I keep telling people we are THISCLOSE to just creating a completely illiterate generation of college educated young adults and this is my new Exhibit A

F*&G^&* ProQuest

Online user reviews: “a middle-man scam made to steal your info,” “useless enshitification of USPS,” and “one of the worst experiences I have come across. It’s straight up predatory.” Check.

“Everything orGAnic” dying

San José State (and the other Cal State campuses) are gems, and often unappreciated, or even worse, unnoticed in higher ed discourse.

My latest:

Single-issue voter whose issue is cursive, for some reason: YES.

I'm just going to say, one week really cannot do triple-duty as grading period, syllabus prep period, and "spring break."

You know what I would include in my email signature? Some kind of emblem indicating that I did not use AI to compose the email, along the lines of the CC labels. I would appreciate that in other people's emails, too.

"Technopoly is a parody game in which players are data brokers acquiring tech platforms and service providers to win at surveillance capitalism" scholarsphere.psu.edu/resources/a6...

This is a very good piece of data storytelling: www.nytimes.com/interactive/... So elegant. Kudos to the folks who made it.

Here's some fun research that lowkey suggests learning analytics can be used to out trans and nonbinary learners. Neat! This is so great, this is definitely pedagogy, I love it here.

Ah

IMPORTANT UPDATE: it’s an axlotl

6yo was trying to describe a sea creature to me and she couldn’t remember what it was called but she said it lives in the DEEP sea and it looks like a rhinoceros? Just no idea.

This piece by @kevinbaker.bsky.social is as good as everyone says it is. Makes me wish I still ran a magazine so I could have the privilege of publishing it! artificialbureaucracy.substack.com/p/kill-chain

Need to cite a deposition? style.mla.org/cite-a-depos...

I spoke with @rollingstone.com about the Trump administration's new AI framework. At a moment when a majority of Americans are asking for AI guardrails, this proposal moves in the opposite direction. Rather that constrain companies, it releases them from accountability. 🧵 www.msn.com/en-us/news/p...

Private equity has been fantasizing about the capture of education for decades. This is the deepest they’ve ever gotten their tendrils into it.

The US government collected over $1 billion in immigration fees then refused to process the applications. No denials. No refunds. Just silence. This is the largest fee fraud in the history of the American immigration system. Here's what's happening. 🧵

Whaaaaat

"I'm an idea generator"

“I am political,” Ms. Rachel told me of her new effort to free kids from ICE detention. “It’s political to believe that children are worthy of love … and that our care shouldn’t stop at what we look like, our family, at our religion, at a border. Mr. Rogers was very political.”

Tag yourself, I’m an “idea generator.”

INFORMATION STUDIES VOICE: "That's bait."

every single time they say "this time it's different, this time workers will benefit" and every single time historians get more material. the track record isn't ambiguous. it's just that the people making the pitch don't plan to be around for the consequences.

This has never, ever, ever worked in workers’ favor in the history of labor automation and it’s incredibly foolish and self-destructive to think you’ll be the exception.

Strong recommendation to teaching faculty to just say no to this stuff, even if you are AI curious/enthusiastic. This is meant to reduce faculty autonomy and capture human labor with automation. You're selling out your future self and the profession as a whole. www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

How long until this reduces the prep time we're allotted for each class? How long until it's used as a reason to increase class sizes because we are no longer grading? I worry that admin will use this to overload faculty with classes whether we use it or not.

Women w/advanced degrees earn less per hour on average than men w/a bachelor's. Black & Hispanic women face gaps of 25.3% & 27.4% vs. white men—even after controlling for education, age, & geography. ❌ Education is not the fix. ✅ Unions, pay transparency, paid leave, & a higher minimum wage are.

New analysis from @elisegould.bsky.social and Emma Cohn ahead of #EqualPayDay and the headline is grim: The gender wage gap just widened—after hitting a series low of 18.0% in 2024, it's back up to 18.6% in 2025. 1/3

It’s really…something that when we organize to help the university defend itself against this massive- scale destruction, we’re treated from within like we’re the enemy.

This is why we organize. This is why we fight.

this is your mission. our pedophile president needs you to put on a tactical vest and go to the newark airport at 6 am on monday. your order is to wander around like a confused oaf. when a mom drops her sandwich at jersey mike's and scares you, pull out your gun and start shooting. good luck soldier

We have a great excerpt from Katrina Manson’s ‘Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare’ on @wired.com today. It’s a must-read if you’re interested in AI’s use in war. www.wired.com/story/projec...

It’s as easy as shutting your effin mouth! And did I mention… it’s free?!

I worry about this with writing. It’s become clear to me that students don’t understand that writing is a way to build and discipline thinking, which is very important. They’re right to be confused, because we (I) haven’t done a good job explaining. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-...

Editorial from our student newspaper: "In its tireless support for AI, the University has essentially endorsed shortcuts and the outsourcing of academic thinking"

The scientific committee of the Small Mammal Conservation Conference is known. Eleven scientists from eight countries will check the submitted abstracts for oral and poster presentations. Submit your abstract and register as early bird before April smcc.habitatfoundation.org #SMCC #discovermammals

Regional names for alleyways…

Wow

I analyzed over 10 years of anti-trans legislation. Over 330 bills have passed, with ~300 of them in just the last 5 years. There is no precedent in American history for so many bills to target one particular minority group like this in such a short timeframe. www.thedissident.news/the-ratchet/

Google is now screwing with the 10 blue links in traditional search and rewriting headlines - including ours - to be the worst kind of slop. This sucks so bad www.theverge.com/tech/896490/...

Apparently this is becoming a necessary weekly PSA. If you don’t want to read, write, and think, that’s fine. But then you have no business being a scholar. Especially if you’re TT/tenured, and especially in the humanities, if you can’t be bothered to do these things, you need to get out now.

The ProPublica union has voted to authorize a strike. Around 150 journalists, videographers, copy editors and more voted to authorize, with 92% of the union voting yes. ProPublica allegedly rejected restrictions on replacing jobs with AI, and hasn't met other union concerns.

???

The data broker industry must be destroyed: www.theverge.com/news/897145/...

Love a [sic], it's so bitchy.

Mail!

lots of jarring statistics and heartbreaking stories I could share from this story, but this particular anecdote made me tear up when @jonathanwosen.bsky.social first shared this story with me For more details from our survey of ~1000 nih-funded researchers, read the report below