the penne opticon

Remains my most controversial take, but sometimes you do need to just go to bed at 7:30PM.

Palantir is its own agnotology machine. Do not engage with their discourse, which throws spaghetti at the wall of media: every strand introduces a new kind of doubt. You try to consume & debate it but in the end all you are is tangled in spaghetti and covered with marinara.

If you kill your wife, you don't get to be a husband anymore Some lessons from the media coverage of Dr. Cerina Fairfax and Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer's murders.

My latest.

I’ve been watching the media coverage of the murders of Dr. Cerina Fairfax and Vice Mayor Nancy Metayer.

One way media can fight back against male violence:

If you kill your wife, you don’t get to be called a “husband” any more.

You’re her killer.

open.substack.com/pub/karenatt...

I will never, ever, ever use AI in my writing. From idea to the finished piece, it’s all human. I do not see the point otherwise.

Why Yale’s term paper on what’s wrong with college gets a ‘D-’ | Will Bunch An Ivy League university's report on the loss of faith in higher ed ignores what really killed the American Dream of college.

That Yale report on what's wrong with U.S. college saw some trees (high cost, unfair admission, etc.) but missed the forest: the 60-year right-wing crusade to undermine higher ed, from slashing budgets to stifling speech

How to really fix college. My new column www.inquirer.com/opinion/yale...

Google Starts Scanning All Your Photos As New Update Goes Live Google wants its AI to see all the photos of "you and your loved ones." Billions of users must now decide.

“Take a moment to think before you dive in. That’s the best advice for Google Photos users, as the company confirms its latest update can scan all your photos to “use actual images of you and your loved ones” in AI image generation.”

www.forbes.com/sites/zakdof...

I wonder if rampant AI use is going to change language patterns, in that people will start writing differently to look less like AI. Lots of phrases and writing habits (like the use of the em dash) are being re-coded as AI signifiers. You can pry my em dashes out of my cold, dead hands, but...

The author of this article refused to sign an NDA, giving up severance and healthcare benefits to tell this story.

If you didn't read it already, read it.

Because he refused, we may be able to stop the Kennedy Center from being sold for parts and turned into a gaudy MAGA fundraising warehouse.

The College Affordability Crisis is Real, but the Media is Looking at the Wrong Schools Sturges Hall (Photo by Keith Walters ’11) Opinion By Costas Solomou, Vice President, Enrollment Management Published by the Office of Enrollment Management When Yale University released its Committee ...

"the colleges that dominate the headlines are not the colleges that most Americans attend

their core mission: to serve students from all backgrounds, at a price families can actually afford, prepare graduates for real careers and meaningful lives."

www.geneseo.edu/enrollment-m...

The Conversation Us Inc - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from millions of nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as...

In 2024 The Conversation had 8.3M in revenue and 7.8M in expenses and paid $0 to writers. Is that really ok with you?

projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/o...

Attempts have thus far proved unsuccessful.

Scurvy, ahoy!

Also, as I've said before, the faculty at large community colleges could totally do the jobs that faculty at Yale do, and a lot of faculty at ivies could not do our jobs for a single semester.

Anyone who teaches more than a 2/2 and manages to publish a book (often with little or no research funding) should get alllllll the awards.

I want a "conference" where every academic cooks a dish for everyone and we all talk about our work casually while cooking. People can sous chef for each other. We eat and talk about our work in progress. You submit an abstract and a recipe.

Many faculty at places like Yale, especially ones who like to pontificate about the state of higher ed, have never stepped foot on a non-fancy small liberal arts campus, a state school, or a community college. Which is the majority of higher ed.

So what are our tricks for forcing ourselves to grade when 1) we don't wanna and 2) there are big distractions, of both the doomscrolling and fun varieties?

Happy Tax Day, New York. We’re taxing the rich.

Past Courtney is a Forever Asshole, but also we need to stop having everything due for everything at the end of the semester.

Book reviews should be done minimally, TBH. I say this as a former Book Review Editor.

Do you ever look at your calendar and realize that you made several mistakes a few months ago.

100%. I was in the trenches! I was a fucking altar girl!

As a (lapsed) cradle Catholic, I do not love the re-branding of Catholicism = Good in light of Vance's nonsense. It's not dissimilar to the recent TSA = Good spin when ICE was sent to airports.

I like the new Pope well enough, but the enemy of my enemy is not really my friend. Bad is a spectrum.

Tulip bulbs. Just replace "AI" with "tulip bulbs" and that will tell you where we are.

TurboTax and H&R Block spent $7 million lobbying the Trump administration to kill Direct File.

Both companies donated to Trump's 2024 campaign and inauguration committees.

More higher ed discourse like this please

Ahhhh! Thank you!

P.S. loved you on Pottery Throw Down, chuffed that you responded. 😊

I love these so much, and I've always wondered: how on earth do you package these so they ship without breaking??

I suspect deep inside the brain of most scholars is the memory of the moment when they first discovered the thing that sucked them into their field, of who they were in that moment. We ought to try to keep in touch with it.