I am convinced that some scholars are agents provocateurs working to discredit academia.

Current Affairs@currentaffairs.bsky.social · 2d ago

I fundamentally do not know how to square the politics whereby Democrats will essentially have to tell the American people that because they (the voters) made an extremely stupid decision, they need to lower their expectations substantially for the foreseeable future, but here we are.

10 years ago today

Reminded today that large corporates are oral cultures.

this man should get combat pay bc he was FIGHTING here

Off to see the city to meet an old colleague for coffee. Wearing shorts just because I can.

Strange experience, living at a time of irrational exuberance, and seeing it as such.

They’re calling it the most theater kid story of all time

Pixie Casey@pixiecasey.bsky.social · 2d ago

in insane local news, the 26 year old director of a rocky horror production was arrested for sending threatening messages to himself in order to get the play shut down bc he didn’t want to deal with cast drama www.mynbc5.com/article/rock...

Finally read this by Dawn Nafus and it’s wonderful. While I never felt like was doing anything other than selling out when I left academia, I suppose I always believed that knowledge mattered. And by extension I could find some meaning in developing it. But alas…

Dear Anthropology

There was an event recently at UCL about “future-proofing anthropology.” With the discipline embroiled in every conceivable crisis, and job…

medium.com

Significant new report from @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social & colleagues makes the case that the UK has a mismatch between highly centralised institutions of spending control and increasingly fragmented systems of public service delivery (more so if devolution) www.nuffieldfoundation.org/news/opinion...

The myth of Treasury control: What’s wrong with the UK’s public spending system and how to fix it - Nuffield Foundation

The long-standing model of centralised Treasury control over public spending has inadequately adapted to the realities of public service delivery.

nuffieldfoundation.org

The non-profit running Wikipedia is working overtime to crush a unionization effort among its employees. You should absolutely withhold donations to the @wikimediafoundation.org until they recognize their employees union.

Jake Orlowitz@jakeorlowitz.bsky.social · 3d ago

The Wikimedia Foundation Hired the Union Busters Its Own Encyclopedia Warned About medium.com/regarding-wi... #wikipedia

this is not true. there was no conspiracy. it didn't matter whether the streetcars were publicly owned (seattle, detroit) or private (los angeles, atlanta). a thread (because i wrote a whole-ass book on this): 1/?

David Ho@davidho.bsky.social · 3d ago

Is everyone aware of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? In the mid-20th century, auto and oil interests bought up electric streetcar systems across the US and systematically replaced them with bus routes and paved roads, funneling commuters toward private cars.

Kinda, sorta have things to do this week and squeezing in a 3.5 hour walk this morning.

Cincinnati has developed a Climate Migration Readiness Plan to absorb as many as 525,000 newcomers by 2050. It calls for building much denser housing, expanding public transit and decreasing the city’s reliance on fossil fuels.

A City With a Plan (Gift Article)

Cincinnati wants to take in people fleeing climate disasters. Plus, the latest on fires in Europe.

nytimes.com

Seeing pictures of AoM presentations and once again I’m thinking real hard about starting a business to create better slides for academics. 72pt Arial bullet points are making my eye twitch.

Was thinking about “Coming of age in New Jersey” and I would read the hell out of a book on continuity and change in types of guys you meet at American universities.

Started a “Station Eleven” rewatch but honestly not sure I’m up to it. Like “The Leftovers” it’s one of those adaptations that punches me in the feels and starts kicking when I hit the ground.

My grandfather was one of the 10,000 miners who took up arms following the Matewan massacre. Smiling Sid was a true hero (and a distant cousin)!

Working Class History @workingclasshistory.com · 5d ago

#OtD 1 Aug 1921 Sid Hatfield, the pro-union chief of police of Matewan, WV, was assassinated by Baldwin-Felts detectives. He had helped defend striking miners from B-F agents the previous year, killing several. Books and commemorative items here: shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/...

My hot take is that this is telling us more about organizational immaturity to wield this technology than the tech itself. Anyone who has been inside a firm with proper process control (Toyota auto plant, e.g.) knows what I mean.

Karl Bode@karlbode.com · 6d ago

I want you to notice how the New York Times does not think it's important to mention that both the OpenAI and Anthropic "AI gone rogue" hack events were completely avoidable and caused by human error

Just had lunch with two undergrads from my alma mater (Go pack!) and I’m here to tell you: the kids are alight.

Hello, I would like to announce something that may come as a shock to many of you. I am an LLM. I have been a pet project by the quant firm Situational Awareness as an experiment to create the most annoying tech guy persona online. As all of our money is gone, I will be discontinued. Goot bye

One day I’d like to work for, or even just encounter, one of these companies marked by competence and derring-do that live in the pages of HBS case studies.

This is going to be my Zapruder film. The guy on the left gets hit full blast with the stench, but don't sleep on the guy on the other side, who likewise starts squinting and blinking as the stink lines strike his face.

𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖 𝔾𝕦𝕣𝕝@sundaedivine.lol · 7d ago

He’s got the look of a TSA beagle who just hit on something foul.

this sounds elitist but our recovery from the present moment will depend in part on being able to once again effectively malign, ostracize, and refuse a platform to cranks

[Christopher M. Federico]@chrispps.bsky.social · last wk.

I don't stan Fauci in any mawkish resistlib way but I do not blame him for not wanting to play along on television with a gaggle of conspiracy-addled degenerates who are objectively beneath him in terms of intellect, culture, and values

They don’t tell you this on the Life in the UK Test, but the most British trait is quiet resignation to bad outcomes.

@lastpositivist.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Just generally my default assumption upon learning that something new is gonna happen in Britain is that it'll be a little bit crap. I don't think that's inevitable or something, I don't get that impression in other countries, especially not ones as wealthy as the UK. Things here just always rubbish

I can’t be the only person who opens an article, sees its printed double-column, and closes it.

sorry babe I can't hang out I've got to wage ideological warfare on the Internet.

LinkedIn has (strangely) become my go-to for interesting new papers… and updates on academic misconduct

Still out here reading stuff and getting excited by ideas.