@eltonteb
Prof of Greek Literature & Culture at The Open University | working-class Classicist | still delighting in Homer | dabbling in the digital | grappling with the politics of form & linked data | Pelagios partnership sec | hello to Jason | love the show Steve
A reminder that Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch and the entire Conservative-supporting press have spent the past week lambasting Keir Starmer for not joining the Iran war.
Here's what has happened since then to public opinion
Trump's decision to bomb Iran is now the greatest windfall to the Russian war effort on record. If it continues, it might save the Russian war economy.
'The systems now being woven into education are shaped by a remarkably small group of people. Not “the internet” as the source of training material. Not “society” influencing the way we use these tools.'
Fascinating that this comes from within Jisc. 1/3
So we're nine days into the Iran War and so far we've managed to push the price of oil to $108 a barrel and replace the dangerous hardliner Supreme Leader Khamenei with the even more hardline...::checks notes::
::double checks notes::
Supreme Leader Khamenei.
Junior.
In Gaza, Israel and Biden normalized war crimes beyond anything we have seen before.
And now, Israel and Trump are using that model against Iranian civilians.
At least 13 hospitals and health facilities hit during attacks on Iran, WHO says
www.theguardian.com/global-devel...
The asymmetry of the value placed on human life is so striking. Israel has a goal to recover 40-year-old remains; to do so, it invades a sovereign country, and the lives of 26 Lebanese are an afterthought. Their names not even worth printing in the New York Times.
BBC Verify has pieced together verified videos, satellite imagery and expert views after a deadly attack near a primary school in Minab, souther Iran, which suggest the area was hit more than once "by multiple simultaneous or near-simultaneous strikes".
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Donald Trump must find a way to cut short his ill-considered conflict with Iran. His rash approach is sowing chaos econ.st/3OYibZ1
Quietly, calmly and forensically, BBC just dismantled the Trump communications shitshow on Iran.
No hyperbole, just laying out an unprecedented military, diplomatic and reputational shambles.
Worth a watch.
(🎥 BBC News/BBC Verify)
Apply to join my team by 3/16!
Be the Library of Virginia's born-digital collections coordinator, leading planning and management of electronic gov/manuscript records. We're looking for a techie archivist type who can help improve access to our born-digital wonders.
$78k-$88k in Richmond VA.
A lot of people say AI isn't very good for the world and its outputs are routinely unreliable, but these haters fail to see how it's revolutionizing how we incinerate schoolchildren.
EXCLUSIVE: The strike that destroyed a school in Minab, Iran was larger than has been previously reported. A nearby clinic was also hit.
The evidence suggests a precision strike against an IRGC base that was adjacent to the school.
www.npr.org/2026/03/04/n...
The big water scandal
We're live on YouTube with the brilliant @feargalsharkey.bsky.social
He's got opinions....
youtu.be/MPo3_0DjgyU
Jansen Ganesh is on fire in this column on the UK’s role in the Iran conflict
www.ft.com/content/eaee...
Private Eye: Is the supreme leader dead? Rubio: No, Trump always looks like this. Mission accomplished? Trump: Yes. I’ve killed the Epstein story. What happens next? Trump: Popular revolt and regime change. Rubio: In America? Why have you started this war? Trump: So that I can stop it. Rubio: I’ll ring the Nobel Committee.
@privateeyenews.bsky.social saves our sanity:
The number of commentators/journalists salivating at blaming Starmer for ruining the “special relationship” is genuinely pathetic
If anyone ruined it- if it even really exists- here’s a reminder of who did it.
To be fair, who among us hasn't made plans that snuck up on us unexpectedly, leaving hundreds of people entrusted to our care stranded overseas as bombs rain down on 10 countries, closing airports and sending energy prices soaring worldwide, and instantly destroying billions in market value?
It's not Roosevelt we're dealing with. Hell, it's not even Nixon.
"We called London a war zone and moved to Dubai by mistake"
Tactically interesting call by Badenoch to be so gung ho about backing the war when a decent chunk of her own voters oppose.
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
This week's cover @thelancet.com
Building benchmarks is only one way scholars can help steer AI development. We can also measure the effects of AI on students, build better datasets, or tune new open models. Openness itself could be our most important contribution. Universities have huge libraries, and the legal doctrine of fair use should protect models trained on those collections for a nonprofit educational purpose. At the moment, we are not pressing this advantage. Higher education has been so cautious about fair use that the private sector can now train more freely on our libraries (via Google Books) than is possible for academic AI researchers. We need to be bolder: It is our duty to ensure library collections remain open to the public in a form that empowers 21st-century readers. If our intellectual heritage gets enclosed in proprietary tools, we will find ourselves making the same bad bargain we made with scientific publishers, who sell our own research back to us at a steep markup.
We're in a strange situation rn where Google can train freely on books from university libraries—but researchers *at* universities have limited access. I'm optimistic this can be fixed, but if you're in admin or working at a foundation, please know: univs are failing here & resources are needed.
I've just filled this in. Pls dear followers, take time to do so before 10th March. Future of #BBC+ #publicservicebroadcasting depends on proper, stable funds+placing guardrails to prevent populist right-wing attacks on BBC. Pls say BBC needs a permanent Charter,so it can't be easily dismantled. 1/
“I don’t think the progressives beat us,” he added. “I think the progressives were told how to vote and I think what you saw was a coalition of Islamists and woke progressives that came together to dominate the constituency.”
Or, as some would call it Matt, democracy.
I learned English grammar when I started to learn ancient Greek at university. Until then, I had no idea what a relative clause was. It was like a whole new world opened up for me.
Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian boy and stood around as he bled to death, video shows www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
