Dr Naomi Scott

12 Nov 2024

Oh wow it’s suddenly all happening over here! Hello new followers! I occasionally post about Ancient Greek jokes (mostly rude) and ancient encyclopaedias (sadly almost never rude, but weird AF so I mostly forgive them).

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

ft.comBritish Library to burn through reserves to recover from cyber attackLondon-based institution faces spending millions of pounds to rebuild most digital services

Replying to @eicathomefinn.bsky.social

This removes from view the subjects most UK undergraduates and taught postgraduates study, subjects that by the government's own data outperform STEM subjects internationally (www.gov.uk/government/p... ) and that top many QS rankings. Our infrastructure is under attack, if only we could see it.

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

researchagenda.newsThe UK can’t make the most of its research infrastructure if we can’t see itA world-leading research system needs world-leading infrastructure – and it needs to know where it is

Yet another "expert" review that fails to recognise that research infrastructure exists outside STEM and Medicine. Yet no rocket science is required to find studies of the infrastructure that powers SHAPE research: www.sas.ac.uk/national-rol...

Kudos to whoever did the Halloween decorations at the Classics library this year, truly outstanding work @joliheroics.bsky.social

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Liesbeth Corens

@onslies.bsky.social

A 1000 times this. Staff who are trying to protect something they care about, they know the value of beyond the mere accounting tricks get treated like trespassers and troublemakers by those who don't seem to actually value what the institution is? #UKHE in a nutshell unison.org.uk/magazine/fea...

Niche academic publishing Q: has the ‘sorry you can’t have nice book titles you have to front-load all the key words for Google’ thing shifted at all now that Google is *insert chosen swear* –ing useless, and Google Scholar even more so?

It’s just I really want to call the Pollux book something nice (it’s really nice!) and 18m ago the press were not very happy about that idea and now I’m wondering if it’s a good moment to revisit that discussion.

Booking some conference travel. How the fuck does my train to Newcastle cost almost 50 quid more than my flight to Athens?!?!? The world is so broken.

@michaelmorrisphil.bsky.social

Also the Key Travel Portal is a portal to hell. I’ve been up since 6am, at my desk since 9:45 (thanks for nothing, storm Austen) and so far my sole achievement has been to confirm one (1) hotel booking.

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Dr Victoria Austen

@vickyausten.bsky.social

LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE AT THE BACK!

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Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Michael Morris

Absolutely this. A lot of the TEF 'teaching quality' metrics in fact test the economic and class status of the parents of the students who take particular courses at particular universities. If they're given 'teeth', they become a way of resisting social mobility.

Dr Naomi Scott@drnaomiscott.bsky.social

Indeed, a lot of those metrics are better proxies for your students’ economic/class background (completion rates, graduate employment statistics) than they are for anything that happens in the classroom.

timeshighereducation.comStudent recruitment cuts at poor performers as TEF ‘given teeth’Providers awarded ‘requires improvement’ rating to have cohorts reduced by 10 per cent a year as new OfS chief executives get tough on poor-quality provision

Your regular reminder that the Teaching Excellence Framework does not in fact evaluate teaching quality, but uses a bunch of proxy metrics that have bugger all to do with teaching quality.

Margot Finn@eicathomefinn.bsky.social

'Revised proposals for the new English quality system unveiled on 22 October will see those dubbed below par subjected to harsher sanctions than first planned, with enforced reductions on student recruitment being mooted.'

Merchant Adventurers’ Hall

How well I explain the Greek system of tense and aspect (very well thanks for asking) has a lot less influence on completion rates than how many hours of part time work my students are or are not juggling, for example.

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

@merchantshallyork.org

As Halloween is round the corner we thought we’d share some medieval bats. A thread… 🧵 🦇

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Chaucer Doth Tweet

@levostregc.bsky.social

Be the weirde noyses you wisshe to heare yn the forest

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Charlotte Lydia Riley

@lottelydia.bsky.social

i know enshittification discourse is getting boring, but 'has nobody published on this topic or is google scholar just fucked' is a really annoying part of a research process these days

This is a really interesting thread. I think the other thing that a university is *supposed* to provide is an intellectual community. I think that’s really important!! But increases in bureaucracy and workloads mean it’s actually hard to cultivate this kind of informal intangible community stuff.

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I also think this kind of intangible stuff disappears the more you try to measure it, which is fun. Like the answer to diminished community & research culture is not to instigate a bunch of surveys and bring in a bunch of consultants to find out how you can do it better. It’s to do less other stuff.

For what it’s worth I feel like I really DO have a great sense of research community at the moment, but that feels like something that’s happening IN SPITE OF institutional structures right now, not because of them.

Ah yes. Monday.

Your Daily Homer@dailyhomer.bsky.social

Your day will be like... a huge rolling rock, wrenched from a cliff by a river, crashing on till it finally comes to rest. Iliad 13.136-43

PSA those tiny weird looking decorative pumpkins being sold as decorations in all the supermarkets right now are delicious. This week I’ve had ghost munchkins, a mini acorn, and a tiny delicata. Got my eye on those funny bulgy ones next (turban squash? I think?)

Spinach macaroni cheese stuffed into ghost munchkins, currently browning in the oven for the kids’ supper

@josephinequinn.bsky.social

Omg its so good (so bad) I love it

Armand D’Angour@armanddangour.bsky.social

A funny ancient Greek epigram: “A grammarian’s daughter who slept with her suitor Gave birth to a child that was masc., fem., and neuter!” Γραμματικοῦ θυγάτηρ ἔτεκεν φιλότητι μιγεῖσα παιδίον ἀρσενικόν, θηλυκόν, οὐδέτερον. Greek Anthology 9.489

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Josephine Quinn

Please don't eat these remarkable beings

c0nc0rdance@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social

2019 video of Heidi the Octopus, captured by Dr. David Scheel, a professor of marine biology at Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage & aired on PBS Nature program "Octopus: Making Contact". We think the color changes are the results of Heidi dreaming as she sleeps. Let's talk about it.

God I love this so much.

University of Nottingham UCU branch@uonucu.bsky.social

Our students were sent an email from the Vice Chancellor advertising the benefits of Future Nottingham. Turns out, they are having none of it.

I mean I’d love it even more if management at Notts weren’t gutting the humanities and making my much-loved former colleagues lives’ a misery. But since they are? I love this.

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Your Daily Homer

@dailyhomer.bsky.social

Your day will be like... scattered leaves in autumn, only to return in abundance and green in spring, like the generations of humanity. Iliad 6.146-50

Ok so I would be doing quite well if all the emails didn’t keep generating new emails.

Dr Naomi Scott@drnaomiscott.bsky.social

ACCOUNTABILITY POST I am going to do a bunch of stuff I’ve been putting off today! I will clear my conscience! Emails will be replied to! PhD work will be read!! I WILL GO TO THE POST OFFICE. All the things I’ve been ignoring while attempting to finish a draft Will. Be. Accomplished.

The draft is not finished. I’m stuck on the draft. A CLEAR CONSCIENCE WILL HELP UNSTICK ME (maybe?)

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Katie Mack

@astrokatie.com

I would take more seriously the people promoting the idea of AI consciousness if they first materially grappled with the (much more obvious) consciousness of animals and how that affects our moral obligations to them.

I asked my maths prof grandfather, a tech early-adopter his whole life, for his take on the AI in maths stuff. He said: maybe it can provide answers, but only humans can ask *new kinds of questions*, and that’s what drives the field forward, the questions not the answers.

Joseph Rezek@rezekjoe.bsky.social

My heart breaks for mathematicians whose lives and careers are being destroyed by AI — and especially this PhD student, who doesn’t even know he is a poet

Obviously this is the best and pithiest insight on AI I’ve heard recently, because if you want the best and pithiest insight you ask a mathematician who spent their career in a philosophy department. These are the people.

Full attribution because we’re academics and that’s our whole thing: www.researchgate.net/profile/Mosh...

In further evidence for my theory that toddlers are a lot like dogs, today at nursery my 4yr old rolled in fox poo.

See also: the amount of time I spend yelling ‘sit!’ and ‘drop it!’

I’m in this post and I don’t like it etc etc

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Standard Monday eve spent whatsapping with my mother about whether Julia Donaldson’s new book Gruffalo Granny can be read through the lens of Said’s Thoughts on Late Style.

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

heraldscotland.comUniversity's arts closures will disproportionately affect women, warns craft bodyMs Kernan questioned whether Edinburgh University management had carried out an equality impact assessment prior to making the decision to close the programmes.

'The closure of three specialist programmes at the Edinburgh College of Art will have a disproportionate impact on women, the head of Craft Scotland has warned.' Tip of an unacknowledged, unexamined iceberg. Arts & Humanities losses likely disproportionately affect women, students w/ disabilities.

Ok everyone can just stop and give up, Carl has won the add a word to a book title game, this will not be bettered 😂

Dr Carl Buckland@drcarl42.bsky.social

Lives of the Twelve Chicken Caesars

Ruin a book by adding a word Vanity Fun Fair

Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵@threadinburgh.scot

Ruin a book by adding a word Mother's Pride and Prejudice

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

In 2012-13, there were 51 UK universities offering Russian and East European Studies. In 2024-25, there were 32, and provision is shrinking further. Perhaps that's a serious security risk? www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/policy-and-r...

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So I know we are all getting the weird AI book club emails vel sim. HOWEVER I feel I should get extra points for how many of mine are about my book ‘Special Needs Special Horses’

(I mean I evidently did not write this book a thirty second Google would tell you that this is unlikely but I kinda love it? Maybe in an alternate universe I know stuff about horses? That would be fun! I like horses!!)

@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social

Pulling a small plastic baby doll out of my handbag* at the library lockers and reminding myself that someone should really write a sitcom set in an academic library because the people here** are weird AF. * not even the first time, this happens to me way more often than you’d think ** me

Dr Naomi Scott reposted

Dan Sinykin

In 2012, I stood on a stage with Anne Carson as a volunteer grad student to help her perform BRACKO, an adaptation of Sappho, where my job was to say the word "bracket" every time there was a bracket, which was more than two hundred times