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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 1h

Maybe we need a collective opt-out form addressed to all AI companies explicitly denying any implicit (were there such a thing) right to train their bots on our work. Any lawyers out there with ideas?

William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 1h

Clegg thinks AI companies should train on your data and mine unless we opt out first. “I just don’t know how you go around, asking everyone first. I just don’t see how that would work,” Clegg said. I'm not sure how "steal first, sue later" works either - in law. www.theverge.com/news/674366/...

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

www.theverge.com

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 1h

Calling all digital preservers, archivists and librarians, Layla Jones on Trump's bonfire of data - t'would be good to prepare here

Karrie Jacobs @karrieurbanist.bsky.social · 1h

Talking Points Memo reporter Layla A. Jones is keeping tabs on federal data disappeared or corrupted by the Trumpists. Appears to be an ongoing project…

talkingpointsmemo.com/news/a-short...

A Shortlist of Federal Data the Trump Administration Has Tampered With or Destroyed

The scale and scope of federal data and statistics that have been...

talkingpointsmemo.com

William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 3d

I see we have reached peak ontology

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 5d

Literally, yes, but punk not hippy. AND it’s 19C in London today 🥵

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 5d

From FT: “Wholesale power prices will be negative for 17 hours from late Friday night, matching a record set in May, with the National Grid forecasting 20 gigawatts of wind power from the storm, more than three-quarters of the country’s total electricity demand.” Hah!

William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 5d

I can't turn down the opportunity to join this vital thread. My heating is OFF ... go away children, leave that thermostat ...

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 5d

It might possibly be honey fungus, which is not good (sorry). See RHS advice: www.rhs.org.uk/disease/hone...

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 8d

A De Havilland Dragon Rapide just flew past directly overhead. I knew from the sound of the engine, before I saw it. There are few more satisfying things.

William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 8d

Well, what do you think? Does this have any merit?

William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 8d

Morgan, as I read this, Labour has lost as many to Green, slightly more to Lib Dem, & twice as many to Don't Know, as it has to Reform since the 2024 election. 40% of Tories have gone to Reform. The Labour vote has halved. But the clue to Why? is really in 'Won't vote' is now double Labour's share

Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 9d

New post just out:

"The story behind the polls"

Today we have guest post from the brilliant @dylandifford.bsky.social breaking down which voters have moved where since the election and why.

With loads of new data analysis and lovely charts.

(£/free trial)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

The story behind the polls

Who's changed their mind since the 2024 election and why?

open.substack.com

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 10d

Aye, high risk, small reward

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 10d

I cheated by calling it an ‘Afterword’, using the excuse that as well as declarations it included new questions, so opening up opportunities for future research, wild speculations and true stories!

William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 10d

I know I am not alone in disliking conclusions @davidveevers.bsky.social but after 20,000 words on the mutinies, disputes, dismissals and lies that preceded & followed the Sikh war in 1845-46, I have fallen for the temptation of playing historian, and written one. eaho.substack.com/p/12-victory...

12. Victory and lies _

Robert Peel's speech to Parliament on 2 April 1846 after the battle of Sobraon, celebrated a cult of Christian militarism and established tropes of imperial propaganda that are familiar today.

eaho.substack.com

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 10d

Having spent much time over the last decade on a farm in Devon plagued by pheasants from the local shoot (they eat the clover, spread disease, pollute the Tavy) here is one more reason for hedge fund managers (Andrew Law) to stop playing aristocrats and put down their Purdeys.

British Birds @britishbirds.bsky.social · 11d

Ticks are more likely to carry the bacteria that cause Lyme disease in areas where Common Pheasants Phasianus colchicus are released, according to new research.

Read more: britishbirds.co.uk/journal/arti...
🥇Subscriber Content

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 10d

And by the way, I have no idea. I'm hoping Verdi! But Rossini or Puccini will do.

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 10d

A puzzle for the weekend: Who wrote this salacious little ditty? Retrieved from the ashes of the fire that destroyed the North transept of the Crystal Palace, it's an autograph composition and libretto, 'Un po di bastone' (a little stick). Who then is the composer? eaho.substack.com/p/a-mystery-...

The mystery musical manuscript, charred by the Crystal Palace fire of 1866

Eliza's husband David Ogilvy was a director of the Crystal Palace. After a fire destroyed the north transept he chose to salvage the charred remains of a composition and libretto in Italian. Why?

eaho.substack.com

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 11d

Dezeen has no critical faculty, nor ever has had: possibly because of lack of interest in anything below the surface of a shiny bauble; possibly because questioning and critique might interfere with income from recruitment advertising -- it's a medium perfect for shallow pontificators.

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 12d

How did the Archers get in there?

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 15d

William doesn't realise that if he scrolls down he'll see the record of that awkward diagnosis after the holiday in Thailand, and the time he changed Norman Tebbit's wikipedia entry to state Bela Lugosi was his father ...

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 16d

I've decided to re-read Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series for the first time in 30 years - 11 novels averaging 650 pp each. The purpose: inspiration for Eliza Ogilvy's Commonplace Book is Missing.. Last time I had time on my hands, not now. If anybody wants to talk me out of this, feel free!

Introducing Eliza Ogilvy (the long edition)

A literary life; a network of artists, writers and scientists; a microhistory of the East India Company and its influence on British culture in the 19th Century.

eaho.substack.com

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 17d

eaho.substack.com/p/introducin...

Introducing Eliza Ogilvy (the long edition)

A literary life; a network of artists, writers and scientists; a microhistory of the East India Company and its influence on British culture in the 19th Century.

eaho.substack.com

William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 17d

I've decided to re-read Upton Sinclair's Lanny Budd series for the first time in 30 years, as inspiration for Eliza Ogilvy's Commonplace Book is Missing. Eleven novels averaging 650 pp each. Last time I was ill and had time on my hands, not now. If anybody wants to talk me out of this, feel free.

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William Owen @wdowen.bsky.social · 17d

Having read the abstract, which concerns a field I know something about, I haven’t a clue what this paper is saying; it’s one of those is it me or is it them? moments …

Digital Scholarship at Oxford @discoxford.bsky.social · 17d

📖 New article: Goran Gaber (Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow and DiSc Fellow has a new article titled Mind the Gap. On archival politics and historical theory in the digital age:

Mind the Gap. On archival politics and historical theory in the digital age

Modern archival scholarship and practice are strikingly absent from contemporary historical theory. Given the archive’s enduring importance for history and its long-thematized political aspects, th...

doi.org

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