Dr John Plus Dr Mary

AI Coding Is Massively Overhyped, Report Finds The AI industry's claims about AI coding assistants boosting productivity significantly appear to be massively overblown, per a new report.

"The results haven’t lived up to the hype."

Meme. Colored medieval drawing of Simonides. You can tell it's him because his name is written above his head. Otherwise you might not know, because he is dressed very much like a medieval merchant. He is wearing a big maroon hat with a green band, and an orange cloak over a stylish black and yellow shirt. His yellow hair is long and flowing, and he is holding a book in his lap in his right hand. His face is lined with care or worry, and he is looking somewhere off to your left. He is not paying attention to you at all, really. His thumb is holding his place in the middle of his book, and he looks like he's been interrupted in the middle of reading by some semi-distant disturbance. As if, somewhere off to your left, there is a bear trying to get onto a bus. The bear is apologetically looking for change to pay the fare, but everyone else is freaking out. Simonides is considering this scene, and writing a poem about it in his head. Meme text reads: "My best poetry is eeligiac poetry"

Eels' slipperiness is the basis for the some of our oldest eel metaphors.

In the 5th C. BCE, the Greek poet Simonides wrote that a slippery character -- say, like, a politician who is running for office to avoid prison -- is “like an eel down in the slime."

And that's bad.
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This is a really amazing opportunity for grad students and early career scholars. You do teach military history, even if it’s not your field #milhist #academicsky 🗃️

YouTube video by MSNBC John Fugelsang: Right-wing Christians use the Bible ‘as a prop’ & ignore Jesus’ message

"Spiritual people use religion to become better people; fundamentalists use religion to prove they're better than you."
~John Fugelsang

yoooooooo go get books from @bookshop.org

the ebook of mine & @lollardfish.bsky.social's THE BRIGHT AGES is $1.99!!!!!!

bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Probably my favourite long late antiquity piece of art. The so-called "palimpsest" fresco in Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome shows consecutive layers of paintings from the sixth century (Mary as empress of heaven) all the way to the seventh and early eight century. The level of detail is just amazing.

Assistant Professorship in Early Medieval Literatures and Cultures, Fordham University | MEMOs Early Modern Literatures and Culture, Fordham University (NYC)

Assistant Professorship in Early Medieval Literatures and Cultures, Fordham University:
memorients.com/news/assista...

How Important Was the Battle of Lepanto?

The #OttomanEmpire was defeated by a Christian alliance at the Battle of Lepanto #OnThisDay in 1571.

The great sea battle was seen as a pivotal moment in history. Have its consequences been exaggerated?

🔓 This archive article is free for 7 days

www.historytoday.com/archive/head...

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

If you missed this you can listen to it now on BBC Sounds

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Learning a language doesn’t have to be complicated. Just think of it like drinking coffee. One sip at a time.

#learninglanguage #coffeebreak #studywithme #languagelearning #coffeeandconversation

Beatrix de Rijk's flying license with a photo of her and her signature.

#OnThisDay, 6 Oct 1911, Beatrix de Rijk becomes the first Dutch woman to hold a pilot's license.

Her demonstration flights across Europe led to a form of sponsorship from French fashion houses and perfumes named after her.

#WomenInHistory #WomenInAviation #OTD #History #WomensHistory 🗃️

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Meme. Photograph of a Monopoly board game in Dutch. You're looking at the starting corner, seeing 2 squares in either direction. The directions on the square read: Ontvang Bij het passeren f2000. - salaris START So now you know the (or at least a) Dutch word for start. The game board is sitting on what is probably a table made of a light wood or wood substitute. You can see the grain running left to right, or right to left. Or perhaps east to west. It's hard to tell with grain. The board itself is edged in red, but fear not. It's only red paint, not blood. A blood-edged board would be a far darker shade of red. And a far darker game, over all. Meme text reads: "Who wouldn't be Nervous?"

Let's talk eels & colonization!

In the early 17th C. London was growing fast and needed more eels.The surrounding countryside couldn't provide enough.

The Dutch importers could...but the English were nervous of the strong Dutch monopoly.

So where did they look? Ireland. 1/5
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Abraham Joshua Heschel and a Life of Meaning Abraham Joshua Heschel speaking at UCLA, May 25, 1963 I find it helpful in life to identify role models, people who inspire you to live with...

🗃️ Although he died in 1972, the world today urgently needs the prophetic voice of Abraham Joshua Heschel. He saw politics in moral terms and, amid anguish and despair, taught that the human capacity for goodness and love can repair a broken world.
ehlersoneverything.blogspot.com/2025/10/abra...

Periodic reminder: 3 weeks left to apply for this assistant prof of 20th c US history job 🗃️

Please spread the word!

Nope. You're way beyond middle age if you've succumbed to the adventures of Napoleon.

There are several monuments, memorials, and historical sites dedicated to Enomoto Takeaki around #Japan; including this fantastic statue in #Sumida-ku, #Tokyo. All of these sites and more are waiting for you over at PacificHistoryGuide.com!

David Hockney, artist

It’s publication week 🥳

First town bases done. I'll start on the next one during the week. A bit amateur in places but I'm happy with it

hey, my review of Paula Fredriksen's ANCIENT CHRISTIANITIES is out in the new Journal of Early Christian Studies!

(spoiler: it's good)

muse.jhu.edu/article/970939

Popped down to see Trafalgar being played by the Naval Wargames Society ⚓️

All figures by @warlordgames.com bar 2 on the table.

I should probably finish painting and rigging mine at some point...

Museo Egizio Turin photo showing a small, dark-blue, core-formed, round glass jar which tapers in at the shoulders below the neck. It has yellow, white, and light blue festoon decoration trailed around the main body. There is a single yellow trail just below the neck of the jar. There is a dark-blue circular glass lid, the top of which is adorned with two dark-blue duck heads with yellow bills, a yellow trailed stripe on the top of each duck’s head, and indents for their eyes. The jar is displayed on a perspex (?) stand against a grey background. Glass jar dimensions: 7.6 cm x 9.6 cm. Core-forming is one of the earliest glassmaking techniques. Glassmakers shaped the body of the vessel around a core, wound colored trails around it. They then let the vessel cool and removed the core.

A 3,500 year-old Egyptian glass cosmetic jar with two little duck heads!

Glass was a relatively new material at that time, so this jar would have been a precious possession.

From Merit’s beauty case, found inside Theban tomb (TT8) of Merit and her husband Kha in 1906. 📷 Museo Egizio

#Archaeology

At least 47 killed in Nepal as heavy rains trigger landslides, flash floods Heavy rains continue to disrupt rescue operations in Himalayan nation as authorities struggle to respond to the crisis.

Heavy rains continue to disrupt rescue operations in Himalayan nation as authorities struggle to respond to the crisis.

I took this photo for wargaming table purposes. Please note the lack of square fields. 👍

IJN Light cruiser Yura
Date: October 4-7, 1935
Location: Tokyo Bay
Photo:
Situation: Participation in the 1935 Large Exercise

static.ow.ly/photos/origi...

Blücher - NIRA

This one might be of interest to #NavalHistory Bluesky. The Norwegian Coastal Administration has released an underwater 3D photo scan of the wreck of the German heavy cruiser Blücher, sunk in the Oslofjord in April 1940. Super cool!
#ww2 #norway #blücher

dykkerteknikk.nira.app/a/Ip_mJ3EFQK...

contemporary illustration of the march, with women pulling a cannon and carrying pikes.

#OnThisDay, 5 Oct 1789, thousands of women instigate and lead the March on Versailles.

They - along with revolutionaries who join them - besiege the Palace to demand cheap bread.

#WomenInHistory #OTD #History #WomensHistory #FrenchHistory #RevolutionaryWomen 🗃️
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hailey @hailey.at if you're writing a sentence that sounds like eugenics but you go "oh that's fine to say because it's not a real person" (whatever that means) you may want to consider what made you okay with saying that

i think it’s actually completely okay to say an algorithm is not a real person