As we know, "AI" doesn't do facts. It makes up patterns from random bits of data that were digitized & stolen for it, to be wrongity wrong most of the time, even on the same prompt. terribleminds.com/ramble/2025/...

Vital Cat Update

It’s time to talk about my cat. To which you might be saying, “Chuck, I didn’t know you had a cat!” and I’d respond with, “I didn’t know I had a cat either…

terribleminds.com

"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.

Sad that the comments are all about the sports part and not the take too seriously part. Sport isn't for anyone but it's not the problem. That's the cost of university, parental class anxiety, etc. Running around with your friends while following silly rules should be a deeply joyful experience.

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 2d ago

the obsession with trans women in sports is, apart from the abject bigotry, a symptom of how we take amateur sports participation way too seriously in this country.

Canadians overwhelmingly demand wealth tax after Kevin O’Leary says it will make him move away

Canadians overwhelmingly demand wealth tax after Kevin O’Leary says it will make him move away

OTTAWA - Pollsters report a split among Canadians over the idea of higher tax on the assets of wealthy individuals, though support skyrockets after noting that Kevin O'Leary has vowed that he will res...

thebeaverton.com

Here is a bit of a video facsimile - a cover-to-cover page-turning video without commentary - of our 15th century Book of Hours, Use of Rouen, which has some lovely illumination. (UPenn Ms. Codex 1056) #medievalsky Record: https://bit.ly/4m0SpP7 Complete Video Facsimile: https://bit.ly/3S5xOKI

I’ve repeatedly had MS Word try to make possessive of who — whose shoes are these — into who’s. I afterthought* it, but I still think I’m right as I learned in public-school that it should be whose. *not sure I am using this verb correctly

Joe Dunman@joedunman.bsky.social · 2d ago

I have seen a growing number of complaints about MS Word's grammar suggestions. It just told me to change "an afterthought" to "afterthought" as if it should be a verb instead of a noun. No. Also why is it still trying to get me to change "public school" to "public-school"?

The WNBA has never had a trans woman play in the league’s 30-year history and now the right and other anti-trans activists are hammering the league over something that has never been an issue, proving once again it isn’t about protection but exhibiting cruelty toward trans people.

Not only that but *the entire Humanities offering at Hertfordshire has gone and is being taught out*

Cordelia Beattie@cordeliabeattie.bsky.social · 3d ago

I see some people are reading this post as being about Exeter but it’s referring to the University of Hertfordshire. And that’s Owen’s point. Less coverage about the axe falling there but it’s equally sad.

So it's farewell to the History subject area at the University of Hertfordshire, not the first nor the last to go. One of the best departments in the country, just extinguished like a snap of the fingers. Think of the waste. (1/2)

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week." -Willa Cather (from The Professor's House, 1925)

I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them

Jennifer Romig @jennifermromig.bsky.social · 4d ago

Notetaking in meetings is tiny case in point - used to be some predictable social assumptions who would do it; now anyone can offer to do ”notetaking” by turning on the AI listener. Further interesting scenario is human recollection / notes (taken by habit by a person) conflict with AI summary

Please can I get some recommendations for child-friendly places to eat in central London? 🙏 Pizza especially a good shout, but we need a few options as we’re heading there for a couple of days. I have one adventurous eater & one who is very much not… 🙈

Sweet Lammas it's July 31 already.... somehow this summer is slipping away from me.

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

I am going to have to take back a book chapter I just submitted yesterday to incorporate this… Great stuff, @justincolson.bsky.social !

Justin Colson@justincolson.bsky.social · 5d ago

My paper "Interpreting status, hierarchy and oligarchy in London’s livery companies in the earlier sixteenth century" has just been published in Social History. How did London's livery companies conceive of status and hierarchy, and how did this compare across the companies?

Much that is disturbing here, but to pick out one thing: in early discussions, before she was fired anyway, “Ms. Prabhakar said she had apologized to the president and agreed to teach only material that appeared in a textbook.” In an English lit course?? This is what college in FL has become? 😳😱😭

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 6d ago

A college professors is fired for teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh story that causes "mild discomfort" for one student. Implication is that DeSantis government was involved in the firing. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

Bordeaux, France, has now recorded more days above 40°C in 2026 alone than during the entire 105-year period from 1920 (when observations began) to 2025. This is deeply shocking.

I recently wrote a profile of a West African kid who tried to storm Cueta, right before the last big massacre of migrants there. As I observed, much of this could be prevented (and has been before) with a return to pre-2000s visa policies www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

Along the trans-Saharan path, African migrants weigh the risks and rewards of heading to Europe

The Globe joins West Africans along the desert route that carries hundreds of thousands through deadly perils and ignites political crises in Europe

theglobeandmail.com

our age of bros is collapsing

holy *crap* "One missing underscore in a Skyrim-themed username put an innocent Nova Scotia man in prison for 18 months" full story here: arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

A missing underscore sent innocent man to prison for 18 months

When the first step goes wrong, bad results follow.

arstechnica.com

It is just simply great that the #Odyssey discourse is promoting these kinds of fascinating threads. Long live the humanities; long live scholarship; long live curiosity-driven enquiry

Seth L. Sanders@nabalkattu.bsky.social · last wk.

Film criticism aside, Emily Wilson's review of the Odyssey concerned me because it misrepresents Late Bronze Age history and reinforces an old Eurocentric pattern of dismissing the experiences--and reality--of ancient peoples other than the Greeks.

Imagine devoting your life to public health, responding to two major pandemics, and then having to talk with these dipshits

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · last wk.

Moreno to Fauci: "Who the fuck did you think you were?"

Chrystia Freeland is no dummy

underworldneo@underworldneo.bsky.social · last wk.

Canadian explains North America and the world after Trump.

Every day, there's a story like this where, if you focus on it for a minute, a moral void opens beneath your feet and threatens to obliterate everything you believe about our society and its way of living, and any hope for its future.

Matt Ortega@mattortega.com · last wk.

Stephen Miller said just the other day that all asylum claims are "fake." A couple deported from the U.S. to Guatemala were gagged, bound, and shot dead. Their 14-month old found crying next to their mother's body. People like Miller don't care though because this is the point: ethnic cleansing.

[repeated a thread from the other place] Five (ok, six) ways in which Nolan's Odyssey is Homeric. 1. Narrative structures: a thematic ring with multiple flashbacks and timelines that unfold and entwine. Hello Homer's Odyssey

I think what makes this so enduringly compelling is Holland is not performing it as camp, there’s no winking, no sense that performing a woman’s song and routine is beneath him or something funny or transgressive or uncomfortable. He is completely serious and completely comfortable.

Aubrey Gilleran@aubreygilleran.bsky.social · last wk.

Also where are my manners?

epic

I’m a snob who took Latin for five years, read the Odyssey on my own at 13, enjoyed the movie, and thought EW was spot on. A movie can be both fun and facile; she acknowledges its upshots. People who think she’s too harsh need to watch better movies (or at least one of the stronger Nolan ones).

Jennifer Szalai@jenszalai.bsky.social · last wk.

Yes. I've seen complaints that Wilson is too mean, given that Nolan plugged her translation and clearly cares about the arts. But there's lots to be said for her critical ruthlessness. Let people enjoy things. Also let people critique things. There's room for both.

Jobs For Medievalists Marketing Specialist Medieval Institute Publications (MIP), https://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/jobs-for-medievalists-339/