Peeter Tinits

The story of board game GO strategies from feudal era to AI, analyzed and visualized by @babeheim.bsky.social!

The disruption from AI players is visible but small compared to innovations from generations of humans.

Many more bites here:👉 doi.org/10.1017/ehs....
#digitalhumanities #history #games

Congratulations to Oleg Sobchuk and Arthur Kocher on being awarded @erc.europa.eu Starting Grants!! 🥳 @sobchuk.bsky.social will be exploring the macroevolution of European literature, while Kocher will be studying ancient pathogen dynamics. See: tinyurl.com/mr2m2zms & tinyurl.com/9cwdnc54

A group of handdrawn fish.

Why I 🧡 the web.

drawafish.com

Just draw the fish. Trust me. 🐟

Excited to see 1st of the Evoluionary Human Sciences special issue on scientific racism come out! @kevinlala.bsky.social @gillianrbrown1.bsky.social @kztwyman.bsky.social & Marcus Feldman discuss impediments to countering racist pseudoscience & present 5 solutions www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Humanities methods breaking new grounds!

Poetic meters can be studied like gene sequences to trace their evolution in time and space. The method, evaluation, and case studies! Lots to learn from and reuse. #DH

Also, congratulations to @comphumresearch.bsky.social
on the first published volume!

✍️ Our paper is finally out!

All poetic forms come from somewhere, but figuring out their relationships is hard.

We use sequence alignment on scansion (010.10) to measure metrical similarity between poems. This allows us to detect related forms across languages and times 1/
tinyurl.com/metronome25

#DigiTS offers are here: digihum.ut.ee/en/news/cent... (@digitsut.bsky.social), #RiDeR offers are in @andreskarjus.bsky.social-s post above (e.g. euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/337755).

Smart good people in both. Ideas ready for impact. Tartu itself is designed for university life. #AcademicSky #jobs

4 postdocs and 3 PhD positions in #DH, #CompSocSci, #AI, #TextMining & #Sustainability available Uni Tartu, Estonia! Deadlines May 15 for PhD students, June 2/16 for postdocs. 1) #RiDeR ERC project on Deep Sustainability Transitions, 2) #DigiTS ERA Chair project on Digital Text Scholarship. Links 👇

The most daming claim in this statement IMO:

Within 15 minutes of DOGE accounts being created…
Attackers in Russia tried logging in using those new creds.
Correct usernames and passwords.

2 options here. The DOGE device was hacked. And I don't think I need to explain the 2nd.

Urgh.

This is worth signing.

But it's also so worrying how dependent we are on The Internet Archive for cultural preservation - just one lawsuit away from oblivion.

decision trees in human play in the game of go before and after the arrival of superhuman AI, showing gradual change rather than revolutionary disruption

🚨 New preprint! 🚨

I looked at 400+ years of cumulative cultural evolution in the Game of Go from feudalism to superhuman AI. Did AlphaGo etc. completely disrupt human play? No! More like human-machine convergence, rather than revolution.

Check out these decision trees!

osf.io/preprints/ps...

"DOGE is eliminating the government's tape backups because they're too stupid to know why they're important" is the generous interpretation, when what they might actually be doing is stealing all the money and trying to destroy the records of them doing so.

🔑 under-discussed point — why they were on signal:

An exciting chance to collaborate, innovate and push your own boundaries experiencing an interdisciplinary research project from start to finish within the span of 10 days.  This year, the hackathon is organised around the following themes: Parliaments beyond borders: Exploring the Role of Foreign Nations in National Policy Debates Digital Presence in Physical Absence: Survivors' Testimonies and Holocaust Oral History Rare Earth & Web Discourses: Parallel Mining Approaches Economic bubbles, consumerism, and the colonies: Early modern newspapers as indicators of economic change in 18th century society 13.3.–12.4.2025 Application period* 14.–23.5.2025 #DHH25 hackathon in Helsinki * Participants must commit to the full week of intensive work. Information and apply: heldig.fi/dhh25

Join us on the 10th anniversary of the Helsinki Digital Humanities Hackathon #DHH25 this year. Around 40 students will experience an interdisciplinary project from start to finish within the span of 10 days. Apply until April 12th, or save the date May 14-23 heldig.fi/dhh25

A picture of Torun oldtown at night in winter

JOB ALERT in #language and #linguistics!
Postdoc Position at the Center for Language Evolution Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland.
Job offer here: www.umk.pl/en/jobs/?tas...
We are now looking at a broader candidate pool so do consider applying!
Please repost & share widely!

“…this is a moment to speak publicly about why universities matter. They promote public health, economic growth and national security. They are the largest employers in some regions. They are an unmatched, if imperfect, engine of upward mobility that can alter the trajectory of entire families.”

Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.  Purpose.

This, by the by, is an effing disaster if it holds up. The number of public libraries that will go under if IMLS is shuttered is mind-boggling. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Regular reminder that they almost certainly have had a big list of the targets for ages, and the slow rollout is meant to intentionally wear down the ability of the public to push back. Keep paying attention, calling, writing, advocating.

IMLS is the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It's about $200 million per year for libraries and $50 million for museums. Not a lot for the federal budget, but a huge piece of the culture and knowledge system - which is why MAGA is eliminating it.

Some "Russian Warship" vibes here from a tiny fed'l agency.

via Brett Murphy:

The African Development Foundation (budget ~$40 million) is putting up a fight and denying DOGE + Pete Marocco — the State Dept official dismantling USAID — access to their building:

Do not let Trump gaslight you into believing he has a mandate or is all powerful.

Most Americans don't support his agenda.

There will be backlash — and we must make sure it is swift.

Trump: I’m going to kill your loved ones.
Democrats: [wave placard]
Trump: Especially the black ones. And the gay ones
Democrats: [strenuously wave placards]

(1/3) It needs repeating: in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons to Russia in return for the US, the UK, and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine’s sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity.

been thinking a lot about the media reaction to Biden's first debate performance compared to its response to fascism

This is not about cleaning up after last year’s protests; this is about getting out ahead of what is coming.

And apologies for stating the obvious for many. It is deeply saddening to watch this unfold in the beacon of the free world. It does seem that they are so quick because they are in a rush, they need to shock into irreversible changes before enough people mobilize to respond. Stay creative & strong!

It should be clear that Trump&co want USA to be like Russia is right now (or crazier). They are moving fast with shock and don't even care to divide&conquer. While media debates its legality and who will suffer, their target is the whole free society. Think creative & do what you can while you can!

Trump is implementing Putin's playbook. People should protest now, while it's still possible.