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Louise Hickman

@louhicky.bsky.social
3.7K followers 612 following 234 posts

Currently working on Algorithmic Kitchen project funded by the Wellcome Trust at CRASSH at the University of Cambridge. Work on disability and health tech.

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Reposted by Louise Hickman
BostonJoan 🏳️‍🌈 🦫 @bostonjoan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
If you’re trying to understand why a small lgbtq performance and event space in western MA became everyone’s top story this weekend, then you should read “Lolcows and the mediation of digital freakshows” by @jessrauchberg.bsky.social journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... It is ragebait, to be sure
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Abstract
Emerging in the early 2000s, the lolcow is a vulnerable Internet persona whose digital presence is exploited by online audiences for entertainment and pleasure. Through a case study of one such lolcow, popular TikTok creator and livestreamer Joshua Block (@WorldOfTShirts), this short essay argues that the lolcow's growing mainstream presence reflects a rise in authoritarian politics and eugenics where disabled people are openly dehumanized. Although disability as amusement object carries a long-standing history in western culture through the 'fool' and 'freak', the essay's theoretical analysis and close reading of social media artifacts suggest digital affordances and audience practices render the lolcow into a 'digital freakshow'.
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
My friend's kid was asked to suggest a name for the class's new goldfish. They put forward a few options and, somehow, "Count Binface" was the one randomly selected. The teacher was less than delighted.
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
More people are becoming wise to the amount of access washing* going on. *the term coined by stacey milbern
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Disablement, Free Time & Work Under Capitalism @disprecwork.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The questionnaire phase of the project is still ongoing - excitingly, today marks its mid-point! Submissions can be made until the end of 2026 breadrosesdisability.uk/questionnaire/
Printscreen of website page with 'invitation to complete the rest, free time, and disability questionnaire'. There are three options - online, easy read, and in a word document
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Are there any fictional accounts of working in/with data centres? bonus points for horror!
static.klipy.com
Data Center Rack Management
ALT: Data Center Rack Management
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Dan McQuillan @danmcquillan.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
This episode of @melhogan.bsky.social's The Data Fix w/ @eryk.bsky.social is the most grounded discussion of so-called 'rogue AI' I've come across podcastaddict.com/the-data-fix... The algos aren't 'planning' or 'conspiring' but blindly following imitative but meaningless streams of generated text.
podcastaddict.com
The Data Fix - Rogue, with Eryk Salvaggio
Listen to The Data Fix - Rogue, with Eryk Salvaggio by Mél Hogan on Podcast Addict. When is AI 'going rogue' and when is it just sloppy oversight by the companies designing the models? The answer won't surprise you -- probably -- but in this episode we discuss why we can both not believe the doom-hype marketing hype of AI companies and still be a bit worried about where this is all taking us. Erik Salvaggio unpacks and explains all of this better than anyone I know. Recorded Aug 27, 2026. Released Aug 31, 2026.Eryk Salvaggio’s websitecyberneticforests.comLinked In: Eryk Salvaggio’s Posthttps://www.linkedin.com/posts/eryk-salvaggio_when-you-see-a-headline-claiming-that-ai-activity-7485551550107656192-d-tq The System From Nowherehttps://mail.cyberneticforests.com/the-system-from-nowhere/On Stochastic Flocks & The Critical Problem of Useful AI https://www.techpolicy.press/stochastic-flocks-and-the-critical-problem-of-useful-ai/ On RLVR (the verifiable rewards bit) - "It's Not X, It's Y"https://mail.cyberneticforests.com/its-not-just-data-its-post-training/ The Data Fix: Soulless, with Eryk Salvaggiohttps://shows.acast.com/the-data-fix/episodes/639d6648b0a821001040e0e2 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
If you feel like donating to the RNLI, here’s a link. I just have. Their minimum donation is £2: I think it might be nice for them to receive a lot of donations this week, even if they’re mostly very modest. Just so they know a lot of people out here appreciate their work. rnli.org/support-us/g...
rnli.org
Donate to the RNLI and help save lives at sea
Your donations really make a difference. We depend on your generosity to educate people to stay safe and prevent tragedies on and offshore. Donate here.
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Kelly Fritsch @kellyfritsch.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Talking about Broken Worlds, Disabled Kin with @anneemcguire.bsky.social on the Good Robot Podcast thegoodrobotpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1786427/epis... @uminnpress.bsky.social
thegoodrobotpodcast.buzzsprout.com
Sustaining life in crisis with Kelly Fritsch and Anne McGuire - The Good Robot
What does it mean to live in a world that is already broken, and what can disability justice teach us about creating more livable futures? In this episode of The Good Robot, Eleanor Drage speaks with ...
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
First day back at work, second year of the Wellcome project. Hosting conference later this year on the histories of kitchen and disability design. working title: test kitchen: resisting algorithmic futures (at the V&A!) join our mailing list for updates: lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/subscr...
lists.cam.ac.uk
crassh-algorithmic-kitchen - Algorithmic Kitchen: Recipes for Disability-Led Health Technology Design - subscribe
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Not a fan of a) Guardian b) Palantir c) Peter Thiel d) British Museum. not in ranking order. www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...
theguardian.com
British Museum hosted Palantir founder Peter Thiel in private viewing of Bayeux tapestry
Concern among staff that fragile artwork’s scarce ‘light hours’ given to someone with no known interest in museum
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
analog is interesting take for deaf people who use sign language to communicate, a community that often work in the in-between spaces of tech and hearing people
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Maria Farrell @mariafarrell.eurosky.social · 25/08/2026
Loved her singing, loved her songs, loved every amazing and unsung thing she did. But especially that she kept on being herself through literally decades of being thought of as the kind of joke only a woman could be.
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Cambridge Digital Humanities @camdighum.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
We're looking for our next Methods Fellowship cohort! Have you applied? 💡 Find out more about this paid teaching opportunity for the 2026/7 academic year, open to @cam.ac.uk staff and students: www.cdh.cam.ac.uk/methods/meth... Deadline: 17 July
cdh.cam.ac.uk
Methods Fellowships 2026/27 - CDH
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So Mayer @suchmayer.northsky.social · 15/06/2026
Send me ur cats* Deadline Mon 13 July *queer poems, essays, hybrids outburstarts.com/events-proje...
outburstarts.com
catflap #6 open call - Outburst Arts
catflap is Outburst’s acclaimed annual publication of smart new queer writing with a disco heart. It’s a space for exciting queer thinking, beyond the academic to where pop culture meets queer ideas a...
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Simon Ferrigno @brexcyclopaedia.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Please sign if you can c.org/cPxW69T6Sj
c.org
Sign the Petition
Save Black Studies at Birmingham City University
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
succinct PR work!
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Alan Lester @alanlester.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
The BBC 10 o’clock news says the right wing idea of ethnic minorities being given preferential treatment in criminal justice is likely to become a “growing fault line in our politics” WITHOUT POINTING OUT THAT IT IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE. What’s the point of the news if it doesn’t correct disinformation?
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Yes quite. "digital nimbyism or patronised as pearl-clutching panic"
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
All I have left is wow. Just wow.
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
There’s a lot of procurement talk on my timeline. I co‑authored a report calling for deaf‑led infrastructure to deliver the services deaf people need to access public services. Nothing about us without us: www.mctd.ac.uk/bsl-not-for-...
mctd.ac.uk
BSL is Not for Sale: A Deaf-led approach to AI procurement
Sign Language AI systems are being procured across public services without adequate Deaf community involvement, creating institutional risks Authors: Dr Louise Hickman, Dr Alexa Hagerty, and Rose Powe...
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Natalya D @natalyad.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Makaton has a whole rotten history in itself as most easily summarised by Sara Novic at thebaffler.com/outbursts/si... Typical hearing person valorised for a job a Deaf person would and should be doing better and more authentically. T'was ever thus.
thebaffler.com
Signed Away | Sara Nović
The hearing world continues to pillage and caricature the deaf community—most recently with the proprietary, sign-based system Makaton.
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 02/06/2026
a yellow background bumper sticker with black text reading: Keep Honking! I’m reading Donna Haraway’s germinal 1988 essay, ‘Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective’
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
Very excited for @jennychambles.bsky.social new book!
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
This is a fun read and perhaps one of top book this year!
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
also stop defunding libraries!
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Reposted by Louise Hickman
Pierre-Yves Baubry 博磊 @pybaubry.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
In Taiwan, members of the publishing sector are not only celebrating the win, but reminding people that gov't-sponsored translation grants were recently targeted by the opposition as "wasteful", and this very writer criticized (by some in the opposition) for being "too political" and "talentless".
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
'The decision to close it was taken despite the faculty continuing to plan high-profile campus events, including the booking this month of US civil rights advocate Kimberlé Crenshaw.' 1/2
bbc.co.uk
Closure of Birmingham City University black studies MA ‘blindsides’ staff
Academics and activists condemn Birmingham City University's closure of the eight-month old course.
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Academic Audio Transcription Ltd @aat-transcribes.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Ever wondered whether transcription services might play a crucial role progressing your project, but not sure where to start? Join our Founder & CEO, Dr Zara Bain, on Tues 26 May at 7pm BST (GMT+1) for a free, live webinar where we'll talk you through everything you need to know. Sign up here ✍️
funnels.academicaudiotranscription.com
Curious about booking transcription to support your social research?
Get expert support navigating what to do with your qualitative data once you've collected it, and get your questions answered.
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
I wrote about Jordan Lord's work, and in hindsight realised this was a manifesto against access slop: lux.org.uk/new-artist-f...
lux.org.uk
New Artist Focus: Louise Hickman on Jordan Lord - LUX
Listen to the audio version of this essay on Soundcloud. (Listening time: 12 minutes 25 seconds) LUX Moving Image · LUX Moving Image – New Artist Focus: Louise Hickman on Jordan Lord   Debt is deliber...
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Natalia Cecire @ncecire.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Academic departments deserve to be saved, supported, resourced, allowed to grow even if they're not "best in the country," "first in the REF," "top-ranked," "at a Russell Group uni," or whatever other austerity-brained nonsense senior managers have been using to flimflam you out of solidarity
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Open Data Institute @odihq.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
It’s your last chance to book our FREE webinar on the effects of AI on visual culture! Join our experts as they discuss Image Empire, Dr. Alan Warburton’s new animation. The session examines how “large world models” fuse the real and the virtual together in potent new forms buff.ly/3pyfqsA
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Another book for the transcription archive. I did my phd project on labour of captioning and how captioner can curate access intimacy for their deaf readers. also @zaranosaur.bsky.social is doing a lot of great work around transcription justice
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Dr Alison Ray @liber-ray.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
So happy to get a copy of the amazing ‘Thanks for Typing’ exhibition at @harvard.edu, with brilliant research into women’s type labour by @cejacobson.bsky.social and colleagues! 📖🎉
Book cover for ‘Thanks for Typing: Women’s Type Labour in Literature and the Arts’ Houghton Library  exhibition catalogue
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Amazing team leading on this summer school
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Ed Davey @eddavey.libdems.org.uk · 14/04/2026
Wes Streeting must kick Palantir out of our NHS. Donald Trump's favourite tech giant shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Brits' private health data. There are fantastic British tech firms who would be far better and safer for the NHS.
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Not next month but this coming Friday!
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
We live in a world broken by design: a web of systems that debilitate & destroy through racist and ableist infrastructural neglect, socioeconomic abandonment & ecological negligence. Join Kelly Fritsch & Anne McGuire at @algorithmickitchen.bsky.social next month www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/50859...
crassh.cam.ac.uk
Broken Worlds, Disabled Kin: Strategies for Collective Survival - CRASSH
Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
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Astra Taylor @astra.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
One year after our original Guardian essay, Naomi Klein and I are excited to reveal the North American cover of our forthcoming book END TIMES FASCISM - and the Fight for the Living World. It will be on bookshelves on September 15th and is available for pre-order. More details below. bit.ly/4cbLfEr
Image of a book entitled End Times Fascism - and the fight for the living world. A wide burst on a yellow background with red letters.
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Deborah Feldman @deborahfeldman.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
Did a podcast for the @blnreview.bsky.social with the fabulous Lauren Oyler - about my recent essay and practically everything else: blnreview.podigee.io/24-deborah-f...
blnreview.podigee.io
Deborah Feldman on Germany's Strange Love for Jews
Lauren Oyler talks to Deborah Feldman, author of the memoir Unorthodox and longtime Berliner, about her essay "For the Love of Jews," published in the new issue of Berlin Review. They discuss German p...
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Rua M. Williams @fractalecho.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
It's me and that damn book again umd.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
The Black Communication and Technology Lab Presents:

DISABLING INTELLIGENCES

LEGACIES OF EUGENICS AND HOW WE ARE WRONG ABOUT A.I.

Guest Speaker Rua Williams

Friday, April 3 2026

12-2pm

Rua M. Williams is an Assistant Professor in the School of Applied and Creative Computing at Purdue University, and a former Just Tech Fellow with the Social Science Research Council. Dr. William's work explores how disabled people imagine and build their own socio technical worlds.

Join us for conversations around Dr. William's forthcoming work: Disabling Intelligences (Palgrave Macmillan).

REGISTER TO JOIN THROUGH ZOOM!

bcatlab.org
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Kelly Fritsch @kellyfritsch.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Excited to be in conversation with @louhicky.bsky.social in Cambridge April 17!
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
We live in a world broken by design: a web of systems that debilitate & destroy through racist and ableist infrastructural neglect, socioeconomic abandonment & ecological negligence. Join Kelly Fritsch & Anne McGuire at @algorithmickitchen.bsky.social next month www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/50859...
crassh.cam.ac.uk
Broken Worlds, Disabled Kin: Strategies for Collective Survival - CRASSH
Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
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Feminist Killjoy @saranahmed.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Solidarity with the transgender & intersex communities in India after the Amendment Bill was bulldozed through houses of parliament replacing self-identification with mandatory medical certification. My #KilljoySolidarity with you in this fight. Friends, sign & fight! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
Signing the Collective Statement on Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill 2026
Collective Statement on Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Amendment Bill 2026. Note: Translations of this statement in multiple Indian languages are available at the end. We, the concerned ...
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
If you need a delightful watch www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
bbc.co.uk
BBC Four - My Garden of a Thousand Bees
Wildlife film-maker Martin Dohrn sets out to film over 60 species of bee in his garden.
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Dr Zara Bain @zaranosaur.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Thank you so much to those of you who came along to Tuesday night's panel discussion on Transcription for Racial Justice, and even bigger thanks to our three fantastic panellists, @elisney.bsky.social, @divyampersaud.com and @wardasworld.bsky.social >
funnels.academicaudiotranscription.com
Transcription for Racial Justice Panel, Tuesday 24 March 2026
How can transcription and closed caption services serve and support the goal of achieving racial justice?
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Dr Zara Bain @zaranosaur.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
What are you up to tonight? At 7pm I'm delighted to be joining a fantastic line-up of panellists to hold space and explore the question of transcription can reinforce racial injustice or resist it? To book and help us raise funds for causes we love, follow the link in the post below
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Academic Audio Transcription Ltd @aat-transcribes.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Even courtroom transcribers certified to 95% accuracy "consistently failed" maintain that level of accuracy when transcribers speakers using African American Vernacular English, with implications for courtroom justice. Join us tomorrow for an online panel discussing Transcription for Racial Justice
funnels.academicaudiotranscription.com
Transcription for Racial Justice Panel, Tuesday 24 March 2026
How can transcription and closed caption services serve and support the goal of achieving racial justice?
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
Another symptom of late capitalism is pothole discourse.
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Louise Hickman @louhicky.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
I'm so looking forward to this panel! Access work (including the debt of access work) doesn’t disappear; it simply changes hands, accumulating where resources are thinnest.
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