April fools only works when reality isn't this stupid.

Ends today! Go forth and buy some books!

So, um... this is bad. Really bad. I looked at the letters that were translated by the AI, and the very first one I found was almost entirely hallucination. Thread:

Forthcoming new book by Ann Blair on authorship & collaboration, from @princetonupress.bsky.social: 👀 📗 press.princeton.edu/books/hardco... #EarlyModern #HistBookChat

if you were unable to attend Erin McGuirl's Winship Lecture, "No Modern Publishing Without Women" at Houghton Library, the recording is now live! 📜 www.youtube.com/watch?v=arCs...

March 17: One of my favorite holidays, Evacuation Day, marking the end of the eight-year British occupation of Boston. This year marks the 250th anniversary of their departure. #heyheygoodbye #nokings

Killing people and destroying things “just for fun” is psychopathic behavior and even saying it is something only a psychopath would do and every U.S. news organization should be shouting that from the rooftops. Editors: Rise to the challenge of truth-telling or make room for someone who will.

Look at the great poster the U of Connecticut made for me--incorporating the witty trade card of Elizabeth Griffin, mid #18thc London map & printseller. Immodest of me--but I believe my talk (3/26, 4pm) will be live-streamed, so pls let me know, farflung Bsky pals, if you'd like more info'.

Obviously, NEH grants never should have been clawed back in the first place, DOGE is a lot of crap, and all grants should be reinstated, but if you want to feel PARTICULAR rage about how half-assed and cruel the whole process is, read the AI rationale for terminating the TEAMS METS grant

Huge NYT article on the back story of those two weeks in March/April 2025 when DOGE illegally terminated hundreds of NEH grants. Gift link!! www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...

What coders lose by relying on AI. From our event with the University of Washington Office of Public Lectures. (with @emilymbender.bsky.social)

"you need to learn how to use gAI or you'll get left behind!" counterpoint! the absolute fastest way to render yourself unemployable is to build your skillset around a tool that does your thinking for you, that everyone has access to, and that one company can change or take away at any time

It's that time! lithub.com/announcing-t...

Democrats MUST insist on a vote on an Authorization of Military Force (an AUMF) for Trump’s war in Iran. My friend @kaine.senate.gov is leading the charge on a War Powers Resolution (WPR) that I support. But it's not a substitute for an AUMF. 1/ A 🧵on the difference. It's important.

"We recognize the pitfalls of AI but we are going to use it anyway" is not exactly a critical approach to education...

This. The outcome of NEVER demanding accountability.

We need to rein in this President. That starts with the Senate passing Tim Kaine’s War Powers Resolution immediately. It should have been brought to the floor before this President sent troops into harm’s way with no explanation or plan.

The idea of a legislative body representing the population having the ability to check the ultimate power of a country’s leader sounds really neat. Someone should write that down.

FWIW, this is sec. 2(c) of the War Powers Resolution:

Friendly reminder: This is all unconstitutional.

It would be cool to have a legislature that acted to defend its own constitutional prerogatives and, maybe as a treat, the interests of the people it represents too.

-Zero Congressional consultation or approval. -Zero preparation of public for need/consequences of war. -Zero evidence of thought about "OK, what might the other side do?" Next month. Next year. -Zero mention of anti-nuke agreement Trump voided, or Trump claim last year that nukes "obliterated."

We had a deal with Iran to ensure limits on its nuclear capacities. Trump ended that deal. Now he says that sending our young people off to fight and potentially lose their lives for this country is just a ‘cost of war.’ This is the cost of his broken promises. No war with Iran.

How many times are lawmakers going to stand by and let this man violate the constitution and endanger the world? Eleventy million? Is that what they’re aiming for?

Shoutout to my amazing colleagues at Cambridge & Birmingham on the 'Small Performances' project into John Baskerville's typographic punches - today is released a @camdiglib.bsky.social collection of imagery of the punches. Check it out! cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/...

THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS

but also, it's not that good at summarizing

A note to provosts, deans, university presidents, etc.: Most people think AI sucks-- not just in its current iteration, but conceptually. People are smart enough to realize this will not bring human liberation, but will move us in the opposition direction. Stop being so gullible.

Last summer, OpenAI employees debated alerting law enforcement about Jesse Van Rootselaar's interactions with ChatGPT In February, Van Rootselaar became the suspect in the mass shooting that devastated a rural town in British Columbia www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

“Labelling generative AI, which includes tools such as ChatGPT and X’s Grok, as a “social disaster”, Birhane said they are a “major threat to truth, democratic processes, information ecosystems, knowledge production and the entire social fabric itself”. Tell me again we should push AI into schools.

This is what AI scrapers are doing to our platform. Our database capacity is just being ruined every time they initiate a fresh scrape and our tech team has to scramble, taking radical measures, to keep the platform up.

Reminds me of proposals that, in order to counter the deluge of AI-generated submissions full of made-up citations to academic journals, the (mostly volunteer, already depleted) editorial staff — or their grad students — should just confirm all refs before sending things out for peer review.

In 1854, after watching the federal government deploy 2000 federal troops and spend $40,000 sending Anthony Burns back into slavery, Boston's Amos Adams Lawrence said “we went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, Compromise Union Whigs and waked up stark mad Abolitionists.”

Resist narratives of inevitability.

Including mine on developing software to build structural models of medieval manuscripts! Much DEI. Another reason for me to hate ChatGPT.

Call for papers! INSCRIPTION 7 (out 2027) will be all about BLANKS. It will be (as ever) a BEAUTIFUL and MAXIMAL object. Send us your ideas! Historical / theoretical / creative / creative-critical -- or some strange blend. First step: 400-word proposal + brief CV by 1 April 2026. CFP attached.

The new issue of Half Sheets is out - really enjoyed @sibyllacumae.bsky.social's smartness on curiosity, and her Latin motto reference! Read here, share, and subscribe if you haven't already - it's free! 📜 #bookhistory #booksky #libsky #rarebooks

1/ Important new article by Dr. Tara Inniss that discusses the "chronic underfunding, aging infrastructure, and climatic threats" of Caribbean archives, compounded by vulnerabilities and policy gaps. Thread w recent examples of destruction of collections by fire: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Attn nerds: our annual history sale started yesterday and runs through 2/20. 25% off, free shipping over $50, code is HIST26. www.press.jhu.edu/books/histor...

If we're expecting faculty to start teaching specific consumer AI tools, then I'm pretty sure we've already lost the plot and should just start over.

NEW ESSAY — Christine Jacobson’s “Typing for Love or Money”, on the neglected efforts of women like Theodora Bosanquet, Véra Nabokov, and Valerie Eliot, who — through their work as typists and editors — had a profound impact on modern literature: publicdomainreview.org/essay/typing...

It's hard to believe good things can still be happening, but if you are in the Boston area between now and May 1st, there is an free-to-the-public exhibition on women's type labor in literature and the arts (co-curated by me and the great Dale Stinchcomb). library.harvard.edu/exhibits/tha...

Here we go….

We will be awash in sloppy nostalgic representations of the American Revolution this year. That’s why sharp careful analyses of the distance between those representations and evidence-based history is so important. Also I really appreciate @ageofrevolutions.bsky.social !

Yesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.

You can test new tech ideas using the Seinfeld Test Would the product eliminate the plot of an episode? (Google maps, cell phones, paypal, battery packs) Good tech. Would the product inspire new Seinfeld plots? (NFTs, AI chatbots, crypto currency, blindboxes, metaverse land sales) Bad tech.