alxbutterworth.bsky.social
@alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
November 30, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Dataset cleaning may not be glamorous, but it needs to happen! 💪 And we may all be at our own laptops, but it is sooooo much better to do it together!
July 16, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Dataset cleaning may not be glamorous, but it needs to happen! 💪 And we may all be at our own laptops, but it is sooooo much better to do it together!
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
The absolute state of the BBC news just now - which seems determined to drag the government down over the budget.
Where was all this attention to minute detail and concern for absolute accuracy when the Tories were lying their way through their chaotic reign for 14 years? It's frankly absurd.
Where was all this attention to minute detail and concern for absolute accuracy when the Tories were lying their way through their chaotic reign for 14 years? It's frankly absurd.
For all the focus on its supposed “left wing bias”, the BBC’s heavy coverage of Rachel Reeves Budget "lies" shows how its political coverage is still largely led by the right-wing press
bylinetimes.com/2025/12/01/r...
bylinetimes.com/2025/12/01/r...
Rachel Reeves and the Daily Mailification of the BBC
For all the focus on its supposed "left wing bias", the BBC's heavy coverage of Conservative allegations of dishonesty against Rachel Reeves shows how its political coverage is still largely led by th...
bylinetimes.com
December 1, 2025 at 1:39 PM
The absolute state of the BBC news just now - which seems determined to drag the government down over the budget.
Where was all this attention to minute detail and concern for absolute accuracy when the Tories were lying their way through their chaotic reign for 14 years? It's frankly absurd.
Where was all this attention to minute detail and concern for absolute accuracy when the Tories were lying their way through their chaotic reign for 14 years? It's frankly absurd.
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
It is done! I knit a budget sweater for the first 7 years of the Textile Makerspace. One row in bright red, full circumference is $2k. Black lines are year dividers. The sleeves are paid student labor, with hours worked in brown. Sleeve on left is color coded by pronouns, right by gender. #DHmakes
October 30, 2025 at 3:02 PM
It is done! I knit a budget sweater for the first 7 years of the Textile Makerspace. One row in bright red, full circumference is $2k. Black lines are year dividers. The sleeves are paid student labor, with hours worked in brown. Sleeve on left is color coded by pronouns, right by gender. #DHmakes
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
I've been invited to give a public lecture in Paris about my upcoming @manchesterup.bsky.social book on 4 December. If you're around then please do come and join (or you can also register to attend virtually)!
@qmulsse.bsky.social
www.london.ac.uk/institute-pa...
@qmulsse.bsky.social
www.london.ac.uk/institute-pa...
Make Cheese Not War: Transnational Resistance and the Larzac
Join Dr Andrew WM Smith to discover how rural resistance on France’s Larzac plateau became a global movement of solidarity and success.
www.london.ac.uk
October 21, 2025 at 2:43 PM
I've been invited to give a public lecture in Paris about my upcoming @manchesterup.bsky.social book on 4 December. If you're around then please do come and join (or you can also register to attend virtually)!
@qmulsse.bsky.social
www.london.ac.uk/institute-pa...
@qmulsse.bsky.social
www.london.ac.uk/institute-pa...
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
RIP Tony Harrison. I know there are so many good ones, but this is the one for me (and mine): 'Them and [uz]'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4g...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4g...
'Them and [uz]' but every time Tony Harrison says either [ʌs] or [uz] the bass is boosted by 5db.
YouTube video by Gastókruphos
www.youtube.com
September 27, 2025 at 6:24 PM
RIP Tony Harrison. I know there are so many good ones, but this is the one for me (and mine): 'Them and [uz]'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4g...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn4g...
I think about this poem by Ian Duhig — about Jo Cox, the Labour MP assassinated by a man shouting ‘Britain first’ — every day at the moment. No other contemporary poet has looked so clearly at the political reality of the far right as a minority who must always be appeased
September 13, 2025 at 10:47 PM
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Nobel Prize Laureate Roger Penrose, Yvette Fuentes, and myself, request your help in order to save an archive of incredible scientific and historical value. Please raise awareness by *sharing*, or *contribute*:
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/roger-penr...
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/roger-penr...
Roger Penrose & Friends Appeal for Unique Archive
To digitise and restore the worlds largest collection of audio and visual recordings within the scientific community, spanning over 50 years
www.crowdfunder.co.uk
September 8, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Nobel Prize Laureate Roger Penrose, Yvette Fuentes, and myself, request your help in order to save an archive of incredible scientific and historical value. Please raise awareness by *sharing*, or *contribute*:
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/roger-penr...
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/roger-penr...
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
There's no better poster child for the mess the UK is now in than the fact that the Financial Times - home to the "how to spend it" supplement on luxury geegaws - is now one of the most left-wing media channels in the country simply because it's still interested in reality.
August 27, 2025 at 10:41 AM
There's no better poster child for the mess the UK is now in than the fact that the Financial Times - home to the "how to spend it" supplement on luxury geegaws - is now one of the most left-wing media channels in the country simply because it's still interested in reality.
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
my statement on Ai from the mini-comic I'm making as syllabus for a new class I'm teaching this fall. It's simple, but I pretty much said all I have to say on it - it robs you of decisions and struggle - and the joy of being surprised. It robs you of learning...
August 12, 2025 at 7:37 PM
my statement on Ai from the mini-comic I'm making as syllabus for a new class I'm teaching this fall. It's simple, but I pretty much said all I have to say on it - it robs you of decisions and struggle - and the joy of being surprised. It robs you of learning...
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Can't wait for the wall-to-wall media coverage of What This Means, the endless thinkpieces about Green Party dominance in a working class community meaning Labour has to take their concerns seriously and pivot towards them, you know like we'd get if Reform had won.
Grangetown (Cardiff) Council By-Election Result:
🌍 GRN: 24.0% (+5.5)*
🌹 LAB: 22.7% (-24.8)
🌼 PLC: 18.7% (+0.2)*
➡️ RFM: 14.5% (New)
🐉 PRO: 9.6% (+0.1)
🙋 Ind: 4.6% (-2.1)
🌳 CON: 4.1% (-8.4)
🔶 LDM: 1.8% (-2.1)
No Ind (-1.4) as previous.
*joint cand. in 2024.
Green GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2024.
🌍 GRN: 24.0% (+5.5)*
🌹 LAB: 22.7% (-24.8)
🌼 PLC: 18.7% (+0.2)*
➡️ RFM: 14.5% (New)
🐉 PRO: 9.6% (+0.1)
🙋 Ind: 4.6% (-2.1)
🌳 CON: 4.1% (-8.4)
🔶 LDM: 1.8% (-2.1)
No Ind (-1.4) as previous.
*joint cand. in 2024.
Green GAIN from Labour.
Changes w/ 2024.
August 15, 2025 at 7:58 AM
Can't wait for the wall-to-wall media coverage of What This Means, the endless thinkpieces about Green Party dominance in a working class community meaning Labour has to take their concerns seriously and pivot towards them, you know like we'd get if Reform had won.
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Tremendous review of Adam Biles Beasts Of England on the Orwell Society website: orwellsociety.com/from-manor-f... "hat Beasts of England does so brilliantly is reanimate Orwell’s legacy, prying it out of its glass case and thrusting it back into the muck and manure of the real world."
From Manor Farm to Contemporary Britain
*
Réka Törzsök examines
Adam Biles’s Sharp-Eyed Return to Orwell’s Animal Farm
*
As the world marks the 80th anniversary of Animal Farm (1945), George Orwell’s searing allegory remains frighteningly ...
orwellsociety.com
August 16, 2025 at 6:59 PM
Tremendous review of Adam Biles Beasts Of England on the Orwell Society website: orwellsociety.com/from-manor-f... "hat Beasts of England does so brilliantly is reanimate Orwell’s legacy, prying it out of its glass case and thrusting it back into the muck and manure of the real world."
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
For 30 years I've been experimenting with ways to see & use the online collections of libraries, archives & museums. I've made useful things, playful things, & weird things. Here's a big list of them for you to explore! https://wraggelabs.com #glam #histodons #digitalhumanities
Wragge Labs
A compilation of things I've built over the last 30 years to help people see and use the online collections of libraries, archives, and museums.
wraggelabs.com
July 4, 2025 at 6:12 AM
For 30 years I've been experimenting with ways to see & use the online collections of libraries, archives & museums. I've made useful things, playful things, & weird things. Here's a big list of them for you to explore! https://wraggelabs.com #glam #histodons #digitalhumanities
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
🪄Historical Sea Routing is now much quicker to load, reload, and compute seasonally-plausible sailing routes, thanks to some behind-the-scenes browser magic. Find a 6500-mile return trip in under 1 second!
🛟 Do you have historical voyage data which might help with calibration? [1/3]
🛟 Do you have historical voyage data which might help with calibration? [1/3]
July 4, 2025 at 9:07 PM
🪄Historical Sea Routing is now much quicker to load, reload, and compute seasonally-plausible sailing routes, thanks to some behind-the-scenes browser magic. Find a 6500-mile return trip in under 1 second!
🛟 Do you have historical voyage data which might help with calibration? [1/3]
🛟 Do you have historical voyage data which might help with calibration? [1/3]
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
🧭 Building a lightweight sea-routing graph for historical GIS & DH use cases beyond simple port-to-port hops. Edges are weighted for ~5km coastal preference. Aiming for serverless exploration of connectivity in historical maritime trade. ⚓️ #MaritimeHistory #HistoricalGIS #DigitalHumanities
June 16, 2025 at 7:26 PM
🧭 Building a lightweight sea-routing graph for historical GIS & DH use cases beyond simple port-to-port hops. Edges are weighted for ~5km coastal preference. Aiming for serverless exploration of connectivity in historical maritime trade. ⚓️ #MaritimeHistory #HistoricalGIS #DigitalHumanities
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Finished "Buried City" and this holds. It's *not* a typical Pompeii book. By the end I learn more hard facts about Zuchtriegel than about the city. But that's his point. "The Buried City" is about us -- what we carry with us, how we interact with everything around us, including the past. Thumbs up.
Halfway through Zuchtriegel's book, and on the one hand very little has been about Pompeii itself. The archaeology & artifacts.
Instead, "The Buried City" seems to be referring to the innate prejudices and beliefs that *all* of us bring when we gaze on the past. And how to recognize & harness them.
Instead, "The Buried City" seems to be referring to the innate prejudices and beliefs that *all* of us bring when we gaze on the past. And how to recognize & harness them.
June 26, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Finished "Buried City" and this holds. It's *not* a typical Pompeii book. By the end I learn more hard facts about Zuchtriegel than about the city. But that's his point. "The Buried City" is about us -- what we carry with us, how we interact with everything around us, including the past. Thumbs up.
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
"[In archaeology], our interpretations are attempts to get close to a complex reality that has long since passed. To fixate dogmatically on one specific reading is the biggest mistake you can make."
-- Gabriel Zuchtriegel
"The Buried City"
-- Gabriel Zuchtriegel
"The Buried City"
From Gabriel Zuchtreigel's "Buried City." When I finally get to Pompeii, I think my favorite part will be these anonymous intersections. The warren of a normal city.
Look at the stone bollard in front of the fountain, so a cart wouldn't accidentally destroy the whole thing! We still do that!
Look at the stone bollard in front of the fountain, so a cart wouldn't accidentally destroy the whole thing! We still do that!
June 24, 2025 at 2:21 AM
"[In archaeology], our interpretations are attempts to get close to a complex reality that has long since passed. To fixate dogmatically on one specific reading is the biggest mistake you can make."
-- Gabriel Zuchtriegel
"The Buried City"
-- Gabriel Zuchtriegel
"The Buried City"
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
An extraordinarily poignant week, launching Dom Phillips’ book, “How to Save the Amazon.”
I have never felt solidarity as strongly as at the packed-out events at Hay, Lancaster and London. Sadness was divided and joy multiplied by sharing this moment with his friends and family.
I have never felt solidarity as strongly as at the packed-out events at Hay, Lancaster and London. Sadness was divided and joy multiplied by sharing this moment with his friends and family.
June 7, 2025 at 4:33 PM
An extraordinarily poignant week, launching Dom Phillips’ book, “How to Save the Amazon.”
I have never felt solidarity as strongly as at the packed-out events at Hay, Lancaster and London. Sadness was divided and joy multiplied by sharing this moment with his friends and family.
I have never felt solidarity as strongly as at the packed-out events at Hay, Lancaster and London. Sadness was divided and joy multiplied by sharing this moment with his friends and family.
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Murdered journalist Dom Phillips's book, completed by his friends and colleagues, is about to be published, with a series of launch events.
Read more on the RCL website: www.rebeccacarterliterary.com/news/how-to-...
Read more on the RCL website: www.rebeccacarterliterary.com/news/how-to-...
May 8, 2025 at 9:55 AM
Murdered journalist Dom Phillips's book, completed by his friends and colleagues, is about to be published, with a series of launch events.
Read more on the RCL website: www.rebeccacarterliterary.com/news/how-to-...
Read more on the RCL website: www.rebeccacarterliterary.com/news/how-to-...
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
‘We carry on with the sadness’: new projects honor life and legacy of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira
Friends and colleagues of Phillips, killed in the Amazon in 2022, completed his book, which coincides with launch of investigative Guardian podcast
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
Friends and colleagues of Phillips, killed in the Amazon in 2022, completed his book, which coincides with launch of investigative Guardian podcast
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
‘We carry on with the sadness’: new projects honor life and legacy of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira
Friends and colleagues of Phillips, killed in the Amazon in 2022, completed his book, which coincides with launch of investigative Guardian podcast
www.theguardian.com
May 27, 2025 at 11:57 AM
‘We carry on with the sadness’: new projects honor life and legacy of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira
Friends and colleagues of Phillips, killed in the Amazon in 2022, completed his book, which coincides with launch of investigative Guardian podcast
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
Friends and colleagues of Phillips, killed in the Amazon in 2022, completed his book, which coincides with launch of investigative Guardian podcast
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
UK publication of @nellstevens.bsky.social's second novel THE ORIGINAL is on the horizon (Scribner, 19 June), as witnessed by this signing of 400 copies for independent publishers.
www.rebeccacarterliterary.com/news/400-signed-copies-of-the-original-nell-stevens
www.rebeccacarterliterary.com/news/400-signed-copies-of-the-original-nell-stevens
May 30, 2025 at 4:41 PM
UK publication of @nellstevens.bsky.social's second novel THE ORIGINAL is on the horizon (Scribner, 19 June), as witnessed by this signing of 400 copies for independent publishers.
www.rebeccacarterliterary.com/news/400-signed-copies-of-the-original-nell-stevens
www.rebeccacarterliterary.com/news/400-signed-copies-of-the-original-nell-stevens
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
Good morning! Nearly 200 people have completed this survey so far. If you work in tech, no matter how loosely, and want to be part of a positive social movement, please take a look and share with your networks
Are you a UK-based technologist interested in joining a body that acts in solidarity against the excesses of extractive platform capitalism? Fill out this survey, and help design the Society for Hopeful Technologists www.careful.industries/blog/2025-4-...
Survey: Society for Hopeful Technologists — Careful Industries
Are you a UK-based technologist interested in joining a body that acts in solidarity against the excesses of extractive platform capitalism? Complete this survey to help shape the Society for Hopef...
www.careful.industries
April 23, 2025 at 6:16 AM
Good morning! Nearly 200 people have completed this survey so far. If you work in tech, no matter how loosely, and want to be part of a positive social movement, please take a look and share with your networks
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
I have a facetious letter in the current New Statesman.
April 11, 2025 at 2:00 PM
I have a facetious letter in the current New Statesman.
Reposted by alxbutterworth.bsky.social
when they go low, we go Jasmine Crockett @repjasmine.bsky.social 🔥
April 10, 2025 at 5:13 PM
when they go low, we go Jasmine Crockett @repjasmine.bsky.social 🔥