Fascinating from @michaelpollan.bsky.social and @newstatesman1913.bsky.social
The New Society | What do mushrooms have to do with consciousness? with Michael Pollan
Episode webpage: shows.acast.com/the-new-soci...
Another plug for this very useful session on AI & OA. Caroline Ball @heroicendeavour.eurosky.social is right, if we talk only of legality and not intent and ethics (particularly on OA publishing), we are being unhelpfully squashing and missing the point. Responsibility now is key.
#scholcomm #oa
I've been told that the CAIRDEAS values are those of the university, not just the library at @ucc.ie, and very good they are too! Go raibh maith agat @lizjolly.bsky.social !
Compassion
Agility
Integrity
Respect
Discovery
Equity
Accountability
Sustainability
Professor Marion Thane of Edinburgh Futures Institute talks about the need for "radical interdisciplinarity" to develop challenge-led research. Great term. Her development of the new discipline of "Attention Studies" sounds very interesting. Closing keynote here at #UPEDUX2026
@simonjbains.bsky.social of Aberdeen Uni Lib mentioned in #UPREDUX2026 OA challenges session as an OIPA member. Aberdeen is very open indeed as a Library of Sanctuary enabling local asylum seekers & refugees the opportunity to access research so skills can be maintained. share.google/vaj0V0p19kTF...
Paula Kennedy of University of London Press (& new @oipassoc.bsky.social Chair) explains how OIPA member institutions are innovating, developing skills and scholarship and engaging with audiences. And shares news of the new London Open Science & Scholarship festival this April 20-24. #UPREDUX2026
Andrew Barker will not stagnate. He believes that the librarian's role is to lead, even though he acknowledges the easiest thing now would be to keep heads down. Speaking in this OA in Challenging Times session at #UPREDUX2026
Reconvene in the first floor bar next door at the Novotel after the drinks reception if you have time before dinner thís evening... #scholarlysicial at #UPREDUX2026
Loving all the Irish language making its way into talks at #UPREDUX2026 today. Including this great acronym for the values of the library at @ucc.ie shared by @lizjolly.bsky.social .
Cáirdeas (friendship).
Five more of my favourite Irish translations…
1. Escalator = staighre beo, or “living stairs”
2. Squid = mathair shúigh, or “suckmother”
3. Owl = scréachóg reilige, or “graveyard screecher”
4. Daisy = nóinín, or “little noon one”
5. Otter = madra uisce, or “water dog”
Allow me to regale / regael you with five of my favourite Irish words…
1. Ladybird = bóín Dé, or “God’s little cow”
2. Sea anemone = cíoch charraige, or “rock boob”
3. Bat = amadáinín, or “little fool”
4. Jellyfish = smugairle róin, or “seal snot”
5. Hedgehog = gráinneog, or “horrible little thing”
OASPA webinar mentioned at #UPREDUX2026. Beyond the Ivory Tower. Recording at www.oaspa.org/events/beyon...
Who is the Educated Lay Reader?
Great talk from @charleswatkinson.bsky.social about readers and their motivations. Great to hear about how these #OA books are finding their people.
Slides at myumi.ch/3Rxxn
#UPREDUX2026
Hearing about the many challenges for SHAPE discipline ECRs in terms of publishing and career development in the parallel session at #UPREDUX2026. Too much still depends on which supervisor you have. The impressive ECR Network from @britishacademy.bsky.social is doing good work balancing that out.
@christophersmith.bsky.social finishes on #OA and the future we may desire full access without the need for discounts or waivers and hopes for infrastructures to sustain wherever they are.
OASPA's position paper may be of interest www.oaspa.org/news/embraci...
#UPREDUX2026
Nice to see St.Patrick make his way to #UPREDUX2026 in Liverpool. Bringing his new ways over seas from France to the Druids in Ireland. But, some of the Druidry remains, to the good. We must successfully bring the past to the present says @christophersmith.bsky.social. Go raibh maith agat! 🍀
Join us in the bar of the Novotel hotel next to the conference before dinner tonight (Tuesday 17 from 6pm).
#UPRedux2026
Outrageous. Chancers.
"Estrogen plays a critical role in regulating dopamine, the neurotransmitter central to attention, memory, and motivation."
This explains a lot. This is relateable.
Attending #UPREDUX2026 from @alpsp.bsky.social next week? I'm looking forward to it and also to hosting a #ScholarlySocial following Tuesday's drinks reception.
Register free or just turn up to continue connecting before dinner.
www.tickettailor.com/events/schol...
I'll be there! Looking forward to it.
![LET'S NOT PLAY FRISBEE WITH THAT POET ANYMORE.
[This is a comic strip, with a poem laid over it. On each panel a new line of the poem is written. The scene is a park, in the summer. A man in a trenchcoat - implicitly Philip Larkin - stands folorn, motionless, looking at people throwing a frisbee. It becomes apparent as the comic progresses that they are trying to play frisbee with him. He stand stock still for the whole comic, watching the frisbee as, panel by panel it soars closer and closer to him].
After contemplating the approaching frisbee for two silent panels, Philip begins his thoughts:
Unloosed, unheralded,
You soar toward me
Across the dying afternoon.
bright disc of childhood,
Long since thrown wide
Of Youth's green imaginings,
Your slow declining arc
Figures a sky-written truth:
We will all succumb, and soon
To earth's hard oblivion.
[The frisbee hits Philip on the head with a resounding DONK. He falls backwards, to the ground.
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreibpyscry7bddmufqnk7wsfuxsflv4fkn4brwvkzxqurjkz7z67yoi)
LET'S NOT PLAY FRISBEE WITH THAT POET ANYMORE. [This is a comic strip, with a poem laid over it. On each panel a new line of the poem is written. The scene is a park, in the summer. A man in a trenchcoat - implicitly Philip Larkin - stands folorn, motionless, looking at people throwing a frisbee. It becomes apparent as the comic progresses that they are trying to play frisbee with him. He stand stock still for the whole comic, watching the frisbee as, panel by panel it soars closer and closer to him]. After contemplating the approaching frisbee for two silent panels, Philip begins his thoughts: Unloosed, unheralded, You soar toward me Across the dying afternoon. bright disc of childhood, Long since thrown wide Of Youth's green imaginings, Your slow declining arc Figures a sky-written truth: We will all succumb, and soon To earth's hard oblivion. [The frisbee hits Philip on the head with a resounding DONK. He falls backwards, to the ground. [Ends]
Let's Not Play Frisbee With That Poet Anymore
I think the term "hallucination" is very apt in many ways but something about it I don't like as it describes a sensation with some impetus/trigger (whether imagined or actual) whereas these AI hallucinations sometimes have just made stuff up with no prompt. But I'm probably overthinking...
Thanks @rkiley.bsky.social this is helpful. I was struggling to understand if all elements of a hallucinated reference or statement have an origin in something actual but it seems not and that the prediction part can just write stuff that has no bearing in anything real.
Blimey, I'd vote for @stellacreasy.bsky.social if I lived in Walthamstow. How refreshing and I realised how rare after listening. Sense, compassion, fire, knowledge and eloquence.
This is the Labour we need! Worth a listen.
When people talk about AIs hallucinating a reference to a scholarly article, do they make it up entirely or is it an error based on it meshing things together from actual articles? I really struggle with the term "hallucination"... I'm trying to work out why.
#AIslop #scholcomm
Repellent it is.
Saw the film Team America for the first time recently. Life imitating art imitating life ad infinitum.
If they made a puppet of Trump though it could never be as grotesque as the real thing. Only glitch.
"Epic Fury"?? WTAF? Grow up.