Jack Stilgoe | Lightnews

UCL Science and Technology Studies (STS) @stsucl.bsky.social · 11h

🎓 Mel A., BSc Sociology & Politics of Science student, shares thoughts on The New Jim Crow in conversation with Dr Jenny Bulstrode.

🔗 Read more: bit.ly/4pJFnYj

#UCLSTS #StudentVoices #TheNewJimCrow #Sociology #PoliticsOfScience

Interview with Mel A. on The New Jim Crow

Mel A., BSc Sociology and Politics of Science student, talks about reading The New Jim Crow. Interview by Dr Jenny Bulstrode.

bit.ly

Wonkhe @wonkhe.bsky.social · 13h

NEW on Wonkhe: Jim Dickinson reflects on the end of scarcity, the rise of AI, and the challenge to a system of higher education built on pretence, performance and proxies buff.ly/zQ6V7kK

Connected by Data @connectedbydata.org · 14h

Recently @jenitennison.com found herself considering how the distinction between “thick” and “thin” modes of involving communities around (data and) AI is useful.

Read her blog as she explores the distinctions, bringing them together and how some of our work has been testing these modes.
Link in 🧵

Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 1d

I was trying to track down the source of Gramsci's "time of monsters" quote and found that it's a "mistranslation" (ie he just made it up) by Slavoj Zizek. Gramsci's line clearly translates as "morbid symptoms" instead. Mad that you can just rewrite a famous quote and get it widely accepted.

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 1d

I didn't really understand left-wing infighting until I saw Rock n Roll. At one point, the ageing communist prof (played by Brian Cox I think?) tells his student (Rufus Sewell?): 'For you, freedom means "leave me alone." For the masses, it means "give me a break."'

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2d

Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88

A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriter The playwright Tom Stoppard, whose playful erudition dazzled the theatregoing world for decades, has died aged 88. One of a select band of writers from any discipline to earn his own adjective – “Stoppardian” – in the Oxford English Dictionary, he delighted in the most improbable juxtapositions: philosophy and gymnastics in Jumpers (1972); early 19th-century landscape gardening and chaos theory in Arcadia (1993); rock music, dissident Czech academics and the love poetry of Sappho in Rock ’n’ Roll (2006). Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 1d

I like that...

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 1d

We need a name for this sort of graph. An optimism stickleback?

The Tonearm @thetonearm.com · 1d

"[Jack DeJohnette] is a person who for around 50 years, dating from his early work with Charles Lloyd and Jackie McLean, circa 1966, up through In Movement, released in 2016, managed to sound, at every point along this timeline, deeply and restlessly contemporary, forever on the edge."

The Infinity of Jack DeJohnette

The drums are almost beside the point: It was his absolute presence in every musical situation, across a half-century, that made him one of the creative giants of our time

darkforcesswing.substack.com

Gregor Samosa @lenschiff.bsky.social · 2d

May we never stop trying to write cricket bats.

HENRY: Shut up and listen. This thing here, which looks like a wooden club, is actually several pieces of particular wood cunningly put together in a certain way so that the whole thing is sprung, like a dance floor. It’s for hitting cricket balls with. If you get it right, the cricket ball will travel two hundred yards in four seconds, and all you’ve done is give it a knock like knocking the top off a bottle of stout, and it makes a noise like a trout taking a fly… (He clucks his tongue to make the noise.) What we’re trying to do is to write cricket bats, so that when we throw up an idea and give it a little knock, it might … travel … (He clucks his tongue again and picks up the script.) Now, what we’ve got here is a lump of wood of roughly the same shape trying to be a cricket bat, and if you hit a ball with it, the ball will travel about ten feet and you will drop the bat and dance about shouting ‘Ouch!’ with your hands stuck into your armpits. (Indicating the cricket bat.) This isn’t better because someone says it’s better, or because there’s a conspiracy by the MCC to keep cudgels out of Lords. It’s better because it’s better. You don’t believe me, so I suggest you go out to bat with this and see how you get on. [quoting from the play] ‘You’re a strange boy, Billy, how old are you?”Twenty, but I’ve lived more than you’ll ever live.’ Ooh, ouch! (He drops the script and hops about with his hands in his armpits, going ‘Ouch!’ ANNIE watches him expressionlessly until he desists.)

The Guardian @theguardian.com · 2d

Tom Stoppard, playwright of dazzling wit and playful erudition, dies aged 88

A theatrical sensation since the 1960s, whose dramas included Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt, Stoppard also had huge success as a screenwriter The playwright Tom Stoppard, whose playful erudition dazzled the theatregoing world for decades, has died aged 88. One of a select band of writers from any discipline to earn his own adjective – “Stoppardian” – in the Oxford English Dictionary, he delighted in the most improbable juxtapositions: philosophy and gymnastics in Jumpers (1972); early 19th-century landscape gardening and chaos theory in Arcadia (1993); rock music, dissident Czech academics and the love poetry of Sappho in Rock ’n’ Roll (2006). Continue reading...

www.theguardian.com

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 2d

I’d love an update to the stuff on transport safety that you worked on. (Not sure if it was in the book or just in a paper). I’ve used it a lot for my work on how safe self-driving cars should be…

UCL Constitution Unit @conunitucl.bsky.social · 3d

Join and help to lead the Constitution Unit!

@uclspp.bsky.social is looking for a Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics who will also join our senior team and contribute to our research and impact activities.

Applicants must have, or be near to finishing, a PhD.

Apply 👇

Job opportunity: Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics

The UCL Department of Political Science and Constitution Unit are seeking to appoint a Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics. The successful candidate will join the senior team at the Unit.

www.ucl.ac.uk

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 3d

SocArXiv are pressing pause on accepting papers about AI, except where those papers are proper social science looking at AI in society.

SocArXiv @socarxiv.bsky.social · 4d

In light of record submission rates and a large volume of AI-generated slop, SocArXiv recently implemented a policy requiring ORCIDs linked in the OSF profile of submitting authors, and narrowing our focus to social science subjects. Today we are taking two more steps:
/1

Warwick Anderson @wombatscholar.bsky.social · 3d

Nice 5-year STS/anthropology post at the ANU working with excellent people on an important project. The institution's had problems but seems to be overcoming them. I like Canberra as a city, too
#STS @aussts.bsky.social @4sweb.bsky.social

Research Fellow, Ethnography and Sociology of the Artificial Cryosphere - Canberra / ACT, ACT, Australia

Classification: ANU Academic Level BSalary package: $118,632 - $134,507 per annum plus 17% superannuationTerms: Full-time, Continuing (contingent funded) This position is continuing (contingent funded...

jobs.anu.edu.au

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 4d

Scrutiny in peer review can be very weird. Sometimes authors can introduce new things after peer review. Often there's no actual editorial responsibility. And peer review is not designed to detect fraud.

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 4d

This raises a very real question about how we talk about AI. To call this slop is to downplay the fact that it was published in an esteemed journal. We used to call such things fraud, but this suggests the publisher is innocent. AI has changed the terms of debate. We urgently need new norms.

Erik Angner @erikangner.com · 4d

"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se

Infographic with AI slop published in Nature Scientific Reports

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 4d

When the first AI generated billion-streamers start cutting through, who’d bet against the AI companies demanding a share, even though they’re currently offering just tools and gimmicks?

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 4d

Doctorow discusses Unity, the games engine. Unity initially sold tools to gamers, much like Linn sold drum machines to producers. But Unity saw some games succeed and greedily changed its approach to “shared success”, taking a piece of the profit. So consider…

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 4d

I wrote a thing about drum machines and the lessons they point to for AI music. But I didn’t anticipate a nauseating thought raised by Cory Doctorow in his Enshittification book.

What drum machines can teach us about artificial intelligence | Aeon Essays

As AI drum machines embrace humanising imperfections, what does this mean for ‘real’ drummers and the soul of music?

aeon.co

SocArXiv @socarxiv.bsky.social · 4d

In light of record submission rates and a large volume of AI-generated slop, SocArXiv recently implemented a policy requiring ORCIDs linked in the OSF profile of submitting authors, and narrowing our focus to social science subjects. Today we are taking two more steps:
/1

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 4d

Full thing here archive.ph/64V8s

archive.ph

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 4d

Literally the first scientist quoted in this piece - @emilymbender.bsky.social - says the opposite of what this headline says "scientists say"

Erik Angner @erikangner.com · 4d

"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se

Jack Stilgoe @jackstilgoe.bsky.social · 4d

Has archive.ph stopped working?

archive.ph

Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 5d

this is an all-timer ethnographic vignette for me (from Noriko Milman's 2009 dissertation, "PAY ATTENTION!")

Several teachers measured attentiveness by the amount of active discussion and verbal participation. The following morning wake-up routine in Room 12 illustrates this point to the extreme: After the kids settle in, their teacher announces that they're going to "warm-up" to their motivational pop song, "Unwritten." Ms. Harvey heads to the front of the room to press "PLAY" on the CD player. After a few seconds, the song streams through the small stereo's speakers, "Staring at the blank page before you, Open up the dirty window, Let the sun..." The teacher and most of her students rise to the occasion and begin to swing their hips and shoulders to the beat of the music. The teacher enthusiastically sways her arms in the air, tips her head back, closes her eyes, and shouts the melody of the song. She turns around and shouts with glee, "Get louder! You're not ready for second grade, yet! Let's wake up the school!!" With this, several kids bark the words and move with more fervor, "Feel the rain on your skin! No one else can feel itfor you, Only you can let it in, No one else, No one else..."

Chris Stokel-Walker @stokel.bsky.social · 5d

On a meta/political point of view, I have *no idea* why the Tory front benches haven't stuck the PDF of the OBR forecast into NotebookLM and got a quick readout and started asking questions