John Bell

That's what agentic systems will take away, though I hope there's enough pushback emerging around those to have an impact.

But yes, if this is a path that leads toward greater overall literacy, great.

Yes, though I'm not sure what the life span of those conversations will be. I'm having flashbacks to arguing about understanding OSes as critical to computing independence a decade ago and now running into students raised on iPads and Chromebooks who don't know where their files live, only x1000.

Two images, one showing posts used to support bed slats and the other showing the same posts installed in a bookshelf to hold shelves that have begun to bow.

Yeah, this idea probably would have worked better if I'd done it before the shelves started to bend.

‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’: Rifftrax, Shout! Studios Team for New Episodes of Cult Classic Series (EXCLUSIVE) RiffTrax and Shout! Studios have teamed to produce four new episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 with Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy

variety.com/2026/tv/news...

Includes this great roundtable on author influence in spec fic by @fantasycafe.bsky.social, Yvette Ndluvu, @cypayseur.bsky.social, and Daniel Rabuzzi strangehorizons.com/wordpress/no...

2026 AIP Research Agenda

I’m excited to share the @aip.bsky.social 2026 Research Agenda. Developed with leaders across AIP’s Federation, it outlines five initiatives on policy & funding, workforce, digital preservation, international collaboration, and identities in the physical sciences. www.aip.org/aip/2026-aip...

Game boy with all kinds of accessories attached.

That's weird, I don't...

Well, it's about her. Or at least, certain metal accessories important to the plot.

1. Announcements 2. Generative AI 3. Other business

Agenda from an upcoming faculty meeting, which I'm choosing to interpret as a Fluxus score:

You know the day will be either amazing or horrible when the random song stuck in your head is from Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Poster for the Internet Archive's 2026 Public Domain Film Remix Contest, featuring the "Lockette," a cartoon character with an open lock, seated in a director's chair, legs crossed, and holding a megaphone. Projected on a screen to her right is a frame from the 1930 film "King of Jazz". Illustrated by Freya Morgan.

🎬 Filmmakers! The Internet Archive’s 2026 Public Domain Day Remix Contest is open!

🎥 Create a 2–3 minute short film using at least 1 piece of public domain material from 1930. 🎶🎭📚

📆 Deadline: January 7, 2026
💰 First prize: $1,500
ℹ️ Details 👉 blog.archive.org/2025/12/01/2...

#publicdomain #contest

Wow, love the visuals in this.

Come research with us at the Max Planck Research Group for Machine Visual Culture — “Artificial Intelligence and the History of Seeing” positions open under Dr Leonardo Impett. We’ll get to hang out sometimes. www.biblhertz.it/3757971/0412...

#JobAlert! Assistant/Associate Professor in the Arts and Unconventional Computing, in the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University: northeastern.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/careers/job/...

Poster for the Internet Archive's 2026 Public Domain Film Remix Contest, featuring the "Lockette," a cartoon character with an open lock, seated in a director's chair, legs crossed, and holding a megaphone. Projected on a screen to her right is a frame from the 1930 film "King of Jazz". Illustrated by Freya Morgan.

📣🎬 Calling all filmmakers & artists! Celebrate Public Domain Day in January 2026 by making a 2–3 min short film using public domain works from 1930 & earlier.

📆 Deadline: January 7, 2026
💰 First prize: $1,500
ℹ️ Details 👉 blog.archive.org/2025/12/01/2...

#contest #filmmaking #publicdomain

I think I had the opposite problem: long highway stretches where I didn’t move as much as I probably should. But either way…

A Victory for IMLS as Court Blocks Trump’s Attempt to Dismantle Agency In a summary judgment on November 21 in Rhode Island v. Trump, Judge John J. McConnell Jr. ruled that the Trump administration’s attempt to shut down the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS...

Minor good news for libraries: "A Victory for IMLS as Court Blocks Trump’s Attempt to Dismantle Agency"

IMLS funds leadership training and R&D in libraries in the US.

but everyone is gone and grants cancelled so who now gets employed?

www.libraryjournal.com/story/a-vict...

Apparently I am “Driving for five hours straight physically hurts” years old now.

Narrator: it was exactly as worthy as the name Encyclopedia Galactica as Will Smith's I, Robot movie was worthy of that name.

We re-watched Wall-E tonight for the first time in forever. I was struck with an overwhelming feeling of "wow, remember when Pixar tried? They were good at their jobs, huh?"

Eyebeam launches the search for the next Executive Director | Eyebeam Eyebeam invests in artists who create with technology and explore how it influences the way we live.

eyebeam.org/executive-di... big transition time for an org that changed my life and the lives of so many artists, hope they find someone with the vision, fortitude, and courage its legacy deserves

Oh FFS, this was MEANT TO BE A JOKE

bsky.app/profile/hald...

DOCTYPE magazine 🚀⌨️ ’80s BASIC type-in mags are back, but this time for HTML!

🚀 NEW MAGAZINE ⌨️
Back in the ’80s there were printed mags of BASIC programs to type in, we’ve brought that back but for web pages!
10 amazing games, toys, puzzles and utilities, no coding knowledge needed
vole.wtf/doctype/

You can't spell "calipers" without AI...

The Cyberpunk Guide: 50 Years of High Tech, Low Life Across Literature, Film, Anime, Comics & Gaming - RetroFuturista Cyberpunk explained: the cultural movement that merged technology with rebellion, from Neuromancer and Blade Runner to global variants and modern derivatives.

"Crucially, [Bruce Sterling] articulated the genre’s defining cultural synthesis: the “overlapping of worlds that were formerly separate: the realm of high tech and the modern pop underground”

Good read but always weird to see a genre I followed from early on be looked at from a historic lens.

I kind of hate how tearing down part of the White House without being ready to replace it with anything is so on the nose for the accelerationists running things. I knew parody and irony were dead, but now we're just stabbing metaphor right in the face as if artists didn't have enough problems.

Since I'm using two different dev environments, I'm now in the middle of an argument between Claude Sonnet and ChatGPT about the finer points of error checking. The good news is, neither is right.

This is the right answer. I've often wondered what the impact would be if protesters just stuck hours of sitcom-style laugh tracks on their phones and brought them to events where the speakers were clearly overinflated clowns.

Stage of the renovated Hopkins Center for the Arts at Dartmouth.

Huge congratulations to everyone at The Hop on the reopening of their big stage with tonight’s concert featuring Renée Elise Goldsberry! Can’t wait for tomorrow’s Yo-Yo Ma / We Are Water performance. We missed you Hop!