Every time you unsubscribe from a Dem campaign, they add your number/email to three others you also never subscribed to.

This image comes to mind every time I learn about some new AI tech. Globalization, and the global inequality, is just the real world version of a green screen.

In this economy??? marchforbillionaires.org

“...poetry today might have more to teach us than economic science, the human sciences and psychoanalysis combined.” ~Felix Guattari, Chaosmosis

Happy birthday to Antonio Gramsci, one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century and a socialist hero.

Explore Günther Anders’s The Obsolescence of the Human, now available in English—one of the twentieth century’s most important works on the philosophy of technology #MLA26

Breaking News: Bela Tarr, a Hungarian director whose long, grim films like “Werckmeister Harmonies” made him an art-house titan, died at 70.

“People pay for what they do, and still more for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it very simply; by the lives they lead.” ― James Baldwin

Ever relevant, this poem by Mary Oliver, especially today.

A key for my teaching has always been “finding friction” for students to grapple with. AI removes most friction in favor of a kind of faux fluency. This essay gets at exactly that dynamic also needed at the larger curricular level.

“I don't write like ChatGPT. ChatGPT, in its strange, disembodied, globally-sourced way, writes like me. Or, more accurately, it writes like the millions of us who were pushed through a very particular educational and societal pipeline, a pipeline…” marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-...

It's so fucked up to have been a kid during the D&D is the devil freakout and the Tipper Gore dirty lyrics freakout and live to see the teen suicide machine get such a pass.

The Texas Department of Transportation is annexing properties along I-35 in Austin to make way for an expansion of the interstate. Here are some of the people and businesses being displaced: placesjournal.org/article/along-a-path-of-impermanence-highway-displacement-austin-texas/

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Finally getting some theological clarity on the ethics of reclining in one’s plane seat

There are so many Zs in this story.

Huh…maybe Joyce Carol Oates was onto something here.

Never before have I been as intrigued by a phrase as I was after reading the title "Inflatable space stations" Super cool new article by @angadh.com on how to create artificial gravity in space 🛞 worksinprogress.co/issue/inflat...

We’re hiring an Asst Prof of Instruction in Digital Humanities/Data Science with BSDS + English @UTAustin. Teach Python/R for Humanities, build DH projects, mentor capstones. Starts Fall 26. Repost & share widely. Apply by Dec 15, 2025: apply.interfolio.com/175750 #DigitalHumanities #DH

This shortened title hits different these days

Found the tweet that Joyce Carol Oates bodied Elon Musk with and it's so beautiful in its eloquent, simple take down. So much so he's crashing out trying to prove he reads books now. Put this in the Louvre.

There are no words for how evil this is

Jimmy Carter's advice to a young person. My nephew Matthew shared this letter with me yesterday. Five years ago, he wrote to all the living presidents and asked for advice on how to participate in public service. Only Jimmy Carter responded. A precis on how to live a life of service.

The problem with digital ID cards isn't what you think. Here's why Britain and other nations should stop pushing digital ID apps, right now. My latest for @newscientist.com, now free from the paywall! www.newscientist.com/article/mg26...

We’re hiring an Asst Prof of Instruction in Digital Humanities/Data Science with BSDS + English @UTAustin. Teach Python/R for Humanities, build DH projects, mentor capstones. Starts Fall 26. Repost & share widely. Apply by Dec 15, 2025: apply.interfolio.com/175750 #DigitalHumanities #DH

"Through his mode of life...Diogenes exposes himself absolutely to domination, to murder. He can be crushed like a snail is crushed underfoot. He can be broken, reduced to pieces. He can be exiled and tortured. But he cannot be governed." Catherine Malabou on Diogenes. No notes.

"I DON'T NEED YOU TO FUCKING REWRITE WHAT I'VE JUST WRITTEN!"

Did a data center write this?

This is how you blurb

you can get my book and so many others!!!! www.dukeupress.edu/the-politics...

Never lean back your seat on a plane.

For over a year now I’ve worked so hard and tried everything I could to avoid this. But I couldn’t save enough, so here we are. I made a Gofundme. Depending on the outcome I will either hire an expensive immigration lawyer and give it one more try, or pack up and use the money to start over.

The temptation to resign ourselves to resignation is never stronger than at a time of overlapping crises, and the AI upheaval is unique in its ability to metabolize any number of dread-inducing transformations. www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

Of course one should jump into the novels, but this weird assemblage of excerpts isn’t a horrible way to dip into Krasznahorkai.

László Krasznahorkai wins the Nobel prize in literature 2025

So-called #genAI means the abolition of the future through the proliferation of endless streams of stochastically rendered generic pasts. Having turned large parts of the cultural archive into training data, it now traps us in a foreverized pastness, a 24/7 nostalgia for a past that never existed

Old people. Living in big cities. Afraid of the sky. - @bruces.bsky.social

Time to repost a classic. clarkesworldmagazine.com/kim_02_24/

feels like we're living through some kind of cultural gas leak

“Instead of being enthralled by its wan superficiality, we would be better off looking beside and beneath it at the extractive project that machine learning serves in its expansion into humanistic research and education”

Fewer Good Men

Warrior Ethos

Today's article is about a form of bad-faith speech somewhat akin to bullshit, which I'm calling (because why not) wank. I don't quite think I've focused the ideas down as much as I can, but I think it says some interesting things regardless:

"Rarely does an esolanger discover the most interesting possibili­ties of their language on their own; it is others’ experiments that reveal the nuance and character of a language." (The preface from @dtemkin.bsky.social's excellent new book "Forty-Four Esolangs")

At best, AI is weighted dice…likely to land on expected sides, but not certain to do so.

It’s time to finally tackle it.

The future youtu.be/8WlbQRoz3o4?...

Good morning! I’ve received so much support for my fundraiser already, and I’m so grateful. But unfortunately I can’t stop here if I want to stay. Repost/signal boost is greatly appreciated 🙏

Horrible news about Charlie Kirk. Violence ALWAYS benefits the worst forces in society, regardless of who the victim is. Only more hatred and oppression will grow out of this.