Lee Henderson

Sending someone a spotify* playlist is like handing them an ailing puppy**: it’s not a present, it’s an obligation to spend both time and money.
——
*or insert stupid parasitic streaming service of your choice
**except the puppy may one day love you; the megacorp never will

Harvard Students Skip Class and Still Get High Grades, Faculty Say

Maybe ballooning class sizes (as managers hire more managers & fewer faculty) and doggedly treating students as “customers” are why students feel like their presence doesn’t matter…

“The students — there are 761 enrolled this term — pack into a historic wood-paneled theater…”

He just hopes Trump will one day make him a real boy.

The administrative class loves and excels at two things: 1) diluting their own responsibility/ies by hiring more of themselves, and 2) making their own jobs less complex by reducing the agency and the number of people doing the actual work the institution is mandated to do (in this case, teaching).

Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.

Educated guess: post-sec administrators will—without regard for student needs/faculty expertise—lustily roll out “partnerships” requiring prescriptive uses of a paid megacorp AI. Faculty will be asked to incorporate that AI brand into teaching—first gently, then under threat of reprisal.

"Russia's Pearl Harbor"—Ukraine surprise drone attack hits nuclear bombers More than 40 aircraft were struck by the Ukrainian assault.

This headline/quote/simile is reckless and wrong. The US did not invade Japan unprovoked in WWII, capture its territory, and then refuse to negotiate while murdering and raping its people.

What revisionist idiots are saying it’s Russia’s “pearl harbor”, anyway? And how much were they paid?

They don’t make ‘em like Syd Mead, anymore (…er, which also means they no longer make ‘em like Syd Mead made ‘em).

“Disturbing” in the sense that a collection of seashells on the beach is a bivalvic mass-grave? Then, sure, I guess.

I’d argue for Spalding Gray’s inclusion. And Wallace Shawn.

But I’d also argue that’s still “autofiction” but presented as performance rather than on the page. Does “autofiction” for some reason preclude it being something performed? (Genuinely asking, I’m unaware if it does.)

University Administrators: if you think in terms of “customer service”, “retention”, “deliverables”, or “job training”, you are the reason AI is a crisis for post-secondary.

Fellow Faculty: if AI “ruined” the way you teach, your teaching was already ruined.

Institution Boards have turned art colleges into “Universities”, only for the institution to replace the experiential, student-centered learning with hamfistedly-academic curricula on “theory”. (I love theory. But it’s being pursued and promoted as an emblem, not a process.)

YouTube video by The Ezra Klein Show Educating Kids in the Age of A.I. | The Ezra Klein Show

Listening to Rebecca Winthrop here is both exciting and depressing. She confirms what I’ve been saying for years, years even before widespread AI: we fail our students if we don’t let them drive their own learning through curiosity.

Since Preston “Obsolescence-In-Human-Form” Manning has forced himself back into our lives for this bs, it’s worth looking back, for a laugh, at his rhetoric on Québec separatism in the ‘90s (spoiler: he implied those who won’t do the hard work of maintaining national unity are selfish cowards).

Rejoice! Carmakers Are Embracing Physical Buttons Again Amazingly, reaction times using screens while driving are worse than being drunk or high—no wonder 90 percent of drivers hate using touchscreens in cars. Finally the auto industry is coming to its sen...

Screens in cars contravene stupidly basic UX/UI design fundamentals—a button you can feel beats one you can’t.

Isn’t it funny how often enshittification is wrapped in the regalia of being a “new” “advanced” “feature”? Did -anyone- think touchscreens were a good idea (vs a merely profitable one)?

This is the fault primarily of Uni administrators (ballooning classes; sessionals instead of tenures; favouring “metrics” and “consistency”; treating students as “customers”, degrees as “products), and secondarily of Uni faculty (for drinking admin koolaid; lazily using ‘50s methods/evaluation).

That sounds awful... Hope you feel better soon!

Dear leftist pals who are mad/sad about your faves losing seats to the Libs: yes, it’s a compromise. HOLD THE RULING PARTY’S FEET TO THE FIRE for the next ___ years to push for the policies you need, and organize productively (ie on the ground, not in the cloud) to elect the party you actually want.

At least we know what Bill Maher ate for that dinner—obviously it was the vichyssoise.

That’s fantastic.

I’m trying to think of a joke, pun, or sarcastic witticism, but this is the intellectual equivalent of when all of Mr. Burns’ infirmities are keeping each other from ending him.

If the finale of The White Lotus affected you emotionally, well, cool… But you can’t argue that it made any logical sense.

“I don't think there's any point in being Irish if you don't know that, eventually, the world is going to break your heart.” —Daniel Patrick Moynihan

True. But it has yet to steer me wrong.

The level of civilization I attribute to any city I visit is inversely proportional to the amount of urine on its men’s room seats.

Oh nice! Thank you!

I'm afraid of Canadians: Marvel Comics, the Trudeaus and how we perceive our neighbors - COMICSXF Let’s look back at some iconic depictions of Canada in Marvel comics, focusing on portrayals of the Trudeaus.

Starting research on a project about depictions of Canada in American comics and quite glad to've just stumbled across this article by @annapeppard.bsky.social :

comicsxf.com/2025/03/02/m...

Theatre is so expensive to make!

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been asked to document performance/dance/theatre where I’ve been told, “now, we don’t have any money, but we CAN offer you a comp ticket to the show so you won’t have to pay to get in to document it…”

Seeing their budgets later, as a visual artist, is mindblowing.

It’s weird, right? Like, André-the-Giant-was-driven-to-school-as-a-child-by-his-kindly-neighbour-Samuel-Beckett level of weird.

If you’ve also gotten unsolicited broadcast emails or messages from D0ug F0rd, remember that spam is illegal under CRTC guidelines and you can report it via ised-isde.canada.ca/site/canada-...