Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 13h

Not very good on the “alphabetical order” score, so I propose renaming it to the A1 University of Wyoming to improve the ranking for next year!

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 22h

I see I’ve acquired a team of web developers!

Spider’s webs, glossy with dew, stretched across an area of succulent plants (actually the green roof of my bike shed)

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 1d

The phrase “system of bestness” has stayed with me for 25 years!

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 1d

Every time I see this in academia, I’m reminded of an “alternative prospectus” produced by students at York, which featured the lines “Alcuin College is the best college, under a system of bestness that scores alphabetical order, height above sea level and proximity to the library”

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Reposted by Mike Prior-Jones

Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 1d

Research excellence: We don't know how to measure research quality and we sure won't be reading any papers. So please make our jobs easier by providing some metrics that look good and a lot of publications, just to be on the safe side, and have demonstrable impact (by some terrible metric) and...

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Reposted by Mike Prior-Jones

Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 1d

As an aside, "Excellence" must be the single-most overused, empty, boilerplate word used in academic bureaucracy and it's typically a stand-in for "We don't know what we want so you should do everything".

Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 1d

Admin email from university: "Share your ideas: Help shape operational excellence at U of I"

Soliciting ideas for how to improve operational processes.

Except...

The form doesn't work—the form created by the Operational Excellence team.

Yeah.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 1d

Oh, 100% this!

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 1d

This is amazing… the chemical that makes nachos cheese runny has a chemical formula that spells “Nacho”

Mark Panning @markpanning.seismology.space · 1d

The best part of it? Its chemical formula basically spells out nacho and it makes your cheese smooth like nacho cheese.

Trisodium citrate is a chemical compound with the molecular formula Na3C6H507. It is sometimes referred to simply as "sodium citrate" though sodium citrate can refer to any of the three sodium salts of citric acid. It
possesses a saline, mildly tart taste, and is a mild base.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 2d

When we had our civil partnership, more than one person asked me if I was going to change my surname. I said "just think about that for a second!"

I really loved this article about "homonymous couples" - I think Jon-Paul and Juan-Pablo is the best one though. slate.com/human-intere...

The Coming Flood of Same-Named Couples

If you believe in living and letting live, it’s not always easy to listen to social conservatives go on about the social chaos that gay marriage will...

slate.com

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 2d

I had four PhD supervisors. Three of them are called Mike. My partner is also called Mike.

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Neil @pearofdestiny.bsky.social · 4d

I used to like to stand and think on the railway bridge but people started saying I was getting ideas above my station.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 5d

When the jaws open wide
And there’s more jaws inside
That’s a moray…

(Not mine, but fondly remembered from when Twitter was fun)

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 5d

People start to believe their own hype and then it’s a downhill spiral from there

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 5d

www.ness-soaps.co.uk/products/hea...

Heather & Bracken Large Soap Loaf 1.75kg - SLS/SLES FREE

A beautifully fragranced SLS & SLES FREE soap made with fine grade Heather & Bracken fine grade Fragrance Oil, and topped with Heather Flowers Fragrance Oil Qualities: Relaxing, Reminisce of t...

www.ness-soaps.co.uk

Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 5d

www.ness-soaps.co.uk/products/hea...

Heather & Bracken Large Soap Loaf 1.75kg - SLS/SLES FREE

A beautifully fragranced SLS & SLES FREE soap made with fine grade Heather & Bracken fine grade Fragrance Oil, and topped with Heather Flowers Fragrance Oil Qualities: Relaxing, Reminisce of t...

www.ness-soaps.co.uk

Reposted by Mike Prior-Jones

Jonathan Calder @lordbonkers.bsky.social · 6d

Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William services will travel to and from London via the city in the West Midlands.

The Lowland service that goes to Glasgow and Edinburgh is unaffected by the change.

Caledonian Sleeper train to link Scotland with Birmingham

The new service will start in January linking Aberdeen, Inverness and Fort William to the West Midlands.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Mike Prior-Jones

SpinningHugo @spinninghugo.bsky.social · 6d

This figure means the opposite of what these NIMBY clowns think.

www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Given

1. The UK has a quickly growing population unlike most of Europe
2. Its land area is proportionately more developed than comparable countries (eg France)

We should be higher.

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UK fifth-worst country in Europe for loss of green space to development

Exclusive: 1,680 football pitches of protected natural land in England, Wales and Northern Ireland lost in five years

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Mike Prior-Jones

Oisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · 6d

Microsoft spends billions to create calculator that is wrong nearly half the time.

Matt Wall @mattwall.bsky.social · 6d

"Microsoft says its Agent Mode in Excel has an accuracy rate of 57.2 percent in SpreadsheetBench, a benchmark for evaluating an AI model’s ability to edit real world spreadsheets."
😩😩😩

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Reposted by Mike Prior-Jones

SKELLYTON @pizzalawyer420.bsky.social · 7d

Money can be exchanged for goods and services

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Reposted by Mike Prior-Jones

Emily Farris @emayfarris.bsky.social · 7d

This new column by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social makes me think about when I recently had to talk to the police for yet another safety plan, I tried to “lighten” the mood by saying that we all knew this wasn’t my first rodeo. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/o...

For at least the past 15 years, my colleagues in academia have grappled with angry letters to university officials for doing their jobs. They have weathered campaigns for their firing. They have contended with an internet army obsessed with doxxing them, their parents, their kids. I’ve been contacted by the F.B.I. more than once in my career. Not because I hold any important state secrets or know a biker gang but because one of my colleagues has lived with so much sustained harassment from right-wing “activists” that it has become a matter of federal concern. Watch lists (one of which was constructed by Kirk’s organization) do not distinguish between public intellectuals at wealthy enclaves and hoi polloi who teach popular classes at cash-strapped schools. In either case, an army of trained provocateurs stands ready to destroy their lives to prove their bona fides as conservative activists.

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 7d

Does smack of desperation!

Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 7d

Rummaging through the libretto there’s a midshipman who appears purely for a gag in the first scene and speaks no lines?

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 7d

Thanks! I guessed ENO and then found it mentioned on the Coliseum’s website. I don’t know Pinafore that well but I’m pretty sure all the named principals sing, so perhaps they’ve written her in somehow?

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Mike Prior-Jones @drmikepj.bsky.social · 7d

Err… none that I can think of!

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VAW Glaciology @vaw-glaciology.bsky.social · 7d

[1/2] 📢 GLAMOS @scnat.ch press release out today: Swiss glaciers lost another 3% of their volume in 2025, the 4th-largest decline ever measured. In just 10 years, they’ve lost a quarter of their ice mass. Over 1k small glaciers have already vanished.

🔗 to press release: scnat.ch/en/uuid/i/9d...

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