One of the best responses to AI so far did not come from presidents of Dartmouth or Wesleyan or from a dean at the University of Chicago. It comes from this TV show, Pluribus.

Reading a kids’ novel on the iron curtain describing how eastern Germans were living in a state of repression and scarcity during the Cold War while on an airplane where you are hardly offered anything (for free). Freedom, plenty, choice are curious words when you have to pay for a less bad seat.

Two opposing perspectives on the current debate on the future of academia: www.chronicle.com/article/ther... and www.chronicle.com/article/paus...

Preparing a presentation on Ottoman Turkish today, I decided to Google "features of Ottoman Turkish" and this is what Google's AI summary gives me.

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

Imagine this: Netanyahu nominated Trump for the Nobel. Does he think of himself as a peacemaker too? What a world we’re living in!

“As Cartwright points out, the Ellisons are close with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and “a major reason” for their interest in Weiss’ platform is its pro-Israeli bent.” apple.news/Aqo0nVT1oRZK...

Three years and half a trillion dollars later we still have a dumb AI yet some in academia believe it’s a “research” tool. Imagine the millions of ways the money could have been used to actually serve humanity. AI is nothing meaningful but a stage in the adventures of capitalism.

Mourning those murdered by Hamas isn't incompatible with mourning those murdered by the Israeli state. Demanding that the hostages return isn't incompatible with naming & demanding an end to genocide. Naming the power imbalance & impact thereof doesn't desecrate those murdered two years ago today.

Join the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program and Damir Imamović, University of Sarajevo Music Academy, for "Bosnian Love Songs Between Two Empires: Musical Tradition and Change from Ottoman to Habsburg Eras," on OCT. 8, from 12:30- 2:00PM at Kresge Hall, Room 1515 and via Zoom!

The ruthlessness and bluntness of some in the Trump administration reminds me of the taskmasters of the Umayyads. Here is the Umayyad governor and "sedition"-crusher and--also the eloquent--Hajjaj b. Yusuf vs Kristi Noem's ICE in Chicago. Parallels are, what's the word, uncanny.

This is the Abusalim Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in my hometown, Deir el-Balah. A beautiful landmark; serene, quiet, peaceful. It was built by my grandfather’s brother and stood tall for years. Today, the genocidal and deranged Israeli regime bombed it with a suicide drone.

Congrats to all who voted thugs and thieves in! Tbe same can be said for Turkish citizens who have been keeping another thug in power for more than two decades now. (I’m wondering if Rumeysa was an Erdogan voter to be honest.) Erdogan led a campaign of kidnapping dissidents from overseas +

Government efficiency!

Erdoğan the peacemaker or Erdoğan the merchant of death?

My tell-tale word of ChatGPT writing of the day: "interplay" E.g. "The interplay of religion, politics, and military is ..."

Pretty happy not to be an American at this moment. Not a particularly proud time for Americans to be honest.

ChatGPT is useful. I asked if it thought Donald Trump was a LLM. Here is the answer.

The second Trump “era” has so far been a blessing to historians (of the Ottoman Empire for ex.) looking for ways to teach students how history is relevant to us. From authoritarianism to sultanic law and from loyalty to meritocracy, the new admin keeps delivering cases upon cases for parallelisms.

Talking about cyclical history, anthropomorphism, and romanticizing the past as some of the problems studying history. Trump's inauguration is history in the making. From the invoking of a "golden age" to the "manifest destiny" of the US, there is much to discuss. I have some questions: +

MS Word when kerning is not enabled (default behavior):

A Bangladeshi immigrant in NYC with no health insurance, selling bananas $.35 a piece, and a Chinese cryptocurrency billionaire buying his banana for $6.2 million. What do we call it?

As of 2024, the conundrum for the American public is whether someone who sexually abused teenage girls can become the chief of the justice system—under a president who (sexually) abused women, elected to the post by the majority of said public. That person is already a congressman and that is fine.

Could have been his mother instead.