Possibly unpopular on this channel, but for any AI-curious academics tired of having to establish their bona fides at the start of every article, post, and talk, here's a standard disclaimer, v1.0. Pull requests welcome. foundhistory.org/a-standard-d... #AI #DigitalHumanities #HigherEd #academia

New on my Substack: Callable thinking; The problem with prediction markets; AI stock market takes; Craig Newmark on giving; Consciousness and William James; Helicopter parenting; Stephenson on the metaverse; and more. buff.ly/Sofofgi #Tech #Humanities #HigherEd

Need some remote research assistance? Sourcery has help for you from coast to coast. sourceryapp.org/locations/

Axiom: use of the term “slop” itself constitutes slop

I Asked 5 Social Media Managers for the Best Clickbait Headline—They All Said the Same Thing

Has a finance quant reverse engineered the history seminar? No, but it’s good click bait. New blog post at Found History ICYMI. foundhistory.org/future-token...

My latest post explores Jordan Rubin's Future Tokens project, which aims to make common analytical moves "callable" Claude Skills. They map surprisingly well onto moves historians have been teaching graduate students for generations. foundhistory.org/future-token... #AI #DigitalHumanities

Doing research over spring break? Need something at a faraway archive? Try Sourcery! Your first request is FREE!!

I need this

New on my "Briefly Noted" Substack: DOGE's ChatGPT humanities purge; Digital history after vibe coding; Musk's orbital data centers; Testing and education; AI reliability vs. trust; and more. Go ahead and subscribe! buff.ly/jcA1UAr #AI #Humanities #NEH #Education #DH

New newsletter post! Part two in the series on New England's borders, including disputes over the northern border and two "what-might-have-been" maps. Please read and subscribe! #NewEngland #Canda #maps #history

New "Briefly Noted" post: AI and disciplinary hierarchies; Mapping New England; Rethinking academic range; Ottoman archives unlocked; and more.

The "useless" has become essential, and the "practical" has become automated. Maybe we should be more cautious about defunding fields just because we can't immediately see their application. buff.ly/J8GxgOv #HigherEd #AI

I'm on sabbatical and supposed to be writing. But the thing I'm supposed to be writing isn't this. New at Found History: foundhistory.org/contingency-... #NewEngland #Maps #Archives #History #America250

Trusting AI; Regional measles strategy; Moltbook’s agent ecologies; Why Socrates was right about AI; Knowledge-based literacy; and more.

if you are wearing a mask, whether you are a federal agent or occupying a college quad, ordinary people are going to think you’re up to no good. We learned as toddlers that bad guys wear masks.

The U.S. may lose its measles elimination status. But the surge isn't national. It's concentrated in a few states. The Southwest's rate is 15x the Northeast's. Why this matters and why regional institutions should step up: foundhistory.org/the-measles-... #Measles #PublicHealth #NewEngland

What does it mean to trust Gemini with document transcription? How is trusting an AI different than trusting a human? My thoughts and a conversation with Claude. #AI #Archives #DigitalHumanities #Transcription #Trust #Philosophy buff.ly/DIrWrWD

Found History (Briefly Noted) is out! 🏛️ The medieval roots of the university 💰 Billionaires don't really believe in UBI 🔬 The myth of scientific "discovery" 📉 EnshittificationU 🪟 Lüften's OK but A/C isn't? Read and subscribe: open.substack.com/pub/foundhis... #HigherEd #AI #UBI #histsci #luften

Universities are medieval institutions—slow by design, optimized for consensus, built to last. We may never satisfy modern demands for efficiency, but we may outlive them. #highered #academia #history buff.ly/DUb1FY5

New Found History (Briefly Noted) post: Tech transfer's failings; Crypto kleptocracy; Springsteen's poetry; and more. #AI #TechTransfer #Poetry #Crypto #Politics #HigherEd buff.ly/bzUyVDU

Check out @ncph.bsky.social's webinar series on the WWII Homefront, starting at the end of the month and including my brilliant colleague, @cjceglio.bsky.social! community.ncph.org/events/Event...

Gmail UI gripe: Why does the star appear on the left (in yellow) in the web app but on the right (in blue) in the mobile app? This is bad design.

Archivists/librarians please share the coolest thing in your collections that will never be digitized.

Read this.... And then look at the date. The more things change.... buff.ly/Boh0a5o

Brought this little Chestnut home yesterday.

The best response to AI is critical engagement, not protest and rejection. Nothing will work, but everything might. #AI #HigherEd #Academia #CulturalHeritage #Education #DigitalHumanities

Why can’t economists get it? The reason people are worried about affordability even though technically inflation is low is because the things that are cheap (TVs, toys, etc.) don’t matter and the things that are expensive (prescriptions, elder care, education) do. open.substack.com/pub/noahpini...

Student accommodations; HBO and Netflix; Historicizing AI; UNESCO recognizes Italian cuisine; Fighting online vice is political winner; and more. buff.ly/NzeQjt6

I'm frustrated with the coverage of Netflix-HBO merger debate, which tends to define "choice" entirely in terms of how the merger will affect creativity. But Hollywood's choice isn't the same as consumer choice. My thoughts at: buff.ly/JwB7mUK #HBO #Netflix #Media #Choice

A lot has been written this week about student accommodations—most of it by people who haven’t been in college for 20 years. I have my problems with accommodations, but you can’t critique one piece without seeing the whole system. foundhistory.org/the-forest-a...

Wrote a short piece arguing that higher ed must help steer AI. TLDR: If we outsource this to tech, we outsource our whole business. But rejectionism is basically stalling. If we want to survive, schools themselves must proactively shape AI for education & research. [1/6, unpaywalled at 5/6] +

Getting lots of push back on here about my latest posts about Gemini 3 and handwriting recognition. Some is totally fair, for example, questions about labor, the relative worth of the technology for close vs. distant reading, etc.

Briefly Noted for December 10, 2025: AI manuscript transcription; online gambling as a wedge issue; the future of craft beer; blogging and social media; a solution for college football; and more. open.substack.com/pub/foundhis...

Too many people formed their opinions about AI when ChatGPT came out three years ago and haven’t updated them, even though pretty much everything has changed. open.substack.com/pub/theargum...

I predicted it! foundhistory.org/a-solution-f... sports.yahoo.com/college-foot...

Gemini’s ability to read handwritten archival documents has importance beyond the humanities. It opens new frontiers for scientific research and collaboration with the humanities. foundhistory.org/seeing-old-s... #ClimateScience #DataScience #Agriculture #Archives #Research #LandGrant #AI

As someone who grew up in Worcester, MA and lives in Connecticut, it bugs me when people say CT isn’t New England. The only food service in New Haven Union Station is TWO Dunkin’s. Tell me that’s not New England.

Like it or not, a new world for archives and historical scholarship is here. New at Found History: foundhistory.org/handwriting-... #AI #Archives #History #DigitalHumanities #Gemini #Transcription

First issue of "Found History (Briefly Noted)" on the iPhone in an UI-less world; the folly of RETVRN; the role of the grant proposal; creativity and AI; and more is out! Read my the post and subscribe to the newsletter!

A well-considered rejection of AI tools that’s based in rigorous experimentation and historiographical discourse and debate is something I could get behind. But that’s different from head shaking, fingers-in-ears refusal to experiment and engage. That’s just Wikipedia ca. 2006 all over again.

I'm launching a new weekly newsletter: Found History (Briefly Noted). My long-form essays remain on the main site (foundhistory.org), but the "stream of discovery"—links, social highlights, and reading lists—is moving to Substack. Get the weekly roundup here: foundhistory.substack.com

“So, yeah, peer review deez nutz.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/hi-...

still waiting for intelligent longform cultural criticism with psychomarxist explanation of the "everything is butthole" logorrhea in the AI space

Apple's focus on perfection is at odds with the messiness of generative AI. My latest newsletter foundhistory.org/does-the-iph... #Apple #AI #iPhone #Innovation #History #Technology

I was surprised and complaining yesterday about the price of Christmas lights. $600 for a fake tree? Turns out these are some of the things hit hardest by the tariffs, according to my corporate international trade attorney spouse. #WarOnXMAS

Impressive experiments in AI-assisted paleography from @dancohen.org (Gemini is gaining really, really good at manuscript transcription.) newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...

I’m reading Dan Wang’s “Breakneck,” which says China is run by engineers and America by lawyers. But look at who actually built American tech and finance. We are not a nation of lawyers OR engineers. We are a nation of the Liberal Arts. buff.ly/QVbLr9m

Right now, a late-November game between two 2-8 teams is meaningless. In my vision, it’s a fight for survival. Let’s adopt the English soccer pyramid for college football. Premier Division. Second Division. Promotion and Relegation. Every game matters. foundhistory.org/how-to-pick-...

Meet the new newsletter. Same as the old blog. After 20 years of blogging, Found History is now a newsletter. Free, open access, and based on an open source platform as always. Please subscribe! foundhistory.org