Canvas, the Strait of Hormuz for American education

What if we just let Canvas die?

Well, there are these rules that guys have, an understanding as to what exactly constitutes [war]. Take your situation for example: it's not [war]. It's never [war] when you're in a different area code, not to mention a different state. Kyle: That makes no sense E.L.: Hey, I didn't make up the rules

A quick thread riffing with Asheesh, the fundamental thing we as a society have lost is not just that curiosity-driven learning is good for its own sake, it's *also a key virtue of good workers." It's not just that universities are dominated by capital, but that the capital in question is stupid.

But more mistakes

I would like to say it's surprising that smart people would believe obvious lies again and again, but people keep attempting the job market in the humanities, so.

Happy anniversary of my child receiving this phonics worksheet, which I think back on more than any other phonics worksheet ever

[everyone watches horrified as the passengers on the cruise ship come out and it becomes clear they now all have thick white bears and red outfits] oh god no, they got the Santavirus

Know Your Enemy + Revolutions + Dissent event in New York in ten days; more than 600 tickets have already been sold. There are a few left, but if you're thinking about coming I'd get them now rather than later in case we sell out. Only $10 per parasocial friend dissentmagazine.org/blog/event-m...

Loving this book (a shorter version of Piketty’s Great Tomes) & its focus on EQUALITY rather than eg working class rule is clarifying But I wonder whether there’s a more appealing word that takes into account the universal aspiration to upward mobility Most people don’t want to be “equal”

I would love for there to be an automotive event that interrogated what it is to interact with vehicles the way this event interrogates the way we interact with clothing

Making my play for a constitutional law professorship by arguing that the "no Person except a natural born Citizen" means "a citizen borne in by nature," i.e., carried in by natural processes, i.e. the tides of history, so really Mamdani is the most eligible presidential candidate possible.

It's a tossup whether Ezra Klein or Will Stancil drives this website more insane, but anyway this quote is taken out of context and misrepresents Klein's point. Klein is saying something Bluesky profoundly agrees with: the Democratic Party is obsessed with following rules over getting stuff done.

Not only should we get a refund - as @tedmccormick.bsky.social rightly says - we should investigate why we got the public intellectuals we got over the past twenty years. I blame multiple factors: technocracy, the idealization of STEM (esp. Econ), and an underlying insecurity underwriting it all -

No, I did not forget to do the dishes; I was opening up a space for new forms of life within the panopticon of the kitchen counter

Watch to the end of this and Brexit suddenly makes a lot more sense.

Ok there's a lot of incorrect information going around on this, so I want to be clear that the problem with the Big 3 and EV's isn't that the Big 3 didn't want to make EV's. The problem, as with so many things, is Trump. I'm gonna do a little thread on this because people don't seem to be aware. 1/x

You can kiwifarms/gamergate me if you want, but I’m not going down without a fight and it’s going to be total war until the bitter end and it may not go the way you want. So maybe just don’t do it

Look if we’re comparing political theologies, at least Christianity gave us the virgin birth, whereas this?

The Personas of Bluesky when they see a new meme

A lot of people have been comparing Calais to Jim Crow, but given the extent to which gerrymandering allows states to take the economic benefits and population size benefits of Black people while suppressing their votes, it’s honestly a new 3/5 compromise.

Aside from all the other reasons this is dumb it’s such a failure of aesthetic judgment—as if the only criterion of goodness were personalization, as if the Mona Lisa would get better with a little picture showing that she’s smiling at you.

Here's my one AI prediction: the one company that can reliably 100% certainly tell whether or not a piece of text is llm-generated is the company that generated it, so eventually companies will sell searchable databases to schools/universities. Kind of a plagiarism protection racket.

object lesson in why its important to study history in detail rather than just getting broad strokes: until i educated myself i seriously believed the US were equally as culpable in the overthrow of irans democratic government as the brits were. in fact the brits were 10.000.000x as culpable

this is the funniest one—paraphrasable as, "we spent so little time thinking that we're characterizing something a pope didn't do as entangling himself in politics." Like, Pope Julius II led armies in the field and Alexander VI was *the* Borgia, but sure, let's pretend this is a c20 thing

I think it's instructive to ask why one can't say "I am middle-class, can mostly afford things, have seen my financial circumstances and personal consumption improve somewhat over the last five years, and many of my friends are similarly positioned": it's because the internet will yell at you

One enters Stancil discourse with some trepidation, but I do think we've lost the capacity as a culture to be content or satisfied with our lives, and we express that by bemoaning "the economy." I keep recommending Avram Alpert's "The Good-Enough Life," but it's great on this.

Jack Ryan and noted Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon face off in the potboiler to end all potboilers, The Da Vinci Danger.

Caesar Humanist

18th-19th century world history:

Crew guy: everything ok Seagal(sobbing):no Crew(alarmed): whats wrong Seagal: This script Crew:what Seagal: It's so beautiful Crew(now experiencing vertigo):what Seagal: I just read this script and it was so beautiful I can't stop crying Crew:Wow.Who wrote it Seagal(bawling loudly): me

I save my best material for the Aldi Aisle of Shame Facebook group and it’s absolutely wasted

The internet peaked the day we all tried to figure out whether there are more doors or wheels in the world.

At risk of getting into a A Thing, one cause is that college classes are actually the opposite of what everyone thinks they are: they are designed to hide and render inscrutable any conflict that breaks down on Democratic-Republican lines, because that might seem partisan.

Publishers racing to commission Emily Wilson to do another Odyssey translation, but it's just Odysseus trying to get an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz.

In happier news, I'm pretty thrilled to be teaching a class on Bicycles and Society next fall for a class of freshmen/sophomore engineers. I have a good idea of some of the basic readings already—e.g., this—but anyone have a piece they love? What's the best work of art about bicycles?

Flashback to the greatest chapter of MN history I have personally experienced

This is unironically the story of Atatürk.

How do we think they pronounced "Avignon"? Right answers only.

Maybe the real ceasefire was the combustion engines we silenced along the way

Since the only agent with the capacity to end the conflict is the American President, with his ability to pay reparations large enough to actually re-open Hormuz and compel Israel to end the war, it's obvious that the relevant unknown force here is the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

I know only a few things: I hauled about 30 boxes full of used cookbooks, including some real gems; my Mom is hosting a used cookbook sale on 4.11.26 in Cambridge MA, hosted by Curio Spice Co., 12-4pm; it benefits World Central Kitchen, which provides food for victims of [gestures]. Please come!

new york post writeup: I LIKE BIG BUTTS AND I CANNOT DIE”

Just for a second, I would like everyone to briefly contemplate how American media would have covered either George Bush announcing a joint venture with Saddam Hussein to charge the rest of the world a tax on oil.

Forget other countries, it's time for Milwaukee to seize control of Lake Michigan and let those Chicago bastards get what they deserve.

Artistic value is real and some works of literature are better than others.

Academics really will be like, this pales in comparison to my strategy, building a broad left-liberal working class alliance, and then look at an existing broad alliance and call its vibes inchoate.

100% accurate guide to the types of Open Access #academicsky 📚

ME: there aren't even three hours left to take advantage of this sale and get 25% off you preorder of Elon Take The Wheel CHOTINER: based on the urgency of this pitch, the book must be out soon ME: it's... forthcoming CHOTINER: would you like to narrow that down? ME: *mumbling* December 1