Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Mark Elliott

@thatmarkelliott.bsky.social

1.3K followers 530 following 8.2K posts

Cycling, music, political and other random ramblings. Work: language assessment/psychometrics/computer science in some order. Once drew trees and was told it was "better than felling them", which is a start, I guess. Views my own; cat photos will happen.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · Jan 11

This is Hněvín Castle – a picturesque little Czech castle atop a hill, poking out above a sea of clouds. But what fairytale village lies beneath those clouds – are you perhaps already packing your bags to visit? If so, hold on for one moment before you do, for this is The Most 🧵. It will be long. 1/

A small Czech castle atop a hill. The castle has a large walled courtyard, dominated by a chateau-like building with a large lookout tower. The landscape is shrouded in low clouds, with the top of the hill just emerging. There are mountains in the distance. Photo from: https://hradhnevin.cz/en/

6 17 69

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 2h

I feel seen.

Dorian Lynskey @dorianlynskey.bsky.social · 1d

“Keep vast numbers of DVDs, CDs and vinyl in case of cyberattack, middle-aged dads told”

Steve Beresford @lostinmilbury.bsky.social · 1d

Then: the office of the future will be paperless

Now: keep paper records

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 2h

Government by Rasch models

Garvan Walshe @garvanwalshe.org · 3h

Extend a sigmoid function in both directions and you have a welfare system too

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 3h

The whole idea of marginal rates with a few stepped thresholds is a bit archaic, tbh - a marginal rate that increases gradually, e.g. raises every £1,000 (or even a lovely continuous, differentiable function) would be much fairer, although communicating it might be trickier. No cliff edges.

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 2h

But your point stands, of course.

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 2h

I'm not thinking so much here in terms of debates, but more of commincating facts, where there's only so much you can reasonably expect someone to know/understand. Finding the right grain to summarise it while still keeping the information useful (i.e. meaningful) can sometimes be tricky.

1 1

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 3h

... because lose nuances. But if what you communicate is too complex, many people won't understand (or - sometimes worse - will misunderstand), and you won't achieve anything at all. Finding the sweet spot is hard, and you need channels to help clarify things for when people don't understand it.

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 3h

This can be tricky, in the same way that commincating sometimes complex poicies can be tricky. What you communicate needs to be both meaningful and interpretable, and there's an inherent tension between the two: every simplification to some extent degrades the information you're communicating ...

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 3h

I understand it's hard - part of my job is doing this in the context of educational assessment, where you have to distill all sorts of psychometric, psycholinguistic and other info into something that a test taker or user can understand without taking a course in psychometrics/psycholinguistics.

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 3h

That's still not a lovely continuous, differentiable function, mind you...

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 3h

I think communicating complex ideas (not just this instance) and distilling them down into simple summary measures that make sense (e.g. reporting total tax % on a given income, not just the marginal rate - which people sometimes confuse). is an important function of gov that needs skilled people.

1 1 5

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 3h

Rob Ford @robfordmancs.bsky.social · 5h

Two things can be true:
1. Very high marginal rates are bad
2. We shouldn't valorise or romaticise very well off people paying them

It is perfectly possible to redesign tax system so those on over £100k pay more on average, but never face ludicrous marginal rates likely to impact on their choices

Paul Lewis @paullewismoney.bsky.social · 8h

It is may be 3x average pay but 62% tax rate on earnings over £100,000 and cliff edge removal of childcare subsidies limit aspirations of upper middle classes bit.ly/49arr4e misleading to call it ‘working hard’ not ‘being lucky and clever’. Many work very hard on £12.21/hour 48 hours a week or more

2 4 16

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 4h

I don't like the Muc Off normal lube - sticky, messy, generally 'orrible, but I find their ceramic lube excellent.

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 5h

My brain automatically read "RAIN RAIN BARKELS" in Mark E. Smith's voice

Luke Plunkett @lukeplunkett.com · 7h

kids teacher just sent this home as part of an assignment he's doing and i want to smash every computer at the school

1 2

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 18h

You're right, of course, and I was being a bit facetious, but only a bit these days - reading the words of Michael Heseltine the othe day, for example, made me wonder how we got to a place where reasonable centre-right voices seem to have disappeared into a vapour of edgelordism.

The Conservatives must never have any part in Farage’s po...

To describe asylum seekers as thieves or rapists encourages the worst sort of prejudice. We don’t need Trump’s mouthpiece anywhere near No 10

observer.co.uk

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

Oscar Wilde! An essay he wrote called "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

Flashback to 1891...

Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all that this is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure – which, and not labour, is the aim of man – or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work. The fact is, that civilisation requires slaves. The Greeks were quite right there. Unless there are slaves to do the ugly, horrible, uninteresting work, culture and contemplation become almost impossible. Human slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralising. On mechanical slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future of the world depends. And when scientific men are no longer called upon to go down to a depressing East End and distribute bad cocoa and worse blankets to starving people, they will have delightful leisure in which to devise wonderful and marvellous things for their own joy and the joy of everyone else.

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

Just as any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, any sufficiently advanced citizenship education is indistinguishable from lefty campaigning.

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

The committee ... continued to meet for several years and published an interim report in 1939 which contained both ‘a statement arguing that sensation intensities are not measurable’ and ‘a statement arguing that sensation intensities are measurable’ (Nature, 1939:973)

Reposted by Mark Elliott

Nat Cassidy @natcassidy.bsky.social · 3d

This photo of Robert Bloch is the most writer photo to have ever writer photo’d. It is Pure Writer Photo.

39 250 1.1K

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

A postage box, with the lid open a crack. Inside the bo, you can just see a pair aof cat's eyes...

1 2

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

You are now leaving Orwellia - welcome to Kafkaland.

Lauren Ashley Davis @laurenmeidasa.bsky.social · 1d

In a court filing Monday, attorney Patrick Fitzgerald accused the DOJ of withholding information involving its charges, citing that Comey and his legal team can't be trusted with it.

DOJ accused of hiding evidence against James Comey

www.rawstory.com/james-comey-...

DOJ accused of hiding evidence against James Comey

Ex-FBI Director James Comey was narrowly indicted by a grand jury this month, but according to his lawyer the Justice Department is refusing to reveal its evidence against him. In a court filing Monda...

www.rawstory.com

2 3

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

I think I preferred it the time someone said Edward Scissorhands...🥹

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

When people stop offering me a "cup of tea" without warning me that I'm about to drink a mouthful of Chanel No 5, I shall leave Earl Grey out of it, not before 😭

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 1d

Post you from a different era.

Fuzzy photo of me bestriding a stile like a colossus (at least in my imagination) and gazing into the middle distance, somewhere near Lulworth Cove while on a camping holiday with my friends. All I can find rn...

Me, gazing into the middle distance on top of a stile, in Dorset.

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 2d

While Earl Grey tea exists, this is merely a diversion. You need to cut off the snake's head.

Anita Chaudhuri @anitachaudhuri.bsky.social · 2d

This madness must be stopped.

1 4

Mark Elliott @thatmarkelliott.bsky.social · 4d

If only there were people who could go around and find out what the reality is, and then perhaps report on it back to everyone. They could even publish their reporting in print or online, and possibly even make a business out of keeping folk informed about what's happening in the world. If only.

From the New York Times:
"Comparative Calm or 'Hellscape'? In Portland, Depends on the Narrator."

10 60 210