Sigh. A call for papers on the legacy of Aaron Swartz. A most worthwhile topic. But ACM charging APCs for this special issue? Is that in keeping with AS's legacy? In any case, I will not write for it, as I cannot afford the APCs. I will choose a diamond venue instead. dl.acm.org/pb-assets/st...

The same people who say professors cannot be trusted because of whatever culture war nonsense is hot today want you to believe AI bots are reliable, accurate, and definitely not under the ideological control of their billionaire, slavery-is-good-actually, "intelligence will be a utility," owners.

Given all of the recent genAI discussion, I wish to repost this.

We have the highest domestic energy prices in Europe. But our data centers pay half the domestic rate. We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis. Data centers facilitate the obscene profits made by trillion dollar tech companies...

I knew a Holocaust survivor who talked about the importance of notetaking under authoritarianism, to track what normal was and how it shifted. Here's that 🧵 with respect to disability, itself a canary in the fascist coal mine: www.disability-rights-watch.com/2025/02/09/w...

It’s very funny to me that the heterodox academy has its own clergy.

Mark Carney is FAR worse than Stephen Harper. A big difference is self-styled progressives fought against Harper while so many aggressively defend Carney's every conservative move.

SCOOP: So remember Dialog, Peter Thiel's private society that doesn't have a public website and no public list of members? I (along with a number of other journalists) have just been tipped off that embedded in the code of their closed off website there IS what seems to be a list of some members.

A total abuse of the concept of "academic freedom" and the right to expression. It's supposed, in my view, to be the freedom to express controversial or radical ideas without threat to your employment. Scholarly kitchen troll bait, I know. But hey.

Just a reminder that the snacking-on-paint-chips crowd is gaining real ground in the for-profit-publisher dick sucking olympics.

It’s hard to overstate how much damage a single monopolistic property developer can do to the livelihood of a community. “Parasites” would almost be too kind a label.

I love this stuff because, again, the main problem goobers have in believing AI hype is that they think it can *know*. You cannot do science without understanding. You can’t summarize without understanding. An LLM doesn’t “understand”. It’s all information and no knowledge. That’s the whole deal.

AI scientists produce results without reasoning scientifically - "current LLM-based agents do not exhibit the epistemic patterns that characterize scientific reasoning" and "ignore evidence" 68% of the time! arxiv.org/abs/2604.18805 hmm

i think the dark chapter from american history that scooby doo is best suited to mention by name has got to be ruby ridge

It’s pretty harrowing that the only thing chat gpt seems to actually be good at is killing suicidal people.

This is interesting to me because, for one, lots of folks shit on frontiers and would never have called any of those titles reputable (academics love to be reductive about publisher quality). But maybe more saliently that there’s a breaking point here somewhere. People are discovering The Line.

If your library is designed as a safe space for bigots, you have made it unsafe for literally everyone else in your community You've made a Nazi bar You never make a Nazi bar

There is over a trillion dollars invested in AI, which is another way of saying that there is a colossal amount of money resources bent on making AI seem like an inevitable, benign technology whose incursion into every aspect of our life we should just accept because we “have to.”

hearing the U.S. and Israel talk about a ceasefire with Iran is weirdly similar to listening to my friend with seven children explain the pull-out method

Been laughing at this for 45 minutes straight

Twenty five years of chasing that feeling when the video for “Get Ur Freak On” dropped and we were running up and down the dorm halls like AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH

I think if you greenlight a headline like this you should be pelted with rotten fruit.

If you're worried about the fact that publishing costs money -- which of course it does -- you have to look at the sustainability across marketised higher education, not just the publishing industry.

🤡💩

GOP: we will cut all college programs that do not support our theology DEMS: we will cut the same programs, but because they don’t support the business school or the new AI venture

Sometimes Americans say to me “well you live in a progressive country” and like by comparison I guess that sometimes feels true but honestly it’s neoliberals in oil company branded windbreakers basically across the board at this point.

Just gonna bookmark this to hold up at the driver, wincing, the next time I’m cut off and hit by a car.

So many people who can reasonably be described as “that little shit” are in charge of so much of society.

Politicians keep telling us “it’s good for the economy” but what the fuck is the economy even for if we can’t keep our libraries open?

In what universe is this not grounds for immediate expulsion

Evergreen:

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

Yes. Using a computer now feels like this at all times.

LIBRARYPUNK LIVE: Critical AI Takes Too Hot for the Mainstage! @librarypunk.bsky.social @pilsencommbooks.bsky.social 6/27 @ 6:30pm Sarah Appedu @kslater.bsky.social @ezerrenner.bsky.social ticket proceeds ➡️ IL Coalition on Immigrant & Refugee Rights RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/librarypun...

You wrote nothing but a prompt. Please shut the fuck up.

A Princeton professor who thinks an LLM “understands” anything is too stupid to be teaching anyway.

Oh hell yeah @amnesty.org comes out swinging: "Amnesty International finds that standalone generative AI systems... are fundamentally incompatible with IHRL. As such, Amnesty International is calling for a prohibition of such systems." www.amnesty.org/en/documents...

Hundreds chanting, "FUCK AI!" "Hundreds of people marched through downtown Vancouver over the weekend to protest a proposed cluster of AI data centers backed by Telus, voicing concerns about water use, electricity demand, and what that could mean for local communities." www.msn.com/en-us/money/...

It is "unionize or die" time in American higher ed. Yes, that means you and your special work. I don't care if you're "not political," because our enemies are very political.

🧵 The idea that other rich democratic countries are going to wholesale poach 🇺🇸 academia because of Trump is laughable, because other countries are also in the process of dismantling their universities & research funding infrastructure.

every part of this generative ai surge is anti life

Workers built this country. Not billionaires. Not CEOs. And any attempt by Mark Carney's Liberal government to step on workers' right to strike is a direct attack on the people who keep our country running every single day.

A thing I did this year is write my Provost about the great work the librarians have done. I included specific projects I couldn't have completed without them and advocated for an increase in their budget since it directly relates to my ability to do research and teach.

A friend of mine who was TA’ing for an AmLit course found a copy of Moby Dick a student had left behind. It had only one marginal annotation, around page 100, that simply said “whale is important.”

Existence is already roiling. I’ll never understand this, “I use social media in a way that requires I always be prepared for a fist fight” position. I do not need to roil. I roiled enough on Facebook where it ruined any number of friendships. Just go use x. You’re not obligated to be here.