Using Claude Code has actually solidified my belief that PhD students should use these tools lightly for their core work. The main goal isn't to be productive, it's to transform yourself. At the end of building these apps I have next to know idea how they work

Late to the party, but this is an excellent obit / introduction to Jameson's gravitas

Some thoughtful and clarifying notes from @crystaljjlee.com on the mechanics of academic search committees, especially for those of us who have never had its vantage:

What defines a correct program? What education makes a good programmer? The answer depends on what culture of programming you subscribe to! This has been a long time in the making, but my open access book on the history of programming is available for pre-order! www.cambridge.org/core/books/c...

There are some deeply fertile psychoanalytic depths to be plumbed in Bryan Johnston's new LinkedIn launch of his girlfriend: www.linkedin.com/posts/bryanr...

www.forester-notes.org/QHXS/index.xml - I love the idea here of internal blogging and weeknotes in a research group. Tech to make this easy should exist so that we have writing between bleats and published papers. (Arxiv isn't quite it, and academics are weirdly opposed to blogs.)

Berkeley Mono is a revelation. Even more reason to lean into email in the terminal with [aerc](aerc-mail.org)

my interview for the Digital Theory Lab with Karen Hao @karenhao.bsky.social at the Remarque Institute www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZpH...

At Historical Materialism in London this week, let me know if you too are here

CFP, Jameson conference at Duke in Durham, April 10-12, 2026.

This is a puncheur of a piece

BADA BOOM! The HM London Conference programme is now online! Online registrations close Tuesday 4 November at midnight GMT!

Just discovered github.com/wtnqk/ftdv -- this is exactly the tool I've been looking for to better review LLM agent work locally. Built with the invenerable @ratatui.rs

the publication of posthumous work without the expressed & explicit consent of the author is wrong, and many great works of literature are none of our business; the "well, we don't really know what they wanted" gymnastics people do in order to publish work authors sought to destroy is also wrong.

Some sane discussion. AI is idealized as a major disruption in the political economy of software employment and tech startup funding cycles, and this anxiety is part of what is allowing the crazies so much airtime when it comes to thinking it through.

@paper-feed.bsky.social is a wonderful initiative: skygest.github.io. I highly recommend pinning the feed, it's a refreshing experience!

Very grateful to @nsaphra.bsky.social for making their (successful) job market materials publicly available: nsaphra.net/post/jobmark.... It's very handy to be able see what these things are supposed to look like!

Just read this piece brought to my attention by @matthiasellis.com. Stunning stuff

www.wheresyoured.at/the-case-aga... - great economic context on the AI buzz

file file file file

it is very telling that “BIOS”, in addition to being an acronym, is also the Greek word for “life”. meanwhile, “UEFI” is, of course, ancient Greek for “unified extensible firmware interface”

Dissertation editing begins

David's @rustforgeconf.com talk on the Wild linker was incredible. Definitely sponsor him here: github.com/davidlattimore

I finally read computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum’s 1976 classic “Computer Power and Human Reason.” This book deserves a massive revival in our current age of grotesque and largely thoughtless AI creep into everything:

Excited to be attending rustforgeconf.com in Aotearoa this week!

Join our reading group on Joan Copjec’s new book “Cloud: Between Paris and Tehran”!!

wakes up, checks the news, still living in a wrong world, goes back to bed

I've thought this from time to time, too. If one started learning programming with Rust, might thinking about lifetimes and borrowing come more naturally? Just as OO thinking comes naturally for those who learned programming through Java. Are there any 'intro to CS' courses in Rust out there?

@steveklabnik.com if you happen to directly any of those five other people who are interested in the relationship between Marx's theory of value and AI's brand of automation, please point them to this course we're running! cftw.ohrg.org

Around age 30 I realized that everyone is faking it and I cannot express how much of a load that was off my mind. EVERYTHING got easier at that point.

I gave my PhD "musings" blog a makeover today. It should be much easier to get around now! Check it out if you're interested in what I've been working on: www.ohrg.org

A post about S1E2 of Apple TV's Severance is up: screening-the-subject.ohrg.org/severance-ep-2. (Analysis of the following episodes coming soon.)

Beginning chapter two of Jameson's 'Marxism and Form' at 6PM CET / 12PM EST today, tune in: youtube.com/live/c2re6yf...

I've started a blog to digest the many brilliant goings-on in Dan Erickson's and Ben Stiller's 'Severance'. My thoughts on season 1 episode 1: screening-the-subject.ohrg.org/severance-ep-1

Folks, we continue with chapter one of Jameson's 'Marxism and Form' (from page 19 onwards) tomorrow at 6PM CET / 12PM EST. Link to stream below youtube.com/live/ndGappe...

At 4PM CET tomorrow I will be reading through the first chapter of Fredric Jameson's 'Marxism and Form' live: youtube.com/live/1AFQbDX...

Going live to read through the first chapter of Eric Santner's 2011 book [The Royal Remains](press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...) in twenty minutes (at 1PM CET)!