A reminder:

You guys. A goose is nesting under the Spoon Bridge and Cherry. This is our Romulus and Remus moment. We already became ungovernable. Now we become myth. #Minneapolis.

The fact that every major police union endorsed Donald Trump is under appreciated in our political discourse.

Gas prices are at their highest level since the pandemic.

Inflation is surging.

Grocery prices are near record highs.

Housing costs are through the roof.

Does that sound like a golden age to you?

I, personally, am here for discovery

a close up of a man 's face with his eyes closed . Alt: a close up of a man 's face with his eyes closed .

*sigh* it always drives me a little crazy when someone makes a sweeping statement about “Faculty” (with a capital F). Hey, if you’ve met 5 faculty … you’ve met 5 faculty. The collective is fabulously heterogeneous, except for those whose goal is to construct a straw man.

an h = h + 1 day. after 8 years of being an admin puke, those are getting fewer and farther between. the flavor remains entirely pleasant, though :-) #ExProfLife

been there, done that, brought the orange slices and grapes...

well, it WAS an 80-year old woman who taught me!

a statue of a man with chinese lanterns and the number 5 Alt: a glowing metallic ox with wicked curved horns amidst red vertical bars and Chinese lanterns

Was taught how to play mah jongg last night and won my second game with seven pair. We metal oxen don't mess around...

of course, comparing the PURCHASING power of remaining funds in US vs France is also very location-dependent. but your point that France undervalues its researchers is, frankly, unassailable.

more. federal tax for a single person making $150K would be $24K (less if married). FICA is another $12K. State/local taxes vary by location, but $15K would be at high end. REQUIRED retirement savings would be unlikely to top $6K. Health care is highly variable and depends on many factors.

does help to have a major research university next door (and, of course, a lot of great small colleges) serving so many global scholars

being married to an Italian (and having naturalized myself), I was d̶r̶a̶g̶g̶e̶d̶ invited to quite the number of that festival's screenings over the years...

International Film Fest on St. Anthony Main?

well... it can depend, I suppose. at UMN, the BA ran through the College of Liberal Arts, the BS the College of Science & Engineering. Tracking the RCM budgets, arguing who paid for TAs, two pools of disconnected advisors, etc. Streamlining to a single college/degree was a pleasant daydream.

A true Leader is a Light in Dark Times.

I'm fond of the calorie, because simply to name it is to send @peonor.bsky.social on a 6-skeet-minimum tear...

maybe easier to get married?

a cat is sitting on a couch in a living room and looking out a window . Alt: a raccoon squeezing through a gapped patio door inquiring whether anyone is home

How peaceful the Lufthansa lounge is when both the pilots AND the flight attendants are on strike…

curiously, the machines mix two footages, one apparently about 1980s, I'd guess (before my building was built -- or Millennium Park, for that matter) and the other around 2010s, it appears. quite interesting to compare the differences in Wolf Point, the Riverwalk, Soldier Field, etc.!

Chicago skyline looking northeast from Buckingham Fountain

It just tickles me no end that LifeFitness running machines worldwide have a Chicagoscape run as one option. Just spent 40 min in Frankfurt literally looking at my own apartment (building to left in below pic) while running different angles through Millennium Park!

If it weren’t for Springsteen opening his latest tour in Minneapolis with so commanding a cover, it might not have been so on my mind, admittedly.

Trying to explain St Augustine to the pope, the former head of the Augustinian order, who wrote his doctoral thesis on Augustine, on his way back from celebrating mass at the Basilica of St Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, overlooking the site where Augustine lived is peak Adult Catholic Convert.

Thucydides, 2026

😂
Whole lotta skeptics gonna be singing the next line from Edwin Starr's greatest hit.

(Not that I'm one of them, of course!)

Ah, all sympathies for Syverud and his family. May they find strength on their journey.

Meanwhile, Michigan ... what god did you so terribly offend??

Listen, I'm not a good Catholic. I'm not even a fair Catholic. And I acknowledge the entirety of the awful history that can be laid at the feet of Catholicism.

But I may never have been prouder to have emerged from a Catholic heritage.

OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit

Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here

Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse

Media and universities: AI is here to stay