictating asset sales, reshape vendor landscapes.

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Dr Rachel Clarke @drrachelclarke.com · 8d

Here I am in 2020 in the flimsiest, most pitful PPE - like so many other NHS staff, some of whom died from the Covid they caught in their hospitals.

Tory peer Michelle Mone - who today lost her legal case & must repay the govt £122m - dares to claim she’s been ‘scapegoated’.

What, Michelle? 🧵

Rachel wearing very flimsy looking apron, mask and visor in NHS setting

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 8d

Unfortunately it is for medical purposes, but he does look very cool in it. My wife is now planning a Christmas costume for him, on the basis that he’ll be used to it by then.

Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 8d

Totally on board with weird collaborative projects. Here’s Buddy, expressing avant-garde existentialist art solidarity.

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 8d

There appears to be a significant possibility that the books most useful for trying to develop GenAI as a reliable source of deep, detailed knowledge - academic publications, going beyond US-centric perspective - are least likely to be compensated for the theft of their contents.

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Paul Cotterill @bickerrecord.bsky.social · 9d

1/ This Daily Express piece supposedly about North Evington in Leicester, where the claim in 43% of it's whole population can't speak English looks like a direct lie, and I suppose I'll have to write to Ofcom.

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 8d

Thank you. It appears that almost all my publishers have not bothered.

Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 8d

Do you know how one can tell if a book was registered for copyright - simply whether or not it appears on the list as eligible?

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Catherine Fletcher @cathfletcher.bsky.social · 8d

ALCS announced this week that the official list of who's entitled to compensation will be made available tomorrow: www.alcs.co.uk/news/the-lat...

The latest on the Anthropic settlement with authors

The landmark $1.5 billion settlement between AI company Anthropic and authors has received preliminary approval. Here’s what you need to know.

www.alcs.co.uk

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Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 9d

My one pedantic comment is that, unless you’ve got a working time machine, this is not in the OCD 3e. The last print edition, in 2005, was the 4th; I don’t think the online version has been given a number as it’s now an endlessly revised, expanding classical shoggoth.

Neville Morley @nevillemorley.bsky.social · 9d

Much boilerplate; not an exact quote of anything, resembles a garbled passage derived from Jowett's version of Hermocrates' speech in Thucydides Book 4 ("To you who call yourselves men of peace, I say: You are not safe unless you have men of action on your side") plus bits of the funeral oration.

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 9d

Non-voters and Lib Dems really do look a lot like Labour voters and it’s their PMC members who are most capturable. So a plan to lean against PMCs not only hurts Labour’s base it also hurts the people who aren’t voting for Labour who should be easiest to attract. Seems kinda dumb. 18/n

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Ben Ansell @benansell.bsky.social · 9d

Labour seem to hate their own voters. You know whose voters would be cool though? People who voted for Reform, or who want to do so now. That’s the ticket. That such people might disagree with almost every value Labour MPs and voters hold dear? Well that just makes them cooler. Hard to impress. 5/n

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