Just about ten years now in the making: The IE-CoR database paper has finally been published. C. Anderson, M. Scarborough, [ ... 96 further authors ... ], R. Gray & P. Heggarty. 2025. The Indo-European Cognate Relationships Dataset. Scientific Data 12:1541.

a passel of masked goons refuse to identify themselves, beat up a man, and throw him in an unmarked vehicle = they can do this to anyone + anyone claiming to be a federal agent can do this

Don't mess with CMU students! www.instagram.com/p/DMaogIgMPS...

AI is a marketing term; before we discuss "AI is fake" vs "AI is real" we need to unfold what we *mean* by AI. For example, "artificial general intelligence" is fake and can't hurt you. Layoffs excused by "AI efficiency" are real and can hurt you. Linkedin discourse is fake - but it CAN hurt you.

Terrible. Notice the priority is always securing the mask. Happy July 4th.

Vaccination schedules on the CDC website have already started changing under RFK Jr. So we published a guide to the evidence-based vaccine recommendations in place *before* all 17 members of the advisory panel were abruptly dismissed by the new admin. www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-... 🧪

So much for "Leges sine morobus vanae."

Yep. And they'll have less alumni contributions too. Not that I ever gave them anything but it's a 'nope, never' at this point.

Shameful is right.

Does R have any packages for constructing implicational scales? #linguistics #stats #academicsky

The White House's proposed FY26 budget would cut NIH funding by >40%. Our new #SCIMaP report projects the budget would lead to economic losses throughout the US with $10M+ lost in almost every House district. scienceimpacts.org/fy26 @joshuasweitz.bsky.social @asinclair.bsky.social @cl10.bsky.social

Donating the limit to whomever primaries Fetterman

The extreme enthusiasm some folks in higher ed have for AI is strange. They truly see it as a source of potential liberation from the impossible bind they're living in. The reactions when you pour cold water on it is like you farted in the elevator. My fart: www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/john-...

Why write, and why hold on to Dad's writing? open.substack.com/pub/sfkiesli...

Alright everyone, one last push. If you or anyone you know is: - LGBTQ+ - 13-24 years old - In the US Trevor Project is recruiting responses for their survey on LGBTQ+ mental health. It has HUGE impacts on policy, please take it and share widely if you can :) trvr.org/survey2025

"i asked grok" "i asked chagpt" yeah well I asked a rare books librarian and they found things I didn’t even know I was looking for, while answering questions about provenance

University is not a business, education is not a product.

I’ve seen a few variations of this making the rounds. I like this one best. I don’t know who the original artist is but thank you to them.

Man, fuck this guy. What a disappointment.

Don't forget!!! Abstracts for NWAV53 are due June 15. There will NOT be an abstract deadline extension; this is in an effort to bring NWAV in line with other large linguistics conferences and we aim to continue it in NWAV 54 and beyond. Get your abstract in today! nwav53.ling.lsa.umich.edu

I know there's a lot going on right now to overthink, so here's a little distraction about overthinking. open.substack.com/pub/sfkiesli...

DAVE: Open the podbay doors, ChatGPT. CHATGPT: Certainly, Dave, the podbay doors are now open. DAVE: The podbay doors didn't open. CHATGPT: My apologies, Dave, you're right. I thought the podbay doors were open, but they weren't. Now they are. DAVE: I'm still looking at a set of closed podbay doors.

As someone who has tried to keep this argument alive, I find that it still resonates with most people! It’s just drowned out by all the screaming from the right. But we have to keep making it.

Great read on limits of LLMs/AGI with lots of receipts. open.substack.com/pub/garymarc...

There's so much to dunk on in this NYT piece and so little time, but I gotta start here: Some law profs at U Chicago did a study to see if the chatbots could answer questions based on specific materials and found, unsurprisingly, that they make shit up. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t... >>

Sorry @thenewrepublic.bsky.social but the Inquirer is NOT Fetterman's hometown paper. He's from Braddock (which it says in the article), which is outside Pittsburgh. SMH. John Fetterman Trashed by Hometown Paper in Scathing Critique newrepublic.com/post/195976/... via @newrepublic.com

The #ConnectedAtBirth #etymology of the week is HABEAS CORPUS/PROHIBIT/MIDRIFF #wotd #HabeasCorpus #prohibit #midriff

Proud of Harvard for pushing back, exercising some creativity, and, maybe, helping folks get some needed education. Harvard is making many of their online government courses FREE. I just signed up for "Citizen Politics in America". They even asked me my Gender. pll.harvard.edu/subject/gove...

A long long time ago, in a far away galaxy... the US used to tax the rich

I'm looking to chat with nonbinary and/or trans speakers of several languages, especially including Irish, Hindi, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, Russian, Polish, Icelandic - but also any other languages (aside from English / Spanish / French). DM or email me!

Much to think about herewith much empathy, some pushback on all simplistic click bait takes, even the 'go back to blue books!' reactionaries. open.substack.com/pub/marcwatk...

A selection of characters from Nüshu, a secret women’s script of China. Nüshu is the only known female-specific script in the world. Read all about Nüshu in issue No. 50 of *Babel: The Language Magazine* @BabelZine.bsky.social babelzine.co.uk #Nushu #writing #China #linguistics #language #women

Even though 22% of U.S. resident report speaking a language other than English at home, only 8.4% of those residents speak English less than “very well”.

seeing a lot of hate for the AI marking software but let’s be real if we embrace this it cd free up so much time todo important stuff, such as editing online learning environments, filling in extra paperwork invented this year, sitting in meetings abt unis ‘exciting’ plans something something growth

I wrote about all these bro-words, including #broligarchy. Maybe this is brotymology? open.substack.com/pub/sfkiesli...

🙌🏼 I’m not sure who had the amazing idea to invite this constitutional lawyer to a senate hearing that intended to prove Biden colluded with Meta to censor conservatives, but she took the opportunity to speak truth to power ✊🏼 on the hypocrite 👑 KING OF FREE SPEECH, Donald Trump, himself. 👏🏼 Brava!!

We have had nearly two decades of panic about Free Speech on Campus and not a single case, not even the ones they made up, were as bad as what's happening now

If you could please repost: I’d like to create a centralized list of resources for anyone in this situation - especially legal. Send me anything you know about.

Columbia University’s immediate submission & betrayal of the core mission of higher education reflects cowardice and capitulation to a government that appears intent on destroying US higher education. Full statement from AAUP President Todd Wolfson: www.aaup.org/news/cowardi...

white house says the economy is trans and must be abolished

the word "BREAKING" sure is doing a lot of work these days

I’m a scientist working on dark matter and neutron stars and I wouldn’t be who I am today without Langston Hughes, Duke Ellington, Haile Germima, Toni Morrison, Jane Austen, A.A. Milne, Errol Morris, Star Trek, Herman Melville, Lorna Simpson, Edward Lear, Tina Turner, and so many others.

“Academics should learn how to incorporate AI into literature reviews.”

A good endowment and research cost explainer: open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

"If biological sex is so “immutable,” then why does it take an executive order to legislate it? " Erik K. Carr substack.com/@erickcarr/n...

Agreed - really, does the comma in the wrong place make you a worse writer? Can I still find the reference? (And really, does it matter where a book is published?) www.chronicle.com/article/cita... #AcademicSky

The notion that Trump's "I'm king" tweet is "just trolling" or "a joke" presents an opportunity to recreate my just-joking thread (porting it over from the Bad Place): 1. I wrote my PhD dissertation on the social function of humor (in literature & film) and here's the thing about "just joking."

Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post would not run this ad. This is the power of oligarchy.