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ertruitt.bsky.social

@ertruitt.bsky.social
2K followers 648 following 382 posts

she/they • professor • person • MEDIEVAL ROBOTS & NECESSARY INVENTIONS Robots & AI • Roger Bacon • Medieval Science • Medievalisms • “Unbearably scholarly”

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Reposted by @ertruitt.bsky.social
Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
This by Courtney Maum is where I am too. I am grateful to her for the words...
For me, the subject of AI detection is an ouroboros. I’ll speak only for myself, here is my opinion. I didn’t ask for artificial intelligence. It’s not something I need, it is not something I desire. And yet, it barged its way into my life and stole all of my books. All of them. Stole them. Trained off of them. Did not compensate me for this theft. So now, AI can write a book like me, because it stole my own work and learned my breed of humor and satire. So if someone runs an AI text detector on my creative output, it will probably “test positive” why? Because AI is a contaminant that has embedded itself into my work by stealing it and using my own work to perpetuate itself. It will test for itself and find AI there because it AI is a virus that has contaminated the DNA of my current and future writing—a form of intellectual rape. A kind of colonization. A raging plague that some gatekeepers are opening the door for.

If you ask me what I’m currently working on, the answer is nothing book-length. I’m not going to publish a new book in this current landscape. That’s a stance of privilege, I recognize that. And I can’t hold this stance forever, I can hold it as long as I have savings from my last book.

This current literary climate isn’t acceptable. It is not acceptable to have a thing thrust upon us that takes absolutely everything, and then be forced to prove that we are not the thieves.
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The American white collar workforce started working from home three days a week for like six months a year into COVID and executives so thoroughly lost their minds over this that they installed Trump II. If anything, AI will create the 7-day workweek.
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Ian Petrie @icpetrie.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
JOB: TT/Tenured Faculty Curator, Middle East Studies/Penn Museum Mesopotamian Archaeology apply.interfolio.com/193646
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Kelsey Hightower @kelseyhightower.com · 08/10/2026
If AI is conscious then its use is slavery.
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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 04/10/2026
Executing a denial of service attack on an oppressive surveillance state carries extreme risk. Legal, pro-social technology must meet extreme reliability requirements that never bind the powerful. Democracy requires rigor while autocracy need only destroy belief that a shared reality is possible.
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Ideas on Fire @ideasonfirephd.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Kudos to Ideas on Fire author E. R. Truitt on the release of Necessary Inventions: Roger Bacon, the Middle Ages, and the Making of Modern Science, out now from @pennpress.bsky.social. 🎊 www.pennpress.org/978151282988... #IoFAuthors
Cover of Necessary Inventions, with various old-world illustrations on a yellow background, including ones of scientists, philosophers, a journal and quill pin, and a globe.
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 02/10/2026
Rich Democrats who love Heather Cox Richardson should know that history is being defunded and cut in public higher education everywhere. You want voters to be historically informed? Endow some faculty lines at your local public university. Spend the money! The Right certainly is!
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
sending my NEH grant proposals to the Vatican henceforth
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Mary Lewis @profmarylewis.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
thecrimson.com
Harvard Built an AI Academic Adviser. Here’s How It Fared. | The Harvard Crimson
The Crimson tested Harvard Student Compass, the College's new AI advising chatbot, and found it handled straightforward policy questions well — but that limits became clearer on the nuanced questions ...
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Order your copy of NECESSARY INVENTIONS: ROGER BACON, THE MIDDLE AGE, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN SCIENCE online from @pennpress.bsky.social and use the code PENN-ETRUITT30 (in the US) or UPPNN30 (outside the US) for a discount! www.pennpress.org/978151282988...
Flyer with the discount codes.
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Thank you!!
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Thank you! I am dying to talk to Franciscans about him.
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
It’s a brisk 135 pages!
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David M. Perry @lollardfish.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Oh hell yes
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Unboxing day! Over a decade in the making, NECESSARY INVENTIONS: ROGER BACON, THE MIDDLE AGES, AND THE MAKING OF MODERN SCIENCE (PENN Press) is a material object. Thank you to everyone who helped along the way. For sale on October 20. @pennpress.bsky.social
Photo of a box filled with multiple copies of the book. The cover is ochre, and has different images of Bacon, from manuscripts and printed books.
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 31/07/2026
My car went rogue after I turned on cruise control and jumped out
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Texas Tribune @texastribune.org · 27/09/2026
When asked why he doesn’t become an independent, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman responded: “Because I’m a lifelong Republican.” After realizing his slip-up, Fetterman laughed and said: “That’ll get clipped.” He then corrected himself and said he's a lifelong Democrat. #TribFest26
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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I’ve been writing and speaking on this topic for years, and I’m glad that news media are finally drawing attention to it. www.salon.com/2026/07/28/t...
It may be tempting to see value in projects such as the Schmidt Foundation — that’s Eric Schmidt of Google — funding a fellowship in AI at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the Musk Foundation’s support of the Scroll Prize to use AI in reconstructing ancient texts in the burnt scrolls of Herculaneum. But these projects are simply two among countless others that have been seeding AI into museums and historical research for well over a decade. Even more egregious is the case of AI companies buying  and destroying rare books en masse in the process of scanning them for data. In the context of the dire austerity we are witnessing, the juggernaut of tech money seems impossible to resist.
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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Manuscript news you can use! The Codex Amiatinus has a new online interface, w/a few oddities but in general a big improvement in one respect. Read on for tedious but useful details. #medievalsky 🧵 The landing page for the digital Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana is tecabml.contentdm.oclc.org
tecabml.contentdm.oclc.org
CONTENTdm
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Maryn McKenna @marynmck.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Fake. USDA. Seals. Used by an NC meat processing plant on 83.5 TONS of meat. Produced entirely outside the federal inspection system, according to news reports. We are pretty close to The Jungle (second ed.) now, no? www.scrippsnews.com/life/recalls...
scrippsnews.com
Interactive: Meat recall linked to fake USDA labels
Pork, beef and goat products are being recalled after a company allegedly used fake USDA inspection labels. Explore our interactive guide to see which products are affected and what to look for.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Most people have no idea how much international students are the lifeblood of higher education. But they’re about to learn. Sigh.
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
'The records have been digitised and indexed by the genealogy company Ancestry, which has partnered with the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at University College London.' Leaps and bounds forward in our understanding of the histories of the British enslaved. #Skystorians
theguardian.com
Nearly 4m records of enslaved people in 20 former British colonies now searchable online
Exclusive: Collection’s 300,000 pages record lives of enslaved people in countries including the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica, Mauritius, South Africa and Trinidad
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Scott Nover @scottnover.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
BREAKING: TV pool will not be providing coverage of presidential events until further notice b/c of CNN's ban, pool chair and FOX News Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton said. It's effectively a boycott by the fellow members — ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX: www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Read it! Gen AI is a plagiarism machine. As someone else On Here said: making Photoshop doesn’t require access to every photo ever taken.
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NPR @npr.org · 21/09/2026
NPR and our Member stations will continue to uphold First Amendment rights, and to stand with any news organization targeted for its reporting.
n.pr
Statement on White House bans from Tommy Evans, NPR's Editor in Chief
NPR and our Member stations will continue to uphold First Amendment rights, and to stand with any news organization targeted for its reporting.
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Whut.
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Laura Jedeed @laurajedeed.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
How much influence is end times prophecy exerting over American policy right now? The short answer: more than one might like My latest for The New Republic
newrepublic.com
We Need to Talk About the Apocalypse
End-times prophecy, pro-war prayer circles, Democrats as demons: Christian dominionism’s influence is everywhere in the second Trump administration—and increasingly, within America itself. Can democra...
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Sarah J. Jackson @sjjphd.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Good morning, it’s the 21st day of September
youtu.be
Earth, Wind & Fire - September (Official HD Video)
YouTube video by EarthWindandFireVEVO
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Barbara Fantechi @barbarafantechi.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Logical fallacies Explicit "I, a scientist, benefit from LLMs in my research, thus all other scientists would also benefit." Implicit "I, a scientist, cannot perceive the ethical issues with AI use, thus no other scientist can".
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Huw C. Davies @huwcdavies.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
About 2.7 million hours of work for no return.
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Expand full-time faculty.
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Mary Lewis @profmarylewis.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Excellent oped in @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social by my @harvard.edu colleague Jill Lepore. www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...
But of course, the machine conversation is not free. It comes at the cost of our common life together as teachers, learners, and researchers, colleagues, mentors, and friends. Not to mention, supervising student researchers is our job.
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
🚨🚨🚨JOB ALERT: The HSS Department at Penn is hiring a tenure-track or tenured professor in the history of data/info science, computing, or AI. Please share widely! apply.interfolio.com/192132
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Katie J. Wells @katiejwells.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Thanks so much, Sonja. This summer I heard nurse after nurse talk about these scores, and so we included it in the story: Elena "tried to scan the code [at the hospital] more than seven minutes before her start time, which dinged her score by half a point." dissentmagazine.org/article/algo...
dissentmagazine.org
Life Under the Algorithm - Dissent Magazine
Algorithmic wages and prices don’t just squeeze workers in the present. They make them predictably poor into the future.
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Jen the Tired RN @jenthetiredrn.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Good god
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Phillip Maciak @pjmaciak.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
No matter how you refine your questions, the chatbot will generate responses reflecting what the greatest number of users are likely to want to hear, which tends to be close to what they think they already know." A great, painstaking piece. www.hnn.us/article/ai-i...
hnn.us
AI Is an Anti-Primary Source Machine
Real voices from the past are threatened by chatbots designed to amplify — and ultimately become — the loudest voices in the room.
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Shiv Ramdas Mens Rice Activist @nameshiv.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Happy Rice Truck Day to all who observe
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Lila Byock @lbyock.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Today, America’s two largest school districts sent a message to the rest of the country that AI in schools is far from inevitable. When we organize and fight back, we win.
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Justine Firnhaber-Baker @medievalrevolt.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
My new article is now out in French Historical Studies: "Into the Woods: Negotiating Environment and Power in France Around the Time of the Black Death" Not OA, but I can send you a pdf if you don't have access. read.dukeupress.edu/french-histo...
read.dukeupress.edu
Into the Woods | French Historical Studies | Duke University Press
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"Today, children are increasingly confined to considering the surfaces of things... It would be remarkable if such dramatic changes in children’s exposure to the underlying architectures of devices had no downstream effects on how they think about causal relationships in the world around them."
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
Everyday Technology Is Becoming a Black Box. Is There a Cost?
Children once learned by taking things apart. Today’s devices do not provide that rewarding activity — and the cognitive consequences may be considerable.
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
What is the upper limit of students you can teach in a semester while giving each one individual attention and learning about them as whole people?
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Goddamnit.
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Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
SBE has been the directorate that funds history of science, so this has been especially dour news for our field. Here's the letter from NSF to AIP in 1960 that essentially jump-started our history program, and we received many follow-on awards in subsequent years.
Dear Hutch, I have read with interest the proposal prepared by Gerald Holton that you sent me for comment. Members of the Course Content Improvement Section have also had a look at it, and I shall try to report our composite reaction.

I should like to say first that if the members chosen for the advisory committee have the stature of Dr. Holton it has the first prerequisite that we look for in the Foundation, namely the involvement of top scholars in the field.

I have the impression from the reports of last year's Conference of College Physics that this is an area of activity which would be endorsed by that group as a means of emphasizing the cultural aspects of physics. My own feeling is that a co-ordinated project along the lines outlined is well worth doing, if people like Dr. Holton are involved. The archival aspect of the project represents a new activity as far as the Foundation is concerned but at this point I can se no reason why this would not lie within our purview.

When the planning has progressed to the point of developing a proposal we would be interested in having a look at it. We appreciate having the opportunity to comment on your ideas in this field.

Sincerely yours,
Harry C. Kelly
Associate Director (Educational and International Activities)
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Kim Lane Scheppele @kimlanelaw.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Zero new NSF grants in sociology, anthropology, political science and economics. The agenda of this US govt is to stop documenting the society in which we live while they are destroying it. We will find other ways to track and explain our times and fight to restore our research funding.
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
“They just use your mind and they never give you credit…” Thank you, Dolly. ❤️‍🩹
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Andy Craig @andycraig.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
USPS’s job is to deliver the mail even if some mailed ballots genuinely are fake, illegal, fraudulent, or otherwise invalid. It’s on election administrators to catch and reject those, and they do. USPS has no role in it and the very idea mucks up the systems we actually have for election integrity.
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ertruitt.bsky.social @ertruitt.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
🚨🚨🚨JOB ALERT: The HSS Department at Penn is hiring a tenure-track or tenured professor in the history of data/info science, computing, or AI. Please share widely! apply.interfolio.com/192132
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just. www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...
washingtonpost.com
ICE begins deporting Haitians who lost TPS back to homeland
Community leaders said Thursday’s removal flight was one of the largest they had seen and included people who were detained in recent weeks.
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