This is epic /s. Surely AGI is only a few months away at this rate: arstechnica.com/ai/2025/11/f...

zohran just declared the winner here, called by AP!

I'm thankful every day I'm no longer dependent on album sales for the bulk of my "living," but real bummed how hard it's become with all the spoofing, impersonation, AI slop, and shit platform hijinks that currently define the streaming and digital distribution space. www.youtube.com/watch?v=plle...

Our newest book, Gear: Cultures of Audio and Music Technologies, was just reviewed in Tape Op! tapeop.com/reviews/gear...

Pathetic cowards. www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/j...

In addition to many other important programs, IU Bloomington is eliminating its Folklore and Ethnomusicology Department, one of the most storied and successful in the country.

users of academia.edu, there's a new scheme of AI generated spam emails asking for your whatsapp number. This one began with "Please allow me to introduce myself briefly. My name is Simmons. I am from Bologna, Italy. I currently live in the United States and work as a systems biology researcher..."

Ok people were asking "What IS a small farm anyway?" so let's talk farm size, how it's measured in the US, and what that can tell us about how agriculture really works.

This one's for everyone stuck in grading season right now: www.youtube.com/watch?v=is4g...

In "Gear," leading music technology scholars @samanthabennett.bsky.social and Eliot Bates (@makam.bsky.social) trace the "life of gear" through an examination of the 21st-century fetishization of professional audio technologies and formation of gear cultures: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255185...

New g̵e̵ar̵ book day Available now at MIT Press: mitpress.mit.edu/978026255185...

On May 27, 4:30pm (EDT), we're celebrating our newest book Gear: Cultures of Audio and Music Technologies in an event organized by RILM. If you're in NYC come on down; out-of-town, it'll be livestreamed, register here: brookcenter.gc.cuny.edu/event/sites-... @samanthabennett.bsky.social

President Trump’s sweeping tariffs announced today stretched across the globe, including the remote Heard and McDonald Islands, which are populated by zero humans but lots of seals and penguins. nbcnews.to/3QXPQ31

Cory Booker's 24 hours into his epic, record-breaking Senate speech! Currently talking about John Lewis. www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/...

Every time someone my age says something about “a brainrot trend on TikTok…” I’m compelled to remind Gen X that we were obsessed with Gregorian chant for a year in the 90s. Like we *went to the mall* & *bought CDs of it*. We blasted it in our cars driving to our high schools. This was normal to us🥸

Okay, I wrote a longer thing about @durbin.senate.gov, @amyklobuchar.com, @klobuchar.senate.gov, @whitehouse.senate.gov, @blumenthal.senate.gov apparently wanting to hand Donald Trump a huge weapon with which to censor online speech. www.techdirt.com/2025/03/21/d...

Here's a more fulsome post from the Press. So sad. Farewell to Jonathan Sterne dukeupress.wordpress.com/2025/03/21/f...

Woke to this 💔 news on such a ☀️ day. In a world of metastasizing cruelty, where education — at all levels — is under threat, Jonathan’s work + life remind us of what is possible + desirable. In his honor today, listen to some 🎶 (ideally not on mp3!) + imagine impairment as an opportunity for grace 💐

As many of you know Jonathan Sterne is in hospice. If you would like to send a message to Jonathan and Carrie please send an email to [email protected] Carrie is receiving these messages and sharing them with Jonathan

US deports hundreds of Venezuelans "despite" court order. Meaning, of course: "in breach of". On the face of it, it looks like there is now a full constitutional crisis in United States, in that the executive is now freely ignoring court orders. Crisis point reached. www.bbc.com/news/article...

If someone you know has been informed about any potential for being deported from the US, be aware (and let them and their lawyers, if any know) that as of Mar 15, Chief Judge Boasberg has issued a temporary restraining order blocking *all* deportations: www.lawdork.com/p/alien-enem...

Well, so much for any notion that the new administration would be... um... more "isolationist" www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Trump and Musk are basically trying to deskill America: 1) kill all white-collar jobs and replace them with AI 2) kill universities 3) use tariffs to turn the U.S. into an economic island manufacturing, oil and ag hub 4) empty the cities 5) push men into manual labor & women back into the kitchen

Holy shit. This is *the* gold-standard measurement of atmospheric CO2 -- the one in all the charts.

Tesla Model 3 crushed by an Olmec statue By Mexican sculptor @chavismarmol.bsky.social

It's time for Schumer to resign. He's unfit for office. Invertebrates were not permitted to hold office last time I checked.

Among the material devastation to everyday people, Senate Dems have now blown a hole in their ability to work with the House. We had an agreed upon plan, House took immense risk, then Senate turned around midway and destroyed it w/ a fear-based, inexplicable abdication. They own what happens next.

this image of a decomposing saguaro, honeycomb structure exposed, taken in tucson, feels like the mood of the day

New from 404 Media: hundreds of subreddits, including some of the most popular, are considering banning all links/content/screenshots from X/Twitter. r/NFL, r/hockey, r/baseball, r/nba, r/formula1, r/ComicBookMovies, r/MadeMeSmile, so many more. Some already have. www.404media.co/hundreds-of-...

Twitch has posted the definitions of what needs to be labeled under the new Content Classification Label for Politics and Sensitive Social Issues. Read it here: safety.twitch.tv/s/article/Co... #StreamerNews #TOSgg

YES on Prop 1. NO on 2–6.

Okay, so Elsevier, Routledge, and now Wiley are all out now. Sounds like academics really need to step our own efforts to create and sustain independent, open access, non-profit publishing. #academicsky

"Academic publisher Wiley has revealed it is set to make $44 million (£33 million) from Artificial Intelligence (AI) partnerships that it is not giving authors the opportunity to opt-out from." AI in publishing going great then www.thebookseller.com/news/wiley-s...

We did it. We finished a book. 119.9k words, all about gear. Off it goes to MIT Press, hopefully it's out in print later this year! 🙃📖😱🎤🎧

Just the latest Harvard dirty money scandal: Harvard shutters disinformation research team after zuck & co donate $500m to Harvard: live-whistleblower-aid.pantheonsite.io/joan-donovan...

Companies have scraped millions of copyrighted books/articles and copied them without permission to train generative AI. We are conducting a survey and would like to hear from you. Be sure to share it with your writer friends! form.jotform.com/233316136049...

Come work with us in the Music Dept at The Graduate Center (CUNY)! The listing is for an Assistant/Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, to commence in fall 2024, application review begins Nov 27 but open until filled. cuny.jobs/new-york-ny/...

And here's today's formalization of the proof that crypto, from bottom to top, is primarily about fraud and money laundering. Up to 110 years in prison for SBF: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Hi everyone, Project Spectrum has written an open letter to the AMS, SEM, and SMT leadership about the lack of hybrid options to attend and/or present at the upcoming annual meetings. You can read our letter here: www.projectspectrummusic.com/open-letter-...

Academic librarians, come work with terrific folx at CUNY! Tenure track and substitute jobs are hiring at multiple campuses: cuny.jobs/brooklyn-ny/... cuny.jobs/bronx-ny/lib... library.qc.cuny.edu/employment/

Happy that my own 3 books are up on the "notorious shadow library." The "shadow librarians" do far more than for-profit Cengage, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, and Pearson to make the academic work we do accessible to many. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Hello! The Kickstarter campaign for our upcoming polyrhythm game The One-Body Problem is happening soon!! Follow here to get notified when it launches! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/piesaac/the-one-body-problem

Electronic music/sound awards for UK-based women and Gender Expansive (Trans, Non-Binary, Agender, Gender Fluid, Genderqueer) creators: https://www.oramawards.com/ . Apparently this year they're additionally interested in "underrepresented regions of the UK." Due august 14!

Lookee here american tax filers, turns out the largest tax prep companies give mounds of your personal data to tech companies. If we had actual consumer protection laws we'd be able to sue these asshats into oblivion https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/tech/tax-prep-companies-taxpayer-data-google-meta

🧪 We have been begging conferences for basic accessibility, affordability, and equity for decades now. It’s time to put pressure on our institutions and communities, through the power of our labor. Sign up to have a say in demands, timeline, and more 👉🏾

As the Republicans ratchet up their Q-based moral panic about drag queens, gays, and Democrats, this list of Republican Sexual Predators is approaching 1100, well it has reached 1100, but I still working on the pages of documentation. Use them. https://goppredators.wordpress.com/

FAA grants Alef a "Special Airworthiness Certification" for their CGI animated "prototype" flying car. If a physical version ever does the rounds I give it 12 hrs until 1) a canada goose beaks it & causes a fatal crash, 2) flyer on weed becomes the latest skyscraper hood ornament https://rb.gy/ovqxo

thinking of posting some of the various semi-abstract nature photos (goblincore, algaes, lichens etc) that I do up here, mebbe one a week? If my stress-release technique just might help you out too, let me know!

finally, the first step towards tackling the unfairness of a century's old institution of affirmative action... that is, affirmative action for rich white folks: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-legacy-policy-challenged-heels-affirmative-action-ruling-2023-07-03/