oh, hey, hanging by a thread. I see you there.

overheard on my recent trip to Europe: "You Americans need to get your act together."

"Anger at AI, smartphones, and social media—and more specifically, at the exploitative practices of the companies operating them—has galvanized people all over the world, from the youth above, to artists and advocates and academics." www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-luddit...

#FlowerReport Yellow tulips. Some of the first that were getting ready to bloom in Amsterdam, early spring, 2025.

#SmallJoys Since I love a cover, I have a ridiculous fondness for Post Modern Jukebox. The cover of Heart's Barracuda is, as the kids say, 🔥 www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNTr...

Dear academics everywhere: yes, you do need to learn proper citation style. No the copy editor won't do that for you. Cause especially in #TeamRhetoric most "copy editors" are your colleagues who don't have time to do this for you.

Dear academic conference organizers: please check the football schedule before scheduling a conference. Cause paying 3 times the price for a hotel room is not sustainable.

I don’t know what to make of this but it does make me want to watch some Designing Women www.washingtonpost.com/style/power/...

Let me tell you something else. Nobody becomes a bigger hater than the person you helped. Nobody. And I will tell you a second thing. No one wants to argue you to the death more than the person who says they “agree with you on 99 percent of all things.” I don’t make the rules.

#FlowerReport Fall blooms.

I hope Fernandez/Williams becomes a regular thing because this is great. 🎾

As the proverb goes, "beware the man of one book."

HAHAHAHAHA....True.

When two weeks later, you're still annoyed at how bad a reviewer just didn't read the words you wrote. Sigh. (Totally first world academic problems.)

when I am asked for these comparison things I simply don't do it. Explain why and go on to document with specific examples why the candidate should be tenured/promoted because they do make meaningful contributions. Zero problems. Several policy changes.

Absolutely same.

When a colleague does such a generous reading of a thing, and those comments clear up all the parts of the thing that had been nagging you for months. #Gratitude #TeamRhetoric

As always, Tressie, is right.

It’s also really important as a Black woman talking about technology that I make this part legible. I don’t misunderstand the tech. I am not ignorant of the many users who enjoy it. I am very much aware and knowledgeable about it — I am saying that it does not matter.

You don’t need to send me a story about how it saved you an hour at work or helped you solve a math riddle or even self-diagnose a medical ailment. My thinking will be the same. That is nice and it is still not worth the societal costs.

Poetrye ys the technologye of hope.

Thank you. To be clear, I did not merely “dismiss” AI as mid. My argument is that LLMs 1) are not intelligent 2) average textual responses in a way that is mid 3) most generous use cases are a revolution of middle skills that don’t produce anything ergo LLMs are in every demonstrable way mid.

I get that phones seem ubiquitous these days, but I worry that appifying college life could end up exacerbating inequalities and making life harder for already vulnerable students. 1/ 🧵 today.iu.edu/live/news/46...

Google's data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa used 1 BILLION gallons of water in 2024 - enough to supply all of Iowa's residential water for five days. Researchers in water law and policy explain how companies rarely tell the public exactly how much water data centers consume:

Honestly, the funniest thing about this is that over the past 50 years, there have been more Republican presidents who were male cheerleaders than those who have been in combat.

The tech version of jumping the shark. Yikes.

I cannot stress enough that when serving as a peer reviewer to review the manuscript you have in front of you. Not the one you would have written using the methodology you would have preferred. #TeamRhetoric

I am increasingly convinced that few people in writing studies actually understands (1) what empirical research is and (2) that there are different kinds of empirical research that do not all require advanced statistical models. Big fucking sigh.

#FlowerReport Trying to motivate myself through small, pretty joys. Random from the garden center.

Long been a full fledged member of the @tressiemcphd.bsky.social fan club, but her recent comments on AI and education are totally on fire. Ask why? And keep asking it, and a huge reminder that education is relational BETWEEN PEOPLE. Thank you so much.

On another note, if you are a university employee I strongly recommend that you in no way link any of your university accounts to any of your past, present, or future personal accounts or devices. Especially this.

A lot of people never learned the difference between unsafe and uncomfortable.

The job ads are the most egregious part to me. I saw a lot of folks defending them with “this is the only way we could get it through the Provost’s Office” when we all know there are ways to write ads that will appease an audience of administrators without selling your soul to predatory ed tech.

I wrote a version of this in several peer reviews lately. Even pushing it farther to say that there is a basic incompatibility with justice and genAI. You can't say you're doing the former if you advocate for any use of the latter.

Current status.

same

Yep, that tracks...😉🤣

Weird. This doesn’t match what I’ve been told—that students are going to use it no matter what.

#FlowerReport One of my favorite tulip photos of my trip to Amsterdam in the Spring. #Beauty and #SmallJoys

Steve Inskeep speaks with former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg about distrust in government and the status of the Democratic Party.

Info design 101. Hahahaha. Gonna be a great example for class this fall.

So far AI has only increased my workload.

You kan not run educacioun lyke a businesse. A businesse ys ther to make a profit. Educacioun ys ther to make the future.

There are 500 stories about AOC’s met dress on my socials today when this administration openly takes bribes in the hundreds of millions. Cmon.

“Authors have until the end of August to opt out of the licensing agreement. If they do not, their work will be used to help train AI models.”

Airport sitting. Always, always reminds me of you. Tu me marques, mon ami.

I just now laughed out loud so hard....someone trying to make the claim that "teaching effective AI prompt strategy" is a social justice considerations. 20 pages in and not one single word about the ethical problems of AI. And people wonder why the hell I'm so cranky about AI.