Subhed from the NYT article on CSU adoption of ChatGPT: “California’s public universities spent $16.9 million on A.I. during a financial crisis, and the result has been chaos.” Gift link www.nytimes.com/2026/06/01/m...

On the nose www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06...

Some of my students: I used Chappy for all my homework My friend: AI is the future why resist My other friend: AI is the best secretary Me, when I see what AI really produces: Y’all aren’t seeing this? Y’all really aren’t okay, are you? 😐

Article on changing immigration rules in Japan, and their impact on small restaurants run by foreign owners. Gift article. Sounds like this change results for a great loss for everyone involved. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/30/w...

Yet another big anti-war demonstration in Tokyo tonight. #戦争させない0529

New in @ausjps: Kate Thompson & Kelly Gerard examine Job Ready Graduates, HASS curriculum rationalisation and the Australian regulatory state - showing how disciplines are pushed to articulate their value in economic terms.

A Pope is a Pope and will always believe many things I do not believe, but that does not change how absolutely bang-on correct and beautifully articulated this is.

By this, I mean: 1. They spend much of their day talking to chatbots. 2. They generate reams of mediocre content that they feel are very important and must be shared. 3. They perceive themselves as being on cusp on a major breakthrough. 4. They don't understand why you don't get it.

Terrible news from Sheffield, especially re these esteemed programs with so much value in academic research and teaching. Solidarity to all those affected.

East Asian Studies is being gutted at Sheffield - all staff at risk with 8.6 FTE proposed to go (a third of us). Biggest cuts in Chinese and Japanese Studies. We’ll be taking a few days to process. Solidarity to Materials and Chemistry colleagues who are also dealing with similarly bad news.

Welcome to Bluesky, @news.abc.net.au!

If any postdoc scholars in film studies are interested in applying for a JSPS position and looking for a host institution, I’m happy to take a role of a host scholar at Kanazawa University. www.jsps.go.jp/english/e-in...

Sigh. Another day of dealing with possible AI-related student misconduct instead of all the other stuff I was supposed to get done. A personal circle of Hell for all the HE managers, mega-publishers and EdTech pushers whose cheer leading has brought us to this point. #DownWithAI

Nice to see the extract of my book, Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki, transl into French and published with photos in this catalogue for the exhibition late last year in Paris by Sylvie Morishita: L’Art de la Paix – Nagasaki, 9 août 1945, 11h02

It’s funny how no one will say all this “global uncertainly” the budget has to address is caused by…Australia’s most important security ally

Fair go? FAIR GO?! I've got HECS debt. My kids have HECS debt AND they've been whacked with JRG, which your party Labor maintained. That's not frickin fair. #auspol #Budget2026

In this #newblogpost I extend my arguments about the (im)possibility of decolonial GenAI. I specifically focus on the points of divergence between GenAI reliance on colonial structures of flattening what makes us human and decolonisation's refusal of those structures folukeafrica.com/being-human-...

Why do none of these doofuses realize a) there are *plenty* of translators, they just have to actually pay us, and b) the manga market outside Japan is very different and you can't release every manga ever made without cratering sales and destroying reader trust??

Results from a Nara prefecture survey question shown in the museum. "If your child's prospective spouse, who possesses desirable qualities, is from a Buraku community, what attitude do you think you would take?" Only 1/3 wouldn’t make it into a problem. Results almost the same in 2008 and 2017.

Editorial: As the government says it is having a difficult but honest conversation about support for people with disabilities, it is spending hundreds of billions of dollars on submarines that will never arrive and refusing to properly tax gas exports. satpa.pe/kHRmxq4

"Civic rights groups and activists from Korea, Japan and other parts of the world rallied in Tokyo, Thursday, urging the Japanese government to include Korean schools under the Basic Act on Children and make them eligible for free high school tuition support."

Just a reminder that Angus Taylor slipped the term “genocidal protesters” into his anti-immigration racist rant last week. Does anyone here know anyone who is protesting FOR genocide?

Am starting to think they are struggling to explain why we shouldn't tax gas live.thepoint.com.au

In Australia in 2026, the effective political opposition to the sitting government is a single independent Senator … and he’s genuinely hurting them on issue after issue

We had an anniversary this week and had a Thai green curry in honour of what we asked for years ago. This green curry was sooo much better than what they managed in the 90s in country Victoria though.

Victoria, Australia - World Famous for Crocodiles

“Even on pre-Iran war, pre oil crisis prices, we estimate that that run would have still been 70 per cent cheaper on energy cost alone.” How freight is electrifying faster than many expected: satpa.pe/kvIllCf

Octavia E. Butler, 1998:

www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04... I worked behind the scenes with Iskandhar Razak on this one. As a talking head and giving him access to research and putting in contact with cosplayers, photographers, and events. It's not a bad look at cosplay in Australia

Now that it is actually published in an issue, there are 50 more free eprints available via this link to this article on oral history records of the 'subaltern' in the Tablelands of NSW (especially Guyra and Uralla). www.tandfonline.com/eprint/KMWWT...

basicint.org/report-assem... It was a pleasure to be interviewed by group 2… a very interesting project considering the future of memory as the eyewitnesses pass away. The report downloadable here.

As Jewish Australians, we are devastated to learn of the Israeli assault on Lebanon yesterday. We urge @albomp.bsky.social and Foreign Minister Wong to speak out against Israel's violent escalation and call on the Government to take decisive action by demanding an immediate ceasefire.

Japan published 71,000 books in 2019, but only 24 made it into English translation (excluding manga). Missing from translation: the life-hack books, mysteries, and historical fiction that dominate Japanese bestseller lists. buff.ly/Lw0dEpv

I estimate there are at least several tens of thousands of people at the anti-war protest happening in Tokyo right now. I've never seen a demonstration this large here.

I am very insistent to yap about CHINAMAXXING some more 🚩

Funded PhD Studentship on Women, Nature, and Early Modernity in Japan Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona – the Consuming Nature Project #skystorians 🗃️www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQZ754/f...

This is good from Vic and Tas, and discussion about free fares/frequency should be both/and, not either/or, but for many journeys the fare was *already* cheaper than petrol and the cost of PT makes no diff if you've no option in the first place. PT stops before your shift does? You're stuck driving

So, yes, I do think greater frequency, inc. extended operating hours, would be more meaningful to help people use less fuel than attention-grabbing "free fares!" headlines. And expanding networks is hard to do overnight, but some areas also need new services to aid a switch But this is still good!

Europe spent years debating whether the energy transition was affordable. Spain quietly answered the question: gas now sets its electricity price in only 7% of hours. Strategic autonomy doesn’t arrive via summit communiqués. It’s built in advance — in wind farms, solar parks, and grid investment

not now Pacific nuclear tomb

In case anyone needs it for their syllabi, my statement in gen-Ai from the minicomic I made as a syllabus for class last semester. All online and printable here spinweaveandcut.com/fall-2025-sy...

probably should have waited a bit at least before being an absolute moron

In our unit this week, Asia Decolonised? we are reading about legacies of violence out of the atomic bombings, and the consequent bombings on the Korean Peninsula, and now it is unfortunately even more relevant for the 45 students.

Australia—DO NOT go there, do not. Do not go to war with a madman.

In his 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised voters that he would end wars, not start them. Over the past year, he has instead ordered military strikes in seven nations. His appetite for military intervention grows with the eating. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/o...

This is critically important for our future. The struggle over ethical parameters for AI use will determine whether authoritarian states can enact mass surveillance of their populations at granular level and allow machines to decide to kill people. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

New publication on the Ruins of the Urakami Cathedral published in the Encyclopaedia of Cultural Heritage and Conflict. link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/... @springernature.com @nobigdiehl.bsky.social