“AI can never be AI without humans. It is not artificial intelligence. It’s African intelligence...We are training our own death. We train ChatGPT and it’s killing us slowly.” Kenyan workers are still the underpaid labor behind AI training, moderation, and sex chatbots. Now, they're fighting back.

This is an interesting question. Why do progressives seem to not care?

We need treatment

Long Covid Awareness Day Hailed As Major Step Towards Never Mentioning That Thing Ever Again

#Ontario’s universities are the lowest funded in Canada, increasingly relying on contract faculty. @ocufa.bsky.social President Rob Kristofferson’s op-ed digs further into the precarious employment of our contract faculty. #Fairness4CF tinyurl.com/cfsmdoa

My extra radical far loony left position is that no one should ever be allowed to make a profit from academic publishing. It is a public good. See also: education, healthcare (on a good day, public transport…)

Almost 90 people being cut. Canadian historian Adam Chapnick, a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada: “I don’t know how you justify this decision if you have any sort of commitment to history."

Research Seminars in Photographic Cultures & Heritage @phrc-dmu.bsky.social - Join us on 26 March 2026, 5:30pm (GMT/UTC) for a talk by Sarah Parsons on photographic histories of privacy and exposure in the 19th century. Attendance free but registration required: shorturl.at/kU2xK. All welcome!

Great to spend International Women’s Day presenting at a conference about women in photography & listening to many interesting talks on a wide range of subjects from around the world. The fact that I could do this from home made it do-able for me. More online conferences please! womenofphoto.com

Happy International Women's Day from your favourite International Woman. To celebrate, why not buy a book about medieval women's history, the cover of which will be marked as offensive on this website? The Once and Future Sex a book by Eleanor Janega - Bookshop.org UK share.google/78MevtXKrK7I...

Anyone can become disabled at any time. Your life can change in an instant, no matter how strong and healthy you think you are. People will leave you. Funds will dry up. Life will get tougher. It’s not a moral failing. It’s a minority group you can join anytime.

Japanese artist Masayo Fukuda hand-cut this life-sized octopus from one sheet of paper. Known as Kirie in Japanese (translated as “cut picture”), the art form involves cutting intricate forms from a single sheet of white paper and then contrasting it against a black background to reveal the design.

Happy Caturday from these two.

A deceptively cold day for a walk!

Two - count 'em - two jobs at UPEI - one in History (specifically aimed at Atlantic Canada) and one in English (which could be Atlantic Canadian!). www.upei.ca/hr/competiti... www.upei.ca/hr/competiti...

PHRC’s Research Seminars in Photographic Cultures & Heritage | Join us this Thurs, 19 Feb 2026, 5:30pm (GMT/UTC) for a talk by Donna West Brett, who will look at the rise of the photobook and its cultural and political uses. Attendance free but registration required: shorturl.at/YvVTs. All welcome!

This looks cool!

Art is political. Sports are political. Everything is political.

It’s a good day for Frankie. #cat #caturday on a Sunday.

Looking forward to presenting a paper on @ninaber.bsky.social’s An Autobiography of Miss Wish at the womenofphoto.com 24-hour online conference-a-thon for International Women’s Day.

Still the Boss.

Today marks 10 years without David Bowie 🥺🙏

Can’t get enough Patti Smith.

Here's a really easy New Year's Resolution: If you're sick with something contagious, you will stay home if your circumstances allow. If you can't stay home, you will mask around others until there is no possibility you are contagious. By making these choices, you will literally save lives.

Happy 80th birthday to Canada's great rebel warrior. Keep on rocking in the free world Neil. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFw7...

Word of the Day is ‘snerdle’ (19th century): to stay warm and still beneath the covers for as long as humanly possible.

Best glory I’ve ever seen from a plane! It’s an optical phenomenon that occurs when light interacts in and around tiny droplets of water in the clouds, in the direction opposite the sun. More complex than a rainbow. Here’s a link to some more info: www.zmescience.com/science/phys... #optics #physics

1. The single most pernicious and damaging societal imperative I see in action right now, with Ireland in a Covid wave, is this: 'There's no need to test'. Why? Not just because it tacitly normalises unmitigated transmission, but, more importantly, it hides Long Covid.

“We need better air quality in our public spaces,” Vipond said. “We need to be treating our air they way we treat our water, not just because of COVID but to prepare for the next airborne pandemic.” www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

This week’s reading.

Word of the day is ‘tamalou’: a French name for an older person who no longer greets their friends with ‘how was your holiday?, but with ‘t’as mal où ?’, ‘where does it hurt?’. There follows an enthusiastic account of aches and pains and doctor’s appointments.

Happy back-to-school to all who celebrate!

Yep! Our history of art and visual culture grads are doing well.

Sounds like a good summer read!

This weeks reading: a fascinating little book of letters between C. Fausto Cabrera and Alec Soth about photography, poetry, incarceration, imagination, contemporary culture and politics, friendship and more.

I find this fascinating / terrifying.

So, what’s everyone reading this summer? Any suggestions? I’m looking for good novels.

The general consensus forming around this very correct sentiment is that students' use of AI is encouraged by the transactional nature of higher ed. The systemic issue is that college educators, for the most part, aren't the ones who have made education transactional. So how can we fix this system?

This.

ChatGPT is down but The Museum of English Rural Life still stands, proving once again that Silicon Valley cannot compete with the history of rural England and its people.

Ducklings learning to chase bugs. You’re welcome.

Rachel Ruysch’s Still Lifes, from the Dutch Golden Age, Are Both Sensuous and Scientific By Kelly Presutti for Art in America www.artnews.com/art-in-ameri...

And it’s rather good!

A picture by one person, for one person: Las Meninas, 1656. It doesn't get any better than this. Some paintings by me on the back wall (thank you Diego), but they are not the stars of this show! Diego Velazquez, born OTD 1599.

Signs of hope.

We should have a memorial day for COVID. It is horrific that we as a society have done virtually nothing to remember the millions who have died. Rushing to forget what happened also makes it much more likely that we will continue to repeat our deadly mistakes.

Happy Caturday from these two. #caturday

Interesting video on the rhetoric around generative AI and universities.

A lot to think about in this thread.