Tobias Wilson-Bates
@phdhurtbrain.bsky.social
Time Machines. Temporality. Ecology. Robots. Education. Associate Professor of 19th century British Literature.
Good morning Bluesky ☀️ My grandad told me he saw the Titanic - from the outset he warned all the people that the ship would sink, but nobody listened to him. He knew he was right and didn't give up. He warned them again & again, until eventually they kicked him out of the cinema.
I’ve been screening our documentary with organizing communities in the South. So far, the organizers mention data centers first at every single event. From racial justice orgs to old school activists who don’t usually think about tech policy. This has legs.
Don't look now, but the world has now installed 3TW of solar. Took 10 years to get from 100GW to 1TW. Less than 3 years to get to 2TW. Less than 2 years to get to 3TW. Analysts expect *9TW* by 2036.
The World Crossed a Major Solar Milestone. No One Noticed
The next phase of the boom may reveal a shift in who is gaining access to the technology.
bloomberg.com
i don't like to police genre, but it's not dark academia unless somebody gets squished in one of these bad boys
The credulous engagement with that letter yesterday sent me to reread Morrison's Racism and Fascism plus watch this reading of Clifton's why some people be mad at me sometimes voca.arizona.edu/track/id/57991
"why some people be mad at me sometimes" | Lucille Clifton - November 1, 2007
voca.arizona.edu
Excellent thread here on the (superb!) PMLA cluster, tracking the itineraries of “the Victorian” in the Anglo-American academy esp. under permanent-austerity conditions post-c.2008
Sarah Bull@sarahebull.bsky.social · 21h agoSometimes people with shared interests speak different languages. Last week I read the new Theory & Methodologies section on Victorian studies in PMLA with huge interest, especially @emilysteinlight.bsky.social and Josephine McDonagh's pieces on on US and UK scholars' ambitions for the field at +
Interviewer: we’ve noticed your website has an identity that makes it unique CEO: we’re worried about that. obviously we would prefer to become a gelatinous sludge feeding slop into a yawning abyssal sadness Interviewer: well that’s just common sense
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Ryland Grace of California, Scientist: Who lived Eight Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Ship on the Coast of Tau Ceti; Having been comatose, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates
We are each of us in our own way hoping to think a thought that will reverberate through us like a struck bell
Computer: say it. say the words. Me: can we not do this today? Computer: we do this every day. say it. Me: (*sigh) I would like to stay logged in on this device Computer: (*chuckling)
Interviewer: we’ve noticed your website has an identity that makes it unique CEO: we’re worried about that. obviously we would prefer to become a gelatinous sludge feeding slop into a yawning abyssal sadness Interviewer: well that’s just common sense
When we don't adequately fund public universities, and instead force students to take out loans, what we as a society are really doing is borrowing money from the younger generation—their hard-earned future income—to fund a necessary project that benefits us all: building an educated society.
Mark Copelovitch@mcopelov.bsky.social · 2d ago1. This is bullsh*t & an epically stupid policy completely detached from any empirical evidence: bsky.app/profile/mcop... 2. We could simply avoid this entire issue by <all together now> Funding. The. Damn. Public. Universities. Like. We. Used. To: bsky.app/profile/mcop...
"I don't understand why you, a fantasy writer, don't appreciate the value of making bargains with the fae."
John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d agoEvery now and then someone takes a run at me along the lines of "I don't understand why you, a scifi writer, don't appreciate 'AI'," and I'm all, motherfucker, it's *because* I'm a science fiction writer I have the positions I have, how many times do we have to fucking yell "torment nexus," my dude
Correct, the point isn’t to make them feel shame. The point is to reinforce the group norms.
Betsy Humphrey@betsyvt.bsky.social · yesterdayThey may be shameless, but shunning, booing and not accepting them into public spaces is the correct response.
The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Ryland Grace of California, Scientist: Who lived Eight Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Ship on the Coast of Tau Ceti; Having been comatose, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates
I genuinely do talk about this a fair bit. My extremely boring opinion is that Paradise Lost is the single greatest work of literature out there and I will never stop loving it.
Ian is the Priest-King of the Sacred Grove at Nemi@poetinbabylon.bsky.social · 3d agowhy does nobody talk about the scene in Paradise Lost where the devils invent fiendish cannons and launch an assault on Heaven with 17th century siege weapons???
I think it’s hard to argue either that lockdowns were bad policy or that learning loss wasn’t real. We just have a society that makes no allowances for emergencies and affords no chance of making up. A lot of people are very mad about the effects of that without having any inclination to change it.
Reason number 19,208,138 we love librarians:
Lisa Rabey@pookiebear.net · 2d agoOK. Since I'm a librarian and I must ORGANIZE ALL THE THINGS, I took all the titles mentioned by @tressiemcphd.bsky.social, @ali-alkhatib.com, and the Library Freedom Project and put them in a single list on bookshop.org: bookshop.org/wishlists/53.... (I did not coin "data politics," Tressie did.)
Computer: say it. say the words. Me: can we not do this today? Computer: we do this every day. say it. Me: (*sigh) I would like to stay logged in on this device Computer: (*chuckling)
they want to humiliate you. it's not enough that you have to knuckle under. they need you to feel bad and resign yourself to this system. they won't even let you take out a loan to do something that might have value that can't be measured in money.
The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 2d agoPresident 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
All Pretentious Literature Boys are all of course the spiritual spawn of the original, archetypal Ur-Pretentious Literature Boy. No better example exists of an Annoying Guy who Singlehandedly Created an Entire New Genre of Annoying Guys
Hugh Kearney@myfisttoe.bsky.social · 2d agoI read "tiresome literature boy" and immediately thought of this.
New science fiction franchise that's just a school of Arts & Sciences that is fully staffed
Again (going to be a very dead horse with me soon enough), a lot of these wins depend on institutionalizing technological control of social institutions, markets, and politics.
New science fiction franchise that's just a school of Arts & Sciences that is fully staffed
I’ve been writing a counter narrative of shutdowns that has me revisiting media from that time. And let me tell you, the only other option was everybody die. So yeah.
Peter@notalawyer.bsky.social · 3d agoit’s pretty obvious that a lot of people remember that COVID lockdowns were unpleasant and from there just extrapolate that they were therefore bad policy
