John Peters

Great. Glad to hear it. Though sounds like you now need a quiet week. Hehe. Especially on certain days.

Job tats

Mocking people for their class is discrimination – so why don’t we treat it as such? Toni Beardmore, Lecturer in Human Geography, Aberystwyth University Many people can recall moments when they have been mocked, judged or subtly excluded because of where they are from, how they speak ...

Class-based cultural markers such as accent continue to shape how people are perceived and treated. This is how class inequality shapes our confidence, our self-worth and our sense of place in society, injuring us in hidden ways ✍️ Toni Beardmore, Aberystwyth University

'Hezbollah is a spent force and Israel is going in for the kill.' @emile-hokayem.bsky.social on #c4news who says the conflict is spreading 'quickly and dnagerously' in interesting interview with @krishgm.bsky.social

Indonesia suspends its participation in Board of Peace

“Indonesian FM Sugiono said the decision to suspend participation was taken because of the latest military escalation in the region, which has directly affected the foreign policy priorities of countries involved in the initiative”

'As this air war goes on, without a clear goal, let alone an end in sight, its price likely to be felt ever more widely.' End of good report by Harry Fawcett #c4news

Tentacles

Patient operated on in Gibraltar — by a surgeon in London Remote robotic surgery allowed Paul Buxton to have a prostate tumour removed in a ‘historic moment’

Professor Prokar Dasgupta sat at a console in London, connected to a surgical robot in Gibraltar with a camera attached. A video link streamed the surgery back as Dasgupta controlled the robot’s mechanical “hands”, which have tools attached.
(£) www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcar...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez: “A country that always defends human rights and international law, like Spain, earns the respect of the entire world, as has happened in recent weeks.”

The faster digital tech developed, the more data we lost — until now Cambridge computer scientists have unveiled Project Silica in a move to finally match our Stone Age ancestors in recording information that can last lifetimes

what’s known as the digital dark ages — a gap in the historical record coinciding with the arrival of the computer. You see the digital dark ages in the floppy disks in landfill. In Wikipedia citations that lead to 404 errors.
(£) www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...
By @whippletom.bsky.social

Is the CIA using radio to instruct Iran agents? Listen for yourself An amateur sleuth thinks ghostly broadcasts are a revival of Cold War ‘numbers stations’

Thousands of amateur radio operators search for so-called numbers stations used by state spy agencies to send sequences to agents, ready with code books to jot down instructions.
(£) www.thetimes.com/world/middle...

Text: Energy reform Sir, Further to your report “Energy bills ‘to rise’ as gas prices surge” (Mar 5), the central problem is not the price of liquefied natural gas per se but that this relatively small sliver of our overall energy demand drives the cost of most household energy bills, not only of gas consumption but also because gas generally sets the wholesale price of electricity, even though it now comprises less than 40 per cent of power generation in the UK and Europe. In recent wholesale auctions, renewables have proved cheaper than the wholesale electricity price. Yet consumers cannot in any efficient way readily access this growing pool of electricity from home-grown renewables. The crisis again emphasises that gas-generated power and renewables are not really the same commodity and deserve distinct and tailored market structures. Unless and until that occurs, no amount of policy tinkering can overcome the volatility imposed by geopolitical events outside our control. Michael Grubb Professor of energy and climate change, University College London

Letter from @michaeljgrubb.bsky.social in Times today

Would I have blocked the US military  like Starmer? I believe in the rules General Sir Nick Carter, former chief of the defence staff, says where the West went wrong in Afghanistan and what he thinks of Trump’s war

One one side is Starmer, public opinion and the former chief of the defence staff.

On the other, are much of print media and the flag-waving right who hate their country and want to be subservient to the USA.

(£)
www.thetimes.com/uk/defence/a...

@aliquack.bsky.social Birthday greetings, Ali. Hope all is well and you have a good day and many more to come.

Uta Frith: why I no longer think autism is a spectrum The autism spectrum has widened to the point of collapse, affecting how teachers should support autistic pupils in the classroom, researcher Uta Frith tells Helen Amass

Super interview with @utafrith.bsky.social on the ever expanding spectrum of “autism” www.tes.com/magazine/tea...

The UK used less coal in 2025 than they did in 1600, when Shakespeare was writing Hamlet. Source: buff.ly/Ifmz1Eo

Xi’s silence on Iran shows China is a fair-weather friend Beijing’s tepid statement on the ayatollah attack read like a communiqué by an EU bureaucrat. Has Trump’s ferocity forced it to abandon an ally?

Interesting analysis.
(£) www.thetimes.com/world/asia/a...
Arguably Xi is the leader who is genuinely transactional: he'll deal with anyone and doesn't get involved on either side if he can avoid it.

The forgotten female painters who rivalled the Old Masters Painters such as Judith Leyster and Clara Peeters saw themselves as equals to Rembrandt and Vermeer but art historians buried them, say curators

Less well known, and some even entirely forgotten, are the female artists whose works were often falsely attributed to their male contemporaries. A new exhibition at Ghent’s Museum of Fine Arts now showcases the work of these largely unknown artists.
(£) www.thetimes.com/world/europe...

FDA’s controversial vaccine chief will exit agency next month | CNN The US Food and Drug Administration’s head of vaccines and biologic medicines will leave the agency at the end of April, a spokesperson confirmed to CNN on Friday.

Vinay Prasad has been an a noxious influence on public health and drug regulation. Good riddance. UCSF should not take him back. He should wander in the wilderness forever. www.cnn.com/2026/03/06/h...

This isn't 4D chess. Odd that people are struggling to understand the policy (which seems pretty sound to me).

After sinking Iranian ship, did the US Navy commit a war crime? Hegseth says rules of engagement are 'stupid' but leaving survivors to drown violates laws America helped to put in place after World War II

Some thoughts:
"I can't assess whether the U.S. undertook ‘all possible measures’ to search for and collect the shipwrecked without having a better idea of what was possible in this situation. But I certainly think the U.S. military needs to explain itself.”
responsiblestatecraft.org/sinking-iran...

it's always nice to be reminded of how incredible a public speaker Barack Obama is. here's part of his eulogy of Jesse Jackson

Chapter: Can Automatic Calculating Machines Be Said to Think? page 119. Turing is talking: "... number of times, and that sometimes they really are dealing with a man and not a machine. That will prevent them saying "It must be a machine" every time without proper consideration. Well, that's my test. Of course I am not saying at present either that machines really could pass the test, or that they couldn't. My suggestion is just that this is the question we should discuss. It's not the same as "Do machines think", but it seems near enough for our present purpose, and raises much the same difficulties. Newman: I should like to be there when your match between a man and a machine takes place, and perhaps to try my hand at making up some of the questions. But that will be a long time from now, if the machine is to stand any chance with no questions barred? Turing: Oh yes, at least 100 years, I should say."

Here Turing says he expects it would take at least 100 years for a machine to pass the Imitation Game in front of a jury of ordinary people. So that's beyond 2050.

What if the use of psychoactive substances, particularly alcohol consumption, had been a factor in the rise of socio-political complexity throughout human history?

Addressing this question is not easy, but it is worth trying 👇🏼

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Sheep are disappearing from the UK's hills - and its dinner plates Have we have passed

'Sheep are only ever trying to do one of three things: "Escape, or die, or escape and then immediately die."' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Location perhaps, but not to hit a school. Likely an intelligence failure.

(Of course, not trying to excuse it in anyway. It's awful and they should face up to it and admit it.)

I don't think the US targeted that school. But that's what happens in war: innocent people, including children, get killed. #c4news

I thought that whole interview with Lammy talking to Paul McNamara was brilliant. #c4news