"AI adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months. High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years. The losses are largest in social science subjects, followed by STEM and languages, and are especially large for junior students, high-achieving students, and boys." 2/3
Some countries have made traffic fines proportional to income. It’s not a perfect system, but it means getting caught going 30 over the limit costs you the same fraction of your income if you make $20k/yr or $2,000,000.
I believe we need this system for corporate fines, tied to gross revenue.
The multifaceted #water crises we’re experiencing now are not normal; they're the direct consequence of accelerating human-caused climate changes on top of decades of neglect and underinvestment in our water institutions and infrastructure.
It doesn't have to be this way...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/11/drought-water-climate-crisis
Apple TV has never let me down where audio description is concerned. Always has it on every episode, even if it's just come out. Other services could learn something from that.
Accessibility is a Right not a Feature.
The #BrokenTimes moves its twee authoritarian slider up one notch while refusing to recognize full-blown fascism all around us.
Trump’s Election Interference Is Eroding American Democracy https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/08/20/opinion/trump-election-interference-democracy.html?smid=tw-share
Ghent University suspends Nathan Cofnas, the academic who launched the anti DEI witch hunt against Jason #Arday
A professor writes: (Jason Stanley) The problem is that journalists failed to do basic journalism. Not a single reporter seems to have checked’ Jason Arday’s citations. The ‘quantifiable metrics’ of his work.
Prof Stanley did: ‘Arday is easily comparable to the leading scholars in the field’
China added an entire Germany's worth of low-carbon electricity generation in one year.
Funding the Future: Do we need a revolution? https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2026/08/20/do-we-need-a-revolution/
“I can’t afford to pay an artist!”
Well, I can’t afford a car, but that doesn’t mean I get to let a robot steal enough car parts from other people to frankenstein me one.
Use stock images, learn yourself, or go without.
Good grief 🤦🏻♂️
Man Wearing Pervert Glasses Films Himself Harassing Famous Female Comedian in the Middle of TV Shoot
"I do not know how you film that video, watch it back, decide 'This is how I want to present myself to a globally connected population,' and post it."
https://futurism.com/future-society/pervert-glasses-harassing-diane-morgan-philomena-cunk
One characteristic of extraordinary teachers is that they're not fazed by kids who challenge them; indeed, they welcome this. These teachers are willing to reconsider what they've said, secure enough not to need to have the last word, and aware that arguing may help to sharpen kids' thinking.
We know that living in the current age of social media is a largely negative experience.
We know that mainstream media appears to be increasingly unanswerable to anyone.
None of this is good for our mental health, but there have been victims that have paid with their lives, as in the case of Jason #Arday.
While it’s easy to say we want change - it’s harder to articulate what that change should look like.
Russell Jones makes a good start…
"Since Margaret Thatcher sold off our water, this essential infrastructure has fallen into the hands of a transnational network of spivs and cowboys who have stripped it of almost every penny"
Aditya Chakrabortty on the money as usual.
#Water #ClimateEmergency #UKPolitics
From bone-dry to soaked to the bone, welcome to the age of climate whiplash | Aditya Chakrabortty | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/20/hot-summer-wet-winter-welcome-to-the-age-of-climate-whiplash
Fighting back against #AI #datacentre in #Norwich.
Beautiful hand drawn poster with insects protesting.
‘Save our Marsh Protest’
Saturday 5th September, City Hall, 12-2pm
This giant mural of Andy #Burnham hugging a #Shell oil barrel painted onto a scorched Welsh mountainside deserves to be seen by the widest possible audience.
Let’s show it some love!
‘Our house is on fire Andy’
@vfrmedia @JugglingWithEggs As someone who worked in the GDPR space, there was one thing I always kept in the back of my mind, and something that people who work at Serco had better remember too. Say it with me: FOUR PERCENT OF ANNUAL REVENUE
Only other news outlet to cover #Serco employee data breach story…
I find it surprising that the local rag, Eastern Daily Press, hasn’t covered the story given its extensive coverage of the rightwing mob violence in #Thetford that resulted from the breach and one of its journalists was attacked during the 3 nights of thuggery.
The silence from the rightwing mainstream media is deafening.
Same tagline as I stated yesterday ‘Burn, Baby, Burn’ 🔥
Rebecca Hendin on #RichardTice and the #ClimateCrisis – cartoon https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2026/aug/18/rebecca-hendin-richard-tice-climate-crisis-cartoon?CMP=share_btn_url
Many workers in the UK will have had to sit through very dry #GDPR data handling training courses.
I really hope this case of a #Serco employee circulating the details of #AsylumSeekers addresses in #Thetford leading to three nights of mob violence becomes a case study that gets a lot of attention.