Erika ZD
@ezd.bsky.social
Professor, Parent, POTsie, baker. Minnesotan forever. Assoc Professor in the humanities. Taking things slow thanks to long Covid. Sharing Covid science and public health. Always speaking for myself, not my employer.
Underneath solar panels, plants grew much more and used less water, "Chiltepin pepper plants produced three times as much fruit as those grown in full sun. Jalapenos matched their usual harvest while using 65 percent less water. Tomatoes grown under the array came in at twice the normal yield."
*American farmers slid solar panels over 62,000 acres of farmland, and the biggest payoff had almost nothing to do with electricity* #Erneuerbare #Renewable #Solar #Photovoltaik energiesmedia.com/solar-panels…
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.
i don't like to police genre, but it's not dark academia unless somebody gets squished in one of these bad boys
Some people really don't like the being a scholar part of being a scholar.
"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.
"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.
Ideologies of Big Number: words lie, numbers can’t, they approximate ‘reality’ in ways that allow us to commensurate seemingly unlike, distinct things, and make safer, more accurate predictions.
Even without the AI crap, there is a strong tendency to substitute quantification for thinking, and exchanges of information for communication. And yes, it produces its own special form of stupidity
Just so everyone knows, this is a tried-and-true mainstream media tactic. For progressives/leftist candidates, every election is a “crucial test” and any loss would serve as proof to the media that the latest left-side moment is at its end. Any win, though, just means it’s time to find a new test.
Michigan will provide another crucial test of whether progressives can not only keep up their winning streak in safe-blue seats but also break through in battlegrounds crucial for control of Congress. The stakes for the Democratic Party are huge.
That's what taxes are, man. That's the definition of taxes. "You are subsidizing things you might never use" man shut the fuck up. My taxes currently subsidize like oil company exec private jets, you think I'm upset at low-income people eating inexpensive bananas?
Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.
"don't make enough money" is a fig leaf All those degree programs--social work, art, etc.--have disproportionately female student bodies. This is designed to make it harder for women to attend college--college education being a key factor in women's autonomy from men & left-leaning voting pattern.
President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v
I prefer presidents who don’t have their accounts closed over money laundering concerns.
The richest person in the world, an avowed white supremacist, today again posted "the next step is getting rid of 'source code' entirely and just making an efficient binary directly with AI" because he has no idea how anything works, not even the basics of industries he is in.
We’re also funding death squads but what’s really offensive is that somewhere out there a poor person might be able to eat
Opinion: Mamdani's idea may sound appealing, but it's NYC taxpayers who will take the hit, subsidizing discounts they may never even use.
Many say this leaves no path to redemption; I will note that paths to redemption exist, but they are for the offender to walk, not for others to deem it walked on their behalf. And a Nazi isn't walking a path of redemption if they remain in the Nazi party. Nothing stopping them. Path open.
And remember, kids, unless a public health threat kills one of the country's 17 perfect specimens of physical health, all deaths are really the fault of "underlying issues." Public health efforts can't help that! (I'm kidding, of course; there are no literally perfect physical specimens)
Breaking News: Two deaths in Michigan have been linked to cyclospora. Both people who had the parasite also had underlying health issues.
So, what happens if I'm a parent and I know that my kid needs highly paid teachers, a library full of books with diverse characters, trans-inclusive bathrooms and extracurriculars, and a curriculum unpacking topics like systemic racism, colonial oppression, economic inequality, and climate change?
It’s nice to see everyone’s textual analysis of The Odyssey It’s almost like the humanities give you entertainment, feelings, pleasure, and fun/interesting stuff to talk about, as well as lenses into both past and current society
Iran has suspended the Memorandum of Understanding, accusing the US of violations, Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said. He added: “We are busy defending our country.” Everything back to square one. Trump has nothing to show for the misery he’s inflicted on the world,
More war crimes: In its fourth strike on water infrastructure, the US has destroyed two water tanks in Sirik, Iran, completely cutting off water distribution in all villages of the Bemani district and the city of Kohstak, the Hormozgan Water and Sanitation Authority says.
Fuck off. If anything is "millennial", it's those cool transparent colors our iMacs, Gameboys, and Tamagotchis came in. No fucking millennial likes the house flipper grey. Call it a millennial paint job when I can see through the exterior of a car because it's Glacier Purple like my GBA.
No fuck off we're not calling this "Millennial grey" this shit was dictated completely by boomer retiree house flippers we absolutely had NO say in this
New: Late last night, Taylor Farms quietly posted an official recall notice We now know that the parasite-linked iceberg lettuce was shipped to Walmart & food distributors in 27 (!) states It was for some reason still being sent out up until Thursday July 16 www.consumerreports.org/health/food-...
Parasite-Linked Lettuce Was Sent to Walmart Stores and Food Distributors in 27 States - Consumer Reports
Taylor Farms' recalled the parasite-linked lettuce it said was sent to Walmart stores, Sysco, and other food distributors in 27 states.
consumerreports.org
After a conversation with a colleague: if someone’s only experience of AI is chatbots and ambient exposure to the need for checking for accuracy or its ecological costs, they will be genuinely surprised by any further information you provide about its uses in government, policing, commerce etc 1/n
We don’t need education about ethical *use* of AI; we need more education in how it is being *used on* and against us. 2/n
I wrote a Thucydides joke, but unfortunately before it got to the punchline it just
I wrote a Procopius joke but it was hidden away in the Vatican for centuries.
"don't cite what you haven't read" remains the basic entry level academic responsibility; & if your discpline "doesn't have that as a norm" then sorry, your discipline needs reforming for this new world. Citations are structural parts of trust and knowledge building, not trinkets or optional extras
Academics and technologists are sounding the alarm about a growing crisis in scholarship as we know it: AI-generated citations of nonexistent papers that have infested real journals. Despite being fake, the sources are widely assumed to be authentic the more they appear in published literature.