I made this 19 page list of resources for questioning AI because I was so frustrated by this dynamic, the tipping point for me was an admin saying that people who were questioning the push for AI were being "emotional": docs.google.com/document/d/1...

We're 14 class days into the semester and I've already reached my stop-scheduling-so-many-🤬-meetings-and-let-me-do-my-job threshold.

It’s interesting as someone who grades hundreds of papers a semester to notice the recurring verbal tics we have as a population. “Clearly” almost always means “I feel this to be true but can’t demonstrate the connection it convincingly.” In other words, not clearly, but saying it will somehow help

After the third awful drive to work in the snow in as many weeks, I decided I deserved a little treat. They really do make funko pops of everything! Beta Ray Bill and comics-version Adam Warlock will soon grace my shelves.

The best way to undercut the idea that the metric system is intrinsically superior to other measurements is the fact that they still haven't changed timekeeping to base ten. Metric is great for the things it is great at. But it is so easy to be bilingual (as it were).

Medieval psalters be like 🌺🌿🌿🌿🌿🌺🌱🌱💫 🌿🟡🟡🟡🟡🟡🌼🌱💫 🌿🟡🟦🟦🟦🟦✨🌱💫 🌿🟡🟦🤴🏾🦄🌝🟦🦚💫 🌿🟡🟦🟦🟦🟦✨🌱🍆 🌿😼🟦🤺🥀🏹🟦🐕💫 🌿🟡🟦🌸🦜🐉🟦🌱💫 🌿🟡🟦🏹🐒🐝🟦🌱💫 🌿🟡🟦🟦🟦🟦eatus vir 🌿🟡🟡🧜‍♂️🟡🟡🌷🌱💫 🌺🌿🌿🌿🌿🌺🌱🌱🌼

When I invent a Time Machine it will be a good day for me and a bad day for whoever devised Luxeuil Minuscule.

Never mind the jobs you had, tell me five classes you took in college: 1. Dante's Inferno 2. Native American History 3. Theatrical Costuming 4. Cognitive Psychology 5. Native Chinese Religions I only wish I'd taken more diverse courses. The liberal arts are my life.

Academic publishing is currently experiencing a viral spread of “zombie citations.” I tried following one to see how these references are infecting academic knowledge systems codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/01/30/t...

A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.

Looks like Trump is settling onto his next distraction. War with Iran was definitely on my bingo card.

Today is Charlemagne’s death day in 814 CE. In his honor, I give you the best depiction of professors writing in their offices while attempting not to socially interact with each other on any level. It’s from the Aachen Gospels. 📕

I've been teaching in one form or another for over fifteen years, and I still get floored by curveballs I didn't see coming. Regularly.

Abolish DHS. If you can imagine a world before Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, you can imagine a world without the Department of Homeland Security. My latest at @startribune.com. (gift link)

To loot, massacre, and steal: they lie and call this order; they make a wasteland and they call it peace.

MAGA mistook caring about people for weakness, and is uncomfortable seeing that it’s strength.

This post cracked the code of 90% of NY Times op-eds.

Howard Shore and Newline have missed a huge beat by not producing an eight hour soothing album of nothing but hobbitcore, elven hymns, and dwarvish humming.

Turned in my draft tenure review file to my two colleagues who have to write for me late last night. There's still a lot to do for the standing committee, but my sense of relief is profound. After so many years, my last great academic sword of Damocles is almost disarmed.

Power in Stone These effigies at Harewood (Yorkshire, c.1426) commemorate Sir Richard Redman and his wife Elizabeth Aldburgh - a couple whose marriage united two great northern families and transformed their fortunes.

It just occurred to me that "The White Album" etymologically means "The White White."

Let's say Trump does buy Greenland. American taxpayers foot that bill - he's not even pretending "Denmark will pay for it" this time. And who is going to make money on it? Some mining executives? And you'll just wait for the scraps to trickle back to you? Can't lick that boot hard enough, can ya?

The amazing @rialibrary.bsky.social is now up and running on BlueSky, come follow us for exciting collections content and more! 🤗🎉

Please SHARE if you agree!

Now, these are something special! 🤩 Mid-13th century wall paintings at St. Agatha’s Church, Easby, Richmond, North Yorkshire. A photo thread…

Whatever happens, if democracy continues in this country and MAGA is ever kicked out of power, we cannot simply go back to how things worked. How things worked failed. Miserably. We are living with the results of that failure. Any restoration will have to be radically reimagined to succeed.

The usual atheist complaint against the (Christian) concept of the divine is that the mortal world is cruel & unfair, which a good god wouldn't allow. But to me the worse element is the idea of hell. I could never truly count an afterlife as paradise if I knew other people were suffering eternally.

Venus de Couch

Been stressed about the semester starting soon after a break that got derailed by far too much Life Stuff. I find making something with my hands soothing, & I've been contemplating a few small DIY projects to get more organized, so I prototyped a table bookshelf after I came across one on Etsy.

I can't quite believe I'm saying this but: I wrote a book! And it's being published this May! It's about Rome, its enduring appeal, the many different ways it has been interpreted, and how understanding this helps us see both the past and the world today more clearly. geni.us/AllRoadsLead...

I keep compulsively buying books in the hope that they will magically have the exact right thing I need for my new course, without exactly knowing what that thing is. I'm sure the one I had rush-shipped tonight will have everything left I need though. Or I could actually just write the syllabus.

Superb gold vessels from the early-medieval Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós, uncovered by a farmer in Romania in 1799, probably dating from about 8th C ~ bull’s head bowl /medallion jug / bowl (Wikimedia Commons, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna)

The ethical case against using LLMs for work is straightforward and unambiguous The productivity case against using LLMs for work is complex and requires an understanding of volatility, variability, biases, security issues, lock-in, and more But…

it’s come to my attention that my tumblr post has been crossposted to bluesky, so I’m posting it on my account here #AntiAI #GenAI

I've never been good at navigating the line between self-care and self-pity. So mostly I just rant at strangers on the internet, tell everyone I know in person that I'm fine, and feel guilty for every indulgence and procrastination.

It's at the point (and has been!) where this is just basic online hygiene. Just don't share images (or text!) at all unless you know where they're from and ideally unless they're connected with a news outlet you know exists in the real world, like the one linked here!

Just reading Cicero's speech noting that the Roman Republic's economy was so tied to (predatory) Asian loans that should the region fall to Mithridates their economy would collapse with it. I wonder if that lesson has any bearing on our own day? 🤔 Maybe don't tie your economy to immoral imperialism?

Just sent this to my rep answering a survey on what her Congressional priorities should be (I had to click "other"): The number one priority Congress should have is restraining the tyrannical government of this presidency. Even when lacking a majority, you should be openly calling out the many...

These are the times I prefer teaching at a small private college. We struggle, but not with this BS.

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Always loved it better than the Civ franchise, and now that I've become an historian, the only one of his I can play without cringing. Still play it through once a year most years. After that, Super Metroid & Link to the Past. Still want to go back to Half Life again too.

Malibu in the process of helping me consider the best pedagogy for contrasting the Spartan, Athenian, and Roman constitutions.

Prepping my Alexander to Augustus class & once again struck by the parallels between the beginning of the collapse of the Roman Republic & what is happening to democracy in our own times. We're not in the end stages - it gets so much worse - but we are proving just as incapable of course-correcting.

If Trump’s concern was drugs, he’d not have pardoned Honduras’s corrupt leader; if terrorism, he’d have gone after Iran; if world order, Russia; if preserving US power, China. If democracy, human rights or humanitarian motive, dozens of other worthy cases. What’s left is oil. And Epstein.

Marco Rubio is reportedly saying Maduro will stand trial in US courts. Which means it’s now the US administration’s position that US courts can hold foreign presidents, but not the US president, accountable for crimes.

What I'm not seeing is stories about how US generals and admirals and servicemen and women resigned in protest rather than carry out these blatantly illegal orders. And that terrifies me. Because if they will do this abroad, they will do it at home.

I did not think I had the capacity to be shocked anymore. Or to feel more ashamed of my country.

A lot of people on here keep better track of what they read & write than I do. But despite 2025 being the year after my mom's traumatic decline & death, in which I also lost her sister & was surprised with a difficult probate case for their intestate cousin, I managed to accomplished a fair amount.

just so it's clear: this is the exact core function of genAI Fascist government and climate deniers love it because it can produce the aesthetics of knowledge without any actual tendency towards truth. It is automated denialism. Shame on every climate scientist promoting its use (there are lots)

If anything, I think this oversimplifies the picture of the Hellenistic genealogies

A thought for using AI to teach: I was going to assign each student a successor of Alexander as a way of helping them navigate the complicated politics after his death. Instead of writing a bio themselves, what about making them use AI to do it, and then have them have to check the AI's"work"?