Eric E Castro

Openers: Foxtide, at The Independent in San Francisco. #LiveMusic

Opening act at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco tonight: Body Double. #LiveMusic

“The most important word in the language of the working class is ‘solidarity.’”
– Harry Bridges

“If any man tells you he loves America, yet hates labor, he is a liar.”
–Abraham Lincoln

Why America still needs public schools Two legal scholars argue that public education helps the US maintain the nation’s fundamental values of equality and fairness – and recent attacks put them at risk.

"We believe the harm to the country of promoting private schools while rolling back support for public education is about more than dollars and cents."

theconversation.com/why-america-...

Forwarded this post from a favorite blog in my RSS feeds to a buddy teaching Stats for the first time

Two cool math lectures by Yuval Peres

https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2025/08/17/two-cool-math-lectures-by-yuval-peres/

Why you might not know that 2024 was America's safest year since the 1960s An overwhelming majority of Americans, 64 percent, believe that crime increased across the country in 2024, according to a Gallup survey conducted late last year.

Why you might not know that 2024 was America's safest year since the 1960s

Easy: fear motivates voters

Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it's shutting down The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funnels federal money to public media stations, says it's winding down operations after President Trump signed a law rescinding all funding.

"Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country”

AI is flattening language — and redistributing power For a long time, “good writing” has been more than skill; it’s been a form of gatekeeping. Not anymore.

I’d love for more school faculties to read and discuss this idea of redistributing power, and maybe reflect more on their objections to students using such aids-for-writing

You Shouldn’t Have To Make Your Social Media Public To Get A Visa The Trump administration is continuing its dangerous push to surveil and suppress foreign students’ social media activity. The State Department recently announced an u…

You Shouldn’t Have To Make Your Social Media Public To Get A Visa

I’m curious what members of the administration think the First Amendment means

Macron decides to recognize State of Palestine amid diplomatic impasse and humanitarian disaster in Gaza French President Emmanuel Macron highlighted the Palestinian Authority's pledge to renew its governance and demilitarize Hamas. He hopes other countries will follow suit after the formal announcement…

Macron decides to recognize State of Palestine amid diplomatic impasse and humanitarian disaster in Gaza

I dig it

NIH: The quiet engine of science is being dismantled

https://newsletters.feedbinusercontent.com/32d/32d0482035227f0b0bcf1ad57d6ef5bdec8ff299.html

The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations “In recent months, a curious fixation has emerged in corners of academia: the em dash. More specifically, the apparent moral panic around how it is...

The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations

Hashtag team em dash!

Tonight’s #LiveMusic headliner: The Kooks, at Fox Theater in Oakland

Agreed. And the experiences open to today’s young are very different than we had; and parental oversight is one of those variables

Tonight’s #LiveMusic: opener Loveley the Band, at the Fox Theater in Oakland

“Perhaps kids today play on the computer as much as they do partly because that is one place where they can play freely, without adult intervention and direction.”
–Peter Gray, Free to Learn

Surely there are other reasons, but I hadn’t considered how significant this one is

My hope for AI-in-the-workplace is exactly this sort of thing. Give the low-importance, high-time-investment work to AI, and leave the creative- and the relational-work to the (highly-paid?) humans

I also like the phrasing/ marketing as an “intern” — because there are absolutely low-level tasks that take time and attention, but aren’t worth *your* time and attention, and should be off-loaded to an intern

Because of my previous-life as the campus Educational Technologist, I played with a loaned Rabbit R1 for a week, and at the time found it neat but not nearly as useful as my own smartphone.

I was sent this link today:
www.rabbit.tech/newsroom/rab...

Increasing Accessibility with AI: How NotebookLM Supports Inclusive Learning - Dr. Catlin Tucker Related Podcast Episode It was finals week, and my daughter was multitasking like a pro—eating breakfast, doing her hair, and getting ready for the day, all while paying rapt attention to something…

The former-Educational Technologist in me loves this »
Increasing Accessibility with AI: How NotebookLM Supports Inclusive Learning
catlintucker.com/2025/02/note...

Just wash your [damn] hands

#giggle

Titanic: Searching for the 'missing' Chinese survivors When the Titanic sank, six Chinese men were rescued - but their ordeal didn't end there.

An interesting footnote for an #EthnicStudies lesson on the Chinese Exclusion

www.bbc.com/news/world-u...

A reflection on a semester-long project that I introduced this academic year for the Intro to Behavioral Neuroscience course that I teach

eecastro.com/post/7845570...

Supporting Student Mental Health in the Classroom: A Faculty Guide to Compassionate Engagement Learn how faculty can recognize signs of student distress, make compassionate referrals, and support student mental health without sacrificing their own wellbeing.

An idea for a professional development day

Can We Trust Social Science Yet?—Asterisk Everyone likes the idea of evidence-based policy, but it’s hard to realize it when our most reputable social science journals are still publishing poor quality research.

“Journals, funders, and academic departments all need to shift their reward structures so that transparency, replication, and rigor are prized at least as much as novelty.”

Oh, is that all?
And, yes, it needs to happen, sooner rather than later.

Clarke’s Law (part 2) All sufficiently advanced technology is now widespread. Batman used to have gadgets that gave him an advantage over his adversaries. And Henry Ford had machines that allowed him to produce items fa…

“A fast car isn’t rare, good drivers are.”

I plan to explicitly incorporate this idea into the first lecture next semester

Not “generational grief” but “Generation Grief” is brutal

https://houseofbeautifulbusiness.com/read/a-glossary-for-generation-grief

Americans under 30 are so miserable that the U.S. just fell to a historically low ranking in the world happiness report In the annual World Happiness Report, the U.S. drops to no.24, its lowest position in the list's 13-year history.

Great job, everyone. Really solid work
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