Awesome power!

What do little kids like most? Space and dinosaurs. It kind of blows my/their/our minds that one wiped out the other.

A brother of mine married a pagan. I think the pagan coulda done better.

Adios, Epstein files!

Every tree is a thousand solar telescopes.

Did I ever tell you that thing about why dapples of sunlight tend to be perfect circles?

Gaza, Nepal and the Epstein files

This is Charlie. He can't help but sing along when his favorite song comes on. 14/10 please turn it pup (TT: nunnyaaaaaaa)

Kristina R. Gaddy and I will be discussing our new book, Go Back and Fetch It: Recovering Early Black Music in the Americas for Fiddle and Banjo today (9/23) at 5:30pm EDT! Join us in person at @umich.edu or on the livestream: bit.ly/4gAREus

This is amazing.

This video is now a decade old, but it's still the most thought-provoking discussion of #AI that I've ever seen. (By @computerphile.bsky.social, which doesn't seem to be active here yet.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcdV...

First time I watched this, I got an ad for Liberty Mutual … might have been a canny advertising move … but probably not.

Exercise your free skeech rights while you still can!

As for Bob Dylan suddenly becoming The Invisible Man … it’s almost like he’s … like, some kinda … unusual person.

viz.

Colleges and universities are going way too soft on policing AI, Tyler Austin Harper argues. “Institutions of higher learning can abandon their centuries-long educational project,” he writes. “Or they can fight.” https://theatln.tc/C2g5ZCSZ

MNHS has been nominated for an EMMY for their documentary on how Harry Smith's Anthology helped save a St. Paul theater that really needed saving. The result is beautiful art, richly informative, and precisely accurate. Gratitude to @pedigreedbunk.bsky.social !

Oh! Rossiter’s influence on me was one of the biggest in all my time as an academic. My chapter-length bio of phytopathologist Helen Hart pretty much opens by quoting Rossiter – any writing on the history of women scientists is likely do the same. #gratitude

Chicken massacre

Somehow, after half a century, I've found the "word of the day" list I've been looking for the whole time.

by F. Macann

18 August 1931 | A German Jewish boy, Léo Schreiber, was born in Frankfurt. His family emigrated to France. He arrived in #Auschwitz on 23 August 1942 in a transport of 1,000 Jews from Drancy. He and his younger brother Albert were murdered after selection in a gas chamber.

Your science lesson for today.

So, here’s FDR (seated), Joseph Cotton (center), and Harlow Shapley (far right, who was nonetheless pretty far left). Shapely was the astronomer who established the shape of our Milky Way Galaxy and our location within it.

Remember when the conservatives didn’t want us talking about the Overton window? Well, now the fascists don’t want us talking about the Overton window.

Okay, but I mean … why Charles Grodin?

Photo by me, taken on the outskirts of Bluegrass

This matters more and more to me the wiser I become (or imagine I become). How, where, and why people encountered what they encountered matters enormously, and that's also the first thing lost to history. Like, the Beatles heard American music -- but what ecosystem did they connect with to hear it?

Every Smiths song is a Tom Lehrer song.

Here’s a new post at my blog about Zen Buddhist koans and the demise of the Homestead Pickin Parlor.

The Nine-Thirds Man #PutMathsInASongOrMovie

I find myself checking the spelling of “AMERICA PARTY” over and over. Maybe it’s the font, or the missing N in AMERICAN, or maybe it’s the picture of Musk with that I-can’t-spell-my-own-name face of his.

NYTimes says the Pope’s going on vacation — The Dells, I assume?

Walk on the Wild Side

When you’re trying like hell to be Bismarck but have less-than-zero clue who the heck Bismarck was.

"No, you don't get it: we SUPPORT the bill, in order to DOOM the bill."

Oh, so it’s the old keep-a-camera-pressed-to-your-face-so-nobody-sees-that-you-are-really-just-a-body-double trick, eh?

I … have opinions, given the efforts of so many for so long to get the buffalo solders remembered and understood — my first thought is Dom Flemons, founder (with Rhiannon Giddens) of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. How many people will first hear of them this way?

Priorities, people

"Wir fahr'n, fahr'n, fahr'n auf der Autobahn..." Kraftwerk's 2013 transport rider

The second installment of this series describes the essential role of one woman in the life of north Minneapolis, including Prince and his powerful community of artists.

The 2nd episode of MNHS's Music Making History series is live. It's beautiful. Seems my experience with the first video was no fluke. Love, love, love to @pedigreedbunk.bsky.social and the whole HistSoc team!

A woman carries books for sale in Luanda, Angola. © Rafael Marchante.

Rare photo of a MASH unit at work during the Asiago-Manchego conflict

This is the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard!! 😍

From interview of Lee Bollinger, 1st Amendment scholar who served as dean of @UMichLaw, president of @UMich, and president of Columbia University. www.chronicle.com/article/were...