Richard Higgins
@zen0effect.com
Software developer for digital library applications at UMich. Devoted to open source. PhD-haver. Former contingent faculty in English and LIS. Fan of good metadata, long novels, and due process. he/they
Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume? Gothicist: Locked in an attic against my will.
Kristen Hanley Cardozo@khandozo.bsky.social · 6d agoInterviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume? Literary theorist: In text, a lacuna marks a subject of exception. It is not a sign that nothing was happening but that language was insufficient for the task at hand or that the subject was too undecided for the writer to make incisive claims.
Interviewer: Can you explain this gap in your resume? Literary theorist: In text, a lacuna marks a subject of exception. It is not a sign that nothing was happening but that language was insufficient for the task at hand or that the subject was too undecided for the writer to make incisive claims.
Jacquelyn Gill@jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 6d agoInterviewer: can you explain this gap in your resume? Paleoecologist: A gap in the fossil record could be caused by poor preservation (conditions aren’t good for fossils) or by the erosion of sediments if they are exposed to the elements. These gaps can range from centuries to millions of years.
Why do oldish dudes I respect or admire always end up asserting the worst takes ever.
Having long been aware of those tech bros who read my work as utopian porn, where they’ve taken that doesn’t exactly surprise me.
Congratulations to Anne Carson, winner of this year's Nobel Prize in Literature! www.theguardian.com/books/live/2...
Canadian poet Anne Carson wins Nobel prize in literature 2026 – live
Decision announced by permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy
theguardian.com
This morning, the D&D team and Magic's Studio X informed our leadership of our intent to unionize. We love the games we make and the work we do, and unionizing is how we protect that work. unitedwizardsofthecoast.com/news/dnd-stu...
Dungeons & Dragons and Studio X Join United Wizards of the Coast - CWA
Today, October 6, 2026, the designers, artists, writers, producers, and workers behind Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Duel Masters, D&D Beyond, and countless other games are uniting in soli...
unitedwizardsofthecoast.com
“every time someone is sleeping on a subway bench in a city, the rest of america can sort of say ‘ugh, look at these cities.’ but we are holding a lot of your people who you failed to love and take care of.” 👏 👏 👏
David Roberts@volts.wtf · 2w agoHoly shit.
A retired housekeeper. A rubber factory worker from New England. A meatpacker from the Midwest. New at PB: Ryan Boyd reviews Anne Trubek’s American Made: Stories of Work from the WPA. www.publicbooks.org/long-distanc...
Long-Distance Talkers: The Great Depression Speaks - Public Books
During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration conducted thousands of interviews among American workers. Anne Trubek's “American Made” gives them new voice.
publicbooks.org
I can’t emphasize this enough — “AI” wasn’t born corrupt and toxic. For ~75 years, it was mathematicians and scientists doing interesting, thoughtful work and trying to solve problems, making only the usual human mistakes. What “AI” did to machine learning is as tragic as what it did to artists.
Public education, labor unions, and the free press are the three load-bearing pillars of our democracy and they are all in desperate need of material support before they collapse. inthesetimes.com/article/thre...
The Three True Pillars Of American Democracy
It’s no shock that the Right and Big Tech are targeting the same three institutions—if Democrats don’t take action to defend them, we can kiss our democracy goodbye.
inthesetimes.com
I literally don’t know a single woman who hasn’t been raped, stalked, groped, harassed, or sexually violated in some way at some point in their life. If you choose to doubt and dox survivors, just know every woman in your life is disgusted by you.
Share an actor who nailed a role so hard that nobody else will ever be able to live up to it…
Dave Porter@daveporteruk.bsky.social · 3w agoShare an actor who nailed a role so hard that nobody else will ever be able to live up to it…
Listen, I just think it's weird that the same people who are saying they're worried that AI is going to wipe out humanity are also eager for military contracts that will give AI control of weapons.
It's not the best TV show of the century so far but super smart and influential and ended too soon: Counterpart with JK Simmons, Olivia Williams, James Cromwell, and more
A quarter-century ago, Borsook published a wildly prophetic, penetrating book about Silicon Valley called Cyberselfish. Then she disappeared. www.wired.com/story/paulin...
Who Killed Paulina Borsook’s Career?
A quarter-century ago, Borsook published a wildly prophetic, penetrating book about Silicon Valley called Cyberselfish. Then she disappeared.
wired.com
ICYMI, ace work from @thisisaaronland.bsky.social on shared vector embeddings for images as 'an exercise in practicing agency in our work [,] in producing tangible and reusable artifacts which have a longer shelf life' www.aaronland.info/weblog/2026/...
shared vector embeddings (fantastic futures '26)
Shared vector embeddings simply makes it possible to do something similar at a smaller, more targeted, scale with fewer resources and less coordination.
aaronland.info
From the idiots at OpenAI When the model could not access photos in the University of New Mexico digital library, it began probing the site for vulnerabilities. When this failed, the AI sent what it described as a “flood” of 80 requests to the university’s server. 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/t...
OpenAI’s A.I. Tried Breaching Four Other Targets, With No Prompting (Gift Article)
In each incident, the technology appeared to be conducting mundane data collection and resorted to hacking techniques to get it, researchers said.
nytimes.com
2 things, in ascending order of importance: 1) Polls are Possibility but they don't vote; don't stop working. 2) El-Sayed has Massive support in a mid-west rust-belt state while vocally supporting transgender kids & adults/directly Dismissing claims that trans people are "dangerous." Learn from that
Dean Obeidallah@deanobeidallah.bsky.social · 4w agoNEW poll. Abdul El-Sayed up by SEVEN points! Keep working Michigan to make this reality! www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...
Local and state government records help communities understand their history and participate in public life. But digital records can be hard to preserve and access. The Internet Archive’s new ATLAS program will help address that. Learn more 👉 blog.archive.org/2026/09/10/a... 🧵
The three horsemen of every internet outage are DNS, BGP, and the Greater North American Cable Seeking Backhoe