Adam Mosley
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adamjmosley.bsky.social
Adam Mosley
@adamjmosley.bsky.social
620 followers 750 following 380 posts
historian: early modern science & scholarship | book history | collecting & museums | networks | dh-curious |🏳️‍🌈 |🇪🇺| ~he/him~

+ speculative fiction | games | other people's cats & dogs | octopodes | bears | personal views
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adamjmosley.bsky.social
Well the weather sign could be worse for the first day... Happy New Academic Year to those of you who celebrate.
A view over the dunes of Swansea beach to the East of Swansea Bay. The sun is rising over the hills.
September 22, 2025 at 6:26 AM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
Time travel would be useful in my line of work, but it turns out that my superpower is actually spotting astronomical prints being used as set dressing in tv comedy-dramas.
Nicole Kidman in a blue and white dress and a young male actor in a white polo shirt sit on a corner sofa; there is a cup and saucer on the table in front of them, and they are holding hands. (Kidman is playing the younger actor's mother in this drama). On the wall behind are two mounted and framed reproductions of prints from a coloured copy of Tycho Brahe's Astronomiae Instauratae Mechanica (1598).
July 12, 2025 at 5:37 PM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
Oh, and this part of Smith's 'thinking': _sacrifice_ future earnings? Has the Minister for Skills given up entirely on the rhetoric of the 'graduate premium' as the basis for the 'rational choice' to go to university?
Screenshot from online newspaper article. Text reads: Universities should focus on what they're best at, so that the whole sector is stronger. As Jennie Lee put it, "only the best is good enough" for students prepared to sacrifice their time and future earnings to gain a degree from an English university.
May 11, 2025 at 7:20 AM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
A page from a bound book. At the top of the page is some Latin text in manuscript. In the lower half is a hand drawn diagram of an astrolabe plate inside a mater. The diagram is coloured in yellow, red, and green inks, with black-brown lettering.
April 15, 2025 at 9:46 AM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
A page from a bound book. The page is mostly filled with handwritten Latin text, but there is a manuscript diagram which occupies the bottom and right-hand parts of the page: A man holding an astrolabe sighting the top of a tower. There is a figure balanced improbably on the top of the pointy-roofed tower, holding in his left-hand what appears to be a staff with something coming out of its far end. The diagram is coloured in pink, yellow, and green.
April 15, 2025 at 9:44 AM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
A paper instrument attached to a page of a bound book. The instrument is a volvelle, drawn and lettered by hand, with a thread attached to its centre. Parts of the instrument are coloured in green, yellow, pink, and red. Title text states that it represents the epicyle of Mercury. There is further text at the bottom of the page.
April 15, 2025 at 9:39 AM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
I know Sebastian Muenster's Kollegienbuch (1514-1515) has been studied by historians of cartography and geography. Does anyone know if it has been studied by historians of astronomy, instruments, and practical mathematics? Because... (a picture thread).
A paper astrolabe attached to the page of a bound book. The instrument is coloured with yellow green and red washes over the rete and limb; the lettering and symbols are handwritten. The instrument is supported on the page by two Atlas-Hercules figures: bearded, with leaf-crowns in their hair, and furry animal skin for clothes.
April 15, 2025 at 9:35 AM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
@phdhurtbrain.bsky.social -- I hope that you don't mind that I'm using your tweet from 2023 (which no longer exists) in my lecture on early modern news media this week.
Screenshot of tweet from Tobias Wilson-Bates (@PhDhurtBrain): The internet is not an archive I'm realizing, it's far more like broadsides and pamphlets. The vast majority of its content from even 7 years ago is gone.
February 10, 2025 at 1:59 PM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
Well, an HEI not a million miles from where I'm sitting now would like to disagree with you -- see table below. And said institution is currently mobilising all of its pedagogic leads and the teaching staff they guide to go through a process of curriculum reform guided by it....
Screenshot from a university website of a table with two columns. Left-hand column lists Bloom's taxonomic categories (Remembering, Understanding etc.). Right-hand column assigns these to levels of study. For example, Remembering is assigned to levels 3 and 4, and Creating is assigned to levels 7 and 8.
December 6, 2024 at 4:08 PM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
Who says predatory journals don't have standards?
Screenshot of a quarantined e-mail notification. Key text reads: Article Submission open for Original Article(s) if (1) plagiarism of the article is less than 15% including references. (2) article is within scope of journal. (3) article is original and result oriented.
November 29, 2024 at 1:32 PM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
STOP

THIS IS A CUTE ANIMAL PIC CHECKPOINT. PLEASE SHARE A MINIMUM OF ONE (1) CUTE ANIMAL PIC BEFORE PROCEEDING.

THIS IS A PRECAUTIONARY MEASURE TO PRESERVE THE MENTAL HEALTH OF THIS SITE. WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

Meet Zephyr: cute, not so smart, not mine, an Angelino house cat.
A fluffy back and white cat seated on a white-sheet covered bed. One leg is raised; he looks a bit goofy, maybe a bit startled.
November 5, 2024 at 2:05 PM
adamjmosley.bsky.social
I think this Lisbon hotel may be aimed at an (independently wealthy) academic clientele...
Exterior of a modern building, with a car parked in front of it, in the foreground. Text on the building reads: Wine & Books, Lisboa Hotel, *****.
September 14, 2024 at 5:13 PM