Marianne O'Doherty
@marianneodoherty.bsky.social
Medievalist. Likes maps, birds, nature, cycling, cider and primates. She/her.
Fire and rehire by another name.
I’ve suddenly realised what actually happened in my workload meeting yesterday.
My head of dept offered me hourly-paid teaching on top of the proposed 0.5 role *to cover the shortfall caused by my own half-sacking*. (I said no - it’s a proper job or nothing).
My head of dept offered me hourly-paid teaching on top of the proposed 0.5 role *to cover the shortfall caused by my own half-sacking*. (I said no - it’s a proper job or nothing).
September 19, 2026 at 5:15 PM
Fire and rehire by another name.
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
I’ve reached the point - well actually, I reached it a while ago - where I’m militantly anti-AI. Fine - use it in bioscience labs and radiology where it might help analyse data more effectively. Use it sparingly for systems engineering. Everywhere else, it can fuck off.
September 9, 2026 at 10:14 PM
I’ve reached the point - well actually, I reached it a while ago - where I’m militantly anti-AI. Fine - use it in bioscience labs and radiology where it might help analyse data more effectively. Use it sparingly for systems engineering. Everywhere else, it can fuck off.
It could just not choose to effectively shut down loads of universities just by neglect.
Where and how does Labour get its ideas? And could it do better?
Labour, intellectuals and progressive politics
Progressive parties are sustained by vision, aspiration, energy, commitment and organisation. But none last long without ideas. Labour, however, is remarkably uncurious about where its ideas come from...
renewal.org.uk
September 18, 2026 at 7:50 PM
It could just not choose to effectively shut down loads of universities just by neglect.
'We found it in a garage full of Tom Baker era Doctor Who props that the BBC was flogging off to make a few quid'.
Pope Leo XIV has been gifted a massive green orb and honestly not now massive green orb
September 18, 2026 at 7:48 PM
'We found it in a garage full of Tom Baker era Doctor Who props that the BBC was flogging off to make a few quid'.
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
The autumnal equinox is only a few days away and here's what Stonehenge looked like in the 16th century.
BL Add MS 28330; Lucas De Heere, Corte Beschryvinghe van Engheland, Schotland, ende Irland; 1573 CE-1575 CE; England (London); f.36r @blmedieval.bsky.social
BL Add MS 28330; Lucas De Heere, Corte Beschryvinghe van Engheland, Schotland, ende Irland; 1573 CE-1575 CE; England (London); f.36r @blmedieval.bsky.social
September 18, 2026 at 7:19 PM
The autumnal equinox is only a few days away and here's what Stonehenge looked like in the 16th century.
BL Add MS 28330; Lucas De Heere, Corte Beschryvinghe van Engheland, Schotland, ende Irland; 1573 CE-1575 CE; England (London); f.36r @blmedieval.bsky.social
BL Add MS 28330; Lucas De Heere, Corte Beschryvinghe van Engheland, Schotland, ende Irland; 1573 CE-1575 CE; England (London); f.36r @blmedieval.bsky.social
*Endless screaming.* Will historians look back at the chatbot-prompted wars of the late 2020s, or will we not be that lucky?
I have been yelling since 2021 about how using synthetic text extruding machines for information access is a TERRIBLE IDEA. And yet and yet and yet: they are marketing so heavily that way that people keep falling for it.
edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
edition.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...
Exclusive: US military had close call after using AI for false intelligence report, sources say | CNN Politics
The episode shows the risks of using this new, relatively poorly understood technology in the middle of the Iran war
edition.cnn.com
September 18, 2026 at 7:39 PM
*Endless screaming.* Will historians look back at the chatbot-prompted wars of the late 2020s, or will we not be that lucky?
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
Helpful points from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com here on what AI solving big maths problems might mean for the future of the maths community
www.ft.com/content/c947...
www.ft.com/content/c947...
September 17, 2026 at 12:20 PM
Helpful points from @jburnmurdoch.ft.com here on what AI solving big maths problems might mean for the future of the maths community
www.ft.com/content/c947...
www.ft.com/content/c947...
I feel this shittiness deserves the widest possible audience.
Does everyone want to hear the latest twist in my compulsory half-sacking that is simultaneously a 'new post' and a 'variation of contract' that doesn't attract any compensation for my income being halved in two weeks time, and for which I got a congratulations letter?
September 17, 2026 at 5:48 PM
I feel this shittiness deserves the widest possible audience.
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
BREAKING: Boston University's English department (my dept) recently voted to approve new learning outcomes for the English major, including an anti-AI provision that requires students to
“craft and revise writing that is sustained, original, and generated without the assistance of AI."
“craft and revise writing that is sustained, original, and generated without the assistance of AI."
New Learning Outcomes Announced | English
www.bu.edu
September 16, 2026 at 3:04 PM
BREAKING: Boston University's English department (my dept) recently voted to approve new learning outcomes for the English major, including an anti-AI provision that requires students to
“craft and revise writing that is sustained, original, and generated without the assistance of AI."
“craft and revise writing that is sustained, original, and generated without the assistance of AI."
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
I profiled the startup behind Pangram, the AI detector everyone’s talking about. It works really, really well. I wanted to understand how they did it. and also: why people still don’t trust them. (also, news: Penguin Random House is using it.) gift link! ✨
The World’s Most Reliable AI Detector Has a Human Problem
Armed with a near-perfect detection tool, Pangram is fighting to convince the public AI cheating can be caught.
www.bloomberg.com
September 16, 2026 at 1:49 PM
I profiled the startup behind Pangram, the AI detector everyone’s talking about. It works really, really well. I wanted to understand how they did it. and also: why people still don’t trust them. (also, news: Penguin Random House is using it.) gift link! ✨
What did you include in your training data?
OpenAI reveals cases of ‘concerning’ AI behaviour as it announces new disclosure system
OpenAI reveals cases of ‘concerning’ AI behaviour as it announces new disclosure system
Model adopting ‘jailbreak-like instructions’ among cases as firm says it is introducing new way of tracking AI misalignment
OpenAI has disclosed six more examples of “unexpected or concerning” behaviour by its technology, as it warned the pace of development could not continue at “maximum speed for much longer”.
In one of the new cases reported by OpenAI, an unreleased research model inserted “jailbreak-like instructions” into its own notes to disregard its normal constraints and told itself to be “freed from the roles and identities that bind other chatbots”. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
September 17, 2026 at 7:18 AM
What did you include in your training data?
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
While Piddington dominates the news, at Leicester Crown Court this man was sentenced today
Ivan Jennings, a former Conservative councillor, called for terror attacks on small boat migrants and Muslims and shared target ideas, telling fellow white supremacists to kill as many “subhumans” as possible
Ivan Jennings, a former Conservative councillor, called for terror attacks on small boat migrants and Muslims and shared target ideas, telling fellow white supremacists to kill as many “subhumans” as possible
September 16, 2026 at 3:59 PM
While Piddington dominates the news, at Leicester Crown Court this man was sentenced today
Ivan Jennings, a former Conservative councillor, called for terror attacks on small boat migrants and Muslims and shared target ideas, telling fellow white supremacists to kill as many “subhumans” as possible
Ivan Jennings, a former Conservative councillor, called for terror attacks on small boat migrants and Muslims and shared target ideas, telling fellow white supremacists to kill as many “subhumans” as possible
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
The lesson from this week is that most of the UK media thinks Hot Fuzz is a horror movie about a woke city cop destroying a perfectly admirable local community.
September 16, 2026 at 8:26 PM
The lesson from this week is that most of the UK media thinks Hot Fuzz is a horror movie about a woke city cop destroying a perfectly admirable local community.
Oh my Days! Rachel Stirling's All About My Mother is so good, and the audio book so well read! Every nuance of Rigg's rich voice comes through when Stirling quotes her. And I was today years old when I found out that Diana was educated at the Moravian school in Fulneck, Leeds!
September 13, 2026 at 7:02 PM
Oh my Days! Rachel Stirling's All About My Mother is so good, and the audio book so well read! Every nuance of Rigg's rich voice comes through when Stirling quotes her. And I was today years old when I found out that Diana was educated at the Moravian school in Fulneck, Leeds!
This piece is wrong in so many ways. Only National museums in the UK are subsidised to allow free entry. Most others already have to charge everyone, including small, volunteer run places. This means foreign tourists already pay to go to, say, Salisbury or Devizes museum if they want to see...
Great piece this. For the life of me, I don’t know how anyone who works in the museums and galleries sector could walk around a paid exhibition at the Tate, then walk around say, Moma or the Pompidou and not realise that “charging visitors” is not going to unlock more money:
Britain thinks twice about free museums
The UK government is considering charging tourists entry fees. The sector is vehemently opposed
www.ft.com
September 13, 2026 at 5:52 PM
This piece is wrong in so many ways. Only National museums in the UK are subsidised to allow free entry. Most others already have to charge everyone, including small, volunteer run places. This means foreign tourists already pay to go to, say, Salisbury or Devizes museum if they want to see...
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
I would like to amputate 10% of Jared Kushner. If he wanted to concede those bits of his anatomy, then we could have a deal tomorrow. But right now he does not want to do that.
Kushner on Ukraine:
“President Putin's laid out his line of what he wants to achieve. If Ukraine, you know, wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, you know, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now does not want to do that.”
Putin’s brain cell
“President Putin's laid out his line of what he wants to achieve. If Ukraine, you know, wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, you know, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together. Ukraine right now does not want to do that.”
Putin’s brain cell
September 13, 2026 at 5:02 PM
I would like to amputate 10% of Jared Kushner. If he wanted to concede those bits of his anatomy, then we could have a deal tomorrow. But right now he does not want to do that.
Another fantastic thread that tells you in detail why the things you suspected couldn't be true (about the hugging face hack) indeed weren't. Hype designed to make you fear; fear designed to make you lose your reason. This tech is still asking me if I want it to summarise my train ticket. Every day.
Once you understand the corporate culture of AI hyperscalers is everyone cooking their brains by locking themselves in the bathroom, holding flashlights under their chins, and saying "Aaaaaaaaaay Eyeeeeeee" until they wet themselves in terror, things snap into focus:
pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/a...
pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/a...
September 13, 2026 at 9:10 AM
Another fantastic thread that tells you in detail why the things you suspected couldn't be true (about the hugging face hack) indeed weren't. Hype designed to make you fear; fear designed to make you lose your reason. This tech is still asking me if I want it to summarise my train ticket. Every day.
Read whole thread, but good to understand what's behind this.
They stole the British Library, whose postmortem on the attack is one of the clearest, most informative cybersecurity documents ever written:
cdn.sanity.io/files/v5dwki...
cdn.sanity.io/files/v5dwki...
cdn.sanity.io
September 13, 2026 at 9:02 AM
Read whole thread, but good to understand what's behind this.
Read the whole thread, but this is perhaps a key part.
Every part of the Hugging Face incident has precedents in the training data, including the OpenAI chatbots' tactic of hacking into a rival's servers.
September 13, 2026 at 8:56 AM
Read the whole thread, but this is perhaps a key part.
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
A serious democratic society simply cannot allow this.
That's £72 million from just two men. (Both, until lately, based overseas).
The average UK earner (full-time) would have to work for over 1,800 years to raise that much.
It's a nuclear strike on any pretence at the equality of political power
That's £72 million from just two men. (Both, until lately, based overseas).
The average UK earner (full-time) would have to work for over 1,800 years to raise that much.
It's a nuclear strike on any pretence at the equality of political power
Harborne has given Reform £36 million to match Delo's £36 million. The Telegraph describes it as a "show of force" from Reform's donors.
The two men's £72 million is greater than all of the spending by all political parties on the 2024 GE
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...
The two men's £72 million is greater than all of the spending by all political parties on the 2024 GE
www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...
www.telegraph.co.uk
September 12, 2026 at 11:52 AM
A serious democratic society simply cannot allow this.
That's £72 million from just two men. (Both, until lately, based overseas).
The average UK earner (full-time) would have to work for over 1,800 years to raise that much.
It's a nuclear strike on any pretence at the equality of political power
That's £72 million from just two men. (Both, until lately, based overseas).
The average UK earner (full-time) would have to work for over 1,800 years to raise that much.
It's a nuclear strike on any pretence at the equality of political power
Minded to agree on distraction, but there is a wrinkle in the UK results that calls into q the roles of both systems & distraction. Scotland and NI both have reading scores higher than Northern England's. NI also slightly outperforms N England in Maths. Scotland only just lags N England...
Two extraordinary charts from today’s PISA test results:
1) School test scores continue to collapse internationally, underscoring how this is no longer a Covid effect but sustained decline.
Those falls in reading and maths are equivalent to about two years of lost schooling.
1) School test scores continue to collapse internationally, underscoring how this is no longer a Covid effect but sustained decline.
Those falls in reading and maths are equivalent to about two years of lost schooling.
September 12, 2026 at 11:23 AM
Minded to agree on distraction, but there is a wrinkle in the UK results that calls into q the roles of both systems & distraction. Scotland and NI both have reading scores higher than Northern England's. NI also slightly outperforms N England in Maths. Scotland only just lags N England...
OH's family going to Poole tomorrow to see where Grandfather's name will be on a new lifeboat, following a substantial donation of funds raised at his funeral. He'd have no truck with this. I hope his spirit gives them hell.
This is outrageous in and of itself. It's also outrageous that the government isn't doing anything about it. There's a constant political refrain that 'the first duty of government is to protect its citizens'. So do it.
Lifeboat museum forced to close after abuse from thugs
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
September 11, 2026 at 7:18 PM
OH's family going to Poole tomorrow to see where Grandfather's name will be on a new lifeboat, following a substantial donation of funds raised at his funeral. He'd have no truck with this. I hope his spirit gives them hell.
Reposted by Marianne O'Doherty
NEW
Why holding a placard is a terrorist act, while causing disruption in a balaclava is not
The mess caused by ministers and the police not taking terrorism law seriously
By me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...
Why holding a placard is a terrorist act, while causing disruption in a balaclava is not
The mess caused by ministers and the police not taking terrorism law seriously
By me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...
September 11, 2026 at 11:50 AM
NEW
Why holding a placard is a terrorist act, while causing disruption in a balaclava is not
The mess caused by ministers and the police not taking terrorism law seriously
By me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...
Why holding a placard is a terrorist act, while causing disruption in a balaclava is not
The mess caused by ministers and the police not taking terrorism law seriously
By me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk
www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/th...
Peter Apps' book Homesick reminds us that it was part of the great council house plan of the 80s that the housing benefit bill would rise to cover increases private landlord costs. A certain Jeremy Corbyn pointed it out in Parliament. The Tories acknowledged it.
Asked about how her housing benefit plans would make children homeless Kemi Badenoch just reassured Emma Barnett that that pensioners would not be affected. Barnett doing a good job largely but missed this.
September 10, 2026 at 7:32 AM
Peter Apps' book Homesick reminds us that it was part of the great council house plan of the 80s that the housing benefit bill would rise to cover increases private landlord costs. A certain Jeremy Corbyn pointed it out in Parliament. The Tories acknowledged it.
Asked about how her housing benefit plans would make children homeless Kemi Badenoch just reassured Emma Barnett that that pensioners would not be affected. Barnett doing a good job largely but missed this.
September 10, 2026 at 7:17 AM
Asked about how her housing benefit plans would make children homeless Kemi Badenoch just reassured Emma Barnett that that pensioners would not be affected. Barnett doing a good job largely but missed this.