I used to put out these traffic cones during Rockies games at my intersection because drivers would pretend there is a left turn lane where there wasn't one and bully pedestrians. Now it is a bike rack and I don't have to move cones anymore. Daylighting intersections is good.

Thinking about the student who came to my office at the end of last semester and said "Thank you for making us use notebooks in this class. I'm so glad I discovered notebooks. Notebooks are powerful."

Jonathan W. Gray@elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 3d ago

Require students to take notes in a notebook unless they have a specific accommodation. Tell them that the notebook will be part of their final grade, that the 2nd to last day of class will be notebook review with students getting btwn 5-20 points added to their grade based on it.

An interesting piece out from @democratictheory.bsky.social. One of the things Mamdani’s campaign & admin does that is replicable & good for democracy beyond policy is to broaden opportunities for civic connection & tell increasingly layered stories of peoplehood w/ “the people” being New Yorkers.

Mamdani’s Mending Story: Rescaling Democratic Peoplehood in an Age of Interregnum | Democratic Theory | Cambridge Core

Mamdani’s Mending Story: Rescaling Democratic Peoplehood in an Age of Interregnum

cambridge.org

There’s no way to spin this. “Big yech”—actually a nice typo (slip?) in the article—was able to buy off the leadership of the nation’s second largest teacher’s union for a paltry $12.5 million.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

This is 💯 not true. It is never a choice between ‘taking big tech’s money and doing nothing’. A stronger moral imperative is NOT to take the money and the strings attached to it - particularly if you do not and cannot yet understand the implications

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

Ah yes, Randi Weingarten, the little-known fourth pillar of liberation: agitate, educate, organize, or get bought.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

I should be less surprised at how flamboyantly and consistently Randi Weingarten has failed the challenges of leading one of the teachers' union in the US in age of gAI. Deeply uncritical, incredibly short-sighted, but most of all, pusillanimous.

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 18h ago

“Teaching educators about AI is a ‘moral imperative’, said Randi Weingarten, the AFT president.” “And without outside funding, it was a choice between taking big tech’s money or doing nothing, she said.”

We must witness Major Kong being happy.

As back to school approaches, I know I'm going to start posting my kids' lunches, and a bunch of y'all are gonna be saying "I wish you could pack MY lunch" and while I cannot pack your lunch, I can offer you this brain dump I made about packing school lunches:

School Lunch Brain Dump

School Lunch Brain Dump Disclaimer: CAFETERIA FOOD IS GREAT. I don’t pack my kids’ lunches because I think cafeteria food is bad but because food is my love language and my kids really like my food. ...

docs.google.com

So excited for the @civicsoftech.bsky.social conference this week! Especially excited to highlight “Voices from the Caregiver Resistance to Edtech.” Hope you can join us Thursday at 1pm EST!

Charles Logan@charleswlogan.bsky.social · 4w ago

This year’s @civicsoftech.bsky.social conference schedule is now live! Join me and @alliethrall.bsky.social for a panel featuring @lbyock.bsky.social, @kellyclancy.bsky.social, and Chad Hamilton. We’ll reflect on their experiences as caregivers challenging ed-tech. See the full schedule at:

“Innovative technology...certainly has the potential... However, since this funding is not expected to go toward rural providers themselves, nor the rural communities they serve... [then] funding recipients will absolutely need to show positive impact for rural health.” #copolitics

The moots are talking Vorkosigan Saga? LET’S GO

Dr. Emily Friedman@friede.bsky.social · 5y ago

Question brought to you by my 9 minute commute turning into an hour: where is the #TTRPG that rips from the Vorkosigan Saga (i.e queer/trans future human colony re-contacts w/ accidentally-isolated human colony that’s rebuilt back to Regency-meets-Klingon era, w/disabled protag)

Covid lockdowns demonstrated, in a deeply imperfect way, the possibility of large-scale social solidarity for a higher cause. That is a prime reason why so many powerful people want us to run screaming away from them into the comforting arms of selfish individualist competition.

Naming the little robot that spews shit all over the workplace after the company's beloved founder

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 4d ago

“The AI assistant, which Kinney Drugs named Burt, after its founder, was built by a third-party AI pharmaceutical company, Synerio. In the pharmacy’s terms, Kinney Drugs states that ‘Burt may not be accurate, complete or up-to-date and may be misleading or contain errors and omissions.’”

On a related/unrelated note, our FOIL requests to our town police and board about Flock are more than 100 days overview. The clerk and town lawyer have been responsive and apologetic - and we all know they're not the reason for the delay.

Drew Harwell@drewharwell.com · 4d ago

New: We found 50 cops who misused Flock cameras and other license-plate readers for personal purposes, often to spy on their girlfriends or ex-wives. He "watched every single move I made. ... Who do you turn the chief of police in to?" wapo.st/3S6rTuo

"The role of the university is even lost on many, so bears repeating: produce knowledge & educate at the highest level. AI destroys both at their core." 👏👏👏 I want to do scholarly work well, as slow as it needs to be, not be "efficient." In fact, everybody should be allowed to do their jobs well.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ@olivia.science · 4d ago

If useful, here's my attempt to process my feelings about how I feel sadly kinda — or rather very — sick from all this AI fascist nonsense as an academic. 😶‍🌫️ I'd be pleased if even one person finds something useful because there's something to be said for processing this all together, so, um, enjoy?

Sometimes in a library I imagine each book as years of an author’s life such that you are standing amidst uncounted hours of effort and concentration like some oasis of meaningful time.

NDA (no democracy anywhere)

The Democratic establishment’s pursuit of status quo management has come into a generational conflict with its voters, who expect active representation, and whose current demands require status quo destruction.

A.R. Moxon@juliusgoat.bsky.social · 5d ago

It’s becoming an increasingly unavoidable conclusion that a portion of mostly establishment Democrat electeds/pundits/consultants don’t like Democratic voters much and would much prefer to have Republican voters instead, and view their voters’ insistence on being represented as an annoying betrayal.

Scapegoats are emotionally cheaper than systems. Blaming the left asks nothing of you. It feels good and righteous and right. Asking whether your institutions and your party failed you requires dismantling beliefs you have spent your lifetime building. That is emotionally expensive.

Hard to overstate how much of a threat leaders and public officials who actually govern and serve the people pose to those whose political careers depend on fomenting cynicism and delegitimizing democracy

Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani@mayor.nyc.gov · 5d ago

Now this is the kind of trash talk we can get behind. We’re containerizing neighborhoods by taking trash off our sidewalks and allowing mid-size buildings to trade in their wheelie bins for a bigger, better, cleaner alternative: Empire Bins. It’s time to put a lid on it, New York.

Harvard paid McKinsey a quarter of a mill to tell them to sack loads of people in Arts and Hums! Nice work if you can get it! 🤡 www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Harvard Paid McKinsey $250,000 For FAS Consultation, Internal Documents Show | News | The Harvard Crimson

Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.

thecrimson.com

look. nobody here likes paying consultants. but the only alternative is paying *instructors*

Asheesh Kapur Siddique@asheeshks.org · 7d ago

“Harvard paid McKinsey & Company at least $250,000 to consult on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ staff restructuring efforts, according to internal documents obtained by The Crimson.” www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

It also turns people off when an organization praises democracy while failing to practice democracy internally.

Luigi de Guzman@ouij.bsky.social · last wk.

The reason the DSA folks seem to get so much attention is that they tend to talk about stuff like why your rent is high or why the bus is never on time. Voters by and large don’t really care about “democracy” because a lot of them have not gotten much out of democracy www.npr.org/2026/07/29/n...

I’ve always wondered why the democrats never just went ahead and formed community assistance groups. Have dedicated staff at their offices to help people navigate Medicaid or getting their paperwork for voting or getting food assistance. Is it illegal?

The DSA in Wilmingotn, N.C. has created a "crisis" by putting benches at city bus stops, after literal decades of the city promising and failing to do so.

Democratic Socialists’ bus benches remain, city mum on next steps | Port City Daily

WILMINGTON — The handmade bus benches installed by the Wilmington Democratic Socialists of America have highlighted a problem nearly everyone agrees exists: most Wave bus stops have nowhere for riders...

portcitydaily.com

I don't WANT to judge you. I want not to care at all about what you do. You're in the majority in that you use the tool, what could I possibly say that matters? But when you come just to insist on explaining your usage to me like I am going to give you a cookie, I am very much judging you.

I can’t believe we call it “Pericles’ Funeral Oration” when “Pericles’ Patriotic Postmortem Panegyric” is right there.

Unsurprising that all these cuts being made to #Harvard —from the Office of Student Services to the Writing Center to now the Dudley Co-op—are happening with input from McKinsey, a firm made up of The Second Worst People I knew in college there

Mary Lewis@profmarylewis.bsky.social · last wk.

First it was the writing center, now Dudley House. This was the place where people like married veterans & other students who had reasons to live off campus found community at Harvard. I refuse to believe this was extremely costly. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Centrists discovering a brand new problem that no one in the electorate has ever had to confront before: the expectation that they have to vote for a nominee they don't like and whose supporters were dicks to them. Uncharted waters. We'll just have to figure it out as we go, I guess.