update: i didn’t go yesterday (got drive-thru instead, sue me) but im going now! I’m gonna eat a VEGETABLE tonight !!

Hey so are you looking for some Earth Day music that maybe *doesn’t* just say that everything is awful? We @nichecanada.bsky.social editors shared our faves here: niche-canada.org/2026/04/22/w...

My undergrad was a professional degree (journalism) so depending on how you define “senior thesis” it was either 1. A no-narration radio documentary about a local indie movie theater’s monthly screenings of The Room 2. A magazine feature about artist-run galleries (guess which one was more fun)

hey guys 8pm on a Wednesday when you haven’t had lunch yet is exactly the right time to go grocery shopping, right?

I’m only the humble co-Editor in Chief at @nichecanada.bsky.social , but consider us “unofficial” signatories of this letter too. niche-canada.org/2026/03/10/c...

CHA president Colin Coates and IHAF president Thomas Wien have sent a letter to Minister Julie Dabrusin, with Richard Dennis (Chief Librarian, Parks Canada) and Media Relations in CC. #cdnhist #parkscanada

@disabilitystor1.bsky.social oh goody this one is gendered female and named after the history of science’s Patron Saint of Having Your Work Ripped Off and Unrecognized By Dudes

Many faculty at places like Yale, especially ones who like to pontificate about the state of higher ed, have never stepped foot on a non-fancy small liberal arts campus, a state school, or a community college. Which is the majority of higher ed.

S08E18, a minor plot point hinges on someone installing an EIGHT GIGABYTE hard drive on a computer. I continue to be charmed by the Law & Order cops trying to deal with computers. (I had most of S08 running ambiently during spring cleaning this weekend, so I might have missed something fun.)

“RFK Jr. [past tense verb] the [body part] off a dead [animal]” truly any combination of verbs and nouns sounds plausible

To the person whose car I see in the faculty parking lot outside the building that houses history, statistics, computing, and modern languages with the vanity license plate “SOLV4X” I see you, you are loved, I appreciate the commitment to the theme

Not what this is actually about, but in the 19th and early 20th c. settler Canadians tried equally to mythologize their harsh winters **and** downplay their severity to attract (Anglo) tourists and settlers. That paradox is still alive and well I see.

Sort of related: I’ve started listening to an audiobook narrated by Carolyn McCormick (the actor who plays Dr Olivet in the first half-dozen seasons or so) and she’s great.

from a thread about Greenland but also evergreen

I think I’m going to subtitle my flight history course that I’m teaching for the first time in 2 years “From Air to Artemis” (it typically starts with the “invention of air” in the 18th century and ends with the ISS)

S08E06 is another two-parter and another crossover with Homicide: Life on the Street. They rectify their previous mistake by putting Munch and Briscoe in scenes together. Also, there’s LORE: Briscoe slept with one of Munch’s ex-wives??!? (Maybe this is a Homicide deep cut I was not aware of.)

S08E05 is the first time I noticed The Internet mobilized as a main player. Briscoe and Curtis infiltrate a “leaderless resistance” sovereign citizen online group (including one of my favorite guest stars Denis O’Hare, who we’ve seen once before). Briscoe literally says “Let’s surf the web!”

Slugger found the afikomen this year, apparently

i don’t swear much on main but jesus FUCKING christ there are honest-to-goodness photographs of this event (and even if there weren’t, jesus FUCKING christ) i literally just put some of them in a slideshow for my history of technology class

S08E02 has a famous woman naval pilot named Blair, so obviously I have no idea what else is going on in this episode.

The “Victorian Chatbot” came across my feed and I have two responses. 1. I’m not an expert on that particular period or place, but from what I understand the most interesting bits about the Victorians is what they *didn’t write down and publish.* 2. Quick! Ask it about disabled people!

S08E01, a guy uses “Shylock” to refer to exactly what you think he’s referring to. Compared to the n-words and f-words from the first few seasons it’s practically woke. Also, this ep features an extremely baby-faced and unconvincing (sorry!) Rob McElhenney as a teen who kills for the thrill of it.

This is neither here nor there, but I lost my previous academic job in 2024 as a result of one such “reimagining.” The initiative was literally called “Reimagining [College].” When I had my exit interview, the HR person said: “We don’t have it in our files. Did you resign or were you Reimagined?”

This morning’s Bluesky discourse brought to you by the fact that history of science, STS, and the medical humanities are still not integrated in a meaningful way in science training and medical education, and it shows

Of the many jerk-off motions and exaggerated eye-rolls I have to the response (not to the original letter!) one of the jerk-offiest and eye-rolliest is that it’s addressed to *MR.* Coates. Absolutely not! Get out of here with that!

I mean, I grew up in Ottawa, so we did field trips to like the Supreme Court. In first grade someone’s dad worked for the PMO, so we got to meet Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. It was a French immersion class so we practiced asking him questions in French. We *also* did winter survival.

god forbid a gal have a little fun writing about early 20th century Canadian winter culture

Gonna tell my kids this was Heated Rivalry. S7E16. Briscoe and Curtis are in LA working on the film exec murder. Rather than sleep with Lauren Graham’s character, Curtis crashes on the couch in Briscoe’s hotel room. The Law & Order people knew what they were doing with this.

Gonna tell my kids this was Heated Rivalry. S7E16. Briscoe and Curtis are in LA working on the film exec murder. Rather than sleep with Lauren Graham’s character, Curtis crashes on the couch in Briscoe’s hotel room. The Law & Order people knew what they were doing with this.

S7E15 is the first part of a three-parter where the gang goes to LA. It’s the first appearance (I think) of everyone’s favorite crime-show staple: luminol. They’re using it to figure out where a high-powered lady film executive was murdered. Lauren Graham plays a potential love interest for Curtis.

Love a quote-tweet prompt: 1. History of technology 2. History of weather and climate science 3. Science and technology in Canadian history 4. Environmental history of North America

Whenever Faculty Lounge Discourse pops up I reflect on how the break room at my current academic institution is better than the break room at my previous one because we have 1. Running water 2. A full-sized refrigerator 3. No wasp nests in the ceiling

I’m embarking on a new collaborative research project that deals with a part of the USA I haven’t studied much. #Skystorians , what are your favorite books and articles about #envhist , science, and technology in the Mountain West/PNW? (This project is mostly about Idaho.)

S7E14. I have two more words for you. Elaine. Stritch. As a lover of 30 Rock (and Elaine Stritch) it’s fun to listen to her say things to McCoy like “listen, Jack, I’m going to kick your backside in that courtroom.” (she’s representing a suburban mom-turned-sex worker played by Felicity Huffman)

also, “he.” “He” can navigate your Canvas page and has his own computer. “He.”

S7E11. A bystander sees someone jump (not really; it was part of an insurance scam or something) off a bridge and calls 911 from his CAR PHONE. The real point of this episode is for Curtis’s wife to leave him because of his infidelity with Jennifer Garner in last season’s finale.

Two summers ago I was at MoMA and this exhibit offered magnifying glasses and my mom—not really into art, dragged there by me, probably counting down the minutes until our lunch reservation—stopped and pored over every detail of each artwork. www.moma.org/calendar/exh...

hashtag history professor problems

I spend weeks in my history of technology class trying to convince my (mostly engineering) students that all human-made stuff is technology. Including Muppets, I suppose. When the original dunk-able post on this went around my first instinct was “CONDOMS.” And then “TAMPONS.”

hashtag history professor problems

S7E8. Briscoe and Curtis are interviewing the “philosophical and spiritual exploration guide” of a society-lady-suspect. He’s wearing a turtleneck that says “it’s nice to be nice” and petting a borzoi. He prefers “face-to-face communication” so Briscoe makes direct eye contact an inch from his nose.

This afternoon a student I had in Spring ‘25 stopped by my office. I love when this happens! We chatted for like ten minutes about his courses this semester, how he was helping a friend with their Bible study later today, etc. It was only about two minutes after he left that I remembered his name.

Broadly speaking, I prefer my Star Trek a little silly. It makes the imagined utopian(ish) future feel quotidian. Because life is a little silly! For every paradigm-shifting metaphysical question about life there has to be a store selling treats on a stick that no one really likes or whatever.

My niece (2 1/4 yo) has this picture book of dog opposites that she loves. Big dog/small dog. Etc. She especially loves the “long dog/short dog” page. For a while she slept with it open to the “long dog” page in her crib. So I made her this. It’s 5.5 feet long. The longest long dog.

I went to an all-girls school in the late 90s-mid 00s and everything was like “girls can be whatever they want! Scientists! Doctors! End of list!” The headmistress would say “if I had gone to this school, perhaps I’d be an astronaut.” As a Loves Science/Bad At Math kid, that was hard to process.

I know i’m a day and a half late, but I was at prime Tween Age for the Y2K “Latin revival” and I BEGGED my mom for Ricky Martin’s first English-language album (1999). It’s perfect. I learned so much Spanish from listening and reading the liner notes (a lost art). I’ll never not love Ricky Martin.

love colonoscopy discourse on main My paternal grandpa died young of colon cancer. My dad has two brothers and they would rotate whose city they’d do their colonoscopies in so they could prep together. I have fond memories of them acting like it was a slumber party when it was our turn to host.

S7E7 has Jerry Stiller (again!) as a lawyer (again!) but this time representing a man accused of killing his daughter’s ex-husband. The hook is that he (the lawyer) is incompetent and so finds a fast-talking lady lawyer to help who has history with ADA Jamie. It’s how we are introduced to ADA Jamie.

Slugger turns 5 today. This is a public service announcement that he is perfect and a good boy.