Liz Renner

These are the 4 things AI can do well:

•Clean up your email inbox (badly)
•Give my shittiest neighbor (Alan) something to talk about at a party
•Tell a 12 yr old to kill himself
•Incinerate a school at 10:16 AM on a Tuesday

You can see why we need to base our economy around it

Today I want to talk about Jess’ Rule and Martha’s Rule, two new initiatives across NHS England that I think are really important and you should know about.
Tl;dr: if your symptoms are not improving or getting worse, at home or in hospital, you have the right and Drs the responsibility to review.

whyyyyy

Assistant or Associate Professor (111338-0226) at University of Warwick An academic position as a Assistant or Associate Professor (111338-0226) is being advertised on jobs.ac.uk. Click now to find more details and explore additional academic job opportunities.

📢 We’re hiring!

The University of Warwick is recruiting for a full-time, permanent academic position in Psychology, available at either:

🔹 Assistant Professor
🔹 Associate Professor

📅 Application deadline: 5th April 2026

Thread. (TLDR: the House of Lords DCC report on AI came down hard on the correct side of the debate, rather than siding with industry lobbyists.)

They want us to use these tools and then they make it a giant pain to use these tools

@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social members are on strike today in the fight for pay and pensions justice @northumbriauni.bsky.social - but taking time to recuperate and re-energise away from the picket lines, for the struggles ahead! Make the most of it, everyone. ✊✊✊🫶🫶🫶

In these bewildering landscapes (ca. 1689) by Ferdinand van Kessel, 64 cities across 4 continents are depicted as mere backdrops to the antics of animals — the built environment of the human world almost superfluous. More here: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/kessel-four-parts-of-the-world

Yes, in the UK: that was the final nail rather than the only one (garden was "too small" 💀). I'm glad to know that now for any future house hunting.

Take on tomorrow with pay freeze or reduced pension?
@northumbriauni.bsky.social
Thanks, but no thanks!
😡

We want fair pay and fair pensions!

@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social
@ucu.org.uk

Yes. What is selling a house with some asbestos insulation like, I wonder? We passed on one because of a tiny amount in an extension because who knows how much remediation costs. Will there be things that look like this but with AI in the future?

This is a good analogy. Very useful in carefully controlled settings for specific usages, but unfortunately being widely inserted into everything and used without training or PPE and poisoning a lot of things and people and we’re going to pay a tonne of money to remove it safely in the future

Northumbria pics

Another day out and proud on the picket lines today at Northumbria University.

Staff are fighting to defend the Teachers’ Pension Scheme and stop management’s attempt to force them out through pay freezes.

This is about dignity, security and refusing to let pensions be stripped away.

Meet three scientists who said no to Epstein The warning signs included a web search, a mother’s doubts, and inklings of a “sexist attitude”

How did these men know to stay away from Epstein? One googled him, one asked his mom for advice, and one actually listened to what Epstein said to him and quickly realized he was a witless misogynist.

It wasn't that hard, and every scientist who claims they didn't know is either lying or stupid.

Sorry I'm not more open-minded about LLMs, it's just some fucking maniacs shoveled out a bunch of useless bloatware featuring that technology, did not give me any chance to opt out, reorganized the entire economy around it, zeroed out gains made by green energy, and made it impossible to buy RAM

Oh, the Shit You’ll Do After You’re Tenured! We regret to inform you: Today’s not your day Though you’ve sweated and labored Every August through May You have brains in your head And a CV for ...

You have brains in your head
And a CV for miles
(Or so we have read
In your annual files)
But tenure is coming, just a few more years—
And the shit you’ll do, it’ll bring them to tears!

Always check your stylebook! ASM style is "data are"

We're pleased to announce the call for the 2026 Richerson Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research, for a recent PhD dissertation that significantly contributes to the field of CE.

Recipients receive a $300 award, a 3-yr CES membership and CES conference registration.

forms.gle/p4MqcskCs2Yz...

Multispecies Mutualisms - Join Our Research Team! We’re hiring 4 Postdoctoral Research Associates (PDRAs) In this video, members of the team share insights into four exciting PDRA opportunities currently available. If you are ready to take the next s...

1/ Calling all ECRS - we have 4x 3 year post docs on Multispecies Mutualisms working with us at Sheffield. Don't want to read through all the stuff to work out if its right for you? Here is a short video explainer 🎥
digitalmedia.sheffield.ac.uk/media/Multis...

That box may exceed some beloved family pets in age

It’s clear (to me) from LLM debates on here about whether AI can produce a good literature review that there are two paradigms of lit review at work. 🧵…

Curious to know more! They can be polarising figures and if I was a student I would love to know if there is academic work on this

celebrity scientists 👀

AI BOOSTER BINGO The squares read: I might get attacked for saying this Imagine what it'll do in 5 years Al critics are just afraid Al is better than you Everyone is doing it "Levels the playing Field" Your time will be spent on work that MATTERS Your time will be spent correcting the Al's errors MORE VOLUME!! Shit outputs? Switch to [alternate LLM] Yes jobs will be cut... Humans aren't perfect either It's FUN!!! No practical advice "Sorry bluesky" Solution to chronic underfunding What if it could cure cancer??? I made something that appears passable No need for pesky underlings Is it accurate? No. But... Framing human work as "bespoke, hand-crafted" Get with it or get left behind!!! Al critics are luddites This was actually written by AI For more free printables please visit www.timvandevall.com, created by Tim van de Vall, copyright 2013 Dutch Renaissance Press LLC

I made a bingo card

Another great article by @mastroianni.bsky.social on the current #SciencePublishing system.

Don't publish with for-profit publishers like Elsevier, Springer Nature, et al. It's really simple. There are so many cool #PlantScience society journals. #SciPub

See also: bsky.app/profile/soms...

@ucunorthumbria.bsky.social in full effect! We drummed, we whistled, we did the 'hokey-cokey' ('you put your hard work in, they take your pension out...'). Tomorrow is a picket-line quiz, followed by the Hotspur pub. Things hotting up, and not just the weather! 🌞😎🧴

A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator YouTube video by Forbrukerrådet - Norwegian Consumer Council

"Make people dependent enough, and then make it shitty"

Still giggling at this hilarious video from the Norwegian Consumer Council "A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator" which seems a perfect embodiment of Silicon Valley and tech generally these days

www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...

As part of an AI committee at my university, I spent this weekend trying out Claude (Opus 4.6) for writing, and I have to say, far beyond its hallucinations and the usual complaints, it is a baffling experience cognitively. I want to be more precise in my evaluation here than I usually am about AI.

We also do a lot of things out of unfounded (and unfunded) HOPE for better conditions, and universities exploit that and would probably collapse without it. (I wrote a thing: www.lexacademic.com/blog/living-...)