@alexusherhesa.bsky.social has started a deep dive into the methodology that the Nova Scotia government is using to measure the net cost of academic programs offered by our universities. A couple of thoughts:

it just says “I’m Feeling Unlucky” now, with no other options

Muskism names the symptom. Materialized science fiction explains one of the mechanisms by which it reproduces itself. Science fiction is part of the cognitive and institutional scaffolding within which certain ambitions become thinkable and certain power grabs feel like common sense.

@alexusherhesa.bsky.social has started a deep dive into the methodology that the Nova Scotia government is using to measure the net cost of academic programs offered by our universities. A couple of thoughts:

I am pretty confused why bsky is so mad about this. Establishing "neutral" rules of districting would require federal anti gerrymandering reform. This isn't saying things are ok without that reform. It's saying reform structured in anti-partisan ways would have more or less racially fair effects

you're laughing. two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert and you're laughing.

"Gen Z has a hip new approach to truth, it's called 'believing whatever flatters the priors of you and your peer cohort'!" I'm going to have nightmares about this piece.

New piece defending the applied turn in analytic philosophy. I say what the applied turn is, how it differs from the social turn, and why it isn't just left progressivism cloaked in the language of analytic philosophy. open.substack.com/pub/rbnmcken...

I can't prove this, exactly, but with Sharon gone it feels like a load bearing cypher of Politics Bluesky has disappeared. The network is now without its most critical node. Feels like when DeJoy took over the Post Office.

Every time I see one of those "If Kamala won we'd be at brunch right now!" signs at a protest, my first thought is unfortunately, "Yeah. Yeah, you probably would."

New blog post! SpaceX, naturally. www.businesslawprofessors.com/2026/05/no-v...

So, serious question, will anyone have standing and a cause of action to recover the money that Trump has made running the Presidency as a pump and dump scheme?

Righteousness is a trap, it's easily manipulatable, and the problem is that the last decade of political discourse has been about being righteous

The legal definition of a concentration camp is a facility where civilians are held without due process. That is what these are and we must tell the truth about them to marshal the outrage needed to demand they cease to exist.

It's just occurred to me that the AI-assisted text is country cousin to the text written by the student who overuses the thesaurus. In search of "impact," the technique tends to erase both meaning and personality, but at the level of the sentence rather than the word.

My friend who used to say the final stage of corporate greed was demanding to be loved is never, ever proved wrong.

It's just occurred to me that the AI-assisted text is country cousin to the text written by the student who overuses the thesaurus. In search of "impact," the technique tends to erase both meaning and personality, but at the level of the sentence rather than the word.

Reminds me of "Ibid: A Life" by Mark Dunn, a novel in the form of endnotes. It's supposed to be a biography where the main text was lost and all that remains are the endnotes.

In every academic book there is a secret second book hiding in the footnotes. Sometimes it is the first draft that had migrated there to escape the revisions. Sometimes it is the author's tortured secret rebuttal of their own claims, and sometimes it is the incipient form of the their next book.

We grew up so poor we could only see Le Miserable. It was just one miserable up there, wavin' a flag and singin' and firin' a cannon and whatnot.

It fascinates me how some people on social media nowadays actively seem to be weirded out when you attempt to actively interact with them, or to reply to their posts - as if they assume it’s a broadcast-first medium.

see, the little details like this are what make dystopian sf interesting for me what incidental little things break as a result of the scenario

Atmospheric CO₂ of 340 ppm

New kind of phone but no one can call you on it and it only contains your favorite thing to read. Also it’s made out of paper.

Chotiner would make an excellent St Peter

Breaking news: Indiana University plant microbiologist Roger Innes has been locked out of his laboratory by the school in response to a request by one of his federal funders. The move comes after Innes complained about the government’s prosecution of Chinese postdocs. https://scim.ag/4tsDqRr

are light sabers possible

I am constantly horrified by this government, and utterly bemused by people who think that Carney is better than Poilivere. They clearly haven’t been paying enough attention to what he is actually doing. @althiaraj.bsky.social has been one of the few journalists honest and pointed about this.

Canvas, the Strait of Hormuz for American education

Breaking character: In memory of Ted Turner, the amazing letter his dad wrote him when he decided to major in the classics. Yankees just can't write this, my friends. www.bu.edu/arion/files/...

RFK Jr. buys a hot dog

Institutional neutrality is intended to restrain the speech of the institution itself, not students and faculty. But universities are increasingly using such policies to suppress student speech. www.insidehighered.com/news/student...

Absolutely fascinating how nearly every teacher and professor I know is now overhauling their pedagogy to put everything on old-fashioned paper, while (and in large part because) massive investments in AI like this roll in. I have no idea what will come of this. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/05/u...

curious choice to remake O Brother Where Art Thou. nolan can't really top the coens imo.

The single most defining thing Elon Musk has ever done is killing untold numbers of people by having DOGE illegally raid and disband USAID. Not rickets, not cars, not even the CSAMbot on X. It’s this, and so many media pundits just choose to unsee it.

What is the best movie about losing a big sports event, and why is it Cool Runnings?

@davidbessis.bsky.social's piece is of especially sharp interest to me as case study in the fraught relation among the kind of knowledge production society sees as valuable, the outputs that a field uses to allocate academic capital, and the quotidian work that builds and maintains the field

This completely tracks for me. The opportunity to be a hands-on, active father was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Actively parenting young children was the happiest I've ever been in my life. I feel *terrible* for previous generations of men who denied themselves the pleasure.

There are essays to be written, and I imagine there have been, about why Disco Elysium feels like a game with and about *history*, while most games feel like they just have "lore."

I don't know how to describe the tone, but imagine if All the President's Men took ketamine.

KIM KITSURAGI - Never fuck with Kim Kitsuragi.

If you have even a passing interest in mathematics as a field, I cannot recommend this piece enough. Yes, it's about AI, but just as it says on the label, it is also also about the political economy of how mathematics is done and why, at a moment where that model is being threatened.

I appreciate that modern marketing common sense says that you drive sales by signing people up to your email list. But honestly, I bought a hammock from an online hammock store. Is it really worth it to them to keep me informed about my future...hammock...needs?

... in which I learn that Claude Shannon wrote poetry in spare time, the hope placed in transhumanist poetry, that the apocalypse is uneven, and virus as an author. Ruby on the Canadian poet, Christian Bök's poetic documentation of poetry/bioengineering experiment, Xenotext

I appreciate that modern marketing common sense says that you drive sales by signing people up to your email list. But honestly, I bought a hammock from an online hammock store. Is it really worth it to them to keep me informed about my future...hammock...needs?