it is an incredible coincidence that the tech sector going all-in on AI is also owned by people that want to destroy the institutions of democratic life

🎯 I still have my "I like it long!" protest sticker from when Harper tried to eliminate the long form census. People galvanized very quickly, and the government did not anticipate the level of pushback they got. Governments who want less data want to make policy based on vibes and not facts.

You guys get that this whole ‘post yourself in 2016’ thing is just an opportunity to train AI to recognize aging…. Right?

we're perhaps not talking enough about the implications of Canadian troops being part of the tripwire force in Greenland what would a US invasion imply for the border? energy? water? trade? movement of people and goods back and forth? NORAD? Five Eyes? US CBP agents posted to Canadian airports?

Gotta say: it takes a white guy emeritus prof from Yale to proclaim that faculty life hasn't changed in 40 years — amidst adjunctification, platformization, public funding cuts, the substitution of tech for competent support staff, the disappearance of those jobs *my* senior advisors enjoyed...

Hot dang I had never heard this before and it absolutely rocks, thanks Ian for both the tidbit and the ear worm.

from the perspective of Venezuelans, I suppose last night's military operation doesn't really look very different from Grenada in 1983, Panama in 1989, or countless other US military actions what makes this feel different from vantage points outside of Latin America is that the US is no longer 1/

Make a Bond movie academic: TwitchingEye

My PC beans were $17 when I started buying them 8 years ago. $25 now.

So the new SpongeBob movie is awful, surprise, but there was a pre-show TMNT short that ended with Leonardo telling the audience ‘delete ChatGPT off your phone. AI sucks!’ And that was nice.

When I was 16 I learned to drive in a minivan and spent the last two years of high school driving all my friends around having fun. I couldn’t goddamn wait until we were having kid #3 and I could excusably get my Sedona. Fuckin’ love minivans.

Have definitely been feeling the same way about this program.

To be perfectly honest I absolutely hate the CERCs (Canada Excellence Research Chairs) program. You would need to be awake 24/7 to spend that much money over the 8 years, seriously. You wouldn’t even have enough time in your days to be able to spend that much money (wisely, anyways).

I got the insider’s tour of the archivio di stato di Bologna in 2012, which culminated in the top floor of a tall tower and ‘this is the expensive fire suppression system . We have no idea if it works but we can’t test it because we can’t afford to recharge its nitrogen system.’

An archivist once handed me a pen and told me to correct the date on a 17thC manuscript.

I think we need a mega thread of everyone's craziest archive stories.

I was doing some genealogy work for a family from my city in southern Italy, helping them understand how and when they had emigrated, when I found the double homicide trial that started their transatlantic.

Look up the startups that authors who are pro AI are affiliated with. Tell the journals you consider this a CoI (because it is), do it often, during review and retrospectively — keep pushing them to get serious.

Canadians, please sign this and share it around: www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

So when the AHA says it's OK to use AI to summarize scholarship, the greatest risk this guideline poses isn't simply to the quality or accuracy of research; the hazard it poses is to the communal nature of the knowledge production. A pursuit that puts people across time & space into conversation 4/n

What this province did to Kathleen Wynne broke my heart. She was a great premier, and a very good person. We let her down. And now our province is dying. #onpoli

My friends, I say this with all the love in my heart: Right now might not be the moment for “But we should be TOLERANT and NUANCED about the plagiarism machines!” Your tolerance and “nuance” will be weaponised by the grifters and their apologists. Please respect yourselves more.

My job title is ‘Associate Professor of European and Digital History’. I am not a Luddite. I am keenly aware of the historical patterns of technological disruption, and keenly aware that technology can be both positive and negative. Listen to us!

I’m sorry, but it is disgraceful to be an academic who uses this technology to conduct research. It should be prohibited in all of our scholarly institutions, including universities and journals.

Thank you for typing.

Right I’m not gonna say I read every single word in all of them but I at least touched (or whatever yr pedantic digital equivalent is) the goddamn pages.

Lotta people learning firsthand, really unfortunately, about the horrors of premodernity

I am so tired of grading not for ‘what is the quality of this student’s research, analysis and writing’ but for ‘did this student in fact write this paper’. I hate this.

There’s a direct line from ‘just asking questions about women’s sports’ to criminalizing our health care, we warned you it was coming, you said it would be fine and you just had a few more questions.

I am just a girl Standing in front of infanticide scholars Begging them to research cryptic pregnancy

Ban them for everyone

This is horrendous

If you cite fake sources, why should we trust *any* part of your work?

🚨 JOB JOB JOB!!! 🚨 Late-breaking job! Indigenous history at University of Colorado Boulder. Assistant or eatly associate. Been trying to get this line for forever. It’s finally happening 🙏 Great place to live and work. Fabulous colleagues (ask me how I know!) networks.h-net.org/jobs/69637/u...

🗃️ My History Department is hiring for a tenure track position in Native American history. See link for details! jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

🎉 Today I defended my dissertation and passed with summa cum laude. The title is "Dependent Lives In and Beyond Archives: Enslaved People in Sephardic Jewish Households in Early Modern Bridgetown, Barbados (1654-1800)." The abstract is below, and I hope to publish it soon.

Totally surreal that after 12 years of working on this thing, it’s out of my hands. Coming to you in the Hodding Carter III imprint at @uncpress.bsky.social next fall! Huge thanks to @simpsonvos.bsky.social & the many, many people who helped along the way.

Following the tragic shootings at Bondi Beach and Brown University this weekend, I wrote about the long history of debates on gun control for @historyandpolicy.bsky.social

At least now we know the font of resistance.

Teaching thing I find useful: if a student stops showing up for class, make the subject line of your email "Is everything OK?" When people are overwhelmed they'll often avoid even opening bad-news emails (cf. me & my bank statements). This way, they know I'm reaching out to help, not chastise.

This is an interesting study but historians came to this same conclusion a decade or more ago.

The Liberals cancelled the consumer carbon tax and now want to build a pipeline to the BC coast; so why do we even need a Canadian Conservative party now?

Sounds like a great book and I can appreciate solid reviewers!

A shameful day for Ontario.

So the idea behind Pluribus is that we are supposed to empathize with the AI right? It’s just trying to make us happy. Am I too much of a crank?

I actually love titling things. If there’s an obnoxious acronym I can make, even better.

Does anyone recognise this scene in the background of a print I am using? #SkyStorians #c18th please help! 🙏🏻

Hell yeah love to see some merciless and non-sensical abuse of the semi-colon #grading #realstudentwriting

Today in ‘they didn’t understand the source materials’

ONTARIO'S AUDITOR GENERAL->Labour Minister Piccini's "Skills Development Fund" gave $126M in training money to 64 organizations that used lobbyists to push applications ranked “low” and “medium” in a process that was “not fair, transparent or accountable.” www.thestar.com/politics/pro... #onpoli