Dr. Torie Burmeister

Breaking News Today, two new technological tricks that together could invade our past selves and rewrite the rules of credibility. Also, we release something terrible into the world.

been thinking about this old episode of radiolab a lot a lot lately, particularly the reaction of one interviewee to questions about the ethics of the technology they were actively developing. Anyways!!!!! radiolab.org/podcast/brea...

Aeschylus is just fucking sound after sound (complimentary)

This movie is about dogs!

I am re-watching the movie Snatch once again but do NOT!!! Ask me!!!! To describe the plot of this movie!!!!!!!

Y’all, I just want to go back to posting song lyrics

Black and white mutt who is the bestest dog in the whole wide world.

dogs rule.

Happy birthday! Also this made me laugh out loud

Thank you!!!!

It’s my birthday. This year the idea of the future and living in it has been harder to hold with hope. I’ve always felt some comfort in the inextinguishable hope I somehow continue to keep alive in myself, and perhaps my greatest accomplishment in my 33rd year has been that hope’s baffling survival.

Detroiters, Castle Rock

At a minor league game!!!

This is my first year seeing spotted lantern flies in central Connecticut and I’m f*cking pissed #nutmegsky

Very randomly for no discernible reason just had to watch /The Death of Stalin/ (2017) tonight

Waxing crescent moon between telephone lines against a sky blue sky next to a large fir tree

A honey bee in an obedience plant flower

Pink asics ultrablast running shoes in the grass

Ugh I’m sorry I forgot alt text

Breaking in new running shoes to 7 year bitch/le Tigre/the Gits. Holy shit the Gits #runningpunks

Should nothing happen this weekend, just remember that you can carry this hopeful feeling every day until something does.

Plan your celebrations in advance.

We are writing to invite you to the first iteration of Eos WRITES. WRITES is a workshopping series designed to help members support each other's writing. After creating groups of up to 5 society members, we will make introductions, then provide some helpful guidelines for scheduling 2 hour long workshopping sessions and creating a supportive environment. For the academic year, all 5 members of each group will act as both readers and writers, sharing their work and soliciting feedback. Please send us your expression of interest by submitting this form by Monday, September 8, 2025. With all best wishes for the new academic year, The Eos Executive Committee

yesterday @eosafricana.bsky.social sent out their notice for Eos WRITES, which is a really great opportunity to work on writing, give feedback, and build community. here’s their link to sign up: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

yo this guy is cooking

And another update! With thanks to @bhgreeley.bsky.social for his contribution of "regulatory uncertainty" and @emilymbender.bsky.social for reminding us of the "tech moves fast" line. sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...

Since it's a topic many people are talking about today, just want to share some resources I have found helpful when responding to someone who is actively experiencing suicidal thoughts, bc most of us are only ever told to post a hotline number and not how to actually *respond*

Breaking: According to Minneapolis police, two children — ages 8 and 10 — have been killed in the church shooting.

14 children and three adults injured.

Minneapolis mayor Frey: "Don't just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying."

A poster for a talk I'm giving. Tuesday, September 16, 2025 at 4:30pm Boger Hall, Room 112, 41 Wyllys Avenue, Middletown, Connecticut Free and open to the public. "Extracting the Past: How the 'AI' Industry Exploits Art History and What We Can Do to Stop It." Over the last several years, universities and museums have partnered with commercial technology firms like Google, Microsoft, and Meta, who have promised that their AI products will enhance both historical research and accessibility to historical collections. These promises, however, are not supported by the reality of what computer vision--the branch of AI most relevant to the history of art--can achieve. So why have major institutions in education and the arts been so quick to take up these firms' offers? This talk responds to this question by providing an introduction to computer vision's origins in military surveillance, an overview of its development under late capitalist regimes of exploitative micro-labor, and an orientation to how computer vision works. However, the main focus of this talk is not what computer vision does. Rather, Drimmer considers the culture of the AI industry, its main objectives, and the dangerous vision for the future that it promises--and whether those promises are credible or even in good faith. This vision for the future has relied on extracting history, and art history in particular, and Drimmer argues that it is our responsibility as art historians to be knowledgeable about the forms this extraction takes. Drimmer concludes with suggestions about what we can do to protect the subjects and practitioners of our discipline, as well as education in the humanities more broadly, against this incursion. Drimmer does not intend an intransigent rejection of a given technology; rather this talk articulates a challenge that is grounded in knowledge of the historical origins and corporate practices of the AI industry today.

People of Connecticut and regions nearby. Come on out on September 16! Free and open to the public.

Giving Soup (dog) a gentle but firm lecture about rising above & resisting barking back at the incessant yapping of the Australian shepherd next door

we know from data that in the streaming age people often check out before they're done listening to an album. and that's fine. enjoy music how you like! but! if it's a jazz set from the 60s or 70s do yourself the favor of letting the whole record play because when these guys close a set, they COOK

Reading this filled me with so much joy, it’s a poem

Totally reasonable timeline for getting into a team!

Curious if you watch the EFL/premier league & are not from the UK:
- what’s your team?
- how did you get into that team specifically?

This is very bad. Although entirely predictable. Once more the humanities are being cut back to prop up STEM and, increasingly, AI investment (including at the expense of bench science). In the past, cuts to humanities were promoted on two separate logic streams that do not hold true: /1

It is always Soup Season.