Sophie E. Hill
@sophieehill
PoliSci PhD student @ Harvard / 🇬🇧🏳️🌈 / Creator of MyLittleCrony.com Signal: @sehill.11
temperature finally dipped enough for my cats to cuddle again (paws only). nature is healing.
Gilded Rage by Jacob Silverman -nice biographical texture on various Silicon Valley elites -the social scientist in me wanted more analytical heft (are tech bros really more angry than Gilded Age elites?) -Ron DeSantis comes up a lot? -Gender/sexuality underexplored ⭐️⭐️⭐️ #bookreview
🪵 just got a delightfully fragrant box of carving wood from englishwoods.co.uk! including oak, beech, cherry, lacewood, african walnut, olive ash, lime, sweet chestnut, poplar, sycamore, and jelutong. range of sizes, all usable. #WoodSky #WhittleSky #CarvingSky
BBC News allowed SafeToNet founder Richard Pursey to promote his company's Harmblock technology under the guise of a "news" segment. As far as I can see, there has been no independent testing or verification of this software. How does it work? How accurate is it? What are the privacy implications?
SafeToNet has recently partnered with the Tim Tebow Foundation - set up by the American football star - another organisation that takes an explicitly Christian approach to issues like CSAM, and is also associated with International Justice Mission (IJM).
SafeToNet's founders - Richard and Sharon Pursey - have been promoting their technology to US right-wing elites, including a presentation at the White House last year www.linkedin.com/posts/richar...
SafeToNet has been repeatedly promoted by Christian NGO International Justice Mission, which has been criticized for conducting aggressive "anti-trafficking" raids that produce shocking content but don't actually help victims. www.linkedin.com/posts/ijmaus...
SafeToNet was part of a consortium that won over €2 in EU funding to create a CSAM-blocking app. The project ended abruptly with no final report or deliverables, after many delays. Out of 8 partner organizations, SafeToNet was allocated over half of the budget. ec.europa.eu/info/funding...
I think it's about influencing future decisions rather than overturning the one at hand. More effective when the fans do it for you though, they can't get booked for dissent! niesr.ac.uk/wp-content/u...
7️⃣ Calla Lily Spoon 🌹🥄 My first spoon! I wanted to carve a traditional lily on the end but those individual petals would be too fragile at this scale. So I compromised on a calla lily. Basswood, with shellac + polyurethane to finish.
It is completely absurd for universities to outsource their due diligence to a financial intermediary like the Charities Aid Foundation. The CAF does basic KYC checks, it cannot implement *your* institution's ethics policy!
I submitted FOI requests to both universities, which revealed: - the researchers did not disclose the full amount (£80k vs £50k) - the universities did no due diligence of their own - the money was sent via the CAF American donor fund, which suggests the underlying donors are UK/US dual taxpayers
Wiley's original investigation concluded that there was no violation of their policies. The investigation was only "reopened" when I pointed out the implications of this loophole...
Researchers at two Russell Group universities published scientific research funded by an "anonymous donation". But the money really came from an industry group with a clear conflict of interest 🥸 After 10 months of "investigation", Wiley has done... nothing. No retraction, no EOC, no correction.
incredible to think that the Foot family named their first-born son DINGLE ... and the rest Hugh, John, Michael, and Christopher. diabolical parenting.
Right. Also, as I am learning from searching historical Hansard, there was a particular debate over tax inspectors using "Gestapo" tactics in the 1970s, after high-profile raids in the Rossminster tax avoidance scandal. Some incredible quotes here: api.parliament.uk/historic-han...
1917: Thousands of Soviet women march for "bread and peace", triggering a revolution 2023: Footballer honours International Women's Day with "Mum Wife Nan" shirt
he got embarrassed about getting stuck and started doing the bashful princess di gaze "there were 3 of us in this TK Maxx bag, so it was a bit crowded"
Starmer bequeaths to his successor a Britain that is stronger, fairer, and "better able to ensure the Labour party secures a second term in office". A *Britain* that is better able to ensure the Labour party secures a second term in office??
Politicians often rely too much on the "rule of three" in speeches, but Keir Starmer is apparently bound by the lesser-known "rule of four" 🤔 e.g., - Growth, wages, investment, NHS - Workers' rights, defence, immigration, children - Reputation, trade, Ukraine, EU
Challenge: in under 2 minutes, can you rewrite this sentence in a more elegant way? "Every decision I've taken has been about putting the country I love first."
since I'm currently reading Farnsworth's Classical English Rhetoric I can tell you this is a VERY uninspired use of symploce (repetition at start and end)
and another one: "The hard work of change was with a singular purpose. Not power for power's sake but to change Britain for the better." So the hard work of change (??) was with (?) a singular purpose, which was... change?