new research involves giving 7-12 year olds GoPros and 100% of the videos are like:

After weeks of tormenting the baby chickens, Kiwi has decided that she wants to be a mother and she’s taken her business outside of the coop and become broody. Updates via @markthornton.bsky.social (I’m in Chile)

I miss before AI when students used to write about (some variation of) “Since the beginning of time” all the time that was so fun

We're engaged! @tyanna.bsky.social

Today was the little girls’* first day out in public (the garden). The big girls were huffy and puffy about it. *one is a tiny baby rooster

Frolicking in the garden 🐓🐓🐓🐓

students are very creative when they're not using AI. i gave someone podesva (2007) and eckert (2008) and he talked himself into a whole theory of (political) language socialization vis-a-vis a rational economy of indexical value.

Moved the monstera so that the cats can follow the chickens’ journey to and from the front yard more closely 🐓🐓🐓🐓

Asparagus, looking very bird 🐥

I've learned all there is to know about masculinities AMA.

For a transcription assignment, a student organized her data (line numbers, speaker, text) into cells in a table & then hid the lines of the boxes & I pointed out to everyone in class today that this is a good idea because look how organized her lines are and then we were all like 🤯🤯🤯 women in STEM

There are only two genders: tenure track and postdoc

three of my students this quarter are doing their ethnographic language and politics projects on their fraternities and I'm learning so much about masculinities.

One of my grad students accurately summarizing the value proposition of AI assistants: “Give me access to everything and I might be able to help with something.”

Carrot, Peach, Crocus, Goji Berry, Tulip, Asparagus, and Primrose in the garden 🐣 Kiwi, Eki, Barb, and Squash staying far away 🐓🐓🐓🐓

People need to stop telling students it’s cheating to use AI to write their papers but it’s ok—even encouraged—to use LLMs to brainstorm/organize their ideas. Having your own ideas and organizing them is literally the point. Vibe writing kills ideas.

Attempted introductions, but the big chickens did not care.

Important chicken update: there are 7 more! Tulip, Asparagus, Peach, Primrose, Goji Berry, Crocus, and Carrot

Canvas, the Strait of Hormuz for American education

They’re always hacking grades and medical information but never hacking student loan debt smh

Big fan of the sugar shack owner/guide who guided us in English but gave us commands only in French 🍁

gifts for friends🥚

My AI agent, Empanada.

They’re so busy.

Astronauts must be so good at sleeping. That has to be something they select for. I wouldn’t get any sleep because I’d be like “OMG I’M IN SPACE”, which can’t be good for doing science.

Lettuce lovers 🥬

Anna’s Hummingbird in Napa Valley, CA.

Don’t use AI as a therapist to work through your relationship problems.

Someone laid their first egg! We don’t know who. Or why she chose to leave it teetering on a ledge. Still proud though.

The 2026 National Science Foundation budget is $8.75 Billion.

Congrats to BART rider and Oakland legend Alysa Liu on winning a gold medal at the Olympics and making the Bay Area proud!

“Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords kiki & bouba with spiky & round shapes, respectively...We tested the bouba-kiki effect in baby chickens. Similar to humans, they spontaneously chose a spiky shape when hearing a kiki sound & a round shape when hearing a bouba.”😲🧪

Four mile skate loop on Lake Morey. No falls this time! ⛸️

We always recognize Kiwi because she goes out of her way to make eye contact 👁️

New preprint from Lindsey Tepfer (@ltjaql.bsky.social) and me! We silenced portions of internal monologues in two films to manipulate participants' access to characters' thoughts. Using ISC and RSA, we found that this aligned later neural processing of the narrative & encoding of trait impressions.

Big fan of Vermont’s first cat cafe that’s also a tattoo parlor.

Adirondack chairs why

He chooses warmth ❄️☕️

The targeting of immersion schools points changing racial logic. Under neoliberal multiculturalism the teaching of racialized languages was permissible if done in ways that benefited white people. Under neofascism the very idea of racialized languages being taught in school is being criminalized.

Birding in New Orleans 🐦 Limpkin, Ibis, Muscovy ducks The ducks are domestic 🦆

Me and who at this yarn store this evening or tomorrow? #LSA2026

6-7 is very popular in the word of the year event comments section at #LSA2026, in part because of its multimodal prosody+iconic gestures component.

love to be a libertarian whose response to the summary execution of an american citizen is “you shouldn’t say bad words”

As you evaluate this from Kristi Noem, remember that when a federal agent shot a woman in Chicago last year, DHS's initial version of events was full of lies that fell apart under subsequent scrutiny: newrepublic.com/article/2019...

And this harassment is not limited to teenagers at school. I have gone through this as a Venezuelan academic (and no, I don't hate socialism but people don't want to hear it), and many other Venezuelans from all walks of life have experienced this too. People just want to stereotype Venezuelans.

When I was doing research in Chilean schools (2016-2020), I regularly saw Venezuelan teens experience breakdowns—in class, during recess, online—under relentless discourse and peer harassment, often rooted in leftist narratives claiming people who left Venezuela did so because they “hate socialism.”

You know why you keep talking about Venezuelan oil and nothing else. BECAUSE YOU KNOW NOTHING ELSE ABOUT THE COUNTRY.

Responding to Venezuelans saying “you should talk to Venezuelans” with a list of acts of US imperialism is a weird discourse strategy, actually.