Ted Striphas

M-W nailed Word of the Year 2025: SLOP.

War is peace. Calibri is helvetica.

DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM DAY - December 10 DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM DAY Dewey Decimal System Day December 10th celebrates a system of classification and the man who invented it. On December 10, 1851, Melvil

Read on: www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day...

A very happy National Dewey Decimal System Day to all who celebrate. (Story in post 2/2.)

Rubio Stages Font Coup: Times New Roman Ousts Calibri The secretary of state called it a "wasteful" diversity move, according to an internal department cable seen by Reuters.

Full story here:

www.huffpost.com/entry/rubio-...

Calibri may be more screen readable than Times New Roman, but really, sometimes a font is…just a font.

The Oxford 2025 Word of the Year Is ‘Rage Bait’

It’s “Word of the Year” time again. Oxford seems a bit late to the 2025 party with “rage bait”: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/a...

Mars was the Roman god of war.
That’s why we say ‘martial arts,' ‘martial law,' and 'court martial.'

Marshall was the Roman god of designer fashion at discount prices.
That’s why we have Marshall’s.

AI-Enabled Cheating Points to ‘Untenable’ Peer Review System It’s not clear how widespread the new cheating strategy is, but it’s highlighting longstanding drivers of the peer review crisis some reviewers are now trying to alleviate with AI.

"If reviewers are merely skimming papers & relying on LLMs to generate substantive reviews...it opens the door for a new cheating method...which involves inserting hidden white text... that tells AI tools to give a research paper favorable reviews."
www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

One of the best written essays I've read in awhile. Clever, researched, clear. We all need well cited and insightful voices on wellness these days, especially. Follow 👀

Before and after the internet - Subjectivity Subjectivity -

Before and After the Internet. We have just published a review of two recent books on #AlgorithmicCulture and #PlatformCapitalism by @striphas.bsky.social and @synthesiastica.bsky.social link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Thank you! Honored to see the book reviewed, and in such illustrious company, no less.

Lots of people with signs rallying by street with US flag, CO flag and maybe a NOAA flag--I can't read it.

Protestors holding signs by street. One says "Bad DOGE" another "Stand up for science" another "Stop Elon's Takeover"

Protester holding sign "Save Our Science"

Protester holding sign "Trust Science"

Rally today at NOAA building in Boulder, Colorado to stand up for federal workers, particularly scientists

What a compliment. Thank you! :)

*Please share widely (deadline Mar 5):*
The Dept of Media Studies at the Univ of CO Boulder is searching for 2 Assistant Teaching Profs. If you're passionate about higher-ed instruction, invested in media literacy, & have a background in global media, apply:
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

The app deadline for the Assistant Teaching Professor opening in my department (Media Studies, U of CO Boulder) is less than 2 weeks away! This is a contracted/renewable, non-tenure-track faculty line. Read on for additional information about the position:
jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDeta...

PLEASE SHARE: The Dept. of Media Studies at the University of CO Boulder is hiring TWO assistant teaching professors. These are renewable, non-tenure track positions for which we're using a single job ad: lnkd.in/gHXdMqUw Deadline is February 28, 2025.

The broligarchs have a vision for the new Trump term. It’s darker than you think. — Vox The real reason Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos are supporting Trump. There’s a dominant narrative in the media about why tech billionaires are sucking up to Donald Trump: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and...

Solid piece on the thinking behind the Broligarchy: “The broligarchs have a vision for the new Trump term,” via Vox - apple.news/A5jGJAukoSGK...

Elon Musk is the ultimate chaos agent | Siva Vaidhyanathan With one post on X, Musk has the power to shut down the government of the most powerful nation in world history

At some point I would like to ignore Elon Musk. Sadly, that time is not now.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This explains it.

Public Domain Day 2025 | Duke University School of Law Tweet January 1, 2025 is Public Domain Day: Works from 1929 are open to all, as are sound recordings from 1924! By Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle Directors, Duke Center for the Study of the Public D...

Public Domain Day is coming soon. Get ready to party like it's 1929! web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicd...

ANDRÉ BROCK: The Illumination of Black Twitter The Illumination of Black Twitter: Charles Mills, Race, and Digital Media Theory ANDRÉ BROCK Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

"The combination of Blackness and Twitter represents a paradigm shift from modernity’s materialist “existence in Black” to a Black technoculture afforded by the digital’s capacities for virtuality, simulation, and interactivity." André Brock

‘Phonetic’ is not.
‘Abbreviation’ is 12 letters.
‘Thesaurus’ doesn’t have a synonym.

Say what you will about English, but it has a sense of humor.

!!!

Can I put this in next week's newsletter?

So, evidently this is becoming a thing now?!?! 😕

Wisconsin professors worry AI could replace them Faculty say a proposed policy change could lead to AI-run classes at the Universities of Wisconsin System. University officials say their fears are overblown.

Did y'all see this? The university of WI system is proposing a policy change so that the system would now assert and control copyright over professors' lecture notes, syllabi, articles, & more. VERY concerning: www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-in...

Titled "Cultural Studies: Where Else to Find Us," this graphic includes artwork from four past covers and written out information about where to find Cultural Studies on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Bluesky. All written information is also included in the caption of the post.

Cultural Studies is officially returning to Bluesky—but before we begin sharing details about our final issue of Volume 37, we first wanted to let you know that we also post on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn and wanted to invite you to follow us wherever else you might also be.

It used to happen like this…

Oxford Word of the Year 2024 - Oxford University Press Voting has closed and we'll be revealing the official Word of the Year 2024 shortly. Discover more about our shortlist and the past 20 years of Word of the Year.

Oxford English Dictionary word of the year: "brain rot." Fitting… corp.oup.com/word-of-the-...