It's my daughter's first day of camp and she was nervous. I bought her a fun cake to have tonight to celebrate/cheer her up if things weren't great. And...I dropped it

I'm updating my readings for the fall, and it's amazing how much of a closed shop Foreign Affairs seems. There's one guy who's had six articles this year. I understand wanting to hear from experts, but it's nice to get different viewpoints. #academicsky

So I'm currently working on 2 book reviews (because I can't say no) and am wondering if there's a point to these. Does anyone read them? I feel like they're mostly listed under the book entry in the CV #academicsky

one of the more common attack lines I've heard from conservative evangelicals as a progressive Christian is that we ignore Biblical passage that are "inconvenient" to our political beliefs. But w/ Trump I'm seeing, as w/ so much else, that's basically projection

someone explain to me the impulse among many southern evangelicals to rush to forgive adults who harm children, and claim we must show "grace" to them by letting it go. I've seen it w/ abuse of children, and it's also coming up w/ reactions to the Camp Mystic disaster.

my University has multiple layers of admin between the college and Uni levels, and none of them seem to be able to do anything but cc each other when asked to resolve something. "I wonder why tuition is so high?" #academicsky

you'd think with the thousands of dollars Universities pay to journal publishers they could just look up the page numbers of a journal article themselves as part of the proofing process. #academicsky

so I asked Copilot to make a GANTT chart for a project I'm starting out of a text narrative. The first attempt looked right, but it broke it down by week, not semester as I specified in the text. The second attempt broke it down by semester but it didn't look like a GANTT chart.

Watching the kids. The younger one is in half-day camp this week. The tween wanted a week "off." We made a big schedule of all the fun stuff we'd do. It's 10:00 and she's still asleep. I can't decide if I should let her sleep as long as she wants, or if she'll be annoyed I let her sleep so long.

I love it when people release a "replicable" dataset with a "codebook" that doesn't even discuss most of the variables. I LOVE IT. #academicsky

I saw someone with a "stomp on my flag I'll eat your a#$" bumper sticker. I feel like he may want to think that threat through

serious question: was there ever a "revolutionary" tech breakthrough that required as much effort to get people to adopt as Gen AI? I had been working on a shared Word doc in Teams, but now I can't access Word in Teams w/o a Copilot license.

my annual Eurovision post, about the well-deserved win by Bulgaria's Dara.

Duck of Minerva@duckofminerva.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I choose to celebrate Eurovision There are two posts I could have written about the latest Eurovision song contest. One would focus on another controversy over Israel’s participation and high vote count. The other would focus on the first-time win for Bulgaria; a well-deserved win in my opinion. I…

I cursed out an AI chatbot today. I don't feel great about it.

just submitted my final grades for the semester. Waiting for the emails to come... #academicsky

I'm approaching the age where a mid-life crisis should start, but I don't think I could afford it. How did Boomers pull off buying Corvettes and boats and nice jackets?

My intro final is half multiple choice, half essay. A student came up after the multiple choice part and said they didn't feel like doing the essay. They were a senior, and calculated the effect on their grade; they said they could live with it. I just had to say "fair enough" #academicsky

For my finals, I provide 9 prompts ahead of time, pick 3 for the exam and they write 1. Sometimes I end up with 2/3 of the class using the same prompt, which means it was a bad prompt--they think it's easy, but it isn't and I get a lot of bad essays. #academicsky

I've found myself listed as an expert on a few research centers/foundations. I can't remember ever communicating with them, although it's possible I forgot. What should I do? Ask them? Just put it on my CV? #academicsky

so we all complain about Gen Z and Alpha having 0 computer literacy. Proctoring exams basically means being an IT person. Should we start requiring computer literacy training in year 1, alongside writing and such? #academicsky

For the second year in a row my daughter and I went to see Mamma Mania, a great ABBA tribute act. Women (I was one of the few men) kept coming up and telling me how great a dad I am. Little did they know I'm a massive ABBA fan who can sing along to all the songs.

I have students do group projects with a presentation in my Terrorism and Counterterrorism course. One ended with this slide. I'm not sure how to take that. #academicsky

I'll probably never win a teaching award. My teaching evals always end up below the Department average. But for both my classes this semester I got applause from the students at the end of the closing lecture. I can live with that. #academicsky

I remember when I was at Vassar, some students argued that it's ok to steal from the dining hall because we were standing up to corporate greed (I think it was Aramark running it). The rest of us--18-21 year olds who self-selected into a progressive college--thought it was a dumb argument.

I'm fighting a losing battle to get my international relations students to stop using "allyship" as a synonym for "alliance" #academicsky

My new post on Duck of Minerva, in which I explain why I, a proud Protestant, support the Pope in his divide with Trump. Hint: it's not because he's the Pope.

Duck of Minerva@duckofminerva.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This Protestant feels confused: On moral authority and the Pope-Trump divide As I have discussed here, I am a proud Protestant. I was raised Lutheran, and am now Episcopalian. While there is some variation among Episcopalians and Anglicans over whether they see themselves as Protestant, both my…

I have an annoying habit of receiving useful feedback on a paper from a conference, journal rejection, and then letting it sit for a long time. But I also have the admirable habit of keeping detailed command files w/ extensive notes so I can pick back up when needed #academicsky

A screenshot of a post from the DHS Facebook page. As far as I could tell it was a legit account

While Trump and his team are ranting and raving, and his followers are twisting the Bible to defend him, the Pope is just showing love. competing expressions of Christian faith, no theological debate needed on which is better- by their fruits you will know them. www.facebook.com/share/r/1EkH...

people need to be prepared for the fact that Hegseth 100% knew the "Bible" passage was from Pulp Fiction, but thought it was cool and macho. There is that trend in evangelicalism, where macho-ness matters more than Biblical accuracy.