This helped me understand why I couldn't get any writing done while working in an administrative job & why I'm struggling to decide how best to use my time in my new academic job

Reinforces my belief that HBO's Silicon Valley is the most accurate depiction of the tech industry

Come on Edinburgh students, it's time for us to actually start going to our lectures I know your bed is so comfy but this was once your dream

‘Here’s the uncomfortable but universal truth – the recording, posed as a safety net, was actually a trapdoor.’ thetab.com/2026/03/13/c...

1. A short thread on a Bluesky phenomenon that might be described as "They are a dead-eyed cultist who must be cast out lest the heresy take root!" OP has blocked me for mocking them - I'd usually obscure their name but since they themselves were quote-dunking to demand someone else be blocked ...

I Am The God Of Your Children. I Am The Final Parent. Hi, friends! Today, I’d like to talk to the grown-ups. I know it’s not easy raising children. Looking after little ones is a lot of work, and sometimes you just need a moment to breathe. So you plop y...

Commentary: I Am The God Of Your Children. I Am The Final Parent.

And okay, yes, concerns about "cheating", but I'm more worried about general demoralisation of students and how they understand the purpose of their lives, their agency, their capacity to think and create and engage with the world-- to do meaningful work.

Adam Shatz · Another Country: Visions of America Is America a dream or a nightmare, a democratic paradise or a bastion of white supremacy and religious intolerance? Is...

‘America’s radicals developed a distinctive language of freedom, as far away as possible from the white man’s freedom to dominate others. These radical traditions have always been embattled, but they have not vanished.’

@adamshatz.bsky.social’s Winter Lecture:

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Deflating “Hype” Won’t Save Us The problem with AI isn’t hype. The problem is who and what it’s useful for.

We wrote a thing about AI, fascism, and why framing this as "hype" is too apolitical

www.liberalcurrents.com/deflating-hy...

Walking to and from South Bank last night, there was evidence of unambiguously Far Right behaviour (I saw a Hitler salute), and also a lot of extreme drunkenness. A couple in their 50s trying to walk to Waterloo, and barely managing it etc

This is one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed, the craft here is impeccable.

Understanding University Finances ... a very short guide

‘Much of what universities spend a great deal of time discussing - such as global strategy, impact & innovation, development & philanthropy - even research… [has] very little effect on the bottom line.’
Useful primer on HE finance by @profserious.bsky.social
profserious.substack.com/p/understand...

Edinburgh University 'pander' to woke activists as it plots renaming buildings Edinburgh University has been blasted for spending time and money on exploring its allegedly racist past, with some critics claiming it is trying to distract from scandals surrounding Principal Sir Pe...

This Daily Express article includes a bit more from the 'open' letter: 'Unfortunately, we as a large group of concerned academics straddling many disciplines and from many backgrounds cannot afford to speak publicly'...

Oh no! Get well soon Shannon!

"Add additional information to your Piazza profile Diversity & Inclusion – select one or more (required) Let's harness the power of human difference to help solve some of the world’s hardest problems with employers on Piazza Network. A list of checkboxes follows, labeled as: Female Male Non-binary American Indian or Indigenous Peoples Asian Black or African American Hispanic or Latino Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander White or Caucasian Veteran or served in the Armed Services First-generation college student Living with a disability Member of the LGBTQ community National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) Each of the 3 sections above are required by the Piazza Network."

"Add additional information to your Piazza profile" Checkboxes from previous screenshot continue: "- Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) - Society of Women Engineers (SWE) - Women in Computer Science (WiCS) - Prefer not to share" Next, a section titled: "Visa requirement to work in the U.S. (required) - I am a US citizen - To work in the US, I do not require sponsorship for an employment authorizing status or visa immediately, nor in the future - To work in the US, I will require sponsorship for an employment authorizing status or visa in the future - To work in the US, I will require sponsorship for an employment authorizing status or visa immediately - Not applicable / Prefer not to share Next is a field labeled: "Personal email (non-school, example: name@email.com) (required)" "Employers may need to use this to communicate with you as part of the Piazza Network." "Each of the 3 sections above are required by the Piazza Network."

Piazza is a course discussion platform used by many colleges and universities. Piazza requires students to provide the following information when signing up.

From 2017-2019, Palantir Technologies paid Piazza $916,000 for access to this data. www.sec.gov/Archives/edg...

A sociology of dragons: danah boyd on AI, Trump, and critique Published in Journal of Cultural Economy (Ahead of Print, 2025)

👀!! Just out - A sociology of dragons: danah boyd on AI, Trump, and critique @zephoria.bsky.social talking to @busedoyu.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

UCU members on Edinburgh picket line

No More Cuts written in chalk

UCU members on Edinburgh picket line

UCU members at @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social are striking today over University of Edinburgh plans to make £140million in cuts and threaten jobs

We're fighting against these reckless proposals

Share to show your support ✊

Congratulations to Dr. Noteboom! All of us at EFI and @technomoralfutures.bsky.social are so proud to have supported your PhD research and very grateful to get to work with you. Congrats also to your amazing supervisors @jenr.bsky.social and @karengregory.bsky.social!

Joe Noteboom — Centre for Technomoral Futures Joe’s PhD research project is The University of Data: Ethical and Social Futures of Data-Driven Education, co-supervised in the School of Social and Political Science and the Moray House School of Edu...

Thank you! It's not published yet, but I'd be happy to share a copy. Feel free to email me at the address listed here: www.technomoralfutures.uk/our-people-a...

...and to everyone else who has taken an interest in my work and helped me along the way: @benpatrickwill.bsky.social @jkom.bsky.social @datacontroversies.bsky.social @velocitygravity.bsky.social @sianbayne.bsky.social @allartmarkets.bsky.social and many others. It's been an absolute pleasure!

Huge thanks to my amazing supervisors @jenr.bsky.social & @karengregory.bsky.social; to @shannonvallor.bsky.social and the @technomoralfutures.bsky.social team for funding + support; to my examiners @julianejarke.bsky.social & Morgan Currie...

My thesis, Life in the University of Data: Student perspectives on datafication, explores how students' everyday experiences of datafication intersect with their experiences of university + asks how universities could better support student agency over data through participatory data governance.

A smiling man with a beard wearing a tweed jacket

I'm very happy to share that I've officially completed my PhD in Sociology on datafication & higher education at the University of Edinburgh! I passed my viva late last year and have been working on some corrections over the last few months alongside my day job @edfuturesinstitute.bsky.social .

No real negatives since our delivery van went electric other than people occasionally shouting Judas at us.

The group chats that changed America A loose private network on Signal and WhatsApp helped usher in the new alliance between Silicon Valley and Donald Trump’s new right.

Lots of great details in @semaforben.bsky.social's latest; extremely helpful for mapping out who is influencing whom on the right. Have been thinking for a while that private groupchats are at least as crazymaking as public social media, and much harder to study.

The group chats that changed America A loose private network on Signal and WhatsApp helped usher in the new alliance between Silicon Valley and Donald Trump’s new right.

I've always wondered where the 1% come to their consensus, couldn't just be X, makes sense they opt for Bounded Social Media Spaces like Whatsapp or Signal as they claim they have to go private in "a soft authoritarian age of social media shaming and censorship"
www.semafor.com/article/04/2...

Really interesting.

Absolute power can be a terrible weakness The relative vulnerabilities of tyrants and crowds

Absolute power can be a terrible weakness. On Trump, and how to mobilize against him www.programmablemutter.com/p/absolute-p...

Fraser MacDonald · On Compost I sometimes wonder whether my love of compost is a response to the dispiriting cleanness of modern life – the spray’...

I got to write a short piece – On Compost – for the LRB.

(If you know me irl, you’ll understand that this is a happy thing)

How to Be Kind in a World That's Always Monitoring You If we want to live in a more ethical data-driven world, we’re going to have to manage it ourselves.

"Data Kindness" is a concept that @jesgilbert.bsky.social and I developed during our book tour for The Secret Life of Data.

We've never written about it. Til now.

time.com/7273469/data...

a great deal of the problems with the UK debate are that people try to import American policy analyses as if they were strange tasting candy, then sell it from opaquely financed central London locations, also like candy.