Joe Murphy

A splash of white vinegar right in the bottom of the machine before starting the load worked pretty well for me, when I was living with hard water.

Faculty Publication: Te Pūrere

Orchid Tierney, William P. Rice Associate Professor of Literature, has 3 poems included in the new anthology Te Pūrere: Te Paenga Kōrero ā Ngā Kaitito Toi o Aotearoa/The Exodus: The Anthology of Expatriate New Zealand Poets from Cold Hub Press. DESCRIPTION There are…

Higher Education Reporter, National New York City, United States

🚨Come work with me at @propublica.org!
We are hiring a reporter to cover higher education — the best beat there is. 🏫

job-boards.greenhouse.io/propublica/j...

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - 2012-02-20 Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - 2012-02-20

Robert Hackerman still at it, I see.

www.smbc-comics.com?id=2526 via @zachweinersmith.bsky.social (from 2012!)

in the mirror hypnotized I’m haunted Yesterday, I mentioned on Bluesky that I’d heard this guy suggest a way to break the doomscrolling Ouroboros we all seem to be stuck in right now: when the urge to resume doomscrolling hits (…

"when the urge to resume doomscrolling hits (our brains asking for dopamine), make a choice to be creative instead. Satisfy the brain’s desire for dopamine by making something, instead of chasing that hit from the Internet. " - @wilwheaton.net
wilwheaton.net/2025/09/in-t...

Faculty Publication: False Promises

Ric Sheffield, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Legal Studies, has published False Promises: The Struggle for Black Voting Rights in 1800s Ohio, with Swallow Press. DESCRIPTION In False Promises, the fight for Black voting rights in Ohio comes alive through…

Faculty Performance: Before an Immense Sky

Kora Radella, Assistant Professor of Dance, is premiering a duet, Before an Immense Sky, with music by Ross Feller, Professor of Music, at the Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival on September 26th & 27th, 2025 at 7:30 PM. Before an Immense Sky is…

PS: some of my colleagues have made it abundantly clear to me that two-factor authentication was invented by and for a demographic who usually wears pants with pockets...

I'm a fan of two-factor authentication as a rule, but the whole "update your password/enter your code/answer a security question/update your backup email/oh if you want THAT feature enter your password again" tango is for the birds.

"Decisions that fail to take direct feedback from the community – leveraging their expertise and their understanding of their needs – are doomed to fail." www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...

Faculty News: A Twist on Ancient Technology

Bruce Hardy, J. Kenneth Smail Professor of Anthropology, will give a talk titled "A Twist on Ancient Technology: Fiber, String, and More" for the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History Human Origins Today series on September 18, 2025. SUMMARY The…

I happen to be listening to David Yeager's "10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People" right now and it seems relevant to this kind of challenge. The difference between "welcome to the club" and "didn't anybody teach you this" is the difference between success and failure...

‘Booty’ and ‘butt’ are synonyms.

‘Call’ and ‘dial’ are synonyms.

But, a ‘booty call’ and a ‘butt dial’ are VERY different things.

The deadline for submissions has been extended to September 15! THANK YOU to everyone who has already made a submission... and help us spread the word.

How can academia best support neurodiverse faculty and staff?

Join us tomorrow as the Forum hosts Rebecca Pope-Ruark and Lee Skallerup Bessette to discuss their new Johns Hopkins University Press book.

georgetown.zoom.us/meeting/regi...
@agilefacultyrpr.bsky.social
@readywriting.bsky.social

Wow. I'm glad I was tall enough to go on that ride. Brilliant thread.

But the choice is not "spend the money or set the money on fire". It's most likely "spend the money with Vendor A or with Vendor B"... who also desperately needs it.

Or give the money to charity... who desperately needs it.

Or leave it in the bank, who lends it out to someone who needs it.

Present company excluded but I wish more people realized that good teachers are the product of *years* of training and education and professional development and mentorship and practice, not magicians who go into the classroom and just wing it on Charisma.

There's a #HigherEd trope/meme that I've always hated, that I often see circulated this time time of year: that of the "joke" about how many students' grandparents were killed by your 8am class this term. My son and his cousins lost their grandfather in June, my father-in-law, after a very long battle with cancer and a gut-wrenching hospice journey. Those same cousins have a second grandfather who is now on hospice as well. Odds are my nieces will bury two grandfathers within 4 months during their senior year of high school. Some of my frustration with this meme/"joke" is that I grew up in a family of undertakers: my grandfather and my uncle, so I have a more direct relationship with death than a lot of people. It's an inevitable part of life. It is ever-present if we open our eyes and hearts to it. My analytic brain also doesn't get the joke. At what age do you think 18-24 year old's grandparents die? It's simple math. My son now has three remaining grandparents over the age of 80 as he approaches his college years, so yeah, I hope we have them with us for as long as possible, but realistically, that might not be the case. The past several months have been so hard for our family, and my heart breaks for my nieces, my sister and brother in law, facing this again so soon after the loss of our dear Vô. I can't imagine contending with educators charged with supporting their students making fun of these types of losses. Teachers and professors are teaching through impossible circumstances. And, our students are not the enemy. I hope this lands where it needs to today. Just an invitation for some awareness, basic math, and compassion. May it be of benefit. ✌🏻

Been stewing on this one for a minute. No more dead grandparents jokes, please #HigherEd?

Ohio is first state in the U.S. to require K-12 public schools to adopt AI policies Through the budget that was signed into law last month, Ohio has become the first state to require K-12 public schools to adopt policies on artificial intelligence.

Ohio is (reportedly) the first state to require school districts to write AI policies. www.wosu.org/2025-08-25/o...

you know who else came from chicago and was on "a mission from god"

“The pope will be from Chicago” sounds like an 1880s Republican’s dire prediction for if we don’t stop Irish immigration

Interesting article on how @propublica.org used an LLM to analyze Cruz' list of supposedly "woke" science grants. Like, with prompts and everything. link.propublica.net/view/5f0a0ae...

That tone on "fools/cool"... like a bell!

And oh look it's Bandcamp Friday at the end of the week...

DeepSeek hot take: The emperor still has no clothes, but it's very distressing to the emperor that their non-clothes can be made so much more cheaply.

In about 20 minutes (10 AM Eastern) we'll be getting the cooking club together on #ds106radio to make the station some birthday cakes for its 14th birthday on Thursday! You can join along at listen.ds106rad.io ! (even pancakes are kind of baking...)

free internet #radio show DJ'ed by @joemurphy.bsky.social
#music for the next hour or so at listen.ds106rad.io

Frontiers | Is it really a neuromyth? A meta-analysis of the learning styles matching hypothesis Learning styles have been a contentious topic in education for years. The purpose of this study was to conduct a meta-analysis of the effects of matching ins...

And if you want the full review article it's at www.frontiersin.org/journals/psy...

Fascinating. Learning styles are less useless than we've been saying. (Seems like the same basic advice, though. Multiple modalities good; matching to preferences probably not worth the effort compared to other practices.)

Was it Felicia Day who said to always remember "you make things and they make comments"?