I am. Very aware.

a man with a scarf around his neck is featured in a hulu ad ALT: a man with a scarf around his neck is featured in a hulu ad

You actually wrote this all for me!

a man in a tie is screaming and saying `` omg ! thank you ! '' in a kitchen . ALT: a man in a tie is screaming and saying `` omg ! thank you ! '' in a kitchen .

When you get your first paper set from a new class and they are filled with awkward sentence constructions, sloppy quote integrations, ham-fisted transitions, and homonymic language errors.

Mark Twain, my favorite novelist, John Maynard Keynes, my favorite theorist, and Prince, my favorite musician, all died on April 21st.

Stay frosty today, Barry Bonds, Wes Anderson, and Courtney Cox.

It’s more handbook for writing than for teaching writing. But it’s very helpful.

iT’s jUSt a ToOL

Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs thesis is aging quite well.

Is that a screenshot from Polar Express?!?

Recount (Bush/Gore), Game Change (Palin), Paterno (Sandusky scandal), Wizard Of Lies (Madoff), Late Shift (Leno/Letterman)

What’s your favorite HBO Original Films “ripped from the headlines” docudrama?

I think mine is probably Brexit: An Uncivil War, but I’ve probably only seen like 15% of the movies in the subgenre.

They’re everywhere.

Worth reading. I don't agree with everything here, but I do think a lot of it is thought-provoking, esp. this: "You cannot build a lasting institution focused on human development in a system that primarily rewards credentials and career advancement."

My brief contribution is about Substack. Many thanks to the incredible team at The Drift.

The Secret History of Canvas LMS, Corporate Raiders, & The Chatbot Bubble (Vandal Live at UVU) Podcast Episode · The American Vandal · S12 E7 · 1h 52m

“Canvas is a matrix of vulnerabilities for campus systems.”

🙏

The Secret History of Canvas LMS, Corporate Raiders, & The Chatbot Bubble (Vandal Live at UVU) Listen now (112 mins) | with Christa Albrecht-Crane, Angie McKinnon Carter, and Chiler Moore

Absolutely required listening. What an account of institutional capture by @mattseybold.bsky.social

The Hampshire model is irreconcilable with the preferred future of fund managers, EdTech entrepreneurs, neoliberal administrators, & reactionary reformers, in which HigherEd is a giant surveillance & indoctrination network you submit to in order to earn the right to live into adulthood.

John is absolutely right to see the “infinite patience” for Khan’s failed EdTech creative destruction & the closure of Hampshire as linked.

EdTech has always been dependent on using grades as the foundation for A/B testing, behavioral modification (which they pretend is learning), & tokenization.

It’s not you, it’s my arbitrarily derived calculation of the benefit harming you will have for countless generations.

“Futurist” is the gentle way to tell you neighbors & colleagues you don’t care whether they live or die.

Karp’s book is a crucial document for understanding how Silicon Valley contorts itself to sustain its illusion of altruism against all evidence to the contrary.

But I concur with Karpf (& Habermas): Alex Karp is a nitwit. I’m not at all worried about him being right.

Of course.

As much as we lit profs like to use words like “anticipates” & “prophetic,” I think we need to say very plainly to AGI boosters & doomers alike: Fiction, even Science Fiction, has never predicted the future.

For 3227 years or so reality has been pitching a no-hitter & every fiction has struck out.

FWIW, I got these from Alberto Romero of The Algorithmic Bridge

I’m as worried about Cognitive Hubris as Cognitive Surrender. One of the things which the perpetual struggle to find, sort, & verify information does is keep you keenly aware of the horizons of your own intelligence.

This variety of apathy maybe doesn’t need amplification.

Graph made by Alberto Romero of Algorithmic Bridge.