Michael J. Kane

Why This Essay Could Cause the University of Virginia to Shut Down How Linda McMahon’s latest “compact” would do deep and permanent harm to American higher education

The “compact” for higher ed is an unserious document written by unserious people from a position of spectacular ignorance. No one should take it seriously. Sadly, my bosses are taking it seriously.

newrepublic.com/article/2013...

Attending Psychonomics in Denver? Consider arriving early enough to join the 2nd mtg of the Symposium for Individual Differences (SIDIC) on Thurs. Registration is open thru 10/31 & we've got a great program planned, with a keynote by @amiyake.bsky.social
caliberlab.wixsite.com/sidic2025/pr...

My only point was that the piece opens with a truly bad argument.

If ChatGPT wrote this part of the pro-AI case, which is weak and borderline bad-faith, it supports the Guest-van Roiij critique quite well. I don't recall anyone arguing that these prior tech developments were likely to be problematic in any way, and surely not with any parallel to AI criticism.

Attending Psychonomics in Denver? Consider arriving early enough to join the 2nd mtg of the Symposium for Individual Differences (SIDIC) on Thurs. Registration is open thru 10/31 & we've got a great program planned, with a keynote by @amiyake.bsky.social
caliberlab.wixsite.com/sidic2025/pr...

Oh So Near: The Cars’ Deep (and Deeply Underrated) Influence on the Future of Music A new biography on the New Wave crew underlines their unsung importance—everyone from the Strokes to the Killers to Nirvana took lessons out of Ric Ocasek’s playbook. So why are the Cars rarely mentio...

Hey, I wrote a big thing about The Cars, a great American band, in conjunction with a new biography.
www.theringer.com/2025/10/01/m...

Population-Level Effectiveness and Herd Protection 17 Years After HPV Vaccine This cross-sectional study investigates population-level effectiveness and herd protection in the first 17 years after human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination among adolescent girls and young women at ...

A landmark new study in JAMA Pediatrics shows the HPV vaccine is doing exactly what it promised & more. 17yrs after rollout, adolescent vaccination has slashed HPV infxns not only among those vaccinated but also those unvaccinated, showing powerful herd protection.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

A Tech Device to Prevent Cognitive Decline and Dementia Imagine if there were a tech device that could substantially decrease your chances of developing dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Would you be interested in using it?

What if there is a tech device that will substantially decrease your risk of dementia?

My new blog post. And yes, I have started using this device.

(Hearing aids. Hearing loss is strongly associated with dementia risk. Hearing aids solve things.)

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ment...

The (Bland) Ballad Of Jesse Welles Also: A great new Wednesday album and some good heartland rock from Brian Dunne

My weekly newsletter is now live. Please consider subscribing for links to my writing/pods, as well as newsletter-exclusive things. It's free!

stevenhyden.substack.com/p/the-bland-...

Bleeds Cements Wednesday As Masters of the Short Story Paste Magazine is your source for the best music, movies, TV, comedy, videogames, books, comics, craft beer, politics and more. Discover your favorite albums and films.

I reviewed the new Wednesday joint

www.pastemagazine.com/music/wednes...

The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples" - synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents, aimed at revolutionising human subjects research. How...

Can large language models stand in for human participants?
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.

One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.

THREAD 🧵

Nice. I wish more people knew about “Across The Universe” and “Lulu.” Great songwriting.

Are you a fan of Trip Shakespeare, too?

Can’t remember the last time I joyously jumped up during a Giants game. Felt good!

Bad coaching on both of TN‘s last drives. too conservative after the fumble and too greedy before the field goal attempt

Today North Carolina issued statewide standing orders to allow pharmacies across the state to provide COVID-19 vaccines to high-risk adults over 18, including everyone over 65, without a prescription.

What about when everything's in ALL CAPS? (I'm looking at you, Turnstile.) I feel like it's hard to know whether it was actually on purpose.

This is epic.

Bandcamp Playlists Like digital mixtapes.

Bandcamp offering a cool new feature: Playlists based on purchased items that also incentivize listeners to purchase artists' work: bandcamp.com/about_playli...

Hey everyone, I'm hoping to get some sense from academics on what kind of financial support (if any) they get from their university/college employers for conference travel. Please chime in and repost if willing.

Typically $1000-2000/year for conference travel for faculty. Some proportion of that also for graduate students, varying by year (if second year student or beyond, must be presenting).

Same here. I've not missed Facebook for 1 second since leaving several years ago.

At least y’all can score a touchdown.

That’s one source of hope…

This year’s Giants team might finally be the one to have me tap out before the season’s up.

Incredible clip of tech CEOs fawning over Donald Trump. Someone store this clip in the underground archive vault

Four of Arrows, by Great Grandpa 11 track album

Today's Bandcamp Friday purchases (2/2):

-Great Grandpa "Four Of Arrows" ; greatgrandpa.bandcamp.com/album/four-o...

-Elephants And Stars: "Last Chance Power Drive" ; elephantsandstars.bandcamp.com/album/last-c...

Today's Bandcamp Friday purchases (1/2):

-The Tubs "Cotton Crown" ; thetubs.bandcamp.com/album/cotton...

-Plains "I Walked With You A Ways" ; plainsband.bandcamp.com/album/i-walk...

Bandcamp Discover amazing music and directly support the artists who make it.

Happy Bandcamp Friday! Support some of the artists you enjoy.
bandcamp.com