Off to see this exhibition for the second time as it is huge and needs a few visits at least. Highly recommended if you're in Vancouver.

www.theglobeandmail.com/business/com... While AI models excel at technical tasks, the job roles that use these models demand versatility and the precise meta-skills developed through liberal arts education.

It is. It's appalling to see academics push GenAI.

A Vancouver violinist who was threatened with legal action by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra after breaking a non-disclosure agreement and speaking out about an alleged sexual assault by one of its former senior musicians says she won't be "intimidated" into silence.

Nice of 2025 to remind me on its last day that it truly is a cursed year.

auch dieses juli zeh interview lasse ich ungelesen vorüberziehen wie einen tag mit garstigem wetter

Was Thomas sagt. Alles ist Politik, auch und gerade der Versuch, diese Tatsache zu bestreiten.

Mandatory quote in coverage of far right towns: “I am normal, my neighbours vote for Nazis but I am not someone who would be friends with Nazis so my neighbours are not Nazis. The foreigners are not like me and so I am indifferent to their fate compared to the hurt feelings of my neighbours.“

You all, after YEARS of archival research and writing, my book is out in exactly ONE month and it’s my job to promote it. Please help me spread the word!! 😀📚#booksky

We’re just going to produce entire generations unable to write or read aren’t we

Es ist im Übrigen völlig egal, ob die Wähler*innen der AfD sich selbst als Rechtsextremist*innen identifizieren oder nicht. Die wenigsten Wähler*innen der NSDAP sahen sich selbst als Nazis, sondern sie verrieten ihre jüdischen Nachbarn allein aus Staatsbürgerpflicht.

"In other words, they argue that Holocaust memory, which was designed to prevent the worst, is being used to motivate and justify the worst. And they feel outraged — and betrayed." Dirk Moses thediasporist.de/is-holocaust...

This Christmas Eve, let us remember that it wasn’t the CEOs and billionaires who saved us during COVID-19. It was the janitors, nurses, cleaning crews, grocery and food workers with their hard, often invisible labor.

Big AI firms have built their models by hoovering up copyrighted material from the internet as training data. They say this is legal, but copyright holders disagree - and this year they hit back in a major way

Wir sind erst seit Kurzem hier bei Bluesky und bräuchten bitte eure Unterstützung: Insta legt unseren Hauptaccount immer wieder lahm und wir würden hier gerne die verlässliche demokratische Alternative aufbauen. Könntet ihr unseren Account vielleicht weiterempfehlen? Das wäre eine Riesenhilfe 💝🌟

Walter Benjamin wrote that the work of translation is “to liberate the language imprisoned in a work" to find the “pure language” of “the unfathomable, the mysterious, the ‘poetic’”. This is all, of course, utterly anathema to AI

Still waiting for AI to cure diseases, eliminate climate change and give every animal a home. AI is basically crypto at this point. A propped up Ponzi scheme that will eventually collapse under its own weight.

I think one of the best things my university could do for my mental health is allow me to unsubscribe from end of year emails that tell what a great and wonderful 12 months that was and how jolly things are looking for the future. It's like getting newsletters from a parallel universe.

Sounds like an amazing trip.

How I wish I could have been on this trip!

»In Deutschland gilt derjenige, der auf den Schmutz hinweist, als viel gefährlicher als derjenige, der den Schmutz macht.« Guten Morgen mit Kurt Tucholsky 9. Januar 1890 - 21. Dezember 1935 

Thanks for making it Open Access!

Please join us on Jan 22 for a talk by Dr. Matache on Anti-Roma Racism in European and Global Studies cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...

we can kill them all if we just work together and ✨believe💫

Such an amazing idea!

To “my students and to anyone who might listen, I say: Don’t surrender to AI your ability to read, write and think when others once risked their lives and died for the freedom to do so.” www.huffpost.com/entry/histor...

Please join us today, 12:30 pm for our first online Ziegler Lecture 2025-26, focusing on the theme of ‘networks’. Dr. Jeremy Bryant will talk on “From fin de siècle Vienna to the ends of the earth: the legacy of secular Jewish social networks (a case study)”. cenes.ubc.ca/events/event...

An amazing story.

Reminder this event for #pridemonth is in five days, online, in English. You need to register via email to Nora Hogrefe.

how different would academia be if we valued community impact more than perceived global impact. What if the distinguished professors were distinguished first by making their region / state / students' lives directly better rather than the acceptance quality of an Elsevier journal article.

The thing about this article: there are *plenty* of migrants who want to move to these areas (eg in places like Brandenburg and Saxony in Germany) but too many of the locals have fascist sympathies and hound them out. That is a major problem, unaddressed in this piece.

... policy matters. Through long-term commitment to social housing and limited privatisation, housing can be made better and more affordable. Takeaway for cities like #Vancouver

Vienna has been declared a renters’ utopia – and it’s easy to see why | Justin Kadi

Perhaps a good time to re up the New Fascism Syllabus, an online repository of resources on neofascism, populism, and authoritarianism, including a research repository and relevant secondary literature. newfascismsyllabus.com

Let us just collectively stop reading the NYT. Journalism is dead there.

"Among the 87 sammelans so far, only four have been chaired by women writers. Now, Banu Mushtaq becomes the fifth to receive this honour," www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...

Children from rural areas should not feel embarrassed. They should focus on gaining knowledge and speak confidently in their own language.” Bhanu Mushtaq, #Booker prize winner Read more at: www.deccanherald.com/india/karnat....

A message from the Toronto Public Library

I recommend Heart Lamp: Selected Stories to everyone, but especially those working on #multilingualism. This is a collection of short stories by Indian writer Banu Mushtaq, originally written in Kannada between 1990 & 2023. Now an International Booker winner. english.metrovaartha.com/life/people/...

Good interview with the two directors from A Land for All archive.is/9DLcx

I think it would be good to get some women in charge of the countries that have nuclear weapons. Women talk to each other. Women can be reasonable. Enough with the macho men and swinging dicks.

I am so sick of seeing people respond to anti-war posts with "so you want Iran to have nuclear weapons?" Believe it or not, there are lots of ways to prevent nuclear proliferation that don't include starting wars. The choices are not limited to "bomb residential buildings" or "nuclear armageddon."

hey a small request: don't use fucking LLMs or generative "A.i." for anything. they destroy your brain. they're wide open to manipulation by right wing billionaires. they're full of lies. they're based on theft. just say no.

Fantastische Arbeit meiner Freundin @fraukest.bsky.social taz.de/Historikerin...

Eamonn delighted with himself for finding a football in the park.