Latest newsletter! Fahrenheit vs. Celsius. Temperature is natural. Degrees are man made. foundhistory.substack.com/p/fahrenheit... #History #HSTM #HistSci

This was a month ago. I’ll see you again in a month.

So I guess we’re writing all our section headings as questions now in this new day of AI-assisted search (via NYT/The Athletic)

Just explained to an incredulous 13-year-old that the LED-incandescent culture war was really a thing.

I’m confounded by the convention discourse around Platner’s candidacy. Mainstream GOP types think Collins has a shot because Platner is too progressive. Establishment Dems worry Collins has a shot because of the Nazi stuff.

Just wanted to point out that I posted this BEFORE the latest bombings.

A reminder that being good at one thing doesn’t make you good at everything. Nobody wants a Ferrari that looks like an iPod. www.forbes.com/sites/maryro...

Trump has announced “great progress” on reopening the Strait of Hormuz at least six times. Each time oil prices plummeted. Each time the “deal” fell through. Each time oil prices climbed again. And I’m supposed to believe that Wall Street is full of geniuses?

The U.S. hasn’t seen a mining disaster of this scale in more than 75 years. The next time you marvel at China’s ability to build—its “dynamism”—remember that its relative indifference to human suffering is a big part of it.

Latest Found History (Briefly Noted) is out: The Cartier Crash; Chimp civil war; Pluralism in the AI classroom; Millennials, Gen X, and money; Dog parks are not the problem; and more. foundhistory.substack.com/p/briefly-no...

Starting a research project this summer? Need to sample an archive's holdings before you book your travel? Try Sourcery! Your first document request is FREE! Now in more than 40 cities across the U.S. sourceryapp.org

A decade ago my kids had Kindle Fire tablets. I recently bought an Amazon Fire TV. Now my screensaver is a bunch of silly seven-year-old selfies and pictures of random Lego creations. I’m in dad nostalgia heaven.

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.