Colin Danby

Comfy dog: Max, about 12 pounds of Maltese/poodle (whitish fur with brown ears) snoozes atop the back of the couch. He's small enough to occupy a cat's ecological niche, at least the parts that don't require too much jumping.

Months pass. Yep, and all that was set up in the late 18th. Maybe a squidge of refreshing before I move forward.

More months: they're still arguing about 1688, aren't they? If I could just get a good line on that...

How do historians stick to periods?

Just gonna do a little project in turn-of-the-20th century Brit intellectual history; master a few late Victorian figures, how hard can that be.

Weeks pass. OK, so they're working out early 19th century problematics, maybe a little more reading there.

This was the best choice, and the campaign uses sentiment shrewdly.

But I really like the Basquiatish one.

It might teach them how to work with others.

Two years on from the horrific terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, we remember all the innocent victims whose lives were cruelly stolen by Hamas. Our thoughts are also with the families whose loved ones were callously murdered, as well as with the hostages who disgracefully remain in captivity and must be released immediately. October 7 was the single deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust and a profoundly painful experience for London’s Jewish communities. We must never forget this atrocity, nor the deep distress and grief it has caused many Londoners. As the vile terrorist attack on Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester last Thursday demonstrated, we still have far more to do to tackle the poison of antisemitism and drive it out of our society. Our Jewish communities must be able to live, work and worship freely – without the fear of harassment, discrimination, intimidation or violence. The fact they are currently unable to shows we must work much harder to stamp out antisemitism wherever it rears its ugly head.

We must never allow conflict overseas to divide us at home. As Mayor, I will continue my work to promote inter-faith dialogue and build bridges between our different religious communities. Whether it’s antisemitism or any other form of bigotry, London has no place for those who seek to sow the seeds of hate. On this solemn anniversary, we must also acknowledge the suffering and trauma since 7 October 2023. Like so many others, my heart aches for the tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Gaza who have been killed and the families who have been torn apart. Today, more than ever, I pray that the cycle of terror, killing and bloodshed that has engulfed the region can soon be brought to an end; that the surviving hostages can be set free; that vital humanitarian aid can flow into Gaza; and that Israelis and Palestinians can one day live side-by-side in two states and in peace.

My statement on the second anniversary of the 7 October attacks.

Yes.

Bsky makes it easy for small accts like me to ignore the hideous stuff because all my follows are lovely and I've learned not to lift rocks and look under. But maybe our internal separations make it easier for anti-semitism to flourish.

There's a joke about Aufhebung in here somewhere.

Students are skipping class and professors are hunting rats.

Think of all the responsible orcas, stereotyped because of the behavior of a few hoodlums.

I'm 66 and my reaction times, night capability, and general capacity to track what's around me are not what they were a decade ago. I'd start testing drivers every five years at age 60.

Even dignified from behind.

Harmless and keep a lot of people entertained!

Anyone remember Abolhassan Banisadr?

There *were* a couple years right after the Iranian revolution when you could find something like the left enthusiam Smith clumsily points to. Shah bad, popular uprising good. That dissipated pretty quickly!

When I see LLM fabrication of academic writing I have uncomfortable moments of recognition, spotting familiar vogue words and rhetorical gestures.

Cultural theory can reasonably ask what makes a genre a genre, what are the rules you learn if you have to produce a legal or a policy text. An LLMs *are* interesting in that they nail that, at least at the sentence level.

Thanks! Much useful there.

One pedantic quibble re Farrell: post-structuralism was "post" for reasons, including the point you raise. Hegemonic structure, no agency. Farrell brushes past the distinction with sneers about rebarbative writing.

Yes. Like most industries, we see decreasing returns to additional capital investment.

I'm sure there is more juice to be squeezed from AI. But the idea that a big enough bullshit engine would solve physics was always nuts.

The very emptiness of LLM text seems like an argument that language *can* refer to something outside itself! That's the difference we pick up when we read text produced by a thinking human.

I see no problem granting ingenuity here. There are lots of clever bad things!

What's interesting for anyone raised on structuralist theories of language is on one hand, LLMs seem to confirm that words refer to other words. Yes, you can make plausible text about nothing outside itself. And yet.

Four dogs, some in costume, and the legs of several humans on a back yard deck.

Max and Marty mingle with the guests at the annual Blessing of the Pets at Green Lake United Methodist Church.

Maybe matt94251 has a different take.

What a great dog! Please keep posting updates.

Could you argue that this was early blockchain, in that knowledge of its ownership was socially distributed?

You had to promise not to make any poo jokes?

I'm assuming this is cruel mockery, in which case it's very well done!

This inspired me to figure out how to turn off google photo memories. I will generate my own mawkish sentimentality, thank you very much.

Your followers rejoice.

Volume 55 Issue 3 | Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies | Duke University Press

In sincerity I did log on for a reason. A new issue of the Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies is out, edited by colleague/friend Marcel Elias. It's about how to do postcolonial medieval studies bigger and better. You'll like it. (I'm in there). Go read.
read.dukeupress.edu/jmems/issue/...

Inured to the shame.