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Casting a Mexican as Helen of Troy is never a mistake.

Seems kinda ominous that I just started watching the Chernobyl miniseries and this happens. www.latimes.com/california/s...

I guess the hips really didn't lie.

[frantically dialing the Dad Joke Hall of Fame]

wow — the preprint host, arxiv, is banning authors for a year if they submit papers with hallucinated citations 🤖

“For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints in elite higher education.” www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wer...

Check out our recent episode with Manuel Vargas (@unfilosofo.bsky.social) from UC San Diego, co-editor of "The Latinx Philosophy Reader": philosophytalk.org/shows/mexica... #PhilSky #Mexico #Cincodemayo

Boston Odyssey: making stops at every Dunkin in New England until you get home.

This tweet by @dcpierson.bsky.social is to me the entirety of Mad Men

Starting to feel like there are more varieties of milk for sale these days than there are varieties of breakfast cereals.

Is social media dying? How much did Twitter change as it became X? Which party now dominates the conversation? Using nationally representative ANES data from 2020 & 2024, I map how the U.S. social media landscape has changed Here are the key take-aways 🧵 Full paper out now in in JQD:DM!

So why "Beauvoir" and not "de Beauvoir"? Because this "de" is a nobiliary particle, and these particles are omitted when referring to someone by locative surname only. In English we use these rarely, but we do use them, and in certain circumstances we drop the particle too.

Zoomzobra. The feeling of not knowing whether you can count on zoom to work without technical hiccups.

I'm getting the feeling that the Pope has had it with the current admin.

A lot of people badmouth modern air travel. But that's because they aren't sitting in an otherwise empty business class row all by themselves, like I am.

Just learned the phrase “emotional support alcohol” and I’m still chuckling.

There is a lot wrong in the world, but it is also amazing that one can be flying across the planet while nearly instantaneously downloading research articles on a topic in light of a discussion with an AI about the state of play in another academic field.

Fellow nerds of #PhilSky rejoice!

A dishonorarium: a payment to someone else to set up an event to discuss one's own work, as in "Someone reached out to me to ask if I would like to feature my book on a curated Goodreads reading community for a modest dishonorarium." Scammers be scammin'.

Being done with grading for the term isn't the absolutely best feeling in the world, but it is surely in the top 10 for me.

Maybe the king could have philosophers discuss this. A debate, say, maybe at Valladolid?

I've discovered that academics who love a city give the most detailed and thoughtful guidance about what to see and do when visiting. Like, pages of guidance, local color, and opinionated takes. So awesome.

Michael B Jordan proving he can win without Scottie B Pippen.

It is no small satisfaction when one’s student gets to decide between multiple appealing tenure track offers. And in this world! Gotta celebrate when you can.

Its been over 15 years but I think I get the grift. Manufacture radical skepticism about all institutional knowledge, making atomized individuals with no knowledge seek expertise from a sea of random individuals most of whom falsely exhibit knowledge. Then monetize all the random individuals.

Inadvertently, electric cars and wind power are being made into urgent national priorities.

United Airlines updated its contract of carriage — the rules a passenger agrees to in order to fly — to specify that “passengers who fail to use headphones while listening to audio or video content” could be removed from a plane or not allowed to board. https://wapo.st/47tbvsf

Yes, but will AI help me get a better night of sleep?

It is still February, but San Diego has apparently decided it is summer.

My undergrads got wind that it was recently my birthday and they turned up with a hand-sketched portrait as well as cupcakes, cookies, snacks, for a class of 60 students! Everyone should get to have a batch of students like this at least once in their careers.

New article: Saba Bazargan-Forward, "Compensation and Necessity in War", Philosophers' Imprint 26: 3. doi: doi.org/10.3998/phim... Abstract in alt text. #philsky

Very important Mexican Philosophy news: Miguel León-Portilla’s AZTEC THOUGHT AND CULTURE is name-dropped in the first ep of Marvel TV show WONDERMAN!!

I‘ve gotta do something about the referees.

AI seems to turn every job into quality assurance for the AI.

And this: psyche.co/ideas/why-we...

Wrote this: aeon.co/essays/the-l...

I will allow that curling is indeed weirdly engrossing even if you have no idea what the rules are.

First signs of creeping old-timer-ness: discovering articles by tenured faculty that say "I first read [Vargas] as an undergrad and . . . ." Can I start yelling at people to get off my philosophical lawn?

Apparently UCSD Philosophy has been doing a good job with the grad program. dailynous.com/2026/02/11/p...

Vaporub ads give me ptsd. Someone needs to ban those.

I may not be ready to teach class this week, but the fact that I am 90% caught up with email I've received this year feels like a huge bit of progress for the weekend.

Philosophy Talk – the nationally syndicated radio program and podcast – has made all of its 600+ episodes freely accessible. You can stream directly from philosophytalk.org and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I‘m not saying I *need* weeks of snow, but I would be totally okay if we weren’t having back-to-back weeks of mid 70s weather in January. Like, highs in the 50 and 60s would be fun to experience for a bit, too.

SEND SOME COLITA DE RANA, STAT! Been laid low by an evil virus. Can we re-set the quarter for a week from now?

UCSD added 10k students since I took a job there way back when, and apparently the entirety of that added foot traffic is between my office and where I‘m teaching this quarter.

Already abandoned my New Year’s resolution.