Reading for work, aestheticized. Yes, a compromise to reduce book luggage

30 years since seeing this view for the first time. Lots has changed, some hasn't.

There was a big windstorm the other night and I wonder if that was what took down this grand old chestnut, almost a meter in diameter

Yeah! Tune Girl

An encouraging conversation

Our faculty-staff choir will perform Mozart's Requiem tomorrow. We have the benefit of a Mozart scholar as a leader, who pointed out that a couple of the major cadences, including the last chord of the piece, are an open fifth. The absence of third renders it neither major nor minor. 1/

I just sent myself an email to save something, and then I heard a notification and thought "Oh, I wonder what that is."

We were looking at our trees and Marike said the scraggly mulberry "doesn't have a thesis."

Checking in on Mamdani panic outside NYC: apparently it's not really socialism but communism, which is a totalitarian government that represses the people by (consulting notes) releasing them from jail to start a crime wave. Also, mandatory atheism is going to usher in Islamic Sharia law.

Note to all executives and politicians who are watching the #TrumpEraFires (you're welcome, future historians) with alarm: this is your reminder that collective bargaining and labor rights are the settlement. The civil option.

Where I live, fronts are not only on maps

This is your brain on drogues

I can't stop thinking about how LLMs are defining writing as the production of the most probabilistic sequence of words, not long after Amazon figured out that the way to uniquely identify a book is by "statistically improbable phrases."

Thank Dogs for TACO Tuesday. Now take away the keys.

U. illinois- Springfield is on the verge of a strike. Tell their admin to meet the obligation to come to the table. actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...

We have a union. Ratification vote was 92% YES

Academic lingo: "I realize this is a tough time of the semester." Translation: "This is a time of the semester."

Birthday breakfast, lucky me

If you think NPCs are real, you are probably already a fascist.

The current chair of the AAU and chancellor of the University of Kansas is bullying and gaslighting faculty leaders. www.kansascity.com/opinion/read...

Berlin urban fox. I saw one of these guys at 10 pm jogging past the Wasserpilz into a construction site in Wilmersdorf. youtu.be/sN9chtOdHJ0?...

Read the walls to see when you are in a particular kind of place.

The horrors described in the Epstein files are settler/slaver nostalgia.

T flippin A tinyurl.com/UAKUTA

Don't let the door hit ya where the lord split ya

Accidental still life after a 12 hr bargaining session

reflective listening to the right

Dear administrator, the moment you utter the phrase "research enterprise," you have lost my trust.

30 years since my first time in Berlin, 3 years since the last time. Soon we will go again, to mourn a loved one who has always been there, and who taught me about keeping a "Koffer in Berlin."

WE need a full investigation....

Aggressively hating freedom

U.S. Ethnographers- shouldn't we have a starter pack? Looking for folks who work in, on, around, or in spite of the United States. Let me know if that sounds like you or someone you admire. Context: I organize the ethnography caucus for the American Studies Association.

Until I can ask AI to instantly scroll when somebody says "I'm partnering with--" I'm not impressed.

Here's a position I don't have time to develop or explain: Students will gain stronger "AI literacy" and be better prepared for the future by using analog methods in education (e.g., books).

If managers seem to be pushing AI adoption unreasonably, it could be because the entire U.S. has fallen under an article of faith that managers can extract more value by finding "efficiencies." AI products offer a deus ex machina to soothe the panic of not knowing where such things can be found.

Boosters of AI investment harp on the idea that technology will be smarter than us, and that our adaptation to this inevitability is both compulsory and profitable for them. But I have never heard a coherent explanation of what smart means in this context. Meanwhile...

This one time, we lived in Austin

"transfers" reminds me of Office Space: "It's not yours?" "It becomes ours."

Incredible opinion. It holds that the common ICE tactic of jumping out of an unidentified rental vehicle and seizing suspected noncitizens while masked violates the Fourth Amendment because the *manner* of the seizure is incompatible with a free society governed by the rule of law.

Dayum. Just heard a minister say, as perhaps only Black ministers can, “We will fight until hell freezes over, and then we will fight on the ice.” I’m stealing that!!

A good day to be protesting ICE, led by the strong and beautiful Indigenous college students of our community.

Under a rising tide of fascism, a liberal wonk has been focused on attacking a whole academic field for not being liberal-nationalist enough. Our association president gives a calm, reasoned correction: www.chronicle.com/blogs/letter...

They went to the elementary school at drop off. I don't have vile enough language to describe this.

In case anyone makes you feel like you’re overreacting, I’m here to tell you that we’re underreacting. We’re severely underreacting.

We stopped at the capitol after picketing the board of regents meeting across the street.