A tractor with the face of an angry owl. There's a thing underneath the wing mirror that looks a little like a puffin, too.

In Denmark, one of the major challenges of the agricultural industry is that the tractors are possessed by demonic owls.

I always prefer off-the-peg clothing. Maybe it's just me, but I find clothes are so much less comfortable to wear when they're still on the peg.

Perhaps the difference is that satire is itself a political act. It exposes hypocrisy, challenges power & punctures pretence. It's humorous in form, but takes politics seriously.

"Politics as showbiz" takes politics frivolously. It reduces us to spectators, to be entertained. It's de-politicising..

omg, this! I struggle with getting students to explore anti-abortion thought seriously, anti-suffrage thought seriously, anti-vax thought seriously. My famous refrain in all of my classes is, "We have to take our historical actors seriously!"

In all seriousness, this is what makes him such a compelling figure. Very obviously a terrible human being at times, and then in the same moment completely mesmerising.

As an Englishman, it's obvious that you're both right.

Translation of headline: 'Starmer grilled about Mandelson: "I believe this case will cost him his job"' Photo: Starmer at the dispatch box next to Rachel Reeves (r) and David Lammy (l). Original text: Starmer grillet om Mandelson: 'Jeg tror, den her sag ender med at koste ham posten'

Oh, British politics in the local news! I hope it's good...

so then i posted and your surprised? because it is very important ppl understand that i am not surprised

you've never seen them do a joke that wasn't one or more of these. you haven't

Danmark

Charity has played a role in the NHS since its foundation in 1948. How and why?

This is the latest article from a research project on voluntarism in Britain's nationalised health service

charityandthenhs.glasgow.ac.uk?page_id=546

#skystorians #healthpolicy #hospitals #histmed #philanthropy

The whiplash you get on DR's (Danish public broadcaster) website front page is quite something.

One day it's a story about a weird statue of the Little Mermaid with massive cans.

Today it's a graphic photo of a pony corpse that was ripped apart by wolves.

The cyberattack on The British Library in October 2023 knocked out ebooks and almost ever other computer thing there for years.

Ebooks just came back. They were knocked out everywhere using the BL’s license (legal deposit libraries I think? More libraries?)

Distributed physical copies matter.

A SKELITON AT THERE COMPUTER " CANT BELIEVE I DIDNT LOOK UP MORE COOL SHIT WHEN THE INTERNET STILL WORKED" ,,, THE FUNNYEST THING ABOUT A SOCIETY IN DECLINE IS YOU DONT REALLY EXPECT IT TO HAPPEN TO YOU AND WHEN IT DOES IT FEEL'S LIKE A PERSONAL OFFENSE, WE WATCHED COMPUTERS AND NET GET BETTER AND BETTER FOR SO MANY YEARS THAT IT SEEMED OBVIOUS IT WOULD CONTINUE, WHY WOULD THINGS GET BAD ON PURPOSE, HOW CAN YOU MAKE MORE MONEY WITH WORSE PRODUCT'S , WELL THEY FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO IT , THEY SOLD OUR COMMUNITYS AND RESOURCES UP THE DAMB RIVER TO MAKE A FEW MORE TRILLION'S, AND WHAT CAN THEY EVEN BUY WITH IT, OBVIOUSLY NOT THE ABILITY TO ENJOY WHAT YOU HAVE IN PEACE - DASHARE.ZONE ADMIN BBUT IM STILL KICKEN A$$ AND ADDING CUSS WORD'S TO MY GOGGLE SEARCHES SO THEY DONT SHOW ME AI SHIT !!!! - DASHARE.ZONE ADMIN

WHAT NOW - dashare.zone ADMIN

There's only one person in this exchange lacking grace.

Just take the L.

anyway new favourite off brand convenience store name here

"People got good education before..."

Let me stop you there...

I know things are bad, and I know a lot of things are regressing, but you can't just say "Reagan" or "Thatcher" as a catch-all for "before the bad people everything was good"

News item: "Rottegift fundet i babymad i Østrig" - "Rat poison found in baby food in Austria" Skeet: "Was it designed like that, or... ?"

Blev det designet som dette, eller hva'?

I will be presenting my "Create An Interactive City In Text using ink" course, discussing texty interactive cities, and introducing you to @inkle.co's ink narrative scripting language this Thursday, April 23.

🏫 Grab a seat here ⇢ www.eventbrite.com/e/1980617816...

Yeah, he was an interesting, well-rounded character, it turns out.

The thing is, he *might* have been able to "get away" with half this shit if he hadn't run on the basis of "I'll stop the scandals and just be a boring, competent custodian".

You need to keep the gimmick going if you're going to make something like that work, brutha.

HULK DAD MAKE TOOL

More furious discussion at my anti-natal class last week about the spelling and whether I should even be there, given my views.

As a PhD researcher, as someone who actually cares a lot about my research and academic freedom, I find this all so deeply, deeply tedious.

The actual threats to academic freedom are coming from defunding our universities – as anyone actually in the sector can tell you.

Be sure to read the whole thing.

no one likes historians because every time someone says “oh this is unheard of”

historians are all like “well actually”

and fundamentally it just doesn’t sound as impressive if you have to say
“in these slightly precedented times”

I'll thank you not to refer to Princeton in that way.

I don't mind this *in that* the idea that we (with jobs) are paid by our institutions does mean we (with jobs) don't necessarily need a fee.

But this is why "The Conversation" should be a co-operative of universities and scholars, not a for-profit business. And should pay freelancers.

The book cover for Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation. It shows two men sat on a bench in the 1930s.

"Belfastmen: An Intimate History of Life before Gay Liberation" is published TODAY by @cornellupress.bsky.social! I tell the story of how queer men didn't just exist in Belfast but could be accepted by friends, family & colleagues... at least until a moral panic about homosexuality in the 1950s. 🧵