Release day!! 🎉 I've been working on this book since 2020, so it's exciting that it is finally out in the world!! I really just wanted to write a cool story, and so I hope people enjoy it! 🙏

I know AI is debatable, but I gotta be honest, it's going through and placing library holds for me (after I've signed into my browser), and this is automating the worst, most boring parts of my workflow.

On an early morning GO Train for a provincial government AI Summit in Toronto. Not naturally a morning bird, but taking the train across the countryside as the sun rises is beautiful.

Small #universities matter now more than ever. They provide a model for teaching & learning that resists the convenience of #AI & they are also cost effective. In #Ontario, however, systematic underfunding puts these universities at risk. lfpress.com/opinion/colu... #onpoli #cdnpoli #cdnpse

Good thing governments spent the last decade telling young people they all had to learn how to code and universities that they were useless unless they were churning out IT grads.

The @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social version of "Ripples on the Cosmic Ocean" is out today! It includes an audiobook, which I recorded last December at a sound studio here in Washington, DC. Now you can read or listen to the book, even if you live outside of the US and Canada. #History 1/2

Tried to get my AI agents to enage in a Nathan Fielder-esque "Rehearsal" of an upcoming conversation. Claude is down to play. Co-Pilot is like that co-worker who refuses to engage in any chicanery or tomfoolery. Come on!

Kinda sad that the main Olympics are over. This was the first one in a while that I really got into - probably because I have a sports-crazed son - and I genuinely thought the CBC Gem app was great.

Writing a commissioned/invited book chapter this morning. Been recounting therein debates about print/digital fixity and preservation, from Eisenstein and Johns, through @kfitz.info, up to @ianmilligan1.bsky.social. Now, though, Robyn is demanding a cuddle. Who am I to say no?

I feel like we could forgo giving the stuffed animals to the hockey players… (My son is insisting we watch the medal ceremony. Sigh.)

Fuck

My research trip was cancelled last night due to the winter storm - a 1:45am call from Air Canada - but the bright side is that I get to watch the gold medal game with my kids. The downside… it’s going to overtime and my heart is pounding…!

I can’t believe I have a 3pm meeting, during the third period of the US/Canada gold medal women’s hockey game. Let’s go Canada!!

Wayback Machine director Mark Graham pushes back on unfounded claims from media organizations that the Wayback Machine is a backdoor for AI scraping.⁠ ⁠ Read more via @techdirt.com 🔗 www.techdirt.com/2026/02/17/p...

Searching "longest national anthems" because wouldn't that be a fun Olympics awards ceremony... (too bad they don't play all 158 stanzas of the Greek national anthem, "Hymn to Liberty")

Unbelievable. OCUFA didn't even mention the deeply regressive raid on student financial aid in their announcement response (it did, however, critique the tiny tuition fee increase, which should have been much larger).

No, you pay a small fraction of the true costs because tuition has been kept artificially low, at what has become a real cost to the quality of education. Cost of living dwarfs tuition as an obstacle to access post-sec ed. www.ctvnews.ca/london/artic...

I've been asked to chair (and time-keep) two sessions at the @cndhistassoc.bsky.social conference in June. I'm now wondering where I can rent a bear costume in Charlottetown...

Here's my full take on Thursday's funding annoucnement in Ontario. It's a big deal. The money to institutions is good, the way the money being raised is more regressive than it needed to be.

Transit nerd alert, checking out the new Line 5 in Toronto. (I am not a good photographer, as I always forget to take photos)

I have a "full" MS Co-Pilot license. I hate to admit that the chat function, for scheduling meetings, is amazing. Presented with a list of meeting times, I say "find me a time there immediately following another MS Teams meeting I am in," and it cooks it up.

Took the Friday off to take my son up to a ski race - now that my feet have defrosted, glad we did! (Also, it was at a private hill, kept thinking they’d kick us out once they realized we were from Kitchener..)

New on H-Sci-Med-Tech: Check out @ianmilligan1.bsky.social (@uwaterloo.ca)’s review of @lucipangrazio.bsky.social & @neilselwyn.bsky.social’s book _Critical Data Literacies: Rethinking Data & Everyday Life_, pub 2023 @mitpress.bsky.social #hstm Review available @hnetreviews.bsky.social

Heck of a day, worth trying out a new bottle of gin. Empress 1908 - makes me want to head to Victoria!

I presume it's all this new AI stuff - I am the "proud" owner of a new M365 Co-Pilot license which has filled my apps with cruft – that makes MS Office desktop apps feel incresingly sluggish on my 2021 MacBook Pro?

Hey, this makes me seem pretty, pretty cool - hanging out with the "British Academic Historians."

We’ve (foolishly?) decided to renovate our house. Like a good nerd I am now trying to figure out what that means.

Personally, I would not do this.

One of those dream days that rarely comes along as a full-time administrator. An 8-hour "retreat" (i.e. long meeting) was cancelled with one days notice, and you better believe I almost got carpel tunnel syndrome with how quickly I replaced that with my own 8-hour retreat in my office.

Our dryer broke. So now I can get a new drier with AI!

My son just did his first ski race ever! Super proud of him. (And a bit proud of myself for standing in extreme cold for hours as his cheering squad)

An email and a phone call from the city, telling us to run a tap continuously (could be months!) because of our water line being at risk of freezing. Given our house dates to 1916, makes me wonder how it’s lasted this long..!

The snow pile in our driveway is growing to alarming proportions. In other words, schools are closed tomorrow. So are the two other universities in our region…

It's a snow day in Waterloo Region, and my house has turned into an impromptu neighbourhood daycare facility! (To be 1000% fair, it is easier to have kids playing with friends than jumping on my head)

Now that my son is on a ski racing team, turns out I get to spend a lot of my time in the ski lodge bar. I should probably dedicate my next book to Four Fathers Starter IPA. store.fourfathersbrewing.ca/product/the-...

Bang on from Lee Bollinger in the @chronicle.com. To those who persist in this rheotric, I often wonder: why are you an administrator at a univeristy if you don't understand our special mission. www.chronicle.com/article/univ...

Maybe we should cool it on the "calling each other traitors" front. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...

A look at how Canadian unis did in the big international rankings this past year. Mostly, it's an extension of long-standing patterns: U of T holding at the top, UWat gaining ground, and most lower-ranked institutions steadily losing ground to intl competitors. higheredstrategy.com/2026-ranking...

Slowly blinking and emerging from a two-week long holiday break. I've been more or less unplugged since December 19th, save a little "escape from the inlaws" to work on my #aha26 presentation. 10/10, I would recommend to anybody who can avail themselves of a genuine break.

For my birthday, my family got me a peculiar Game Boy!

Nardwuar the Human Serviette got the Order of Canada and not me, the author of the acclaimed award-losing Rebel Youth (2014)????!!! (Just kidding, Nardwuar is a far more enlightened choice) www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art...

A “Venetian Spritz” 3 oz Prosecco 1.5 oz Aperol 1.5 oz Soda (Skipped the green olive)

We are hosting family for ten days (sans guest room!) so, since #AHA26 is coming up in a week and a bit, sneaking out to a cafe to work on my slides. If you're at #AHA26 and are wondering what to do at 8:30am (!!) on Saturday, come to our round-table. aha.confex.com/aha/2026/web...

We have a new ice cream maker in our house. Everything now has a thin layer of stickiness. Send cleaning supplies!

In 2026 I need to get a new profile pic. We had professional headshots taken at work, but I’m pretty sure the last time I wore a tie was for this headshot. (Fun fact: I only wear ties when government folks come to campus; they still have impeccable tie game)

Canadians are indeed known for our - checks notes - “treachery.” 2025 was a fun year!

I feel like I should use ChatGPT to create premium LinkedIn content, eh? (That platform increasingly feels like LLMs talking to LLMs!)

It is a genuine goddamn mystery how the Ontario government can be this stupid. It would be the easiest thing in the world to reallocate PALs from institutions that can't use them effectively to those that can. But Ontario doesn't do it. Becasue cranial capacity or something. What a waste.

Just saw the SpongeBob SquarePants movie with my kids. Made Minecraft the Movie look like Citizen Kane!