The definition of a blessed life is different for different people. To me, it is being 41yo and being able to call my 95yo Nana for a wide-ranging conversation a couple of days before the semester begins.
Medievalist. Asst. Prof. of English at MUN, Grenfell. Articles on final -e, the Pearl-poet, and monkish burps. Wm Beauchamp fanboy. Cursed by Artemis. (he/him/his) bswbarootes.com
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The definition of a blessed life is different for different people. To me, it is being 41yo and being able to call my 95yo Nana for a wide-ranging conversation a couple of days before the semester begins.
interesting that only toward the end do they point out how much of this channel is actually produced by human labor; leaning into the "AI-ness" is part of the appeal (might also have been nice if they'd talked to biblical studies folks at secular universities)
I hope i look this good at 103!
A very happy 103rd birthday to my great-uncle, Frank Kime! He was the (top-secret) surprise guest at my Nana's 95th birthday in August and was in fine form. Too bad I didn't smuggle in some rum for him!
I think students should be taught *about* chatbots and generative systems in the same way they should be taught about quackery, anti-vaxxers, pseudoscience, snake-oil and charlatans: confident wrongness is a threat to their safety and they should learn how to spot and counter it
Tlingit artist Nicholas Galanin, “Architecture of return, escape (The British Museum)”, a deerskin map a floor plan of the British Museum and possible escape routes for various Indigenous cultural belongings held there.
Don’t let them get away with scapegoating newcomers
Holy fuck.
Philology is protean back to its first coining as a word. It combines with other methodologies and knowledges to respond to different needs and interpretive goals
Remember this. The Nazis were defeated by geologists and car mechanics and school teachers and milkmen. Ordinary people from all over the world who risked their own lives to put the fascists in the ground where they belong.
Is that like a blowfish?
Oppenheimer is very recent. You could watch that to not make this mistake. Wikipedia is free. Come on.
Up next on the main stage
Ride the train!
a beaver is mathematically exactly halfway between an otter and a capybara
When Carney was elected it was clear so many areas that required major investment, in the name of national protection and nation building: military, housing (public housing specifically), tariff supports, infrastructure (towards econonmic diversification), health care, but hugely, *education*
On the one hand, good, and I sure hope that I get my money owed, and that we all do. On the other hand, if anyone had actually, you know, ASKED ME whether they could use any of my books in this way, I would not have said "yes you can do it for $3,000." You know, for the record.
The Faculty of Arts at UWaterloo is pushing through a 'reorganization' plan that will - administratively, at least - collapse a number of its departments into 'schools'. Problems abound with both the process and the plan. A long thread... 1/n
I guess a lot of academics (and others) are about to learn what it feels like to be paid for their writing? www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/t...
But wait, I thought...
Toronto Liberal MP calls for sanctions on Israel. He will sure catch hell for this, as anybody in Canada's establishment who speaks up does, but good for him.
"¡Atención!" (Attention) Beowulf: Versión completa, 2004 Roberto Rosaspini Reynolds 🇦🇷
The timeline was blessed this morning. @effinbirds.com
Liberals to Canola industry (total export value: $7.7 billion): take $370 million, please! Liberals to Post-Secondary Education (total export value $11B from tuition, more if you count foreign student spending in Canada): drop dead. What kind of economy are we building, again?
The provinces more than the feds. Some provinces more than others
I hand-type all of my citations. You should too.
But sign the back first
"This is not state neutrality on religion but enforced irreligion"... Thank you! You put into words what I've been trying to express!
It can be two things
Oh, the good people at Bennett & Kerr have been holding books for me as I've been anticipating these funds.
That song always gets me.
“Julie King-Yerex, co-owner of Magpie Books in Edmonton, said people have come into the shop ‘asking for our vicious compliance section.’ “ (By CP’s Aaron Souza) #Ableg #AbEd
My reward for sitting through the somewhat depressing faculty meeting about the budget is an email announcing I've received an AVP Special Research Grant in order to buy a whole bunch of Lollard-related books!
Everyone leaning towards Reform should watch this. And this is the way Labour should deal with Farage
Brad Wall, when he wasn’t cheating nuns out of real estate deals or laughing at John Gormley’s rape jokes, was a petty little man who hated Saskatchewan. leaderpost.com/news/local-n...
I can't decide which is worse: either our government doesn't understand that these guys are Nazis, or they think it's a good idea to invite Nazis to their cabinet retreat.
HAHAHAHA UHHHH WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK??????
So PM @mark-carney.bsky.social thought it would be a good idea to invite a leading American Christo-Fascist activist & Project 2025 architect of the current regime for a chat with cabinet. You know, to hear his perspective. Maybe pick up some tips? Are you fucking joking? www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
On that note, here's a great thread by @emmettmacfarlane.com on PM Trudeau and vax mandates...
Thou coulst go for that
I often think about this letter to the New Statesman. It's from a 1960s Tory, and neatly summarises how British politics has shifted massively to the right, and taken Starmer's Labour party with it. #PoliticsLive
once again tapping the sign
"I became a hater by doing precisely those things AI cannot do: reading and understanding human language; thinking and reasoning about ideas; considering the meaning of my words and their context"
📝
Pretty sure Queen's is a Roofie Colada...
My main professional organization, @medievalacademy.bsky.social, has just pub'd a statement about the use of AI in its journal. Basically, DON'T! "AI tools cannot take ethical or legal responsibility for their output or enter into legal agreements." www.medievalacademy.org/page/AIPolicy #MedievalSky
Psalm 108:8-17 8 May his days be few; may another take his places of leadership. 9 May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow. 10 May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.
starmer is doing all the anti-immigrant and anti-trans "popularism" stuff the centrists are demanding US dems do and this is the predictable result:
My wife asked if Muslim pirates really used to enslave Europeans and I'm like errr...yes, but *extra large grimace face emoji* if you're reading about it on these here internets there's no way that person is making a legitimate good faith argument!!
I saw a wonderful talk on St Frideswide at the All Souls History Seminar in June delivered by Andrew Dunning
A day of papers to mark the 500th anniversary of the foundation of 'Cardinal College' College on Oxford: 4 October 10-5 with @dunning.bsky.social @drdavidrundle.bsky.social Sarah Foot, Mishtooni Bose among others. www.chch.ox.ac.uk/events/saint...
Happy Labor Day 🙂
34. Greek Linguistics needs a Rule 34 of its own. The stuff this language has seen and been used for...
Whoa. WHOA.
I takes me spinach creamed not chopped
Also, c. 1200, Marie de France, writing in Anglo-Norman French, claims to be translating Breton lais. However, in a number of instances, there are no known sources.
Sir Orfeo (14th c, Middle English) claims to be retelling a Breton lay (speaks of the Breton harpers singing of the ancient king), but of course it's retelling the Orpheus and Eurydice story—but with fairies.
This is an excellent thread that highlights why I have no patience for the idea that generative AI has any place in academia. Academic work relies on community. These communities are shaped in part by randomness - e.g. chance encounters, or new hires at the work place. (1/n)
EXACTLY what I was thinking
Arthur Bahr's new book, Chasing the Pearl-Manuscript, has a great chapter in it, "In Praise of Speculation."
OK, hear me out. A Lord of the Rings re-make, but with these two taking the One Ring to Mordor:
Yes, that's how it's going here for me. Our process doesn't start until next month, however, so I didn't know if your letter was perhaps one intended for in-file or what. Thanks.
Here's my Lord of the Rings remake pitch with these two taking the One Ring to Mordor:
I'm curious: were you approached for the letter by the tenure applicant or does the Dean reach out to you?
Coming up on three months, but I still miss her every day.
What on earth is a 'stone age mind'? Such a ridiculous trope from evolutionary psychology (Pinker, I think) with no understanding of the complexity of the human past. Whether AD 2025 or 2025 BC, all human brains have the same capability to be flexible, adaptable, and are constantly being remade.
sometimes when I'm facing a setback at work, I think about this interview Nicki Minaj did with a radio station where she talked about her time as a waitress at Red Lobster: "...I got fired from, like, five different Red Lobsters....+
Incidentally, "Red Lobster" is what a number of my haters used to call me
More evidence for my folder titled "AI shilling is a direct outcome of pseudo evobio nonsense." Eugenics squared!
I want to explain a few things and then it might be clearer why UK trans people are upset. In 2001 I married my wife, Sylvia. In 2005 I started medical transition. (1/13)
Roy Cohn was dead: to begin with.
It would cost 1 new submarine to build every single one of these people a home.
Allan Metcalf and A. Kent Hieatt covered us 45 years ago
My students, who attend a working-class rust-belt college, openly talk abt how much they hate AI & are afraid of its consequences. I wonder how much of the oft-reported student enthusiasm for the tech is the merely result of the NYT’s Ivy League bias
All scholars of SGGK are already quite well aware....
It's okay: I'm sure I'll find a giant-forged sword, that eald enta geweorc, somewhere
Don't even need to read it to say Swamp Angel > Stone Angel
I will mention this when we get to Beowulf in Survey this term, which will be almost exactly when the P&T Committee gets my file....
FALL OF MAN (Anagram-Snowball) A., as sad, said ideas raised despair. Paradise, appraised, disappears.
Also, since it's an MHRA journal a few hundred words get eaten up with p. and pp. and (p. X). Compiler's nightmare.
Aye. My paper came in a bit under 17k, so if the reviewers want something (e.g., a considerable section on the Feast of the Circumcision I cut), there's wiggle room.
« ChatGPT, please, turn this book written in 1932 into data. »
Scientists are so fucking dumb sometimes
"Voilà" Le poème anglo-saxon de Beowulf, 1912 Hubert Pierquin 🇫🇷
Retired Physicists Explain the Humanities to Me by Rebecca Solnit
Score another one for the minister of digital asbestos.
Senior white male AI researcher "designs" a computer program to simulate a young Black woman. That will answer student's questions and debate with students (all TA roles) but won't be a TA. Right. Tell me you don't understand the social implications of this tech without etc etc
I just submitted an article today, so I feel you both. Thankfully, this journal accepts papers up to 20k words!
Asked about Ayn Rand being included on the EPSB list of books that would violate the age-appropriate rules by the province, Premier Smith suggests Ayn Rand should be mandatory reading in schools.
We built a calculator that doesn't work, but don't worry, it's also a plagiarism machine that will tell you to kill yourself. It runs on the world's oceans and costs 10 trillion dollars.
Because you start with scapegoating international students - and you end up here, with people at a government rally in Lloydminster baying for the mass deportation of new Canadians. Let’s stop being mealy-mouthed. This is disgusting. It’s unCanadian. It’s unAlbertan. It’s unacceptable. #AlbertaNext
Hello everyone. Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax has a tenure-track job in Enlightenment rhetoric and / or 18th-century literature. Tell everyone. www.msvu.ca/about-msvu/c...
It’s going to be so satisfying when Taylor swift bankrupts Mark Zuckerberg
Such an idiosyncratic (as well as idiotic) list. Two books by Jean M. Auel, but later in the series: Clan of the Cave Bear notably absent. Also, based on the kind of fantasy (or sex in fantasy etc) that whomever compiled the list is against, Donaldson's Lord Foul's Bane should definitely be here.
Not quite enough, or the right, kool-aid, alas...
Gawain and the Five Wounds paper done--on the feast of the decollation of John the Baptist, nicely enough. 16,707 words (only 7,719 of which are in footnotes...) 105 footnotes--at least three of which are pure thanks. This has taken FOR. EVER.
I'd take your advice more seriously if you didn't look like you're about to be beaten to within an inch of your life by the Batman.
This incidentally works for any Ezra Pound book