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Very Terry 🔥

@bookseditorial.bsky.social

520 followers 390 following 1K posts

Publisher. Of books - critical/creative/cultural management and the like. Once known as @RoutledgeEditor on the other place. From Southport to London, via Cardiff. YNWA.

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 20d

What's that? You'd prefer a one page visualisation of what an academic & professional publisher needs to see in your book proposal? Here's one I made earlier.

Crafting an Academic Book Proposal - an aide memoire. A visualisation of academic book proposal guidelines featuring sections on "working title", "structure", "description & aims", "chapter synopses", "length & schedule", "competition", "Market & audience", and "what about you"

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 3h

Reminded of Bill Hicks on taking philosophy class with jocks youtube.com/clip/Ugkxjmt...

Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 3h

Now do New Public Governance!

Reposted by Very Terry 🔥

Academic Publishing News @acadpubnews.bsky.social · 14h

US library wholesaler Baker & Taylor
has laid off over 500 employees and plans to wind down the business by January 💔 https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/98777-baker-taylor-prepares-plan-to-shut-down.html

Baker & Taylor Prepares Plan to Shut Down

At a town hall yesterday, B&T owner and CEO Aman Kochar announced that following the termination of the ReaderLink acquisition deal, he does not see a path to keep the library wholesaler in business.

www.publishersweekly.com

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Reposted by Very Terry 🔥

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 15h

Good Lord!

Reposted by Very Terry 🔥

Academic Anarchy🏴 @johnbrownbread.bsky.social · 22h

The nazis themselves were not some clever masterminds where everything they did went perfect. They were also comical idiots who did ridiculous things, like invading Russia in the winter.

They gained power because the opposition couldn’t understand that the fascists were not rational agents.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · Feb 5

that said: I think the "it's not fascism unless they're good at it" brand of analysis probably isn't the move

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 1d

"We think wine is meant to be diplomacy in a glass, not a hostage in a trade war. Using it as a pawn doesn’t just sour the palate—it makes the entire policy look corked ... We will not be top Trumped, ever!" London's historic Cork & Bottle wine bar's latest email newsletter...

'REALITY CHECK'

Well, here’s a toast no one wanted to raise: seemingly and conveniently swept under the cellar carpet European wines and spirits are now lumped with a shiny new 15% U.S. tariff. Cheers to that, right?
France and Italy pleaded for mercy, but Washington’s ears were otherwise occupied. To the bureaucrats, wine is some frivolous indulgence. Reality check: it props up farmers, importers, restaurants, shopkeepers—the very people who keep glasses filled and jobs alive. But sure, let’s pretend it’s all about protecting the poor consumer from Bordeaux.

The hospitality industry is already bleeding cash. One trade group reckons nearly half a billion evaporated in a single month. Importers are lawyering up, restaurants are rewriting menus, and drinkers can look forward to paying 30% more by autumn. Bravo Donald!
And for the “buy American” crowd? Sorry to burst the barrel: when wine prices jump, people don’t suddenly rush for Sonoma. They just stop buying. Meanwhile, U.S. producers can’t gloat too much—corks, barrels, and equipment from Europe are in the same tariff net. So, higher costs all round. Perfect.

We think wine is meant to be diplomacy in a glass, not a hostage in a trade war. Using it as a pawn doesn’t just sour the palate—it makes the entire policy look corked. We are still exhausting all avenues to bring you quality and value for money and of course you will always get the legendary C&B service.

We will not be top Trumped, ever!
Glory in a glass! - Salut, Will

Reposted by Very Terry 🔥

Books Upstairs @booksupstairs.bsky.social · 2d

A small fire at the front of the bookshop was started last night after rubbish bags that were awaiting collection were set on fire. The guards don’t have reason at this time to believe it was a targeted attack. Thankfully the damage was limited and everyone is safe. We are open for business as usual

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 2d

perhaps they took the "learn to code" advice before the shift to vibe coding. What now - learn to prompt?

Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 2d

but what a bubble though. One that can apparently be seen from space, which is where folks will also need to travel to avoid seeing food poverty.

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 2d

AI is a "good bubble" and "millions of people will be living in space ... in the next couple of decades”. Sure Jeff. on.ft.com/4nBsWwL

Jeff Bezos hails AI boom as ‘good’ kind of bubble

Amazon founder’s comments follow warning by Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon that ‘it’s not different this time’

on.ft.com

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 3d

One point off the top after an extremely difficult run of fixtures, a lot of player turnover, and losing Diogo.

Daniel Beddingfield Applies.

Up the Reds. Forever.

Reposted by Very Terry 🔥

John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 4d

GDPR is a great example of the sort of regulation which (I) creates a bunch of effort for people who want to comply (ii) gets innocently over-zealously deployed (III) becomes deployed as an excuse for orgs not to do things they don't want to and (iv)is fairly easily disregarded by those who want to.

Nicola @scrapegroat.bsky.social · 4d

Also actually I am sick of how much you hear about GDPR when absolutely every fucker signs you up to their email list by default no matter how careful you are not to opt in.

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Reposted by Very Terry 🔥

Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 5d

I would call Patricia Routledge a scouser (born in Tranmere, educated at Birkenhead High School, University of Liverpool and Liverpool Playhouse alum) but Hyacinth Bouquet would have been horrified to be described as anything other than a resident of Cheshire. RIP

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Financial Times @financialtimes.com · 5d

Two victims in Manchester attack were shot by police on.ft.com/42KdNBd

Two victims in Manchester attack were shot by police

Greater Manchester police say one of those shot by officers has died

on.ft.com

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 5d

Alas, this doesn't seem genuine - she turned 95 on February 17th 2024 (a Saturday). Does this make me a Routledge truther? Good Lord.

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Free Łink - Matthew R Francis @bowlerhatscience.org · 5d

with alt-text because it is necessary

Drake meme only with Patricia Routledge: cringing away from an image of a bucket, but pointing and smiling at an image of a bouquet

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 5d

Worlds most famous living Routledge baton passes from Patricia to Wayne. RIP.

Reposted by Very Terry 🔥

Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 5d

A brilliant physical comic actor but I’ll remember her most for running a major academic publisher. I can’t read Keith Jenkins’ Re-Thinking History or Liz Morrish’s Academic Irregularities without hearing them in her inimitable tones.

🎃👻David 👻🎃 @rebelalliance77.bsky.social · 5d

RIP Patricia.

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Rob Topinka @robtoes.bsky.social · 6d

happy to report that the world is now so stupid that my knowledge of shitposting has become valuable enough to publish in the Guardian.

My favorite part is I got to call JD Vance a try-hard who can't even shitpost properly in print.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Do you know about shitposting? It’s cheap humour, rage bait – and now, it seems, US government policy | Robert Topinka

Donald Trump’s White House reveals a new ‘portrait’ of Joe Biden – and in his world, if you don’t laugh, the joke’s on you, says Robert Topinka of Birkbeck, University of London

www.theguardian.com

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Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 6d

See also Doug Stanhope on nationalism, a phenomenon of taking "pride in accomplishments you had no part in" www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsPD...

Doug Stanhope on nationalism

YouTube video by rollnrocksteve

www.youtube.com

Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 6d

See this in organisations - departments/people claim credit for results they had no part in. Like pointing at the sea coming in and saying "look, that's me - I did that" and then when the tide goes out it's more "my goodness, look at this wider environmental/market turbulence..."

Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 6d

This makes me think: from a political perspective, what are the things that you could announce low-effort activations around and then claim as a success because they are happening anyway?

Matthew Holehouse @matthewholehouse.bsky.social · 6d

There are good reasons to think the number of small boat crossings may fall in the next couple of years - and it will have little to do with whatever has been announced at party conferences

Europe’s astonishing drop in illegal migration
economist.com/internationa...

Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 6d

This, co-authored by @davidaspencer.bsky.social, puts its finger on something I've been failing to describe myself like when an AI tool transcripts a pointless meeting you'd be better off forgetting/ignoring and instead people reading the summary accidentally create work about it.

Stuart Mills @stuartmills.bsky.social · 6d

Simon called it the "Information Fallacy." We call it "efficient inefficiency"--more efficiently doing things which aren't worth doing:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Efficient Inefficiency: Organisational challenges of realising economic gains from AI

Organisations are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI). Where AI performs productive tasks more efficiently than humans, organisations will…

www.sciencedirect.com

Very Terry 🔥 @bookseditorial.bsky.social · 7d

There are back doors, it seems - e.g. www.theo2.co.uk/priority