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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 8h

Footage has just been found of a band I was in, Trotsky's Dog.

We played gigs in Hitchin, Stevenage and Cambridge in the late 1980s. Some of our own material, but mostly covers of Stooges, Spacemen 3 and so on. A racket.

I'm the moody guitarist (r) - with hair!

Faster. Louder. More feedback

Trotsky's Dog Live at Queens' ca. 1988

YouTube video by Jon Morrow

www.youtube.com

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 8h

With Michael Heseltine in the news, saying the right things, I thought I'd share this.

Sarah Hogg, head of John Major's Number 10 Policy Unit, pens a rather charming portrait of what it was like to work with the man

(I'm working on a chapter on science/environment under Major and Blair at the mo)

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 8h

The @stsucl.bsky.social History of Science Reading Group is back. Yesterday we discussed Helen M. Rozwadowski @oceanhistories.bsky.social , ‘Ocean literacy and public humanities’, Parks Stewardship Forum (2020) 36(3) escholarship.org/uc/item/11w5... (suggested by Janet Browne & Jordan Goodman)

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 1d

"The Met Police investigation discovered street thieves were being paid up to £300 per handset - and the force said stolen devices are being sold in China for up to £4,000 each, given they are internet-enabled and more attractive for those trying to bypass censorship".
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

One iPhone led police to gang who sent 40,000 snatched phones to China

BBC News is given access to what the Met Police says is the UK's largest operation against mobile phone thefts.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 3d

Not far from the UK’s largest unnecessary infrastructure project

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 3d

Turkmenistan Shrike, Dunwich Heath, Suffolk, being admired by lots of birders

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 3d

Happy Sputnik Launch Day to those who celebrate

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 6d

The @stsucl.bsky.social department on TV #2

A TV still from Slow Horses. STS department in the background

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 7d

We've just selected this as our @stsucl.bsky.social OneBook. (Every year, we ask all of our students and colleagues to read one book together).

Adam Becker @adambecker.bsky.social · Apr 23

Today's the day! My new book MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER is finally out! If you want to understand why tech billionaires are so obsessed with impossible ideas about space and AI — and why that's dangerous — this book is for you. #MoreEverythingForever www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-...

More Everything Forever

This "wild and utterly engaging narrative" (Melanie Mitchell) shows why Silicon Valley’s heartless, baseless, and foolish obsessions—with escaping death,...

www.hachettebookgroup.com

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Elaine Ayers @eayers0.bsky.social · 8d

Job at UC-Berkeley: Asst. Prof. in Global History of Technology, apps due 10/10 (so soon). #history #histSTM #histsci #histphilsci

aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05065

Assistant Professor – Global History of Technology - Department of History

University of California, Berkeley is hiring. Apply now!

aprecruit.berkeley.edu

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 9d

It’s quite common in London. It’s if anything more robust than regular knotgrass so it survives pavements and paths well

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 9d

Yep. As Jo says

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 9d

Bristly Oxtongue, on walls of Lewes Priory for #wildflowerhour

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 12d

We need an associate lecturer in history of modern science @stsucl.bsky.social www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

UCL – University College London

UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · Jul 30

Preparing my notes for an interview on history of identity cards, back in the news because of proposals such as Labour Together’s Britcard (left). There’s a long history (see WW2 poster, right)

Here’s a thread on recent (1980s-2010s) UK ID card history, showing how Tony Blair became keen on them

Front cover of Labour Together’s Britcard proposal. It is red and promises a ‘progressive digital identity for Britain’. The abstract imagery suggests progress (arrows) and immigration borders (the arrows are partially interrupted)

WW2 poster- a policeman’s hand takes a National Registration ID card from a plain, citizen’s hand. Text says a citizen may be asked for the card at any time

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 14d

Giving a talk tonight on ‘Science and politics in the national archive’, at the Athenaeum (!)

It’s about how I do history and what I find out

It’s accessible and at times entertaining

Very happy to repeat it for a more public and broader audience. If anyone interested get in touch

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19d

Two more chances to see the International Space Station tonight, with clear skies over London: straight overhead at 7.46pm and fairly high up at 9.22pm

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 19d

Two more chances to see the International Space Station tonight, with clear skies over London: straight overhead at 7.46pm and fairly high up at 9.22pm

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 21d

Space Station going overhead London right now. Look up

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Reposted by Jon Agar

Helene Scott @hscottfordsmand.bsky.social · 22d

Second: Cildo Meireles’ Babel (2001). On how we tell the history of technology, on noise and ways of attending to sound, on the transition from a technology of resistance to one of state communication, and on the return of chaos as the return of the need for households to have transiter radios.

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 22d

Context: we are at an @stsucl.bsky.social away day, looking at art at the Tate Modern, followed by curriculum chat

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 22d

it’s white, but my new shoes are whiter

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 23d

Sticky groundsel (Senecio viscosus) with some Vervain (Verbena officinalis), Hackney pavement, for #wildflowerhour

(pavement plants are #favouriteplants)

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 26d

… I’m helping make a urban botany map of street plants/weeds

Including applying my hobbyist botanical knowledge to the pavement outside UUK offices in Tavistock Square. #unfundedresearch #hobbyist

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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 26d

Today I’m part of the Caretographies workshop, handmaking maps of Bloomsbury that are maps as means to care as opposed to means of control or power. Organised by Simon Werrett of @stsucl.bsky.social

It’s a kind of follow up to our Experimental Histories of Science workshop …

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