This discussion was a damn delight. And I’m gonna make my (non-academic, non-tech) book group read this soon.

Feels like the kind of detail a journalist could check. Rather than basically reprinting the press releases. But what do I know?

IF YOU BUILD A BIKE LANE THAT DOESN'T CONNECT TO ANOTHER BIKE LANE THEN YOU DIDN'T BUILD A BIKE LANE

Tomorrow!

god forbid I try to use something other than enterprise software bloated w/unwanted AI additions

Last time I emailed someone availability, Outlook kept trying to add "on Friday" behind each typed time. "I can meet on Monday btwn 2-4 pm" does not need "on Friday" added to the end. Worse than Clippy.

This is fine dot gif.

Haha. just kidding. apparently I'm not ALLOWED to use Thunderbird without some sort of admin approval related to my organizational email (not my computer)

So I guess I'll just continue to feed my content into MS and fight their inane autocomplete and manually turn CoPilot off every few days/weeks.

I am about to switch from Outlook (where there are some built in functionalities to other softwares and systems) to Thunderbird for my university email stuff simply because CoPilot keeps turning itself on.

No means NO, Microsoft.

Give every repentant Trump supporter a My Name is Earl todo list and maybe we've got something.

I watched someone older than me try to explain how letters in phone numbers works to someone much younger than me this weekend.

504-52-WATER doesn’t make sense if you grew up with “click the link that makes your phone dial,” I guess.

Plans for huge expansion of Meta data center advanced by Louisiana electricity regulators This new generation would come on top of three gas power plants that Entergy is already building for Meta's $27 billion data center.

I remember blocking someone here because they quoted my woodfire post and talked about how we need to stop doing little hobbies because of their carbon footprint, meanwhile Meta is getting approval from my state to build 10 gas power plants for one useless data center
www.nola.com/news/environ...

“The result of Friday's ruling in Chevron USA Inc. v. Plaquemines Parish is that the $745 million verdict in a 2025 state-court trial may be thrown out and the case retried in federal court. It also sets off what could be years of new jurisdictional fighting over where the other cases belong.”

‘The rain was black’: A plant explosion set off a toxic bomb in this Louisiana town “These people that say, ‘It was an accident, move on,’ they don't have to worry about what the contamination is going to do to their health long term... I can't afford to just go move.”

‘The rain was black’: A plant explosion set off a toxic bomb in this Louisiana town

I speak w/ residents of Roseland, LA, about the nightmare they’ve been living in ever since the massive explosion & chemical fire at Smitty’s Supply in their backyard
@therealnews.com
therealnews.com/the-rain-was...

That sound you hear are historians of science, gender, STS etc collectively banging their heads against the nearest hard surface until sweet sweet oblivion

Why Black People Can’t Earn Our Way Out of Racism in Maternal Care: A Q&A With Khiara Bridges In her new book, Bridges found that healthcare provided through private markets leaves more room for discrimination and unequal care to take root than in a public program like Medicaid.

The result of two years of investigation, "Expecting Inequity" exposes structural inequities within the healthcare system that are inescapable no matter your income or wealth.

This would rake in some cash for New Orleans as well, we have plenty of usually empty vacation homes that should be taxed more.

What would it look like for hiring + promotion/tenure to explicitly value (and signal that they value) components of academic work that are NOT publishing papers?

We welcome applicants who engage in public scholarship
who create software and artifacts
who have strong editorial experience
... etc.

Nearly 1 in 4 people seeking abortions out of state chose Illinois. Here’s why. • Stateline A recent report found that 1 in 4 people traveling to another state for an abortion end up in Illinois, where state officials have invested millions to create a strong financial and logistical support...

New from me today: Illinois is the destination for nearly 1 in 4 people traveling to another state for abortion care.

That’s partly because of its geography, but Illinois also put in place new policies — along with millions of dollars — to welcome patients who aren’t their residents.

We don’t usually root for the Dawgs but Vance is taking yet another L in Georgia and we are here for it

“But why would you drink with him if you thought he was a creep?” Because creepy men are still powerful people in their fields. Because they are still the professional & social contacts we are forced to maintain. Because the same people tell us we’re crazy for thinking a man is creepy to begin with.

Also semi-jealous & wanting to one day be a long term friend of the pod. It’s fine. Love hearing people I’ve met talk about these things and also recognize ANTHROPOLOGY as a discipline that helps us understand the world (sorry sociology, economics, etc…yall get your public appreciation already)

Started listening to this episode and then realized that I need to listen to it as I go for a long-ish run later this week. So my true engagement is TBD, but I love @hborenstein.bsky.social ‘s writing on this topic and am excited to have her in my headphones and talking about her research soon.

Excellent new special Issue on the challenges raised by the ancient DNA of kinship

Special Issue: Kinship Trouble: Traversing Interdisciplinary Boundaries between Archaeology, Archaeogenetics and Socio-cultural Anthropology

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Also the NSF peeps are dissolving SBE from the proposed presidential budget before it even becomes a reality and I’m feeling very 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕about people reaching a hand back to help folks vs. pulling up the ladder.

Honestly until someone responds to inquiries about why the grad student I mentor had hers returned without review, I’m gonna need some more details about who and what are being funded than this article provides.

I want this for the Mississippi River.

It’s a big ask and a lot of work, but people should be able to safely enjoy the Lower Mississippi. We could do more than build chemical factories and refineries and just shove freight up and down it.

This weekend I gave a presentation to a group of mostly college-aged folks and had a little line at the beginning of my slides that described it as an "AI-free presentation made by a human, for humans" and I had to pause for clapping at that part

you love to see it

When I was a child, the teacher sat me next to the disruptive boy in 3rd? grade. Until one day he wouldn't get off my desk (sprawled on it). I poked him with my pencil and he slapped my face during class.

I don't remember what happened after that, but I don't think I had to sit next to him anymore.

Now, you might say, "What about all the knowledge we'd lose if we push all the abusive geniuses out of academia?!"

But I'd counter and say, "Well, what about the knowledge we've already lost from the budding scholars whose careers they've derailed with their abuse?"

So much of "gifted kid burnout" is due to students who did fine with easier material now struggling because that didn't adequately teach them soft skills like studying and time management.

Setting/keeping a strict deadline isn't often enough to teach students these skills. We must actually teach.