Edison Tower Caused Deadly Eaton Fire That Decimated Altadena, Investigation Finds deadline.com/2026/08/edis...

Edison Tower Caused Deadly Eaton Fire That Decimated Altadena: Report

An out-of-service SoCal Edison transmission tower sparked the deadly January 2025 Eaton Fire north of Los Angeles, according to the final report.

deadline.com

New History Job Posted Today: David M. Posner Professor of International and Public Affairs | Columbia University in the City of New York: School of International and Public Affairs

David M. Posner Professor of International and Public Affairs | Columbia University in the City of New York: School of International and Public Affairs

New York, Position Description The School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) and the Institute of Israel and Jewish Studies (IIJS) at Columbia University in the City of New York invites applications from scholars and practitioners whose work engages with public policy, politics, foreign policy, economics, security, or related interdisciplinary issues, including but not limited to work relevant to Israel and the broader Middle East for a position as the Rabbi David M. Posner Professorship in Israel and Jewish Studies, at the rank of assistant, associate, or full Professor or at the rank of assistant, associate, or full Professor of Professional Practice, to begin July 1, 2027. Disciplinary specialization is open, and includes political science, history, economics, business, journalism, diplomacy or international relations, though other areas of expertise may be considered. The successful candidate will hold a primary appointment in SIPA along with an appointment in IIJS and will teach both undergraduate and graduate courses. The incumbent will additionally provide intellectual leadership in the field of Israel and the Middle East, especially as they relate to SIPA’s Global Policy Challenges: Geopolitical Stability, Democratic Resilience, Climate and Sustainable Development, Inclusive Prosperity and Macroeconomic Performance, Technology and Innovation.   Qualifications Ph.D. or other terminal degree in a related field. Demonstrated successful experience in teaching both undergraduate and graduate students. Candidates will be expected to sustain a strong commitment to research, publication, and teaching.   Application Instructions Applicants should upload a cover letter, curriculum vitae, teaching statement, statement of current and future plans, a writing sample, and a list of references. Please visit our online application site at: https://apply.interfolio.com/190375 for further information about this position and to submit your application. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until the position is filled. For further information, please contact Hazel May, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, at hm2135@columbia.edu

dlvr.it

Dread it. Run from it. Gender arrives all the same.

Matt Darling@besttrousers.bsky.social · 6h ago

"Whether we like it or not, the future of jobs lies in largely non-traded, labour absorbing activities such as retail, food services, hospitality, care and other personal services. The Left cannot evade this reality."

Every time I hear thisv"history is just facts" nonsense I think we have failed as a profession. Then I remember how many US high school history teachers don't have any qualifications in the subject.

Dr Surekha Davies, Historical Monster Consultant (she/her)@drsurekhadavies.bsky.social · 2h ago

Also what's this history is just facts discourse? I saw another post about it today but didn't notice whether some new nonsense was in the media.

If you’d like a wonderful antidote to those proclaiming that automated facts-mashing is historical practice I urge you to read this 2025 essay from @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social buttondown.com/surekhadavie...

Basement adventures showed me why ChatGPT can only ever be garbage.

In The British Library. Photo by Surekha Davies. Hallo readers, First, a news flash: Join me for a virtual book launch for HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY...

buttondown.com

I think you can draw comparisons between llm text generation and cold reading. Especially the loose, open-ended statements that seem personal but could actually apply to a range of people and situations.

Emperor Abby (the first pope)@arobertswrites.com · 3h ago

The human-written stories are also incredibly specific, focused on small details, whereas the llm-generated ones have a vagueness that seems universal, like a fortune cookie. Compare the part about chickens in Inisfree (3rd story) to its ai-generated counterpart.

I'm very fascinated with how mythologized human beings stand up next to their own iconography I like how in the final couple years of his life Marx was beginning to confront being a political icon, and both noticed that it had little to do with his own ideas, and found it very annoying

Except for religious studies, the graduates of these "loan ineligible" majors are disproportionately women. Fans of this policy have probably never considered that social worker, cosmetician, teachers aide, etc might be low-paying jobs *because* women do them. newrepublic.com/post/213446/...

🚨 JOB 🚨 The Department of English and Creative Writing at Hollins University seeks a colleague with specialization in Black studies to teach introductory and advanced literature courses. www.hollins.edu/about-hollin...

Faculty Positions - Hollins University

Invitation to Apply from Mary Dana Hinton, Ph.D., Hollins University’s 13th President  In 2020, Hollins University embarked on a bold and necessary plan to ensure all of our students are heard, seen, ...

hollins.edu

This isn't to say kids don't need protection; it *is* to say that protection will not come from a panoptic surveillance state that not only their parents but also any predator with a keyboard can franchise into their very own home.

There is an Uzbek made animated film of this on You Tube. I found it emotionally devastating; definite content/image warnings. (Nothing explicit, just very sad and unsettling)

Rebecca R Helm@rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 20h ago

Today is the day the story There Will Come Soft Rain is set. An amazing and heartbreaking work of fiction for our modern age. Read it here:

One of the penalties of a̶n̶ ̶e̶c̶o̶l̶o̶g̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶e̶d̶u̶c̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ any niche expertise is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. - with apologies to Aldo Leopold

You can/should read Emily Wilson's latest take on the Odyssey, but I'm logging on to convey my hairdresser's reaction. She was AGHAST that Nolan, with his million $ budget, gave Matt Damon ONLY 6 hair extensions. As a result, his hair did not blow around properly, & that ruined the film for her.

moon eye

Me too, Mr yankovich, me too.

Weird Al Lyrics@weirdallyricsbot.bsky.social · 21h ago

I love to stuff my face with tacos al carbón. With my friends, or when I'm all alone

Excited to see my forthcoming book (PhD dissertation) on @routledgebooks.bsky.social: Silver, Spices, and the Slave Trade. The Coymans Family and Dutch Entrepreneurship in the Spanish Americas (1580-1700). It will be published in December 2026. www.routledge.com/Silver-Spice...

Silver, Spices, and the Slave Trade: The Coymans Family and Dutch Entrepreneurship in the Spanish Americas (1580-1700)

Silver, Spices, and the Slave Trade: The Coymans Family and Dutch Entrepreneurship in the Spanish Americas (1580-1700) explains how Amsterdam entrepreneurs, specifically the Coymans family, built prof...

routledge.com

The UK and US militaries have been too producers of weird guys for centuries. This is one of the weirdest.

Dan Kaszeta FRHistS@dankaszeta.bsky.social · yesterday

Orde Wingate has the look of a guy who sees through your BS

My review of Rachel Zegler Snow White:

Sometimes I think, “oh shit. My writing sounds like tweaked Gen AI.”🤖 And nope. That’s backwards. GenAI sounds like a ghost of my writing because they trained the LLMs on piles and piles of work they stole without permission from writers like me.

Jesse@jaawerth.bsky.social · 2d ago

I don't think it's solely a function of people being unread. The prevalence of LLM slop just has everyone doubting *everything* and looking for patterns, enough to ignore or forget that some of these patterns are craft, and the LLM's do it because that's what they trained on

Look I've got a wonderful outing with my kid planned for today I don't have time for this.

Aparna Nair@disabilitystor1.bsky.social · yesterday

"History involves sorting and organizing hundreds of thousands of facts" I remain astounded by how loud and wrong people are about what history actually is.

How it used to be is that historians would meditate on a historical event and the facts would kind of come to us, as if in a dream. You’d maybe do like two facts a day, ten if you’d taken psychedelics. But now, AI can download and sort like 3000 facts a second. I’m out of a job. It’s a game changer

You open up the clock and inside is the broken machinery of the universe. You don't have time for this

"Everything is just data so we can computer it" has broken so many brains I swear

Like Loebs? Every fall semester, I like to remind people that while Perseus has many free Loebs sectioned up into book and chapter, if you want to download and read the public domain Loebs (277 of them) as PDFs or txt files, Duke U's very own Ryan Baumann created _Loebolus 📗📕_. ryanfb.xyz/loebolus/

Today is the only day you can experience Ray Bradbury’s “There Will Come Soft Rains” on the day it is set. Audio: archive.org/details/brad... PDF: thephilosopher.net/bredberi/wp-...

I can smell them from here.

Faine Greenwood@faineg.bsky.social · 2d ago

can’t believe our current all-ages literacy crisis is making me a little nostalgic for the pretentious “we publish experimental poetry chapbooks and have strong opinions on Melville and the 1800s fur trade” Literature Boys of my college years in the late 2000s/early 2010s.

I read "tiresome literature boy" and immediately thought of this.

Maybe it's because I'm an early modern specialist, but: it's always urine (except for the rare occasions when it's poop or blood).

madeline odent@oldenoughtosay.com · 2d ago

Wait until i tell you all the best way to artificially age copper piping

On paper, my teaching and research have nothing to do with each other. In practice teaching interdisciplinarity has made me a much better historian, interested in things I otherwise would not have been.

Sheila Liming@seeshespeak.bsky.social · 2d ago

It’s syllabus prep season, and I’m thinking about what a privilege and benefit it must be for those academics who get to directly tie their teaching / syllabi to their research / writing. 1/5

We miss this! #NEH National Endowment for the Humanities #LOC Library of Congress

dylyricus@dylyricus.com · 4d ago