Dennis Jerz

Where are Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, etc. in your “American Literature” syllabus? The following comment appeared recently on one of my YouTube lectures, "Historical Context for American Literature." American???? So where are: CANADA, MEXICO, GUATEMALA, CUBA, COSTA RICA, BRAZIL, CHILE ARGENTINA, PERÚ, COLOMBIA, PANAMÁ, URUGUAY, PARAGUAY, EL SALVADOR, HONDURAS, VENEZUELA... ETC ETC ETC. STOP SAYING THE UNITED STATES IS AMERICA! Here's how I responded: Geography and names are fascinating. I'm using the term "American" as it appears in my university's catalog, which is the term my discipline traditionally uses.

Where are Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, etc. in your “American Literature” syllabus?

The following comment appeared recently on one of my YouTube lectures, "Historical Context for American Literature." American???? So where are: CANADA, MEXICO, GUATEMALA, CUBA, COSTA RICA, BRAZIL, CHILE…

We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.

More guns than people…

Is it freedom or a national death cult that keeps growing?

The dawn of the post-literate society

The world of print is orderly, logical and rational. In books, knowledge is classified, comprehended, connected and put in its place. Books make arguments, propose theses, develop ideas. “To engage with the written word”, the media theorist Neil Postman wrote,…

Excited for Annette Vee’s visit. My journalism students have to submit a story by midnight tonight. @setonhilluniversity

Excited for Annette Vee’s visit. My journalism students have to submit a story by midnight tonight. @setonhilluniversity

Is it okay to say clanker? Clanker is a derogatory term used to insult AI and its products and services such as delivery robots, therapist chatbots and automated customer service. Why try to hurt the feelings of something that, oh wait, has no feelings? Like most slurs, it has more to do with the speaker using it than the object of derision. Most social media messages using the word reflect a fear of AI replacing entry-level, white-collar occupations: “Them clankers taking all our jobs.” Ruben Gallego, a US senator from Arizona, went viral when he used the term to popularise his bill: “Sick of yelling ‘REPRESENTATIVE’ into the phone 10 times just to talk to a human being?

Is it okay to say clanker?

Clanker is a derogatory term used to insult AI and its products and services such as delivery robots, therapist chatbots and automated customer service. Why try to hurt the feelings of something that, oh wait, has no feelings? Like most slurs, it has more to do with the…

‘Tentacles squelching wetly’: the human subtitle writers under threat from AI AI is unable to decide which sounds are important. “Right now, it’s not even close,” Deryagin says. He also stresses the importance of the broader context of a film, rather than looking at isolated images or scenes. In Blow Out (1981), for example, a mysterious sound is heard. Later, that sound is heard again – and, for hearing viewers, reveals a major plot point.

‘Tentacles squelching wetly’: the human subtitle writers under threat from AI

AI is unable to decide which sounds are important. “Right now, it’s not even close,” Deryagin says. He also stresses the importance of the broader context of a film, rather than looking at isolated images or scenes. In…

Overflow seating for the 50th anniversary of the canonization of #elizabethannseton @setonhilluniversity

Overflow seating for the 50th anniversary of the canonization of #elizabethannseton @setonhilluniversity

Someone seems to have slipped this over my transom. Thank you, #foodsubstitutefairy whoever you are!

Someone seems to have slipped this over my transom. Thank you, #foodsubstitutefairy whoever you are!

Have you been “workslopped” by a bot? I have put a lot of thought into the additional workload I face as I try to give meaningful feedback on student writing (not only formal paper drafts but also routine interactions like discussion forum posts and e-mailed requests for help) that shows signs of AI involvement. I regularly ask AI to do things like fix HTML inconsistencies, or warn me when a new page of assignment instructions reads too much like lecture notes; but overall I feel AI has lost me far more time than it has gained.

Have you been “workslopped” by a bot?

I have put a lot of thought into the additional workload I face as I try to give meaningful feedback on student writing (not only formal paper drafts but also routine interactions like discussion forum posts and e-mailed requests for help) that shows signs of…

Peer Review Paranoia: The system is built on trust between scholars. AI is undermining that. From an essay that includes a reflection on discovering AI-fabricated quotes while peer-reviewing a scholarly essay for potential publication. (Academics don't get paid for the labor of pre-reading scholarly drafts for potential review. An author who uses AI is squandering the resources of human peer-reviewers.) Humanistic study once promised — and for many, still delivers — the prize of considering what matters most: deeper self-understanding, an ethic of truth and rigor, social commitment and civic responsibility, aesthetic refinement, mutual understanding.

Peer Review Paranoia: The system is built on trust between scholars. AI is undermining that.

From an essay that includes a reflection on discovering AI-fabricated quotes while peer-reviewing a scholarly essay for potential publication. (Academics don't get paid for the labor of pre-reading…

Blaze of Glory #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 23) Sisko needs imprisoned traitor Eddington’s help stopping a war Rewatching ST:DS9 At dinner with the Siskos, Cadet Nog reluctantly reveals that the B-plot will involve his difficulty getting respect from Klingons. Because this is TV, General Martok shows up at that very moment with this week's plot-starter: an intercepted message for "Michael" about a terrorist missile launch which threatens to trigger a devastating war. Sisko seeks the help of Michael Eddington, the former Federation security officer and self-styled resistance hero, who's in a jail cell (a SPACE jail cell, mind you).

Blaze of Glory #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 23) Sisko needs imprisoned traitor Eddington’s help stopping a war

Rewatching ST:DS9 At dinner with the Siskos, Cadet Nog reluctantly reveals that the B-plot will involve his difficulty getting respect from Klingons. Because this is TV,…

Air miles be damned. I say the best way to find out about the joy and complexity of our world is through novels There are other ways to get facts. Newspapers are full of them, as are podcasts and documentaries. Travel shows proliferate, take your pick. But even then, there is nothing like the view of the world via a novel. Novels can go beyond merely being set on location. They can describe and landscape, but they can also capture a nation’s spirit and reveal something of its soul, offering a gateway to understanding the world in all its complexity, richness and absurdity.

Air miles be damned. I say the best way to find out about the joy and complexity of our world is through novels

There are other ways to get facts. Newspapers are full of them, as are podcasts and documentaries. Travel shows proliferate, take your pick. But even then, there is nothing like the view…

Children of Time #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 22) Defiant crew meets happy colony of their own descendants (it’s complicated) Rewatching ST:DS9 In the Defiant mess hall, Kira and Dax chat about Kira being single again, and don't notice Odo's reaction. Sisko reluctantly lets Dax talk him into a detour to study a random planet's plot contrivance particle field, and of course things Go Wrong. Instead of staying on the ship to unflabbergast the Defiant's badly flabbergasted jimberjams, O'Brien joins a party that beams down to the planet, so that he can meet a round-faced redhead who introduces herself as Miranda O'Brien.

Children of Time #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 22) Defiant crew meets happy colony of their own descendants (it’s complicated)

Rewatching ST:DS9 In the Defiant mess hall, Kira and Dax chat about Kira being single again, and don't notice Odo's reaction. Sisko reluctantly lets Dax talk…

I’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education. AI has transformed my experience of education. I am a senior at a public high school in New York, and these tools are everywhere. I do not want to use them in the way I see other kids my age using them—I generally choose not to—but they are inescapable. During a lesson on the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass…

I’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education.

AI has transformed my experience of education. I am a senior at a public high school in New York, and these tools are everywhere. I do not want to use them in the way I see other kids my age using them—I generally choose not to—but they are…

Soldiers of the Empire #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 21) Worf joins General Martok as first officer on a Klingon bird-of-prey Rewatching ST:DS9 Bashir scolds Martok for injuring himself (again) during a holosuite training program. (He's being reckless and self-destructive, even for a Klingon.) On the Defiant, Nog stealthily pantomimes strangling Worf for ordering him to download an operating system "one file at a time." (The intended comedy in this scene is a bit awkward; Nog's presence seems random.) Martok wants Worf to join him as his first officer of the bird-of-prey Rotarran, on a mission to rescue a battle cruiser.

Soldiers of the Empire #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 21) Worf joins General Martok as first officer on a Klingon bird-of-prey

Rewatching ST:DS9 Bashir scolds Martok for injuring himself (again) during a holosuite training program. (He's being reckless and self-destructive, even for a…

Humans are being hired to make AI slop look less sloppy The illustrations clients bring to her are commonly littered with unclean lines and nonsensical text, and they look like a mess of pixels when blown up beyond a certain size. “There’s people that are aware AI isn’t perfect, and then there’s people that come to you angry because they didn’t manage to get it done themselves with AI,” Carstens said. “And you kind of have to be empathetic.

Humans are being hired to make AI slop look less sloppy

The illustrations clients bring to her are commonly littered with unclean lines and nonsensical text, and they look like a mess of pixels when blown up beyond a certain size. “There’s people that are aware AI isn’t perfect, and then there’s…

Today’s lunarbaboon… there might be something in my eye. Hey! Want me to take her for a bit?

Today’s lunarbaboon… there might be something in my eye.

Hey! Want me to take her for a bit?

Old Soviet joke for today:

A man walks into a newsstand every day, looks around, and leaves.

After a long time of this, the owner says “Can I help you find something?”

“I’m looking for the obituaries.”

“The obituaries are in the back of the newspaper, comrade.”

“Not the one I’m looking for.”

No notes

AI crawlers destroying websites in hunger for content Traffic on my website has plunged over the past few years. In 2019, my site attracted almost 1.5 million visitors. The content on my site has not gotten this bad, this quickly! Back in 2016, a single popular page on my website attracted almost 1 million visits -- about as many visits as my entire website got in the years 2022, 2024 and 2024 combined.

AI crawlers destroying websites in hunger for content

Traffic on my website has plunged over the past few years. In 2019, my site attracted almost 1.5 million visitors. The content on my site has not gotten this bad, this quickly! Back in 2016, a single popular page on my website attracted almost…

Washington, DC under military occupation in last August 2025, with banners proclaiming the absolute power of the primus inter pares

This is a real photograph of Washington, DC this week, where the United States president has ordered military occupation in peacetime, and ordered the display of colossal portraits of himself.

www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Wired and Business Insider remove articles by AI-generated ‘freelancer’ Journalists who can't verify their sources, or their own humanity, face consequences. Multiple news organisations have taken down articles written by an alleged freelance journalist that now appear to have been generated by AI. On Thursday, Press Gazette reported that at least six publications, including Wired and Business Insider, have removed articles from their websites in recent months after it was discovered that the stories – written under the name of Margaux Blanchard – were AI-generated.

Wired and Business Insider remove articles by AI-generated ‘freelancer’

Journalists who can't verify their sources, or their own humanity, face consequences. Multiple news organisations have taken down articles written by an alleged freelance journalist that now appear to have been generated by…

Blessing the “American sweet gum tree” that grew from a seed that Artemis I carried around the moon in 2022

Blessing the “American sweet gum tree” that grew from a seed that Artemis I carried around the moon in 2022

August Wilson Trifecta (Two Trains, Ma Rainey and Fences on the same day)

Fences was performed in the backyard of August Wilson's boyhood home. Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company

My 1951 day DuoLingo streak was fun, but…

Ever since DuoLingo announced it was pivoting away from human workers to AI, I've enjoyed my visits with the spunky little owl less and less. Today’s switch from the "hearts” system to the to “energy” was just too much. It used to be, you could keep doing…

Students Are Using ChatGPT to Write Their Personal Essays Now: AI can replicate the shape of a narrative, but not the struggle that makes it meaningful

Students say they appreciate AI’s ability to organize ideas and improve flow, but many also recognize that what comes out often feels “robotic,”…

Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice?

Though not in a hospital setting, the “basilar ganglia” is a real error that was served up by Google’s healthcare AI model, Med-Gemini. A 2024 research paper introducing Med-Gemini included the hallucination in a…

In L.A., police nightsticks are clubbing press freedom to death | Will Bunch On Friday, LAPD cops allegedly battered and detained journalists at a protest — the ugliest of the many threats to U.S. press freedom.

“The pummeling and detentions occurred despite a 2022 California press-freedom law, a federal court order against the police detaining or firing projectiles at journalists last month, and orders from the LAPD top chief”

Ferengi Love Songs #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 20) Rom ♡ Leeta; Zek ♡ Ishka; Quark ♡ $ Rewatching ST:DS9 Much pew is pewing inside the bar, which is closed due to a vole infestation. Quark is not in the mood for Rom cheerfully announcing his engagement to Leeta, but he does accept his suggestion to visit their mother on Ferengibar. Trying to be supportive of Rom’s interest in pleasing Leeta with a traditional Bajoran wedding, O’Brien and Dax accidentally make him doubt his identity as a Ferengi.

Ferengi Love Songs #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 20) Rom ♡ Leeta; Zek ♡ Ishka; Quark ♡ $

Rewatching ST:DS9 Much pew is pewing inside the bar, which is closed due to a vole infestation. Quark is not in the mood for Rom cheerfully announcing his engagement to Leeta, but he does accept…