im only answering your email if you're this stunning early modern painting of mosquitoes.

Trying to figure out something I'm calling the "Weisenbaum paradox," where critics who defend human judgment against computing systems often fail to recognize it when it's exercised. Weizenbaum's secretary asking him to leave the room when she chatted with ELIZA was the first case of this.

reading the wikipedia page for unisexual (all-female) populations of ambystomatid salamanders, and i gotta say, im impressed

one thing i like about king lear: the moment, after class, when students are still staring dumbfoundedly at the text.

My little suggestion today is that if you have to read a T.S. Eliot poem you put, “Girl,” in front of the first line & read the rest in the voice of a drag queen reading someone to filth.

nothing is black and white but the thing is there are some shades of gray that really suck

An underrated 21st century skill is knowing what level of digital friendship you should have with somebody. Getting that Instagram request and being able to say, "no, LinkedIn mutuals is right for us." Tough when you realize belatedly that you don't actually want to know what your gym trainer thinks

Until you're dead every coach is a life coach

It has a name, you know

Some interesting bsky bugs today.

@lucycmunro.bsky.social I just read about you on CNN?! what a delightful surprise!

Night sky testing continues.

Wahoo-ing your religion.

Making events into public memory is a cultural technology you have to do on purpose and repeat over and over. The fight to keep hold of the truth never ends it's generational and idk, maybe we're bound to lose in the end. But I have to believe we can do better than we did in the last six years.

Accidentally got stuck singing REM in my Mario voice: That’s a-me in the corner…

Pause for blue.

imagine being invited to the jungle for some fun and games, and then when you show up, your host starts singing. like, of course you know the names. you invited me.

imagine how stupid you'd feel if you'd said "see you later, boy" to a skater boy immediately before that song came out.

The Book of Margery Kempe, c. 1437

looking at my to-do list and muttering to myself

maybe i'm just getting @annieabrams.bsky.social-pilled, but I think it's probably time for professors to talk about what reading lists are for, including in high schools.

Ah, the surprises of the early modern long "s"...

Trying to convince my department to post my hedgehog battle rap ("They call me Big Poppa/ 'cause I hate balloons...") to social media.

acab includes the oxford comma

okay, wait, so "firstly" is not a thing. but "secondly" is, right?

heading home from SAA, and I encountered a woman filming her music video at my airport gate, lipsyncing her rap and holding a large stack of cash.

Detail of one of the recent birds

This seems like a good time to ask. Can someone tell me why Jesus has an axe here? Botticelli, predella panel, Noli Me Tangere, c.1492

I like that you can see a lingering cultural history in food names: the rich mestizaje of “Doritos Locos Tacos”; the stern Germanic practicality of “turducken”…

A stranger responded to my post to tell me he didn’t care about my dog.

Ambient intimacy, was one phrase for it

I read, a long time ago, about the way social media offered a kind of ongoing sense of what people were up to. You became passively aware of so-and-so's dog, book, complaints, jokes. I don't get that anymore: it's hard for people to do low-stakes commenting, and so they don't. I miss it.

We all used to post and share about our own wonderful, quirky, unique lives and thoughts and values, and now we just wail about the state of the wider world. I still grieve early social media, its insights, and how much I learned from y’all. But I understand the hunkering down from the now.

Engaged in my favorite hobby: picking out the academics in the airport.

Pissed off that my rice krispy isn’t actually the size of a family

remember that you can screenshot posts for future use without including the date

THESE BOOKS SELL THEMSELVES IT'S QUALITY PRODUCT THAT'S WHAT IT IS YOU DON'T GET BOOKS LIKE THESE EVERY DAY VERY FRESH VERY ORIGINAL PROPER CRAFTMANSHIP AND AT THESE PRICES I'M CUTTING ME OWN THROAT...

visibility schmisibility we call for TRANS DAY OF ALSO BUILDING YOURSELF A LASER-GUIDED ROBOT DICK WHILE YOU'RE AT IT character art by Meilee Chen @bkomei.bsky.social #PlasticPrismVoid by @blipstress.bsky.social PREORDER IT NOW at www.littlepuss.net/shop/p/ppv-p...

cat is so good at selling books

constantly invoking crisis as the default form of persuasion has diminishing returns, not something you should build a career on imo

visibility schmisibility we call for TRANS DAY OF TRAPPING YOUR CISGENDER SISTER IN A MIRROR BUT THAT BITCH TOTALLY HAD IT COMING character art by Meilee Chen @bkomei.bsky.social #PlasticPrismVoid by @blipstress.bsky.social PREORDER IT NOW at www.littlepuss.net/shop/p/ppv-p...

a general truth

I'll be honest: this is not a bad strategy for teaching engineers, in my experience.

Mapping out (almost) every location mentioned in @carmenpelaez.bsky.social's /The Cuban Vote/ and cross-referencing with voting maps as I prepare to talk about the play with students. Turns out I'm still the Urban Studies major I was in college.

Flowers in a wreath by Maria Sibylla Merian, 1675-1690 (British Museum)

if this place had the juice, there would be more batshit posts about the lindy west memoir

Crested Porcupine [Hystrix cristata], Anselmus Boëtius de Boodt, after Joris Hoefnagel, c. 1596 - c. 1610 (Rijksmuseum)

The News Adriaen van Ostade, 1650 The woman reads, the men listen. (National Trust Images: Ascott)

Hey #medievalsky, I have a friend who is looking for information on Jewish import-export businesses in 1300s Germany, or European trade in general around 1350. Not my niche at all but I figure someone here might be able to help. Any suggested readings?