Ernesto Priego

15 May

Sustainability should be one of the most important keywords (and most importantly, methods _and_ goals) in every area of human practice. Instead what's expected is burning candles from both ends. This is a topic I get back to often, mostly because I keep failing at practicing what I often preach.

End of Friday workday thoughts: If people and institutions say they want world-leading and excellent stuff done, the processes to achieve that stuff need to be efficient and prioritised. Seems basic. Instead it's bottleneck after bottleneck.

The state of the art

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This makes me feel so proud of @openlibhums.org - truly epic and once a dream of mine. Living vicariously.

Professor Caroline Edwards@theblochian.bsky.social

Fantastic to announce our @openlibhums.org tech team are collaborating with @plos.org to develop @janewayolh.bsky.social. As Tom Scott from PLOS writes: “Open, community-developed infrastructure is essential to the future of scholarly publishing & Janeway is an important part of that future.”

If you had told me, when I was 15 (in a galaxy and a time far, far away), that this century's codes of practice re: freedom of speech would basically mainly be designed to protect fascistoid views, I'd have laughed out loud. We've achieved a world and a mainstream culture which is upside down.

Fascist rulebook: split into clear-cut binaries, establish dominant narratives, then turn upside down. Confuse and gaslight. Ignorance is strength. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Still. Shake and repeat.

gov.uk“I have real hope that Britain can come together to defeat dementia" – PMPM to announce £48 million industry partnership to back dementia research and speed up the development of new treatments.

PM to announce £48 million industry partnership to back dementia research and speed up the development of new treatments. www.gov.uk/government/n...

blogs.city.ac.ukAbout Parables of Care – Parables of Care

I can't believe next year it will be a decade since we launched Parables of Care: Creative Responses to Dementia Care, As Told by Carers blogs.city.ac.uk/parablesofca...

@selfmadehero.bsky.social

cc @wilkinsp.bsky.social

Ernesto Priego reposted

SelfMadeHero

It's been 1 week since this very special panel on neurodiversity and disability in comics! @zaraslattery.bsky.social @ernestopriego.com #selfmadehero #representation #autism #indiecomics #graphicnovel #publishing #londonevents #illustration #neurodiversity #disability #disabilityrepresentation

bmj.comDigital menstrual tracking risks creating more harm than benefitKatharine Lee and colleagues argue that digital menstrual tracking and cycle syncing pose risks to health as well as privacy and call for greater scrutiny of apps Digital menstrual tracking and cycle...

The other day I saw an advert for a menstrual cycle tracking app on the London Underground. Glad to read this #openaccess piece in the BMJ: Digital menstrual tracking risks creating more harm than benefit www.bmj.com/content/394/... (ignore the incorrect meta image, sigh)

metro.co.ukWhat is 'American Covid' and how bad is it?No, it's not a virus covered in stars and stripes.

"What is ‘American Covid’ and how bad is it?" metro.co.uk/2026/10/05/a...

eve.gdMy View on AI and University-Level English Literature

If you are able, go, read.

Martin Paul Eve@eve.gd

This is the political economic trade-off in our space: politics (time devoted to critiquing AI, developing policies for handling it) vs. pleasure (reading and teaching literature). And that’s what AI, along with every other bureaucratic incursion, ends up taking away from us. eve.gd/2026/10/05/m...

ernestopriego.comPanels and Perspectives: Exploring Disability and Neurodiversity Through ComicsGraphic novelists Francisco de la Mora, Gemma Plum and Zara Slattery joined me for a lively discussion about disability and neurodiversity in comics.

This happened yesterday. Panels and Perspectives: Exploring Disability and Neurodiversity Through Comics ernestopriego.com/2026/10/02/p...

My Christmas letter to Andy Burnham is relaible wifi/data on UK trains. It's an absolute disaster. You can't have a healthy economy like this.

blogs.lse.ac.ukFor a decade CRediT has quietly reshaped academic authorship – what comes next? - LSE ImpactThe CredIT taxonomy has become a feature of academic publishing, but has its potential for creating research insights been fully exploited?

I wish folk stopped posting CFPs as flat images with text that is not machine readable; makes everything harder. We should all know better by now...

Compliance sigh

Love this post is multi-authored. It could have used CRediT so we know who did what. It didn't. Not clear if that was intentional...

LSE Impact@lseimpactblog.bsky.social

🗣️"Conversations about who gets credit also tend to happen far too late, at the writing-up stage, by which point the people who did early technical work may no longer be in the room, and may simply be missed." #AcWri #AcademicPublishing

eventbrite.co.ukPanels & Perspectives: Disability and Neurodiversity in ComicsFrancisco de la Mora, Gemma Plum & Zara Slattery explore disability and neurodiversity in comics. Chaired by Dr Ernesto Priego (City HCID).

Looking forward to Panels & Perspectives: Disability and Neurodiversity in Comics next Thursday 1st October in That London www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/panels-per... #GraphicMedicine #ComicsStudies

So sad and concerning. Happy memories of buying the papers at UEA and also consulting more at the library.

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Ha.

Open the pod bay doors please, HAL.

John Stott@jpsastro.bsky.social

Had a UKRI funded grant proposal rejected at the "AI triage stage". "This AI-based triage was used only to identify approximately 50% of the strongest proposals to take forward to full human review." 🧪 #academicsky

Computer said no.

This will read like historical speculative fiction in the UK, but it's reassuring to read about like-minded souls out there in other realities

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theguardian.comBacklash as Indian oil heir made professor of sustainability by Newcastle UniversityRole for Anant Ambani, son of India’s richest person, who also runs a controversial mega-zoo, met with incredulity

“as public funding for universities falls, there is a real danger that billionaire and corporate money begins to shape academia”. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

"begins"?

I am quite concerned that we (collectively) may be going through one of the darkest periods of our living memory, even if we've been through several already and every time one's wondered if it could get any worse.

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If this is too opaque to be intelligible or actionable it is intentional and obeys to the very essence of this multifaceted phenomenon in which human experience is being hammered down and fracked into relentless automation and the blurrying of previous ethical common understandings.

typos and all.

It feels like we are also going through some seismic transformations and we'll need patience and tolerance if we are to be around to begin sensing a gradual rebuilding of what has been systematically destroyed and lost.

There are obviously pockets of positive transofrmation here and there but the nature of the onslaught is such that a few initiatives doing well and good here and there are not enough to clear any well-founded concerns caused by the visible pervasiveness of corporate technofascism.

theguardian.comNearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable onlineExclusive: Collection’s 300,000 pages record lives of enslaved people in countries including the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad

Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online www.theguardian.com/news/2026/se...

Is it also available via The National Archives' own platform? Or only via Ancestry dot com?

britishslavetraders.orgThe Register of British Slave-TradersThe Register of British Slave-traders compiles and presents information on all known slave-traders in Britain who invested in the trafficking of captive Africans from 1563 to 1807.

I'd have expected it to be available in a similar way to britishslavetraders.org

Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online www.theguardian.com/news/2026/se...

ancestry.comEnslavement Registers for Former British Colonies - AncestryResearch on Ancestry, the enslavement registers for former British Colonies in the Caribbean, Central America & Indian Ocean.

Former British Colonies Enslavement Registers www.ancestry.com/c/colonial-e...

Really disappointing this is via a for-profit service requiring registration

Love how folk will rationalise this by blaming poor data collection, taboo and superstition before daring to hypothetise that higher income does not equal higher levels of structural happiness

Simon Kuestenmacher@simongerman600.bsky.social

It’s great that suicide rates fell significantly across the world. It’s still baffling just how much higher the rate is in high income countries compared to low income countries.

"we can't possibly be more miserable than those poor, uneducated savages down south; we just have better and more advanced measuring instruments and enlightened cultural attitudes to suicide"

forms.gleFeedback Survey - DOAS Adaptation for OA BooksAre you a university, library, research institute, or another similar community based publisher or platform working with Diamond OA books? Then we need your input! The AEGIS-OA (Activate European Guid...

Survey takes _about 80 minutes_ to complete. Tell me you don't want the wider community to get involved without telling me you don't want the wider community to get involved... forms.gle/4zsB5U81YAtw...

bbc.co.ukWaiting for the seaIt took just 40 years for the Aral Sea to dry up. Fishing ports suddenly found themselves in a desert. But in one small part of the sea, water is returning.

16 Sept

Keep on promptin'. Waiting for the sea: www.bbc.co.uk/news/resourc...

@eicathomefinn.bsky.social

16 Sept

Saint Augustine (13 November 354 - 28 August 430) reminds us love for money trumping love for study was already a thing for students back in his day

Ernesto Priego reposted

Margot Finn

16 Sept

'Staff at the University of Essex are set to strike next week over cuts to 400 full-time jobs. The union, Unison, said admissions advisors, IT technicians, admin workers and other professional services staff would walk out on Monday over the proposals.'

bbc.co.ukEssex University staff to strike over plans to cut 400 jobsStaff will walk out over a plan to cut 400 jobs, which the university says will protect its future

15 Sept

Last night, for real, I dreamt the university campus had become a data center, so there's that.

theguardian.comTrump attacks ‘sick conspiracy’ against AI as tech stocks slidePresident hits out after Anthropic, OpenAI and SpaceX leaders back call to limit ‘reckless’ development

14 Sept

“The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the USA has that, in spades!” (sic) www.theguardian.com/business/202...

theguardian.comWarning: our democracy won’t survive the death of reading. Read on if you still can | John HarrisWhile fascists protest in UK ports and purvey nonsense and poison online, ever fewer people have the perspective or analytical tools to challenge them, says Guardian columnist John Harris

14 Sept

"In Britain, more than 320 newspapers closed down between 2009 and 2019" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

theguardian.comWe greet the news that AI could extinguish us with a glazed indifference. What is the way out of this nihilism? | Brigid DelaneyThere are several answers, and none of them will be provided by tech. One thing we must do is identify the ingredients for human flourishing

14 Sept

"The next solution, after we wake up, is to return to first principles. What are the ingredients for human flourishing? Once we can articulate that, it’s like a rope that can guide us back to where we should be." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

peoplemanagement.co.ukHalf of employees too busy to deliver meaningful work, survey findsExperts warn excessive workloads could damage productivity and motivation as staff take on more responsibilities

11 Sept

"Experts warn excessive workloads could damage productivity and motivation as staff take on more responsibilities" www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1969...

pulitzercenter.orgBehind the Story: Uncovering Truths About Mega Data CentersPara leer esto en español, haga clic aquí. Image The exterior of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) data center in El Burgo, Spain. From the story "Deciphering AI Water Consumption: How Amazon Hides How Mu...

11 Sept

Behind the Story: Uncovering Truths About Mega Data Centers pulitzercenter.org/blog/behind-... via @pulitzercenter.org