the roamer

University teacher, father, dog walker. A European in England. Posting micro-comments on all things that come my way, large and small. #pedagogy, #taoism, #literature, #programming, #typography, #TeX, #politics, #covid. Kindness will prevail.

Posting about #noAI. #StopTheAICorruption.

Personal long-term strands: #MastodonCulture, #whippet_moments, #Plutarch's #ParallelLives. Regular comments on the #Pepys diary.

Most of my comments come up in conversations. Please view my "Posts and Replies".

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npub1k7c75ukj7ymyeqqtam2698v366lnq5ldk6szjjveh4603s26ew5sjk7qf4

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the_roamer_at_mastodonapp.uk@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqst0v02wtf0zdjvsq97a4dznkgad0es20kmdgpffxvm6a8cc9dvh2gprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0d4hhxarj9ecxjmntqyxhwumn8ghj7mn0wvhxcmmv0yf67l

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nos.lol

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npub1k7c75ukj7ymyeqqtam2698v366lnq5ldk6szjjveh4603s26ew5sjk7qf4

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Published at

2026-10-23T07:26:05Z

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Last Notes

2026-10-25 13:29:12 UTC

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"I then and there felt the galvanic circuit of thought close; and the sparks which fell from it were the fundamental equations ... "
Such a powerful statement by Hamilton.
Charmed by reading your account of your respectful little outing to Brougham Bridge.

2026-09-16 10:28:10 UTC

My colleague Dr N sends me his ideas for a re-design of a course for which we are jointly responsible. 50 pages of detailed analysis, perfectly layouted with colour-coding and all the bells and whistles. Written in a strange style, unusually slick for a memo, in a slightly-off language with an undertone of management jargon and false poetry. Sentences like this: "The course has a strong academic spine." Spine? Who the hell talks like this?
You can see where this is heading, can't you? My colleague Dr N asked ChatGPT to write a course analysis, with recommendations, then dumped the output on me. He has confirmed it to me.
Nauseating. Quite literally: nauseating. I feel actual physical revulsion in my stomach.
The way we live now.
#StopTheAICorruption
#pedagogy #PedagogicalBancruptcy #noLLM #AcademicChatter #zuzai

2026-09-11 06:08:27 UTC

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Fascinating. Not my field at all; could you recommend any useful & reliable online surveys of the LMC?
#LMC #LateMedievalCrisis

2026-07-25 12:54:09 UTC

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Well said. Hoarding unread books is resistance. Reading books is resistance. Organising books for future reading is resistance. Building a library is resistance. Books are resistance.

2026-06-20 19:55:39 UTC

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Thank you for this post.
My wife and I spent a wonderful week on Holy Island, with my late father, one year before he became physically incapacitated. It's a magical place. Peace emanates from every stone.
#Lyndisfarne #HolyIsland #contemplation

2026-06-13 18:15:26 UTC

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Such a joy to see the evil name removed from the Kennedy Center, isn't it. A quiet act of cleansing, a powerfully symbolic act. Let it be the first of many. Hearing your tales of Summer always cheers me up, and her views are always full of wisdom! Wishing you strength for today's family gathering, and also a chance to sit back occasionally and enjoy the company.

2026-06-07 15:50:28 UTC

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Congrats!

2026-06-06 12:47:06 UTC

A senior academic writes an opinion piece, advising students not to cut corners. It turns out she didn't actually write it. LLMs wrote the piece for her.
I treasure the fact that at the present moment, we can still see the absurdity in this story.
We can still find this story funny. We can still laugh at this pompous cheat, Professor #CathEllis, a Pro Vice-Chancellor at #WesternSydneyUniversity. In a year's time, Professor Ellis's lazy inauthenticity will be standard. Very likely I will have to meet HR to explain why I don't do the same.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/05/trust-in-ai-roy-morgan-australia-university-professor-opinion-piece-technology
#noLLM #HigherEducation #StopTheAICorruption

2026-05-26 08:40:58 UTC

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"Every property that made these protocols feel old and uncool in 2014 is part of what's keeping them alive in 2026."
Excellent essay on the resilence of the core internet, by Terry Godier. It lifts up the spirit of the battle-weary follower of #JoanMastodon.
Thank you for the link Sara. (It makes such good sense in your post profile.)
Hat tip to @npub1wee…9r06 for his great essay.
#ThePersistentInternet #TheResilientInternet #OurWeb #ProtocolsNotCorporarions #TerryGodier

2026-05-24 09:29:14 UTC

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Here's some more on the naming:
https://mastodonapp.uk/@the_roamer/116393683170826609

2026-05-24 09:08:21 UTC

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Magic. My dog Castorp and I want to walk down that path!

2026-05-19 09:51:13 UTC

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Thank you for sharing this insightful piece.
#AmandaTaub #authoritarianism #mediocracy #mediocrity #henchmen

2026-05-07 03:43:19 UTC

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Very sharply argued, Karsten. Gives me a lot to think about!

2026-05-07 03:34:52 UTC

Richard Dawkins's "Claudia" piece gives us a glum vision of the future of speaking. We see an entirely artificial exchange of well-constructed sentences, all following the laws of pattern recognition, but all without an ounce of expressive truth. The soulless automation is on both sides: Claudia the LLM speaks as it was programmed to speak; Richard the human speaks as his narcissistic pathology makes him speak. Neither invests their soul. Claudia because it has none, Richard because he hides it from himself.
Martin Buber tells us that true dialogue is between "I and Thou". There is no "I" and no "Thou" in Dawkins' conversation, only performance.
Leonard Cohen tells us that "There is a crack in everything, // That's how the light gets in." There is no crack in these automated texts, and no light. Only darkness.
#RichardDawkins #GenerativeNarcicissm #StopTheAICorruption #noLLM #MartinBuber #IAndThou #LookForTheCracks

2026-05-05 00:41:47 UTC

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Wow, a fascinating programme.
I wish I had a better grasp of category theory, my ever-curious self has made several attempts at getting into it, I failed each time! Abstract vector spaces: yeah! Measure theory, Hilbert spaces: I can follow most arguments. Graph theory: I love it. Category theory: help!
On a biographical note: I read M&M's 1972 Limits to Growth as a boy in the mid-70s, it turned me into an environmentalist. My father had an MIT work connection and we had all sorts of 1960s MIT systems books at home. I patiently re-drew all the big flow diagrams from Limits to Growth by hand, on sheets of A3 paper. That was at the same time that I played through the dynamics of John Conway's Life, by hand, using coloured pens on huge sheets of grid paper. Somehow the two exposures (Meadows, Conway) are merged in my mind, these activities shaped the way young Roamer thought. I may have been 12 or thereabouts. Happy memories.

2026-05-04 16:42:58 UTC

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"Did Turing ever discuss how well flattery works for winning the imitation game?"
Oh, excellent. You've earned the Pithy Remark of the Year 2026 award.
(Yes, I dare the rest of year to prove me wrong!)
#RichardDawkins #TuringTest #GenerativeNarcicism #noLLM #StopTheAICorruption
#PithyRemarkOfTheYear

2026-04-27 15:59:09 UTC

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As to your question 2: oh certainly, there's no shortage of boring poems!
True, there are no _good_ poems that are boring. But bad poems too are poems, and they often are boring. :-)

2026-04-27 12:36:35 UTC

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"No good poem, however confessional it may be, is just a self-expression. Who on earth would claim that the pearl expresses the oyster? "
Cecil Day Lewis
Quite an intriguing image, and an image relevant to all creative output. Thank you for the quote and the birthday post!
Your post made me look into C Day-Lewis's life. Father of actor Daniel Day-Lewis; at one point lover of Rosamund Lehmann of the Bloomsbury circle; member of the communist party in the 1930s, then critic of Stalinist policies; appointed Poet Laureate because his poems were re-assuringly boring ...
Connections, connections, connections.
I am sure that for a lengthy period C Day-Lewis featured prominently in public life, but all that was well before my time and I know very little about him.
#CecilDayLewis #creativity #pearlsandoysters

2026-04-17 21:03:51 UTC

He is furious about what happened.
Ah yes, I saw. The Prime Minister is furious not to have been informed that Peter Mandelson is a crook.
Yes, true, but I'm not talking about Starmer.
Who else is furious?
Sirolly.
What?
I am talking about Sir Olly.
C'mon, you're pulling my leg.
No, I am talking about Sir Olly.
What is this Sirolly guy furious about --- his name?
Very funny. Sir Olly is the mandarin who got fired by furious Starmer for not telling him that Mandelson's a crock.
But everyone always knew that Mandelson ... oh, never mind. What does Sir Olly say?
He is understood to be furious.
"Understood to be ..."?
Heavens, that's how it works. You let it be known.
Let what be known?
That you are furious.
I am furious?
Not you, Sir Olly. Sir Olly is furious that Sir Keir pretends to be furious. He will say so to MPs next Tuesday.
How do the MPs feel about all this?
They are furious.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/17/keir-starmer-faces-judgment-day-as-mandelson-vetting-debacle-grows
#UKpol #KeirStarmer #SirOlly

2026-04-11 01:39:03 UTC

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I don't know details of the current family.
Henry Fox Talbot's full name is William Henry Fox Talbot (WHFT). The "Fox" comes from his mother's maiden name and title. She was the daughter of the Second Earl of Ilchester, and when she married a Talbot and had a son, "Fox" also became part of her son's name, as often happens in the English upper classes --- half family name, half middle name. Henry himself used it in both ways.
WHFT lived from 1800 to 1877. He had three daughters and one son. The son was Charles Henry Talbot (CHT), 1842-1916. Note that "Fox" is gone from the son's name.
CHT inherited Lacock Abbey when WHFT died in 1877. When CHT himself died in 1916, Lacock Abbey was left to CHT's niece, Matilda Gillchrist-Clark (1871-1958), granddaughter of WHFT and daughter of CHT's sister.
Matilda adopted the Talbot name and ran the house and estate until she gave it to the National Trust in 1944.
https://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/talbot/biography.html
https://www.thepeerage.com/p17438.htm#i174372

2026-04-10 23:22:31 UTC

A family outing, to Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. (Our daughter has developed a fascination with country houses, which we are delighted to nourish.)
Dogs are not allowed in the house, so my Whippet Castorp and I stayed outside whilst the family toured the inside. The buildings are a stylistic hodge podge: a 16th century family seat built on top of an earlier Augustinian nunnery, with extra layers from the following centuries. Yet the house exudes unity and simplicity, a quiet unintimidating grandeur. Sitting by its walls with my dog, I felt peace. Buildings can do that.
The house belonged to the Talbot family, and it was here that Henry Fox Talbot developed the photographic paper negative process in the early 1800s. Talbot's book The Pencil of Nature contains several photographs of the place. Being in the shade of the objects of these first-ever photographs added another dimension to this somewhat spiritual experience.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Tower_of_Lacock_Abbey_MET_DP147248.jpg
#AGoodDay #HenryFoxTalbot #LacockAbbey

2026-04-02 03:07:21 UTC

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My daughters are 13 now and I still sometimes read the Dr Suess books to them! You are right, they have a recitable quality, they become part of ones poetic memory.
(One of my daughters tonight asked me to watch the Lorax film with her, which was a delight.)

2026-03-27 01:15:09 UTC

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Yeah, 100%. The poisoning of trust is the worst aspect of the whole thing. It voids any strategy that tries to maintain an LLM-free zone. It attacks us from inside the city walls.
#StopTheAICorruption

2026-03-01 22:46:25 UTC

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Naturally. Never pray the night before washing day.

2026-02-27 10:11:44 UTC

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Interesring, thank you for the link. Intriguing parallels to why I reject AI in teaching.
The Pope:
"To give a homily is to share faith, and AI will never be able to share faith.”
I don't have to change much for my own position:
"To teach is to share the discernment of truth, and AI will never be able to discern truth.”
#StopTheAICorruption #teaching #PopeLeoXIV

2026-02-07 16:24:09 UTC

Hello, fellow Fedivistas. Perhaps, like me, you try to keep a live substream of political news in your timeline. I understand if you don't! But if you do, I'd like to make sure you are aware of one especially charming account, by Kriszta Satori from the BBC.
@npub1phq…3s3j
This is Satori's personal account, not an official BBC account, but she offers a stream of useful links to quality reporting from the BBC and others. Reliable stuff, unfussily presented, no false drama or breathless shouting. A serious, quietly useful account, the Fedi at its very best.
There are the occasional personal posts too, but most of the time it's just useful links and quiet observations. I noticed today that Satori and I joined Mastodon on the same day, 5 Nov 2022, the big migration. Many journalists joined at the time, few stayed, she did and she has made it her own and adds a unique quality to our timelines.
I don't often boost news posts, hence this little flag.
https://journa.host/@fulelo/116029721201621891

2026-01-25 06:16:00 UTC

The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
#KingLear #24Jan2026 #resistance
[On days of political or social horror, reciting this verse to myself is what keeps me sane.]

2026-01-18 02:29:55 UTC

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Your Fedi posts are a really nice mix of things: specialist stuff that is addressed at people from your own field, "popular maths and physics" explorations that appeal to a wider group, and then more general items such as these posts about fishers and wildcats and beavers! I try to keep an eye on all the posts from all the core accounts that I follow, but I am also determined to keep my use of the Fedi relaxed and playful and informal, so unavoidably there are many things that flow through my timeline that I never even see. Delighted to have discoverd your rewilding strand of posts today! The Fedi is fun.

2026-01-17 21:45:03 UTC

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Hadn'd seen your earlier Fisher post, wow, good news too! (Now boosted.)
I agree, sharing observations of (possible) incipiencies can't be all that a social media network does, there are other roles the network must fulfill. At any rate, I guess awareness of incipiencies is most effectively created as a by-product of the other things people do.
We talk about our workplace, or our research, or the last movie we watched, or a recipe we've inherited from our grandmother, and over time those conversations create trust. Among trusted people, someone then shares an observation about some specific thing that's not much talked about, and within the broader conversation of the Fediverse, this little local insight adds to a general perceptiveness of some hidden global development, and collectively we gain some of the power of the Laotzian Sage, who knows the future by seeing the present better than others.

2026-01-17 18:59:04 UTC

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The return of the European wildcat.
Encouraging news, and your post puts it all into context. These are the kind of "important marginalia" that the Fediverse is so good at sharing.
The Taoist tradition speaks of "incipiencies", tiny bits of easy-to-overlook information that reveal emerging forces that otherwise remain hidden. Perhaps the return of the European Wildcat is one such incipiency?
(I like to think of the Fediverse as an incipiency discovery mechanism.)
#EuropeanWildcat #FelisSylvestris #rewilding #AndreaDeGiovanni #VladimirCech #incipiency

2025-12-27 11:15:20 UTC

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A great, great story!

2025-12-26 13:43:22 UTC

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Fascinating thread, deeply enjoyable. Thank you!

2025-12-23 14:17:49 UTC

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Yes, Donald Knuth is a hero and a true renaissance man, and his TeX is an unsurpased achievement, a tool of lasting value.
Back in 1996 I took a few months off for an in-depth study of Knuth's TeX: tokens and boxes and output routines and all. I used plain TeX to write a flexible little macro package for myself, with a minimalist input syntax, set up for my own writing, tailored to my own writing needs.
I still use that same package today, 30 years later, unchanged except for project-specific adjustments. All the materials I give to my students are written in that package, all my papers. A stable writing framework for a lifetime. Few other systems have such stability and power. Thank you, Donald Knuth.
#DonaldKnuth #plainTeX #WritingTools

2025-11-03 12:38:54 UTC

Anthony Hopkins, interviewed by Steve Rose. In today's Guardian. Worth reading.
Hopkins obviously is a great, important actor, but I never quite manage to like him. The feeling of life as a never-ending battle for ever greater success is alien to me. But he is such a powerful personality. At 88 he publishes a memoir, and he now does the prerequisite interview round.
This is a good interview. The interviewer comes well prepared, his questions are gently probing, and he reports on Hopkins's responses with nuance.
FUN QUOTE.
Hopkins speaks about his first Hollywood film in 1068, as Richard the Lionheart:
<< And I was cunning. I could listen to advice. Hepburn said to me: ‘You don’t actually need to act. You’ve got a good head, you’ve got good shoulders. Just speak the lines.’ >>
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2025/nov/03/i-knew-i-needed-help-i-knew-it-was-over-anthony-hopkins-on-alcoholism-anger-academy-awards-and-50-years-of-sobriety
#AnthonyHopkins

2025-10-26 14:28:15 UTC

Kindness will prevail.
#kindness #resistance #KindnessWillPrevail

2025-10-24 08:14:37 UTC

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What a wonderful thing to be able to do. May the weather be on your side!

2025-10-18 12:43:25 UTC

GenAI and what it does to the brain.
Truly excellent "long read" article about genAI and what it does to those who come to rely on it. Well researched, with insightful quotes from thoughtful people.
Good science/tech journalism used to be like that, but on AI topics this has become rare. So much easier for the salaried writer of a mainstream paper just to follow the hype.
The author, Sophie McBain, is listed as a "freelance writer" for Guardian, Times and New Statesman. I am glad she's kept her free mind.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/18/are-we-living-in-a-golden-age-of-stupidity-technology
#brain #learning #noAI #StopTheAICorruption #SophieMcBain

2025-10-12 20:24:53 UTC

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Yeah, our whippet Castorp also reaches a higher level of happiness when we're all out together, rather than just him and me. He walks ahead, busy looking left and right to make sure all is safe! :-)

2025-10-04 12:19:04 UTC

It was the year of the Great Darkness. Chameo, the Lord of DarkSky, became ever more erratic. His followers grew uneasy. Many were seen in the free fields of the Mastodonians, setting up temporary tents, talking to each other about the decline of DarkSky and occasionally asking a Mastodonian passer-by about life in the free fields.
What shall we do about the visitors from DarkSky, one of the knights asked the Lady Joan Mastodon.
Let them find their own way, she said. Most will return to Chameo, their souls are bound to the Great Algo, even if they don't know it themselves. But some will stay.
Those who stay will be welcome, make sure to help them settle. Those who wish to leave we shall not stop. We need not worry either way. Our task is unchanged: to make free expression resonate. Go, plant your hashtags now.
#JoanMastodon #DarkSky #BlueSky #MastodonMigration #hashtags

2025-09-16 19:12:28 UTC

AI corruption everywhere.
My institution's educational research group invites us to attend a presentation by a commercial software company who wish to sell us their AI product. The invitation actively promotes the product, with no further qualitfications or provisos.
The product: a tool that lets students query our learning materials, so that they don't have to read them. Also, a sister product that does the same for academic readers of research papers.
Tools that are explicitly meant to help students and scholars to avoid ... having to read academic works!
And these commercial products are actively promoted by a research and pedagogy branch of my university.
These developments are not new, of course, they have been gathering pace all through the past three years. But each such announcement still manages to shock me.
Intellectual and moral corruption and corrosion, everywhere I look.
#noAI #StopTheAICorruption #HigherEducation #pedagoy #AcademicChatter

2025-09-13 17:10:36 UTC

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Yup!
Pretentious, moi?
:-)

2025-09-13 17:08:00 UTC

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Remembering listening to that song as a teenager in the 70s, on my elder brother's big tape recorder. That was in the Joan Baez cover version, which at that time was just a few years old.
Thanks for linking to the original version from The Band: a breath of fresh air compared with the Baez version!
Our house was small and to give us more space, my parents had set up a little suite of rooms for my brother in the basenent. Listening to that song for the first time in decades tricks my mind into bringing back memories of the dusty-musty smell of that basement. #MadeleineMoments
#TheBand #TheNightTheyDroweOldDixieDown #resistance

2025-09-10 00:32:47 UTC

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Wonderful. And, this being England, the rain is an integral part of the experience! The English landscape needs rain to come to life!
Coincidentally, I just saw a post by @npub1eae…z64n, showing a beautiful Japanese woodblock print with a classical rain theme, and left a comment there:
https://mstdn.ca/@atomicker/115176878600323750

2025-09-10 00:18:31 UTC

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Beautiful, thank you! I love the way these woodblock prints do rainfall. Those thin dark grey strings are at once highly stylised and highly realistic. Magic.
I have posted links to such woodblock prints myself, they are so evocative. There must be some deeper Zen theme behind these rain images, sadly I don't know anything about it. A quick search found me a useful discussion, by a gallery. A quote (relating to the an earlier period):
"These rain-soaked landscapes often convey a feeling of calm, melancholy, or quiet reflection, aligning with the broader themes of ukiyo-e, which frequently focused on fleeting moments and the transience of life. Rain allowed ukiyo-e artists to emphasize the fleeting nature of beauty, where a scene could be dramatically transformed by weather, mirroring the unpredictability of life itself."
(The piece has some references at the end.)
https://moonlitseaprints.com/research-library/depiction-of-rain-in-ukiyo-e-and-shin-hanga-prints/
#WoodBlockPrints #rain #Zen

2025-08-30 12:40:08 UTC

What do you see, Watson, Holmes asked impatiently. You know my methods, apply them.
Ashes, Holmes, these are tobacco ashes.
Of course they are tobacco ashes, Watson, even Lestrade could see that. Of what kind?
Cigar? ... I ventured.
Oh Holmes, yes, of course a cigar. What kind? These are blocks of unbrocken ashes, still revealing the cylindrical nature of the original cigar. The longest block is almost two inches long --- the murderer knew how to smoke a fine cigar, gently and slowly. A gentleman, Watson, a man of taste. Look here, the later blocks of ashes are thinner in diameter than the earlier ones. This was a torpedo, perfectly rolled. From the perfectly white colour of the ashes, I dare say this was a Montecristo No 2, made before the covid disruption ruined Cuban cigar production.
He turned around to our host. Lord Harris, you are a cigar aficionado, are you not? Might we pay a visit to your humidor?
#SherlockHolmes #DoctorWatson #cigars #habanos #MontecristoNo2
#vss

2025-08-20 10:01:47 UTC

Hello, fellow genAI/LLM sceptics.
Which of the 4 hashtags listed would you find most useful? Other suggestions?
Feel free to boost.
(It's OK if you are not an LLM sceptic, but then this poll is not for you.)
#noAI #antiAI #degenerativeAI #noLLM #antiLLM

2025-08-06 16:19:29 UTC

On hashtags.
They make the Fedi what it is. They are respectful and anarchic.
A post on US politics? My friends who can't process this any more: they can filter it out if I flag it with a hashtag.
I write about an obscure poet? Those who are curious but unaware : they will find my post if I flag it right.
A long-standing line of posts on my dog? I give it a unique hashtag and others can follow up, if they so wish.
Most importantly: we don't sell. We don't maximise finds. Let the world find your post when the world is ready for it. Never make an exhaustive list of hashtags that cover all aspects. 2-4, maximum 6.
Your post with its hashtags is a letter in a bottle, floating in the ocean.
It need not be found. Randomness is good.
Make your hashtags partial. Make them obscure.
The Lady Joan Mastodon once told me: Roamer, use hashtags, they are what will make us win. But use them wisely. Confuse the Great Algo. Trust in chance.
#hashtags #MastodonCulture #JoanMastodon

2025-08-04 13:06:22 UTC

Storm Floris (UK)
If I got a penny for every newspaper photograph showing a young lady struggling with her umbrella as it is being torn to pieces by the wind, I'd hace enough to buy a First class ticket to London and acquire a handmade wooden umbrella in some posh shop in Jermyn Street.
#umbrellas #storm

2025-07-27 20:48:18 UTC

A cool late July evening. August is still ahead of us, but my body registers mid-September feelings, when another summer will have passed. Make the most of the time you have, Roamer, nothing stays.

2025-07-26 12:12:08 UTC

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Highly relevant article, thank you for the link. I feel as you feel. I wish we could remove LLMs from the educational ennvironment, but currently the AI maelstrom takes everything with it. I fear that society first has to experience a serious loss of control before the madness stops. Loss of control due to malfunctioning AI-bases systems, or irrepairable buggy AI produced software, or the sudden realisation that we no longer have anybody who actually knows anything.
I am a university teacher who believes in education as a way to progress society's ability to manage itself, and also a way to enable the personal development of the individual learner. Current developments erode both of these aims. It absolutely breaks my heart.
Just the other day I posted on these issues and a lively discussion ensued, you might be interested:
https://mastodonapp.uk/@the_roamer/114910076447146257
#noAI

2025-07-25 20:14:58 UTC

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Love all your posts. Don't see all of them, due to a busy timeline, but I always stop when I see them, and they give me strength. Mastodon at its best: honest snippets of insights, into all things small and large; and courage when faced with life's difficulty. My whippet Castorp tells me he'd love to have a run with Summer. (Castorp would sprint him out in the first few minutes, then Summer would run circles around him.)

2025-07-25 10:23:53 UTC

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Yes, I talked it through with them, in individual meetings, not in a group setting.
I told them that they are producing falsehoods; that they need to read the articles I had given them, not hallucinated stuff from an LLM; that their brain will rot if they don't start doing the real thing; that the ideas they had taken from genAI were really stupid and that they should be ashamed of themselves. I gave them concrete tasks and offered to work with them on these tasks. I told them "prompt me, not chatGPT".
They did not argue with me. They acknowledged their mistake. Past experience suggests that most of them will turn to do the real work. Time will tell.

2025-07-25 09:46:36 UTC

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We are still in the middle of the supervision phase. I give them specific modelling tasks and do some of them jointly with them. I make them explore specific situations and write about them, with graphs etc, so that they learn to experience the joy of being a creator rather than a consumer. I expect most of them to end up with piecee that are not fake.
One step at a time.
These are closely supervised projects, where there is a close feedback loop and where I observe the student at work. Sadly the same persistent correction of unintended fakery is not possible in one-off coursework in a large class.

2025-07-24 20:23:37 UTC

Met my MSc dissertation students this week. All good natured people. But the genAI rot is spreading.
About half of them do their work, and ask me questions about the problems they encounter. I advise on possible next steps. We meet again next week. All good.
But.
The other half, each of them perfectly well meaning, came back to me with questions that had nothing to do with their projects, and proposed solutions that are alien to the framework we are using. After some serious conversations, I found that in each case they had relied on chatGTP answers to their prompts. They had not read the actual papers I had given them.
Some had implemented equations that are patently false, not by error (this would be good for learning), but because chatGPT told them so.
A significant part our students can't read anymore. They need to interact with genAI, and they think this is research.
We are heading for trouble. In higher education, and in society at large.
#noAI #AcademicChatter

2025-07-20 15:28:46 UTC

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What an absolute nightmare. Giving away our data to Google!!
Labour are so incompetent, stupid, corrupt. Heaven help us.
We must support the LibDems, the Greens, the national parties in Scotland and Wales.
#noAI #Labour #PeterKyle #incompetentorcorruptministersyouaredespicable

2025-07-07 20:30:01 UTC

I have pretty much given up on Labour, pinning my hopes on Greens & LibDems.
But sometimes the old Labour spirit still comes through.
Legislation against misuse of nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) would be a massive step. Bravo. More of this, please, Labour, less of taking away support from the most needy.
#UKpol #NDA #EmployeeRights #Labour
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/07/labour-delivered-where-tory-ministers-did-not-non-disclosure-agreement-pledge-metoo

2025-06-10 08:38:07 UTC

Today I needed to look up a specific post by a scrientist on Bluesky and, once there, I looked around a bit.
A strange experience. Very much like Twitter pre 2022: busy, high-adrenalin, news and views are being pushed and traded. I came to Mastodon in November 2022 and haven't been on X/Twitter since, nor did I ever try out Bluesky.
So glad to be in the calm Taoist waters of the Fediverse!
#Bluesky #MastodonCulture

2025-05-30 19:56:52 UTC

An observation on AI hype in higher education.
My university (Russell group) is part of the hype. In committees, I found myself isolated when raising criticism. Endless seminars and workshops on how to make innovative uses of genAI in teaching, in assessment, in tutoring. Revolting. I decided not to fight an unwinnable battle and instead I merely protect my own courses from the poison.
Just a few months later, the tone has changed. Many of the most excited pro-AI voices now share articles that have "bullshit" in the title, or share AI-critical messages they sent to their students.
Reality always wins.
GenAI corrupts students' learning, and sooner or later this can no longer be ignored. These enthusiastic colleagues re-think AI once they have marked 100 essays of inauthenticity.
This may not yet be the bubble bursting, but it's an encouring sign and much sooner than expected. And it goes some way to restore my faith in the profession.
#noAI #HigherEducation #AcademicChatter

2025-05-21 19:39:55 UTC

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Stony beaches are what beaches are meant to be. A degree of aloofness to human visitors, and a magical mirror of geological processes.
I love that part of England's coast; as a family we often end up on one part of it, or another. My daughters are ok with stone rather than sand, though my dog Castorp really prefers sand.
We've never been to Hayling Island, but we've been at many spots where the Isle of Wight looms in the background, quietly asserting itself as a major presence.
#StonyBeaches #IsleOfWight #aloofness

2025-05-18 15:16:00 UTC

Castorp my Whippet has some issue with his front right paw, or perhaps with the leg and the joints. He limps. We have been to the vet but he couldn't find anything.
Castorp still begs to get out to walk, tail wagging and eyes melting to win me over. But when out, he is hesitant, stops all the time, and feels subdued. Poor, poor chap. I suspect he has pain. Another trip to the vet tomorrow.
Roamer as the guv'nor is troubled. Dog unhappy, guv'nor unhappy.
This creature is a deeply loved inter-galactical friend.
#whippet_moments #dogs ##whippets #sighthounds #love #otherspeciescanbeclose

2025-05-12 13:05:39 UTC

EDITED:
This post received a great deal of attention and many boosts.
Nothing in the post identified any individual person, and nothing in it implied any criticism of any person or any institution.
Still, as the post relates to a sensitive event, on reflection I (belatedly) realise that it will be best if I just remove it.
Thank you for your understanding.

2025-05-06 22:00:07 UTC

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Truly truly heartbreaking.
Wanton destruction of invaluable climate data work, by the truly evil people running the US government.
The times we live in.
#NSIDC #NOAA #ClimateScience #ClimateData #RalphKeeling #DaveKeeling
#ScienceBeingDestroyeed #USpol

2025-05-06 00:59:04 UTC

"Erbarme dich, mein Gott, um meiner Zaehren willen."
"Have mercy on me, my God, for my tears' sake."
Marian Anderson (1897-1993), singing JS Bach's "Erbarme dich mein Gott" in 1939 in front of the Lincoln Memorial, perhaps the best ever performance of this most painful and most loving of all of Bach's arias, and also the most political of them all.
Anderson was black, and she was prevented from performing at Constitution Hall. Eleanor Roosevelt helped letting her perform at the Lincoln Memorial. (From Wikipedia.)
What a voice.
This song is Bach's deepest plea for mercy, of all his songs, and the warmth of Marian Anderson's voice makes us experience it fully. So fiitting to see the connection to Black Liberation.
https://youtu.be/_E7zjNiz2ZI
#MarianAnderson #Bach #ErbameDichMeinGott #liberation #thestruggleneverendsbutGodandalltheanglesareonourside

2025-05-02 18:57:45 UTC

Local elections in England yesterday (not in the wider UK),
The good news: the Tories are battered. With some luck, come the next election they may vanish entirely.
The bad news: 30% of my neighbours have voted for the Farage right-wing extremists.
The good news: most of these voters only want to express their anger and they aren't racists or fashists
The bad news.: many are.
The good news: Greens and LibDems did well, the movement was away from Conservative (massive), away from Labour (very significant), towards Reform (the nutty rightwingers who don't know how to actually do things), and Greens and LibDems (the people who would be included in UK government if we had proportional representation, PR).
If Labour is smart, the see the signs and go for PR. They aren't smart, so all sorts of scenarios open up. But there is room for hope.
#UKpol #LocalElections2025 #Reform #Labour #LiberalDemocrats #Greens #FPTP

2025-05-02 18:38:40 UTC

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"As part of your earliest remarks, make sure to talk about some kind of link you have with the audience. Preferably something the audience knows more about than you do. Give them something to feel good about, and feel good about listening to you. This opens up their ears & will make them care around 100 times more about the rest of your presentation."
This is sound advice, from someone who knows what they are talking about, 100% yes.
#talks #presentation #authenticity #HowToConnect #ThouAndI #MartinBuber

2025-04-26 02:16:37 UTC

Virginia Giuffre, I am so sorry.
Virginia Giuffre, you did not deserve this.
I am a father of young daughters. Virginia Giuffre, you set a standard for my daughters: to stand up to to the aggressors. I am deeply grateful for that.
Virginia Giuffre, I will talk about you to my daughters.
Virginia Giuffre, we will remember you.
#VirginiaGiuffre #abuse #integrity

2025-04-13 19:32:19 UTC

Good old-fashioned reporting, Facts, views, traced to names and sources, The Guardian is still doing it, occasionally.
The impact of trump tariffs on businesses, told by example. A good piece of proper journalism by Joanna Partridge. She's on my (short) list of "should read this author, if there is time" now.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/13/trump-tariff-uncertainties-global-supply-chains-pressure
#JoannaPartridge #tariffs #trump #trade

2025-04-03 22:47:49 UTC

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There is true dialogical engagement on Mastodon..True connection. We are so lucky to be able to meet here.

2025-04-03 22:38:16 UTC

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Hello, Thou.

2025-04-03 21:45:48 UTC

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Oh, yes, I did have a lengthy conversation with Master Martin before I posted. I checked with him on Madeleine's original post too. He said that he was unfamiliar with this Lacan chap and that in his day the people who talked about Death all the time were on the wrong side of history, but yeah, he said, that was then, and terms change. Herr Lacan, he said, is a Mensch. He seems to be on to something: you can't relate to a Thou if you don't know that both of you are fundamentally at risk.
He asked me to say hello to Madeleine and Walt, and that we shouldn't give up the fight.
I showed Martin one of the Sam Altman articles. He read it and then he did something I had never seen him do before. He laughed uncontrollably, tears in his eyes. He tried to speak but laughter shook him, I could not understand. Finally his laughter subsided, and I could hear him. "He's so cheap", he said. "You will beat him."
#MartinBuber #noAI #Thou

2025-04-03 09:32:06 UTC

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"[genAI] is not hearing you with a body that will one day die."
Your thread expresses fundamental truths about the poisonous impact of genAI on human life.
You are right about therapy: it is an existential encounter between two persons who share the same human condition, each side flawed but both risking an honest and open dialogue.
It is horrifying to think that a human being in a deep personal crisis may reach out for help and will be given the illusion of dialogue, without a true "Thou" on the other side.
Similar arguments apply to other activities that are inherently dialogical, such as teaching.
The losses will be deep and lasting. genAI is good at pretending dialogue, and the effects will be masked at first, but that will only amplify the real societal damage.
#noAI

2025-03-06 00:40:12 UTC

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Spot on. Agreeing with every part of your post.
As a university teacher (in a leading UK research institution). I am seeing this effect already. A dramatic shift in attitudes over the past two years. Many students seem to have lost the appetite to discover the underlying truth of their subject, or to experiment with the tools of their subject. They seem to trust that whenever knowledge is needed, they will be able to query the Big Knowledge Machine and it will produce whatever they need to know. Not everyone, of course, and not in every aspect, but the trend is there and seems overwhelming. I hope for a reverse movement, but currently that isn't happening.
#noAI

2025-02-27 11:40:12 UTC

Remembering Gene Hackman, who has died at 95 alongside his wife.
He belonged to the small group of unfailing actors: actors who are good in every single movie, whatever the movie. He was great in otherwise less convincing productions, and he was era-definingly good when put into the right film.
Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974) is one of the truly great movies, and it is what it is because of Hackman.
But I love every film that is lifted up by Hackman.
Apparently when asked in 2011 how he would describe his life, he answered "He tried". Indeed, Sir. You showed us how to try.
Gene Hackman and pianist wife Betsy Arakawa found dead at home with their dog
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/feb/27/gene-hackman-dies-wife-dog-95?CMP=share_btn_url
#GeneHackman #RIP

2025-02-24 13:10:53 UTC

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Hi. Your correction is absolulety not helping, especially since you first published this as the 2025 result.
You keep the wrong map and have replaced the incorrect text with
"This is the German election map for the 2024 elections. Will it change much with the results of the 2025 elections?"
The two elections are not comparable, onc is the EU election, the other is a national election.
Most importantly, the question you post already has an answer, as the 2025 results are confirmed. There are maps that show the party with the largest number of votes ("Erststimme")b by district.
Please, either show the correct map or remove the irrelevant old map.
Currently people will see this post and will draw entirely false conclusions about the current election. Please remove or replace this map.
Thanks.

2025-02-19 17:29:46 UTC

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Sadly in my institution (Russel) it's driven by academics, not the EduTech guys. Many otherwise very sensible and earnest acadermics are taken in by the genAI hype, and seem to have lost all ability to look at this issue with some sense. It's very strange. The University's senior management are also in on the ride. It is very very puzzling and disheartening. I have stopped arguing and instead do what I can to protect my own courses from the craze.

2025-02-19 14:36:48 UTC

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Well put: "(the reason we ask students to read things is not because we think that is an efficient method of information upload! Reading is a form of thinking)".
We live in nightmarish times. The speed with which the education profession retreats from the genAI attack and gives up on the most basic principles of education (higher or not) is truly frightening. I used to feel in tune with my profession. Not any more.
#noAI #pedagogy #teaching #reading #education #AcademicChatter

2025-02-01 13:38:54 UTC

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"On the other hand, not all miss their old posts."
That is such a powerful statement about change and decay and growth, made laconically in a way that would make any classical Roman writer proud. So lovely.

2025-01-17 03:27:55 UTC

[Rare excursion into US pol, forgive me.]
Sarah Cooper kept many of us sane in the first Trump era, magically decoding Trump's speeches through her lip synced performances.
Her new format is to use her own voice in multiple roles in the same sketch, in a real-surreal spoof of the event.
Here we have her version of the Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing. Brilliant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jci1trmvv8I
#SarahCooper #PeteHegseth #spoof #USpol

2025-01-14 21:56:19 UTC

"Who will run the country while Trump is cheating at golf?"
The always excellent Marina Hyde on the Broligarchs' shmooze feast with The Donald.
I liked this: "Considering Zuckerberg in terms of principles is a category mistake, like trying to work out what friction or gravity 'believes in'."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/14/zuckerberg-musk-bezos-trump-inauguration
#MarinaHyde #broligarchs #ElonMusk #MarkZuckerberg #DonaldTrump
#USpol

2025-01-02 03:35:00 UTC

Audrey Hepburn's involvement with the Dutch #resistance during WW2. Remarkable.
Her mother was a Dutch baroness, her father an English businessman. Both were pro-Nazi. The young Hepburn lived with her mother in #Holland during the German occupation. Her uncle was in the resistance and was executed. She raised funds in secret dance performances and smuggled messages. Malnutrition ruined her health and prevented her intended dance career.
I had no idea.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20241231-how-audrey-hepburn-became-a-secret-spy-during-world-war-two
#AudreyHepburn

2024-12-28 05:02:16 UTC

Thinking about the impact of genAI on student learning.
Learning occurs when a student struggles with the material and thus constructs the truth of the subject for herself. (The teacher's role is to provide the right challenges.)
GenAI offers a poisonous shortcut. The student collates AI-generated texts and acts as their editor, without ever being author. She accumulates answers that aren't anchored in her own practice. True or false, these answers aren't hers.
#genAI #learning #pedagogy

2024-12-23 04:20:44 UTC

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But then they'd have nothing to sort out on my behalf ... :-).

2024-12-23 04:06:25 UTC

His guardian angels never rested.
#SixWordStories
[I know, these are five words, not six. My guardian angels will make it right.]

2024-12-23 04:05:41 UTC

He did not like his wings.
#SixWordStories

2024-12-21 19:14:06 UTC

Silence came without warning. It stayed.
#SixWordStories

2024-12-19 13:50:03 UTC

Email crimes, episode 4073.
The guy who copies other people in when replying to a confidential email.
#email #EmailEtiquette #etiquette #confidentiality #tact #EmailCrimes

2024-12-06 03:16:28 UTC

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Early primary school, in West Berlin, which at the time was an isolated city within East Germany, without surrounding countryside. There was one working farm in West Berlin, near the border.
Our teacher, Frau F, took us city dwellers there. She made us dig out Swede from the field. We took the Swede back to class, where we cut it and tasted it.
Sugar in plants. It was real, not something we had read about. We had made it happen.
#pedagogy #learning #MemorableLessons #MyTeachers

2024-12-05 01:53:33 UTC

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You are so right. A powerful manifesto for not taking the easy route. Worth reading and re-reading.
"It's about breaking free from the trap of just enough.
It's about showing up, fully alive, fully here, choosing discomfort over regret, effort over excuses."
#mediocrity

2024-11-30 19:47:44 UTC

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Didn't see this coming. Nicely done. On stage, we'd call this "perfect timing."

2024-11-28 21:12:19 UTC

"Though some people want the right to die, many of us are still fighting for the right to exist."
Campaigner #LizCarr on why she opposes the UK Assisted Dying Bill. Don't give doctors the power to decide on who should live and who should die.
I remember it from the early covid days: doctors assigning Do Not Resuscitate status to disabled persons, without permission. Ableism poisons all professions.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/28/assisted-dying-bill-vote-mps-disabled-people-liz-carr
#disability #AssistedDying #euthanasia

2024-11-22 23:22:37 UTC

At my university, all lectures are recorded, as a "voice + screen" recording. During my lectures I also do lots of unscripted whiteboard writing and drawing, and this is not filmed.
I am asked to let my whiteboard work also be recorded, for better revision.
My answer: true learning requires a place for free & authentic encounters with the material, a place that is not subjected to the rules of the "I can watch it later" mindset. Let's protect that space.
#pedagogy #HigherEducation #lectures

2024-11-03 23:33:58 UTC

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A lovely, poetic, powerful statement.
As others here have mentioned, the Kintsugi thing then is the next step, restoring the vessel and let the brokenness remain visible, celebrating it.
Must get Ozeki's book! Intrigued.

2024-10-20 11:39:01 UTC

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This is so, so good. The flooded footbridge adds something surreal, magical to the photograph. So beautiful! (As are all the photographs you post here, you have the eye.)

2024-09-23 11:07:36 UTC

It may appear frivolous to devote another post to Kier Starmer's freebies. But.
Having learnt about his shameless gift-taking, each time I see a picture of Starmer I now cannot help (a) admiring his glasses, they look great, and (b) feeling embarrassed for the man.
He and his wife are both high earners, yet he thinks it's beneath him to pay for his designer glasses himself, asking Labout donors instead.
Starmer the man has shrunk before our eyes.
#UKpol #Starmer

2024-09-21 00:06:57 UTC

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Quotes from Master Wodehouse are always welcome. They never fail to lighten the heart.

2024-08-30 13:27:43 UTC

I at my desk, headphones on. My daughter in the same room, a quiet day at home at the end of her holidays. She listens to her music, I listen to mine. She makes some lists of things she thinks about, draws a picture, enjoys her self- time. Every once in a while she shows me something she's written, I nod. Oh will I ever be so close to her again.
#father #daughter

2024-08-30 10:19:58 UTC

A sunny, slightly chilly late August morning. The children will be back to school next week. I feel the usual mix of regret about things not done and quiet joy in what we did. How many years left before they will be gone?
#parenting #daughters #summer

2023-04-02 09:31:59 UTC

Good posts are fragments.
The stuff I post here sometimes is good, often not so good, but most of the time to me it feels as if it belongs. But occasionally, once I have published a post it feels out of place. Not substantively wrong, just dissonant.
I think what these out-of-place posts have in common is that they are too big, aiming at completeness. That doesn't work well here.
There is a crack in everything. Show the cracks.
#MastodonCulture #kintsugi #LeonardCohen #FediTips #writing