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M. Willis Monroe

@willismonroe.com

Cuneiform Studies, History of Science/Religion, Quantitative Humanities, Associate Professor at the University of New Brunswick, Co-Director of the Database of Religious History.

221 Posts1610 Follower204 Folgt
M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 2w ago

This is so dangerous... not in @atrupar.com's summary but in the video is a very purposeful dig into Carney's popularity, by referencing his polling before the election. They're trying to seed distrust into Canadian electoral systems, right in line with the funding of Alberta separatism.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2w ago

EISEN: Markets are wondering if we're in tit for tat trade war w/Canada BESSENT: I don't think you can be in a tit for tat with someone who's 13 times larger than you E: They say they're doing ok B: What else are they gonna say? What are they gonna do? Take their 2 submarines & sic them on us?

M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 2w ago

This stands out as a really important thing that MIT is trying to do that so many universities are just not at all engaging with... As so many others have said, professors feel left adrift making/implementing/arbitrating policies with no support from administration.

A selected section of MIT's report on Generative AI: "MIT should provide a shared framework – including a common policy menu, disclosure expectations, and accountability standards – within which departments and instructors can make choices."
Huw TD@huwtd.bsky.social · last mo.

I have an hour's delay at the train station, so here's a thread about the Trojan Horse. Basically, the plot motif of sneaking into the city disguised as tribute isn't original to Homer, although the use of a horse statue might be. 1/

M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · last mo.

I'm thinking of finally moving away from Dropbox... I've been using it for over 15 years and always sung its praises. However, it's expensive, I'm self-hosting more of my own services and... I want to move my data out of the US. @opencloud.eu on my own server looks like a great alternative.

Ed Hagen@edhagen.net · 2mo ago

The relationship between testosterone and grip strength, an index of physical formidability, in a representative sample of US adult men (point sizes are survey weights). 🧪

A scatterplot of combined grip strength (y-axis) vs. serum testosterone (x-axis) in 3498 US adult men (18-60) from NHANES 2011 - 2014. A polynomial smooth regression line is completely flat. Combined grip strength is the sum of grip strength in both hands. Point sizes are survey weights.
Ted McCormick@tedmccormick.bsky.social · 2mo ago

it’s amazing how often the solution to endlessly multiplying pedagogical problems turns out to be restoring an actual pedagogical relationship between instructors and students

Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa@benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A really interesting piece on reducing AI cheating in the classroom from a Professor of English and former Dean of Humanities at University of Utah. The solutions? Smaller classes, lower teaching loads for faculty, and in-person classes.

Andrew Tobolowsky@andytobo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

We often blithely say stuff like "indoctrinate them, I can't even get them to do the reading!" which is true but also indoctrination isn't the point! Me teaching you about the history of ancient Israel isn't trying to get you to like or dislike 'em or want to be an ancient Israelite

Sam Brody@samuelhayimbrody.bsky.social · 2mo ago

to make this point even more clear: imagine a class called "marx and marxism." 100% certainty that any given instance of this will: 1) read primary sources and try to understand them 2) read secondary sources and ask if they have the same understanding 3) invite students to critique the material

Huw TD@huwtd.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Every. Damn. Time. It drives me up the wall. For all the conniptions over the term 'Classics', the way they use 'Ancient' is infinitely more problematic, IMO.

M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 2mo ago

Another one today on BMCR "Impaired Consciousness in Ancient Medical Texts" sounds fascinating it would be really interesting to look at cross-cultural descriptions of these mental phenomena (see: @moudhy.bsky.social), oh wait, it's only ancient Greek texts... (NB: the reviewer does point this out)

M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 6mo ago

I'm once again asking scholars of Greco-Roman antiquity not to use "Ancient World" for book titles when what they really mean is ancient Greece and Rome... Fabian Horn's recent book (reviewed on BMCR today) looks like a fascinating collection of chapters looking at Conceptual Metaphor Theory, but...

Meme based on an old Facebook UI the text reads "Marked Safe From" and then I've inserted custom content that reads "A book on the Ancient World having any chapters outside of Greece and Rome".
Will@evolvingmoloch.bsky.social · 3mo ago

This nonsense claim from this paper is making rounds on Twitter, claiming fertility & gender (in)equality correlated at .81. But the Gender Inequality Index includes adolescent fertility as part of the measure! When you rebuild the index without circular reproductive outcomes correlation cut in half

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M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 3mo ago

Brilliant work from newly minted Dr. Deloucas: political history, microhistory, quantitative work, it's all there... and all centered on the Old-Babylonian period!

Andrew A.N. Deloucas@aandeloucas.com · 3mo ago

After years of sharing the material, arguments, and effort it took to get it through defense, my dissertation is finally indexed in ProQuest, albeit under embargo! So, what does a dissertation on Bronze Age Mesopotamian cities and their economic history look like and what knowledge does it produce?

ELITE PERSISTENCE IN OLD BABYLONIAN NIPPUR & UR (2026-1700 BCE) A DISSERTATION PRESENTED BY ANDREW ALBERTO NICOLAS DELOUCAS TO THE DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN LANGUAGES AND CIVILIZATIONS IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE SUBJECT OF ASSYRIOLOGY HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS APRIL 2026
M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 4mo ago

The classic kids song Down by the Bay, popularized by Raffi, was a prescient warning of parents being taken in by AI-generated engagement slop... "my mother will say: Did you ever see a moose kissing a goose!?"

M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 4mo ago

I wrote a short piece for the most recent issue of the New Farmer's Almanac (greenhorns.org/almanacs/). The theme was "premonition". I wrote on agriculture and divination in ancient Mesopotamia... it's a gorgeous (full-color) volume and full of fascinating short pieces of fiction and non-fiction...

The cover of an issue of the New Farmer's Alamanac on a white table with a cup of coffee. The cover image is a paper cut image of an agricultural scene. The title of issue at the top of the image is "premonition".The magazine held open to an article on divination and agriculture in ancient Mesopotamia. The leading page of the article features a large photo of a proto-Cuneiform tablet.
M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 5mo ago

Less than a month after getting our solar panels hooked up to the grid we had our first negative power day ever! It was a battle against the city's heritage protection bylaws to get the solar panels installed on our victorian house, but this makes it all worth it.

A line chart showing amount of power supplied by the grid in blue and the amount of power generated by our solar panels in red. The second to last day on the chart has the red line above the blue line meaning we generated more than we used. A pinkish-red exclamation point was drawn on top of the graph at that point adding emphasis.An aerial view of our roof showing the solar array.
M. Willis Monroe@willismonroe.com · 6mo ago

While building this app I went back through all the previous versions starting with a Mellon funded reading/writing group on inequality, we used a convoluted Google sheet writing tracker back then, but a lot of those ideas were fundamental to designing the current version of the website.

A screenshot of a Google sheet writing group tracker.
@dogthr.com · 6mo ago

Some people find sharing and tracking individual goals with friends motivating. I built Dogthr.com to do just that. Create a group with friends, set weekly goals and track progress. A goal is anything you can count... words, pomodoros, kilometers run, minutes meditated, the sky's the limit...

A table of goal progress by members of a group on Dogthr.com. Each row represents one user who set a quantitative goal, each day of the week is a column and their progress is charted through the week.