iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by John Warner

Rare you get live visuals of state capture.

John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 1h

Pleased to report that I put my money where my mouth is on insisting that reviewers be credited by name in pull quotes on books by making sure Joseph Epstein and @lollardfish.bsky.social got their flowers in the paperback edition of More Than Words. www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/john-...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 1h

I replied to the scammer saying how excited I was and that I wanted to set up a Zoom so we could talk. This was the reply. This account is using a real agent's name and picture.

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 23h

I recommend people read this to get a sense of the president's grave cognitive impairment. Trump is either unwilling or unable (or maybe both) to answer the questions he's actually asked, so he just rants and raves while the interviewers do their best to provide structure to his random brain firings

time.com

Read TIME’s ‘What Trump Has Built’ Interview Transcript

The U.S. President discussed the war in Iran, press freedom, AI, and more ahead of the midterm elections.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 23h

It would not shock me if they've derived some scheme where they want to make it easier to steal passports. This would actually be less dumb than their stated rationale.

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Roberto Rey Agudo @robertoreyagudo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Super excited to bring @lollardfish.bsky.social to Dartmouth for a talk and a workshop on public scholarship! More info and registration here: leslie.dartmouth.edu/news/2026/09... Sponsored by Dartmouth's Leslie Center for the Humaniites and Dartmouth Dialogues.

Poster for a talk by David Perry, including QR code to register; title (Making Public Scholarship Count); date, time, and location (Monday October 5, 2026, 5-6:30pm, Dartmouth Hall 105); and bio ("For over a decade, David M. Perry has been helping academics craft timely, compelling opinion pieces that translate research into public discourse and build author platforms. A columnist at The Minnesota Star Tribune, he has just published (bold, cursive) The Public Scholar: A Practical Handbook (end bold, cursive), (Johns Hopkins University Press), in which he's collected his years of experience, experiments, mistakes, and triumphs in order to provide a guideto everyone who wants to bring their expertise to bigger audiences.") Sponsored by the Leslie Center for the Humanities and Dartmouth Dialogues. Picture of author (white middle-aged man sporting a beard, wearing a hat and a white scarf, black blazer and light blue shirt against a winter tree landscape).

Poster for a workshop with David Perry, including QR code to register; title (Workshop: Making Public Scholarship Count); date, time, and location (Tuesday October 6, 2026, 2-5pm, Irving Institute Room 375); and workshop description: This an active learning workshop. Bring one or more ideas for a public-facing writing project that you might like to try. It doesn't have to bedirectly connected to your academic discipline or field. David will present for about half the time and try to answer all your questions--including about counting this work for tenure and promotion, dealing with the good and bad of social media, and how to fit this kind of work into an academic career--and then you'll do some writing on your own. Sponsored by the Leslie Center for the Humanities and Dartmouth Dialogues. Picture of author (white middle-aged man sporting a beard, wearing a hat and a white scarf, black blazer and light blue shirt against a winter tree landscape).

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Reposted by John Warner

Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

FIRE could go a long way to convince people that it’s a good faith organization by radically altering or better yet eliminating its rankings

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The boldness of the AI author scams has increased with outright impersonation of real agents/agencies. I got two this morning. This must cross a line in terms of legality from even the solicitation stage, but I'm also aware that it would be very tough to find and punish the perpetrators.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This would disqualify Darline Graham from voting for herself for the open senate seat in South Carolina. www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtPk...

youtube.com

Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC): "National security is not my thing, not my area of expertise."

YouTube video by C-SPAN

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Where's Waldo-style challenge. Try to find the Teach For America 35th Anniversary summit speaker who is still a teacher. (Note: Peloton instructor does not count.) www.events.teachforamerica.org/35years/page...

events.teachforamerica.org

Speakers for Teach For America's 35th Anniversary Summit

Hear from 'Insecure' actor Jay Ellis, Peloton instructor and ESPN reporter Jess Sims, Campaign Zero Executive Director Deray McKesson, and many more on education topics and beyond.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Hear! Hear! I read the Times. I'm glad the Times exists. If the Times were an object, I'd sometimes want to throw it out the window, but this impulse would be less strong or frequent if we had alternatives to the Times that mattered as much as the Times.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This is a tremendous piece of writing and you could substitute the name of hundreds of institutions in the argument. Let's have the deep conversation about what these institutions are supposed to do, and who they're meant to serve. (Hint: everybody.)

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Drew Lewis @drew-lewis.com · 30/09/2026

I think administrators cowing to media pressure hurts the reputation of a university much more than piloting a long overdue and quite modest change to grading practices.

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Jeffrey Austin @jaustinedu.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

There were members of the University's dysfunctional, regressive Board of Regents that were committed to killing this initiative from the outset. This BoR is only committed to their own personal agendas and is actively hostile to students, staff, professors, alumni, and the broader community.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I've been traveling today, but I understand we've been talking about to do lists and meal prep services and in More Than Words, I just so happen to use meal prep services as an example of how something that seems like it could be useful, doesn't help us build capacity in the long run.

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Johanna Winant @johannawinant.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

missing from this argument is the fact that Williams is an extraordinarily rich college with students who are overall very well-prepared for college—essentially none of this is generalizable even to a flagship university, much less any other higher education institution

nytimes.com

Opinion | I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think. (Gift Article)

If I do not treat writing as essential for achieving thought, it is not clear why I should force my students to.

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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

FIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL'S BOOT CAMP Just over a week ago, 73 Alpha School high school students were left almost entirely unsupervised for three days in the Texas wilderness. It was a Fyre Festival-like disaster. buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com/p/fifth-repo...

buildcognitiveresonance.substack.com

FIFTH REPORT: CHILDREN HARMED AT ALPHA SCHOOL’S BOOT CAMP

Student hospitalized during Survival Challenge on wilderness ranch; police investigation is ongoing; other concerning incidents re student safety and privacy; one guide fired; also Little B. Diddies

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Alfie Kohn @alfiekohn.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Taking a walk outside entails a fair amount of effort, so I've decided to optimize my enjoyment of nature by dispatching a robot to walk for me and present me with a summary of the weather, the terrain, and a list of which flowers are in bloom

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

To my mind, it’s all about optimizing v. experiencing. The optimizers firmly believe that they can improve or even perfect life processes. Experiencers don’t see life this way. Culture pushes us towards optimization, but this is just not consistent with how we act or what makes us happy.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

You have got to be fucking kidding me. Never, not in a gazillion billion million years. You already stole everything I've ever published. Now you want access to my bank accounts?

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

If you're anywhere near Keene, NH, tomorrow, I'm giving a public lecture as part of Keene State's Sidore Lecture series o how we can and should retain our humanity in a world with AI. 6:30pm. Come say hey! www.keene.edu/news/events/...

keene.edu

Sidore Foundation Annual Lecture/Resist, Renew, Explore: Human Values in the Age of AI

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

On the nose. I have about as low-complexity life as you could imagine combined with a lot of autonomy because I'm self-employed and still, there's very little of my life that can be AI agented on a consistent basis, and most of my life I just want to, you know, do, because it's my life!

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Catching an elevator with MTG, realizing David French looks much younger in person and also talking about how to get people reading again. Highlights from my @texastribune.org festival. biblioracle.substack.com/p/making-ame...

biblioracle.substack.com

Making America Read Again at the Texas Tribune Festival

I don’t know that we figured everything out, but the shape of the challenge is pretty clear.

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Mary Lewis @profmarylewis.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Another reflection on AI & writing at Harvard, from a former writing tutor trained by @janerosenzweig.bsky.social “AI trains us, more than anything, to parrot the AI voice. I’d rather we teach students how to find their own.” Well said! www.harvardmagazine.com/commentary/h...

harvardmagazine.com

I Used to Think AI Could Make Me a Better Writer | Harvard Magazine

A former Harvard College writing tutor changes her mind on LLMs.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

It’s up for the role as the next James Bond.

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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

From Serena Jampel, one of the writing tutors I worked with at Harvard on the difference between the human tutor and AI and how a writing tutor can help a student find their voice. Lots of wisdom and also this truth: "the more you use it, the more you use it" www.harvardmagazine.com/commentary/h...

And that was another remarkable feature of the Writing Center. Sometimes students would resist my feedback, insisting that their structure would make sense once they added a bit more reasoning. In doing so, they were often pushed to articulate their thinking more clearly, and to affirm their confidence in their position.

An LLM cannot do that, because it does not have its own opinions or thoughts. It is only trained to engage the user: the more you use it, the more you use it. That’s actually the antithesis of writing instruction, which aims to cultivate independent thought.

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Lisa Messeri @lmesseri.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

For those of us trained to think about tech as nodes in broader sociotechnical systems, this was (as John says) obvious. But few people have intuitively think this way. I see tremendous opportunity to change the narrative about tech benefits to be about the collective, not the individual.

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Isaac Kamola @isaackamola.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

@aclu.org & @amnesty.org just published a massive report "Student Speech Under Attack." 300pp & 2 years in the making it offers the definitive account of how the speech of students (faculty and staff) was silenced, and continues to be policed, on campus. @aaup.org www.aclu.org/publications...

aclu.org

"Student Speech Under Attack: Suppression of Pro-Palestine Speech and Dissent on Campus" | American Civil Liberties Union

"Student Speech Under Attack: Suppression of Pro-Palestine Speech and Dissent on Campus," an ACLU and Amnesty International USA research report, documents the heavy-handed responses by certain univers...

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

If you’re pro learning, this is the way. I know that if you want students to build the kind of writing practices that will allow them to potentially use AI in ways that are not compromising to their development.

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Christopher Deutsch @drchrisdeutsch.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

This is all so grim

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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Students can tell when every standard isn't really a standard but a slippery thing that we redefine for convenience and if things don't matter to us, how can we expect them to matter to our students?

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Celia Rabinowitz @runninglibrarian.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Still trying to figure out how writing a draft of an email and taking time to feed it into an AI tool, then review, etc., is somehow more efficient than, let's say, just writing the email. Is it me @biblioracle.bsky.social?

insidehighered.com

Dartmouth’s provost has stopped “writing.”

Dartmouth’s provost raises a tension we should examine.

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Reposted by John Warner

Laprofmme @laprofmme.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Imho, this is an impeachable offense by a university’s top academic officer

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The Dartmouth provost's decision to stop writing by substituting AI-assisted text production is a great opportunity to have the kinds of conversations every institution should be having about AI use in higher education. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

insidehighered.com

Dartmouth’s provost has stopped “writing.”

Dartmouth’s provost raises a tension we should examine.

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

Read this: is is from the chair of outside advisors of the Iowa civics center imposed on campus. He thinks he is describing current faculty but he is perfectly describing himself and his fellow travelers

"I think there's a fundamental tension," Lowery told Inside Higher Ed. "We've had a sort of ideological takeover of the universities where you have ideological administrators hiring ideological faculty and they will do everything they can to prevent other ideas from being represented on campus."

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

The University of Iowa Center for Civil Civility for Civilians (or whatever it's called) appears to be predictably imploding. These entities shoehorned onto campuses by ideologue legislatures have been doomed from the start. academicfreedomontheline.substack.com/p/incivil-an...

academicfreedomontheline.substack.com

Incivil (and Wasteful) Civic Centers

The right wing make work of those splashy new university centers.

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John Downes-Angus @johndownesangus.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Something I’ve been thinking about as I work slowly through 70 essays I received last week: feedback is always a part of a long conversation you’re having with your student. Future essay comments will be informed by what I’m laying out here—from em-dash usage to some advice about how to argue.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

E.g Columbia U.’s leadership was happy to have an excuse (Trump) to crack down on student opinions and actions they didn’t like.

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Shows on that Times best TV of the 21st century list thus far that should be disqualified because of how bad their later seasons are compared to the earlier seasons. Dexter Ted Lasso The Bear Stranger Things

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

This will be the easy rationale (not that we necessarily should need one) for tearing this shit down.

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Our finalists for the 10th MT American Voice in Literature Award! The winner will be announced next month and will also join us as a panelists for our symposium "Creative Writing in the Age of AI"

A graphic showing the finalists for the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, with headshots and covers: Lydia Millet/Atavists, Susan Choi/Flashlight, Joyce Carol Oates/Fox, Kiran Desai/The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny

Winner announced in October
Award Weekend November 6-7 Hartford CT
marktwainaward.org
The Mark Twain House & Museum

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John Warner @biblioracle.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Crazy thing here is the positive vision at the start of the 2nd paragraph would also be a shitty existence. People know that Wall-E is a dystopia, right? These things aren't "tools" anymore if we have no involvement in their use. Is this really a future people want?

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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is basically an internecine feud between two sets of conservatives -- University of Austin types vs. Iowa political appointees -- over who controls a center imposed on campus despite local faculty opposition. And the U Austin types are shocked, shocked by the lack of faculty (their) input.

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