Keys are hard. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/w...

They killed free file for this shit

Still seething that my former sainted editor cut my long couple paragraphs about all the ways Andreessen misunderstood the economics of 18th-century whaling. He was so wrong, y’all. Whaling was not like venture capital.

Also I did not ruin the workplace with feminism but by pouring maple syrup on every conceivable surface in your office, get it right

i’m at damen/belle plaine in chicago’s north center neighborhood for an emergency anti-ice rally. around 7 a.m. this morning, masked federal agents chased a preschool teacher *into* nearby rayito del sol and abducted her—in front of traumatized children, parents, and coworkers.

Here is a link to the print: www.emilyk.art/product/tzef...

a big chunk of the book I'm currently writing is unpacking the crypto-anarchy piece of this. 🎯 "extreme vision of individual freedom and decentralized money" accompanied by "authoritarianism and criminality"

in general more people should read Finn Brunton

in general more people should read Finn Brunton

yes yes this is a great write-up and is almost exactly the same thoughts I had after I read this book!!

it's me

i'm sorry excuse me what

historians: what's the most sources you've had to consult in order to write one paragraph? right now I'm up to probably ten, including two different redactions of the same source

they appear to have dug giant holes to remediate an old oil leak and then filled it in with bricks?? now the giant excavator is just driving back and forth around the site (to flatten it??) clearly I don't understand construction

Twice a year I hold a workshop on writing a nonfiction book proposal. It’s organized to lead you through exercises that results in a draft or revision (or just learn about the genre) Next one starts in January

absolutely none of my (c/o ‘06, “good” public school) high school teachers or extracurriculars communicated with parents ever. I had to keep track of all of my stuff in a paper planner. I signed myself up for every AP and SAT test. feeling a little insane reading this

love to see my exact conundrum in this NYT article about heat pumps: "While it is possible for very poorly insulated homes in cold climates to be heated solely with cold-climate air-source heat pumps...it may be more cost-effective in these specific cases to supplement with other forms of heating."

love to see my exact conundrum in this NYT article about heat pumps: "While it is possible for very poorly insulated homes in cold climates to be heated solely with cold-climate air-source heat pumps...it may be more cost-effective in these specific cases to supplement with other forms of heating."

I have a theory that Josh Naylor is actually a pirate who accidentally ended up on a baseball team while on the lam and was good at it so he stayed. I have seen nothing so far this series that goes against this theory.

Easily 500+ people at our local park’s kid protest this morning. Great vibes. Great signs.

Hmm, is it a good sign to see Gilded Age political cartoons go up in the neighborhood?

important national history

The most chaotic part of my writing process is doing research *while* writing. It's always a nearly instantaneous fractal explosion of tabs and PDFs and rediscovering thing I saved ages ago and never read. At least when I'm doing initial research there is some kind of attempt at organization?

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand. “where’s this quote from?”

making yet another little timeline for myself because time is difficult

Americans' love affair with confectioners-sugar-based frostings continues to baffle me. There are other options!!! That have flavors other than unadulterated sweet!!!

A seasonal reminder to myself and everyone else who lives where it sometimes snows by Halloween: now is a great week to air out your winter gear and re-waterproof coats and boots! Don't wait until there's already slush falling from the sky!

me anytime i think about cake's "the distance" he's going the distance he's going for speed she's all alone (all *TRUMPET NOISE TRUMPET NOISE TRUMPET NOISE TRUMPET*) need because he's weeeEEEeeeEEEeeeEEEeeeEEEeeeEeEeEEEEE

There's a construction site near my house where a team painstakingly demolished a building and then carefully scooped up and carted off all the debris. Two weeks later a dozen dump trucks came and each dumped a giant load of bricks and rocks and debris? What is happening

TIL you cannot use pre-tax childcare FSA money while any parent is on parental leave. Or if one parent is looking for work but has no income in a year. File that to the gigantic pile of ways the US structurally hates parents (especially women)

I've shared multiple articles about the ICE raid at 75th & South Shore Drive because no one of them captures everything important: -simmering tensions over Venezuelan migrants into a Black neighborhood that is the eviction capital of Chicago -prior deplorable conditions & lack of maintenance

new from me! particularly (horribly) fitting to have a piece about Congress legislating in an attempt to forestall harm publish on a week when Congress has instead abdicated legislation in an attempt to cause harm

I think it's an important step. We have folks who have 'pioneered' various forms of public scholarship, but we need to institutionalize that knowledge and make it a standard part of the field. It needs to become a thing we all do, if we're going to (re)build public support for the humanities.

COVER REVEAL AND PREORDER: The Public Scholar - A Practical Handbook. "Perry focuses on the practical details of how to approach public scholarship. How do you pitch a piece to an editor? When should you follow or ignore the rules of the genre? And what happens once your piece is out in the world?"

currently attempting to juggle two virtual conferences while finishing an article while working on my book draft while solo parenting three children for a few days and I think my brain is melting

what if the menswear guy published a book of paper dolls

I really hate when you look up a historical subject for the first time only to find out they died in the past month or even year. If only I had been smarter, figured out how to contact them earlier, thought of asking!!!

do my clever and knowledgeable followers have examples of historians writing (eg journal article or book chapter) about their own *failures* in interesting ways? eg research goes wrong, wrong questions etc 🗃️

Independent scholars, how do you work with edited volumes and other books pubbed by textbook publishers? because my budget absolutely cannot support repeatedly paying $50-80 per ebook. A couple weeks of unpredictable interlibrary loan only gets you so far.

This is pretty cool

the couple of coding conferences I went to back in the day were like this and once us two dozen women (mostly strangers) made dinner plans via powder room word of mouth

that terrible meta AI clip has reminded me yet again of a demo I saw at a hackathon *in 2012* of a recipe voice assistant -- it did not try to generate anything it just answered questions about the actual recipe and could set timers, etc. Seemed like a perfect use case for voice assistants. AND YET.

I have gone nearly twenty years without being summoned for a jury and now have gotten not one, not two, but THREE jury summons or related in the past two months.

who named child shoe sizes and what sort of drugs were they on because this shit makes absolutely no sense

I think .... I think something went wrong in mine from today: "You just saved $10,034.97 by using your library. You have saved $10,196.80 this past year and $11,474.09 since you began using the library!" which of these picture books does the library think is worth ten grand

It really bums me out when the thumbnail or preview photo for an article is not actually included in that article. Where's the photo from?? That's at least half the reason I clicked!

Holy shit, found a blog post about the Web 2.0 conference in 2004 and Marc Andreessen apparently said this on a panel: "There are APIs and they let you do certain things, but it's all very carefully controlled and sort of a plantation owner/ sharecropper kind of relationship" BIG YIKES

it’s …… very distracting to have your house shake fairly vigorously every 15-45 seconds while hearing crunching and smashing sounds (an old warehouse behind us being demolished)