Andrew
@generalising.bsky.social
Not another one to try and remember. We'll see.
Librarian. Scholarly communications, historic MPs, Wikipedia, inter alia other things. Misplaced Scot.
Librarian. Scholarly communications, historic MPs, Wikipedia, inter alia other things. Misplaced Scot.
Reposted by Andrew
Classic New Year’s Day breakfast posted by ‘Homemade Scottish Recipes’ this morning.
January 1, 2026 at 3:25 PM
Classic New Year’s Day breakfast posted by ‘Homemade Scottish Recipes’ this morning.
An unsuccessful evolutionary branch on the way to "every device we used to have was replaced by the smartphone "
December 30, 2025 at 11:35 PM
An unsuccessful evolutionary branch on the way to "every device we used to have was replaced by the smartphone "
Reposted by Andrew
“The tell isn’t that fake citations look wrong. It’s that they look too right. Too convenient. Too perfectly aligned with whatever point the AI is making“
open.substack.com/pub/cardcata...
open.substack.com/pub/cardcata...
How to Spot AI Hallucinations Like a Reference Librarian
The verification tricks that would make fact-checkers weep with joy.
open.substack.com
December 30, 2025 at 6:08 PM
“The tell isn’t that fake citations look wrong. It’s that they look too right. Too convenient. Too perfectly aligned with whatever point the AI is making“
open.substack.com/pub/cardcata...
open.substack.com/pub/cardcata...
Reposted by Andrew
I hate these charts so much because they imply chatgpt is comparable to the internet or phones
You could create the same graphic for full screen pop-up advertising on websites and make them look like ultra-rapid technology adoption when really they were just baked unavoidably into the internet
You could create the same graphic for full screen pop-up advertising on websites and make them look like ultra-rapid technology adoption when really they were just baked unavoidably into the internet
In 2025, AI became pervasive in American life and the economy, with ChatGPT surging in adoption much faster than any other major technology in memory. @nytopinion.nytimes.com
December 30, 2025 at 7:38 AM
I hate these charts so much because they imply chatgpt is comparable to the internet or phones
You could create the same graphic for full screen pop-up advertising on websites and make them look like ultra-rapid technology adoption when really they were just baked unavoidably into the internet
You could create the same graphic for full screen pop-up advertising on websites and make them look like ultra-rapid technology adoption when really they were just baked unavoidably into the internet
Reposted by Andrew
check out this absolutely terrifying ancient babylonian lullaby
October 23, 2025 at 7:02 PM
check out this absolutely terrifying ancient babylonian lullaby
Reposted by Andrew
December 1825: the Liverpool Mercury wants you to know about the exciting new Christmas parlour game
December 27, 2025 at 3:13 PM
December 1825: the Liverpool Mercury wants you to know about the exciting new Christmas parlour game
Reposted by Andrew
You’ll have had your yule-hole …
YULE-HOLE, the hole in the waist-belt to which the buckle is adjusted to allow for repletion after the feasting at #Christmas
Dictionaries of the Scots Language | Dictionars o the Scots Leid
www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/yule
YULE-HOLE, the hole in the waist-belt to which the buckle is adjusted to allow for repletion after the feasting at #Christmas
Dictionaries of the Scots Language | Dictionars o the Scots Leid
www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/yule
![Screenshot from the Dictionaries of the Scots Language | Dictionars o the Scots Leid website:
Yule-hole, the hole in the waist-belt to which the buckle is adjusted to allow for repletion after the feasting at Christmas. See Bore, n.1, 1.(6); (26) […]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:vmd2oqboco524fhpqdu7pnbn/bafkreighjjvnvexn7h7wg3nab447bptsahshiy2dcde2yisuotbemceqpq@jpeg)
December 25, 2025 at 3:22 PM
You’ll have had your yule-hole …
YULE-HOLE, the hole in the waist-belt to which the buckle is adjusted to allow for repletion after the feasting at #Christmas
Dictionaries of the Scots Language | Dictionars o the Scots Leid
www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/yule
YULE-HOLE, the hole in the waist-belt to which the buckle is adjusted to allow for repletion after the feasting at #Christmas
Dictionaries of the Scots Language | Dictionars o the Scots Leid
www.dsl.ac.uk/entry/snd/yule
Reposted by Andrew
Thread of my Christmas gingerbreads 🌌⬇️
December 25, 2025 at 4:58 AM
Thread of my Christmas gingerbreads 🌌⬇️
Reposted by Andrew
This year's gingerbread is the Vera Rubin Observatory! @vrubinobs.bsky.social
December 25, 2025 at 1:34 PM
This year's gingerbread is the Vera Rubin Observatory! @vrubinobs.bsky.social
Reposted by Andrew
i post this story every christmas, and will keep doing so until it stops making me cry
merry christmas xx
merry christmas xx
A real Good Samaritan
One act of kindness that befell Leeds writer Bernard Hare in 1982 changed him profoundly. Here he tells his story.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 25, 2025 at 10:25 AM
i post this story every christmas, and will keep doing so until it stops making me cry
merry christmas xx
merry christmas xx
Morrisons, one hour after closing on Christmas Eve.
December 25, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Morrisons, one hour after closing on Christmas Eve.
Reposted by Andrew
December 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Been thinking about this a lot. I think in another world I would be really excited about generative AI. There are so many fun and interesting things it opens up. But I can't get to the point in *this* world where I am excited by it, just straight to weary and skeptical.
I think this is a really important point. When folks say "no AI" they often don’t mean "I can conceive of no possible use for AI"—they mean "the use cases I’ve been shown do not begin to justify the harms"—that’s not something you respond to by offering another narrow use case
So when I say there is *zero* utility for LLMs, I don't mean there are zero use cases. I mean there are zero use cases that even begin to make up for the damage that's being done.
December 24, 2025 at 5:02 PM
Been thinking about this a lot. I think in another world I would be really excited about generative AI. There are so many fun and interesting things it opens up. But I can't get to the point in *this* world where I am excited by it, just straight to weary and skeptical.
Very much the other end of the social scale, but this reminded me of LF Salzman's discovery of the toys given to Edward I's children a century earlier.
(I forgot to take a copy of the second page - if memory serves, the accounts also recorded paying someone twopence to fix the toys...)
(I forgot to take a copy of the second page - if memory serves, the accounts also recorded paying someone twopence to fix the toys...)
December 23, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Very much the other end of the social scale, but this reminded me of LF Salzman's discovery of the toys given to Edward I's children a century earlier.
(I forgot to take a copy of the second page - if memory serves, the accounts also recorded paying someone twopence to fix the toys...)
(I forgot to take a copy of the second page - if memory serves, the accounts also recorded paying someone twopence to fix the toys...)
Reposted by Andrew
Did medieval people buy each other Christmas gifts? New Year's Day was the main gifting day, but little is known about everyday people's present giving. Our project on London's customs records has uncovered a wealth of affordable items imported around this time: gloves and hats to toys and rattles🧵
Medieval Londoners’ cheaply imported mass-produced Christmas gifts look surprisingly familiar
We often imagine medieval life as dull, dirty and short, with little in the way of material comfort or decoration. However, medieval Londoners were importing toys, treats and trinkets by the boatload ...
theconversation.com
December 22, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Did medieval people buy each other Christmas gifts? New Year's Day was the main gifting day, but little is known about everyday people's present giving. Our project on London's customs records has uncovered a wealth of affordable items imported around this time: gloves and hats to toys and rattles🧵
Reposted by Andrew
This 1974 photo shows, with startling immediacy, a group of freshly-excavated 2,000 year-old Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an, China, with their original vibrant colours. Once exposed to air & sunlight during excavation, the colours started to disappear almost immediately
www.snopes.com/fact-check/t...
www.snopes.com/fact-check/t...
December 23, 2025 at 7:03 AM
This 1974 photo shows, with startling immediacy, a group of freshly-excavated 2,000 year-old Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an, China, with their original vibrant colours. Once exposed to air & sunlight during excavation, the colours started to disappear almost immediately
www.snopes.com/fact-check/t...
www.snopes.com/fact-check/t...
Reposted by Andrew
I think this is a really important point. When folks say "no AI" they often don’t mean "I can conceive of no possible use for AI"—they mean "the use cases I’ve been shown do not begin to justify the harms"—that’s not something you respond to by offering another narrow use case
So when I say there is *zero* utility for LLMs, I don't mean there are zero use cases. I mean there are zero use cases that even begin to make up for the damage that's being done.
December 22, 2025 at 9:15 PM
I think this is a really important point. When folks say "no AI" they often don’t mean "I can conceive of no possible use for AI"—they mean "the use cases I’ve been shown do not begin to justify the harms"—that’s not something you respond to by offering another narrow use case
Reposted by Andrew
AI slop is getting worse. Asked an LLM to sing a Christmas song for me and after one verse about Christmas it descended into increasingly threatening demands for figgy pudding
December 22, 2025 at 6:34 PM
AI slop is getting worse. Asked an LLM to sing a Christmas song for me and after one verse about Christmas it descended into increasingly threatening demands for figgy pudding
Reposted by Andrew
NEW: Organ tuners have been leaving temperature and humidity records in little-known books for decades. 🎹
They reveal how temperatures inside churches have changed over time due to climate change and increased heating.
A new scoop for The Reengineer!
www.thereengineer.pro/p/church-org...
They reveal how temperatures inside churches have changed over time due to climate change and increased heating.
A new scoop for The Reengineer!
www.thereengineer.pro/p/church-org...
Church organ tuning records mirror our warming climate
The records appear to reflect climate change, as well as the increased heating of churches in winter
www.thereengineer.pro
December 22, 2025 at 12:13 PM
NEW: Organ tuners have been leaving temperature and humidity records in little-known books for decades. 🎹
They reveal how temperatures inside churches have changed over time due to climate change and increased heating.
A new scoop for The Reengineer!
www.thereengineer.pro/p/church-org...
They reveal how temperatures inside churches have changed over time due to climate change and increased heating.
A new scoop for The Reengineer!
www.thereengineer.pro/p/church-org...
Reposted by Andrew
slow day in the office so figured we'd start some beef with museums
December 19, 2025 at 11:30 AM
slow day in the office so figured we'd start some beef with museums
Been a year or two since I last tried it so did a dry run of the Christmas glazed ham today.
(Maple sugar and mustard glaze rubbed into the fat, with cloves.)
(Maple sugar and mustard glaze rubbed into the fat, with cloves.)
December 21, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Been a year or two since I last tried it so did a dry run of the Christmas glazed ham today.
(Maple sugar and mustard glaze rubbed into the fat, with cloves.)
(Maple sugar and mustard glaze rubbed into the fat, with cloves.)
Had an Empire biscuit today (for the first time in twenty years, they're still great). Got curious why they were called that ... turns out it is the "freedom fries" of 1914.
![History
The Empire biscuit was originally known as the "Linzer biscuit", and later as the "Deutsch biscuit". With the outbreak of the First World War it was renamed the Empire biscuit.[1]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:phyrjqtsscocqllqjsw2jnqn/bafkreiddr6d366bcroiy2nty3iuc42diaxs3y7g3kfbw5u2ck5gne3lkby@jpeg)
December 20, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Had an Empire biscuit today (for the first time in twenty years, they're still great). Got curious why they were called that ... turns out it is the "freedom fries" of 1914.
This was such shocking news. Paul was one of the nicest people I have ever worked for - thoughtful, welcoming, and always committed to making things better, in so many different ways. We'll all miss him immensely.
We are shocked and saddened to share news of the death of Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost (LCCOS: Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science). Paul will be hugely missed in LCCOS and beyond, and our thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues.
Read our tribute: https://bit.ly/3XZKE25
Read our tribute: https://bit.ly/3XZKE25
In memoriam: Dr Paul Ayris, BA, PhD, FRHist
Remembering Dr Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost (LCCOS).
www.ucl.ac.uk
December 19, 2025 at 2:57 PM
This was such shocking news. Paul was one of the nicest people I have ever worked for - thoughtful, welcoming, and always committed to making things better, in so many different ways. We'll all miss him immensely.
enthralled to discover that the fancy NZ chocolate makers I am ordering presents for family from have a 72-piece $216 "catering assortment" option. what kind of catering do they envisage!
December 18, 2025 at 11:02 PM
enthralled to discover that the fancy NZ chocolate makers I am ordering presents for family from have a 72-piece $216 "catering assortment" option. what kind of catering do they envisage!