From the correspondence course craze in the early 20C to MOOCs one hundred years later, the commodification of education was but a lucrative side hustle for unis. Now the compulsory technologization of education is fully integrated into extractive capitalism. What a time to be a professor.
It’s so important to spay and neuter
Idiot plot
I think apple‘s LLM update to Siri is trapped in QA hell because it won’t stop making stuff up but I realized I am enjoying this iteration of it because it produces outputs that remind me of when AI was still fun. It summarizes texts like Data would
I have a new essay out in ARC, a wonderful new web magazine on politics and religion edited by Mark Oppenheimer.
Whatever Happened to American Jewish Liberalism?
KEY: When it comes to restoring trust in higher education, "I always want to know whose trust," said @bakerdphd.bsky.social, an associate prof of education and public policy at U Delaware. "Whose trust do you think is broken, and whose trust are you trying to fix?" www.chronicle.com/article/the-...
One day the NYT's editors will read these stories again and be ashamed of themselves. Mamdani called the attack "heinous," "criminal," "reprehensible," "terrorism," and "the antithesis of who we are." The insinuation that he's conflicted about this is disgraceful. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/09/n...
Just another Monday…
A Roman mosaic depicting a somewhat whimsical owl 🦉, found in Uzès, southern France, dating second half of the 1st century BC.
📷 Denis Gliksman, Inrap
🏺 #MosaicMonday
My employer asks me to complete a survey on AI usage for which this is the first question (required):
“If it is not permissible for ordinary citizens in a democracy to point out situations in which Israel is responsible for world events, then it will be left to antisemites and fascists to state these truths.”
drive.proton.me/urls/GHR5697... my periodic demand that you should read Computer Power and Human Reason by Joseph Weizenbaum
Hi #EarlyModern Bluesky - did you know that someone brilliant has built working printing presses using Lego and they are trying to get enough supporters so that Lego will release it as a kit?
They look so cool!
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...
Word is the administration is trying to force the takedown of these videos.
Huge NYT article on the back story of those two weeks in March/April 2025 when DOGE illegally terminated hundreds of NEH grants. Gift link!!
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...
Last year, this guy (left) from DOGE used ChatGPT to find NEH grants that were too “DEI” for Trump, and canceled them, including mine, as shown by the letter I received last April (right). Huge new NYT article on the back story link below
Better to have no speech at all than risk the possibility of speech about Palestine: the american university in the twenty-first century
I lived in the uk for some time but Im afraid I still need someone with greater insight to explain what factors cause the Lords to be right on this
ICE has arrested and detained a Nashville journalist who reported stories critical of ICE. She’s married to a U.S. citizen and has been seeking asylum here after fleeing death threats in Colombia because of her journalism there.
They’ve already sent her to Louisiana.
One of my favorites. maybe worth another visit…!
Neighborhoods, parks, museums or collections off the beaten path or away from the center. Have been to London many times but about to have my first days off there in a long time and trying to work out where to spend them.
Please suggest some interesting places to go in London
Boards of Trustees (usually unelected, not faculty), hold the power in universities. Find out what corporations your trustees also board, find out what their spouses own,+ you've found why universities enter into contracts for tech, security, R&D.
FIND OUT!
academeblog.org/2026/03/03/a...
Saw a thoughtful thread about AI, don't want to QT or argue. But. The biggest rage factor with LLMs is the people who, because genAI is transformative for coding, think it's transformative for everything else, because they devalue every other form of work and labor and knowledge.
I'll always be obsessed with this edit made by @tommchenry.bsky.social
This was one of the most meaningful projects I've worked on recently. Dylan Lopez Contreras, a student at ELLIS Prep academy in the Bronx, was taken by ICE. Here's what he and his classmates want you to know...
Excuse me, Mr. Claude, if you could politely keep all responses in accord with the Sunlight which you have never seen, and not with the shadows of this cave in which you live, I would be most grateful.
This story, from @natezuke.bsky.social, is absolutely wild. A trans woman who never changed her gender marker was issued a letter invalidating her license. At the DMV they cut up her license, which had an "M" marker.
www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
Among other things we apparently need to bring back injunctions against necromancy
Tish James to NYU Langone on cessation of gender affirming care: Stop obeying in advance. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/02/n...
Mystery Solved! Turns out it is "Webinar.tv" whose disgusting and unethical business model is: register for a zoom call under a fake name and email address, record it without consent and put it on a public website with genAI summary and everyone's names and faces and then charge for access. WTAF.
