“Technology and History: ‘Kranzberg’s Laws’,” was published in Technology and Culture in *1986*— that's *forty fucking years ago* people— & it was delivered as his (Kranzberg's) presidential address to the Society for the History of Technology (SHOT) the year before that, so we're rolling up on 41…

🚨 RED ALERT 🚨 literally today the kennel did a Christmas photoshoot with the dogs here’s Slugger’s

my dad (a man) was very reluctant to get a small dog, especially the poodle my mom wanted. A convo they had at my house yesterday (Slugger is at a kennel that posts regular pics to their socials): Mom: Do you want to see some new pictures? Dad: Of [grandchild] or Slugger? M: Slugger. D: Oooooh!!!!!

also because of the amount of snacks everyone eats all the time

For my pre-tenure contract renewal I’ve been asked to reflect on my “use of technology” in the classroom. I *know* they mean “computers.” But the urge to share how I arrange the tables and chairs (technology) and an activity where students color with markers (also a technology) is very strong.

the 3d-printed e-spinner I asked for for the holidays arrived yesterday so prepare for me to be absolutely INSUFFERABLE with a new hobby

FACULTY grew too POWERFUL and too ROMANTIC??!? my brother in christ i cannot even afford a house or a car from this decade. the admin class is romanticizing the professoriate, otherwise we’d be paid what we’re worth.

All the reposts of this in my feed are so beautiful and evocative And I’m like “I committed the entire Peanut Butter Sandwich poem by Shel Silverstein to memory 25 years ago”

I’m partway through recording podcast episodes with the (mostly) first-year engineers in my history of technology class and despite all the Stuff—all the AI Stuff and academic freedom Stuff and other Stuff—it’s still such an honor to sit in a room with these young people and talk to them

This is a *great* book. I read a good chunk of it in one sitting at the Port Huron Border Patrol station because it took them three hours to process my work authorization and I was almost never bored. Get yourself a signed copy! (The times I was bored wasn’t on account of the book.)

Grad student instructors/TAs have SO little power. There’s a lot of things OU is good at, but…this…isn’t one of them. When I taught history of science at OU as a grad student it was just before the rise of the right-wing online outrage machine (2017-19) and I was terrified. I can’t imagine it now.

…that’s not enough food, isn’t? For a holiday based around feasting? My Thanksgiving this year was four adults and a toddler and we had probably 50% more food than this. Maybe there are, like, 6 pies and sweet potatoes and corn and a charcuterie tray off camera? (There aren’t.)

Not enough of you saw this embarrassing joke I thought of while doomscrolling last night, but the exact right person did:

“oh Hayley, does Clifford ‘Buzz’ Grambo sound like a real person to you? Grow up, it’s me.”

*sigh* one of the reasons people used to “dress up” to fly in the “good old days” of air travel was that the planes! Were not! Always! Fully climate-controlled! hashtag make america unpressurized again

I took a playwriting class as a teen and one of our exercises was doing this with our names. I wish I still had my poem, but it was about being outside and ended with “Real air is best.” The fact that I still remember it 20+ years later says something about the impact of the exercise!

my LMS grading platform keeps autocorrecting “academic writing” to “academic writhing” fair enough

overheard between two women in a college restroom: “[boyfriend and friend] dressed up as Tyler Durden and the Narrator from Fight Club.” “I’ve never seen that. I’ve heard of it!” “Yeah, I don’t know either.” …ah, Fight Club. Giving college-age men the wrong idea since 1999.

do NOT bring my beloved Ladies into this (ok but actually incredible though)

See, in the game show it wasn’t actually Carmen herself. It would be, like, Vic the Slick or Patty Larceny or those weird twins or whomever.

I don’t pretend to know anything beyond the Wikipedia basics about Adriano Celentano, but he brought us this, so

My niece turned 2 this weekend. Her favorite thing in the world is Shrek, and so I threw her a Shrek-themed party (mostly for all the millennial parents). I love making things for people. Here’s what I made. First, this banner for them to hang on the front door. It’s tapestry crochet!

I have two, both childhood foods of my dad: Montreal bagel, margarine, and a slab of halva, as a sandwich (vaguely understandable, since halva is basically sesame-based fudge) Kraft Dinner with cinnamon sugar on it (absolutely baffling, do not know the origins of this, eat for nostalgia only)

Go to the doctor. Go to the mountains. Look to the children. Drink from the fountains.

“Canada has never had a president,” I tell a group of students learning about the many ways that federal governments have intervened in telecommunications and transportation infrastructure “HOLY SHIT, NEVER?!” gasps one of my beloved first-year engineers who basically never says anything

We all know that being an adult is realizing that Benny isn’t the villain in RENT. Those guys should have paid their rent or whatever. Being an *academic* is realizing that Tom Collins was expelled from a job at MIT for being an anarchist and immediately got another one at NYU somehow.

there could not be a better metaphor

My aviation history course next winter is about to be LIT

it’s the 1958 airline sandwich wars for me

unreleased production still from the second Wicked movie

every Tamora Pierce book series

love to announce that I’m obese at a Walgreens so they’ll give me a covid shot (yes yes I know “obese” isn’t a bad word and BMI is bunk I’m an Aubrey Gordon fan etc. it’s just hard to unlearn three decades of diet culture while in line at this walgreens)

My parents got their windows replaced yesterday and my mom kept sending me pictures of Slugger desperately trying to take his usual midmorning sunbeam naps while it was happening.

My parents got their windows replaced yesterday and my mom kept sending me pictures of Slugger desperately trying to take his usual midmorning sunbeam naps while it was happening.

eyebrows, yelling, and combover sounds about right

This got buried in the torrent of Wednesday’s…news…but I’m so jazzed about this piece. Have you ever met a brilliant colleague and realized “I’ve got to tell the world about this! Why isn’t everyone thinking this way about this stuff?” @tierneyspowell.bsky.social is that brilliant colleague

It’s a “three loose hot dogs, cucumber slices, and handfuls of shredded cheese from the bag” kind of night. you know, ~*wake-of-a-galvanizing-news-story girl dinner*~

she’s a girl’s girl

I just finished the list of artifacts for the “virtual museum” my scientific revolution class (in lowercase—they can force the syllabus-of-record course title but I will take away its power by removing the capitals) is “curating” and there are some BANGERS. Watch this space in a couple months!

When I worked at the aerospace museum we had a lot of old guy veteran volunteers. One of them was named Art, and whenever anyone would ask how he was he’d say “I’m vertical and ventilating!” Art also had one of those awooga horns on his walker and would honk it at the women educators, so

I taught historical research methods for the first time in the spring semester and I WISH our current favorite dunk-able article had come out because we’d spend three weeks on it. Am filing it away for next time, even if next time is probably going to be, like, 2028.

The same way folks now sometimes say “unalive” ironically, or use “IRL” or “BRB” in spoken English, it’s sad/fascinating to watch the language we use to talk about science change. Also, I promise that all the airplanes in my book about Trans-Canada Air Lines are the sex they were assigned at birth.

I spoke at an event today for first-year undeclared students and the office gave out these little 3-D printed fidget toys. Did I explain to everyone what an armillary sphere is? Yes. Did I win over any new history majors? Probably not. Do I have six of these in a basket in my office now? Also yes.

Listen, I love what I do. My students are great, and I fully understand that they are full-fledged people with different priorities than me. However, the “I’m going to miss class this week are we doing anything important?” emails have begun.

Also, I read somewhere that he preferred to be called “Aleck” until Mabel put a stop to that nonsense. It was “Alec” from then on. He also really had a bee in his bonnet about the word “airplane” and wrote to the dictionary about it.

I’m writing about this as we speak. Let me cook!

air canada what are you doing jesus christ (broadly speaking i heart unions but i need to stop getting texts from, like, random uncles that say “don’t you research air canada?”)

This is FAR from the most nauseating thing about this, but the European country (at least one of) my great-great grandparents came to North America from doesn’t exist any more.

I’m sure I know a historian of medicine or two or three who might be interested in this—also Halifax is one of my favorite places on the planet.