The Church of the Holy Self-Reliance “We don’t need no God’s grace. We’ll get to heaven on our own, thank you very much.” Glad to see they’re reopening old religious debates.

I’ve started adding to my humanities classes some rationale for why these classes are important. I include the skills they are developing and discussion of how these skills are valuable in their future careers.

"Appeasement is being coordinated while resistance is not." The perfect encapsulation of what has clearly become the systemic failure of higher-ed leadership

Stop giving him the benefit of the doubt. He’s the president and should be held to a higher standard. And God knows we never give other presidents the benefit of the doubt.

Order of the Scribe Wizard, as a professor of the humanities teaching only online courses.

The word for the day is “myomancy.” It refers to divination by examining the behavior of rodents. It usually refers to rats and mice, but groundhogs are rodents too.

Yourself, but as a cartoon.

The replies to this are *chef's kiss*

Change a letter, ruin a film The Whining

It’s a crisp -7F here in WNY. Hope it’s warmer wherever you are.

It's inevitable, you simply must adapt to it and use it, you have no choice, but also please use it more or it's going to die

So in other news my laptop died and it’s at the shop. I got my backup laptop running but the adapter just flared out in a shower of sparks. Plenty entertaining for other patrons at the coffee shop this morning.

The title and the headings in the article understate how bad this administration has been for higher Ed.

I stand corrected.

It’s ironic that in Plato’s Republic, the argument is made that a government should censor works that don’t fit its views. I guess TX is just following his recommendation.

To think, I wasted years of meals eating fruits and vegetables, when I could have been eating healthy Philly cheese steaks all along!

How exactly would a hospital buying its own insurance to cover patients’ care going to work? Or do they mean just patients should haggle with healthcare providers? When you’re unconscious in an ambulance you’re not really in a strong negotiating position.

International and foreign language programs are not a priority… sheesh. No, why bother trying to understand and communicate with other nations and cultures? How myopic.

I am really glad to hear these materials documenting the attempted violent overthrow of an American election are being preserved. Esp. given the current administrations attempts to whitewash its history and pardoning its perpetrators.

This is terrible, just terrible. Peer reviewers for journal articles should also check on each source cited, if they weren’t doing so already. And lay off the damn AI.

Some More Font Upgrades, After Yesterday’s Calibri News www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

My humanities class has a creative project. Correlation is not causation, but I do think it’s a little suspicious that I get more short stories (over art projects) as genAI has become more mainstream. I mean, dammit, this was a chance for students to do something authentic and original.

Context: Disney, infamously protective of their IP, agreed to license their characters for OpenAI.

This is a good article. Yes higher ed is in crisis. Not sure some of the remedies are what it needs. Wish the article addressed online offerings. I knew a few colleges pre-Covid that tried to survive by suddenly offering online programs. The remedy tended to be too late to save them though.

I’d like to know when my faculty powers kick in. Seriously though you should treat students fairly and help them succeed, but they’re not “customers”. That’s a bad model for colleges and universities.

I found a tiny octopus on the tide pool🐙✨️ Small as it is, it’s every bit an octopus ... and absolutely adorable!! It even shoots ink🫧 ͛.*

Movie you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Stars (Wars nor Trek), LOTR, or Marvel, Disney Animated or Pixar.

What is the meaning of life?

I’ve met some monks who seemed genuinely serious about their spirituality. I’ve also met some who weren’t, and were interested in worldly ends. Any institution with influence is going to attract some of the wrong people.

Where’s my “I’d rather be gaming” bumper sticker?

This thread speaks to me. I’m grading final papers and I know many are written by AI. Rarely are students grappling with the actual texts their papers are on; there’s this sloppy gloss like AI word-vomited a bunch of points about their topics. 1/2

“The perfect caption doesn’t exi- …” Oh. Yes it does.

I’ve reviewed this and cannot find any error.

Getting my annual security training out of the way. They’re recommending passwords that are a favorite phrase from a movie or book I like. All I can think about is the Reddit posts, etc. that ask you your favorite quote from this movie or that. Yeah, maybe that’s not so secure in an age of AI.

“Be prudent, be wise, be careful that your use of AI does not limit your true human growth,” [the Pope] told the students. “Use it in such a way that if it disappeared tomorrow, you would still know how to think, how to create, how to act on your own, how to form authentic friendships.” 💯

lol, and we know googling something makes us experts. 🙄

I’ve been grading papers daily for two weeeks straight. In the back of my mind is the constant question: did a student write this, or generative AI? It makes grading an absolutely soul-crushing task.

Unfortunately, genAI can now create text for papers with accurate citations if prompted appropriately. That’s one more more way students can potentially outsource their learning effort.

Burns and his team have held advance screenings of "The American Revolution" across the country, including in DC. Kerger described GOP lawmakers who voted against PBS $$$ waiting in line to shake his hand:

Weird. At the local coffee shop someone just mistook me for a local radio personality. I’m not sure which one. I wish now I had asked more questions before he left.

please don't @ me like "actually cerium is unique among the lanthanides for its +4 oxidation state" ⚗️🧪 #chemsky

I see Mamdani won. I hear he’s one of the horsemen of the apocalypse. /s

Well, this should be fun. Initial survey of the latest batch of papers suggests that over three-quarters of the class had AI write their papers. This doesn’t mean they definitely used AI; it just means I have to examine each one more carefully, which means a helluva a lot more work. Damn AI.

The country has plenty of problems, most of them inflicted by the current party in power, but the ballroom? That’s the priority? Really?

Our new AI overlords approve of this message!

Whether in education or in personal creative endeavors, if you want something done right, you need to do it yourself.

One more item in the file for things too ridiculous to be in works of fiction (but which actually happened under this administration). I mean, would you offer “a sword or something” requested in a email from giftgirl2025? More likely you’d click the “delete phishing email” button.

Situation resolved. Someone with more wit and tact than me suggested that they change it to a more neutral station, like the Weather Channel. I made a point of thanking them.

I don’t know about you, but if I were pregnant I wouldn’t take any medical advice from a huckster who once suggested imbibing bleach to cure Covid.