Sign in

Ian Milligan

@ianmilligan1.bsky.social
1.5K followers 1.1K following 658 posts

Professor of History and founding Director of the School of Social, Political and Historical Research at the University of Waterloo. Posts in a completely personal capacity.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦 @emmettmacfarlane.com · 30/09/2026
POLITICAL SCIENCE JOB AD: Tenure-track position in International Relations at the University of Waterloo. We're *very happy* to announce this. Applications due Nov. 1st; job start date July 2027. Details here (pdf): uwaterloo.ca/arts/sites/d...
uwaterloo.ca
14640
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Our new School is happy to announce our very first tenure-track hiring opportunity. We're hiring a tenure track position at the rank of Assistant Professor in International Relations beginning 1 July 2027. Please share with your networks. universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...
universityaffairs.ca
Search Jobs - University Affairs
Explore the latest academic and higher education job opportunities on the University Affairs Jobs board. Updated daily, our job board features hundreds of teaching, research, postdoctoral, administrat...
033
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Believe it or not, MacOS Golden Gate seems to have _improved_ my battery life! Is this possible?
001
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Home sick (with my 9 year old who also has the cold). Trying to work from home, which is a reminder of how much it sucks when you never do it - pushing aside art crafts + Scholastic catalogues that have invaded my desk.
120
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Daniel Munro @dkmunro.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“Boyagoda commended the audience for coming to an event that wouldn’t juice their résumés or help them score a job” On the contrary, if I hear in an interview that you went to a phil talk just because you were curious, you’re now in the interesting group. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
theglobeandmail.com
Popular Night Owls philosophy series builds new nest with first event at U of T
In a STEM-focused postsecondary landscape, evening with celebrity philosopher promotes talking about ideas purely for their own sake
272
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Don’t want to make you all jealous, but my daughter set me up for a date with a balloon this evening. (It turned out to be a plot to get paid in real money!)
190
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I feel like people take this whole “I never check a bag” to a whole new level. It’s not actually a big deal to check a bag! www.theglobeandmail.com/life/style/t...
theglobeandmail.com
Are luggage forward services worth it for air travellers?
Instead of checking luggage with the airline and leaving it to the baggage-handling gods, luggage forward services will pick it up from your home and send it right to your destination
130
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Don’t know much more than this, but we’ve all been told to steer clear of the academic buildings at #uwaterloo tonight. All classes are cancelled! www.ctvnews.ca/kitchener/ar...
ctvnews.ca
Classes cancelled at University of Waterloo due to sewer backup
Some university students in Waterloo unexpectedly have the night off due to a sewer backup.
000
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I hope the (very) senior leadership at most Canadian universities is sharing @alexusherhesa.bsky.social's piece on what's going on at Concordia. higheredstrategy.com/concordias-q...
higheredstrategy.com
Concordia’s Quiet Revolution | HESA
Okay, so Canadian higher education is pretty cautious and risk-averse, and so perhaps the bar for calling something a ‘revolution” is pretty low. But everyone needs to take a look at what has been goi...
244
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Well it happened. My son has made rep baseball. And the careful balancing act of trying to find complementary activities, taking the bus, walking, and beyond has fallen apart. Our days of one car may be coming to an end. 😢
190
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Who knew you needed a user manual to operate a toaster!
381
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Finally watched Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie - everybody told me it was the best movie ever, and they weren't wrong! Now I'm all nostalgic for my grad school days in Toronto c. 2008.
020
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
My battle continues. Really glad our institution - which is going all in on AI - is equipping us with tools that work. (The calendar plug in is annoying because when it works its kinda cool. It saves me a few clicks. But maybe it works a third of the time? So it wastes time instead!)
020
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
My entire experience with Microsoft CoPilot in a nutshell.
350
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
One of the downsides in AI getting so good is that it is getting harder to demonstrate its strengths and weaknesses at the frontier. Yes, Astra and Fable can research and write good papers in an academic field. No, they are not as good as top humans (yet?), but you have to know the field to know why
4957
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
1/ I was at an event yesterday where an Anthropic spokesman talked about that. I tried to get him to talk about how, given the low rate of businesses actually re-organizing processes around AI, he expected us to get even from "modest" to "substantial" (the "extreme" scenario is not worth discussing)
172
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Everybody wants a solution that fits their needs 100% (I mean, in reality, it's a vendor so it's obviously not that), as opposed to the solution the other silo over is using that would only fit their needs 75%. Unfortunately, user experience gets lost in the shuffle.
020
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Ah geez, my five plus year old laptop battery has begun to precipitously decline in health. The eternal question… new battery or new laptop…
110
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I think if we asked the Colleges and Universities ministry in Ontario about what we needed to do to rise to the AI moment, they'd probably say "for-profit MAs in Artificial Intelligence" and more computer scientists. We probably need more philosophers! www.thestar.com/news/canada/...
030
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Oh, an anonymous survey asking for things to fix at the University of Waterloo. I love this place - for reals - but boy we have a lot of things to fix. So I guess we'll find out if it's anonymous or not.
230
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Dagomar Degroot @dagomardegroot.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
There's been some really interesting debate here on #AI in history. Here are five basic things to keep in mind. 1. Terminology matters! AI is not the same as LLMs. Machine learning is a branch of AI. Deep learning is a branch of machine learning. LLMs are a family of deep-learning systems. (1/10)
395
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Also, it is too bad that it's come to this, but I now agree with this take. (With full awareness that it is easy for me, as a tenured full professor, to take this stand; as an administrator, I would support colleagues to make their own judgments) universityaffairs.ca/opinion/its-...
universityaffairs.ca
It’s time to boycott U.S. conferences - University Affairs
As trade hostilities continue, we shouldn’t use taxpayers’ dollars to travel stateside.
3131
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Fantastic piece from @jimclifford.bsky.social that takes LLMs seriously, in a nuanced and thoughtful way. Great to see this running in Active History. activehistory.ca/blog/2026/09...
activehistory.ca
How Do We Talk about LLMs?
It is never fun to watch friends argue. Generative AI has created multiple fractures across our universities and the community of historians. The stakes are high and we are all dealing with the rep…
284
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Orientation is in full swing. There are multiple trays of giant cookies that I spy from my window. Once a grad student, always a grad student…
170
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Colin Dickey @colindickey.com · 07/09/2026
Very funny to me when these bookclub scammers just plug my responses into ChatGPT and come up with the most obsequious responses
A bookclub scammer to whom I replied “Eat shit” sent a follow up email that reads (in part, because it’s really long):

Colin,

Fair enough. I got your "eat shit" loud and clear, and honestly, I respect the directness.

But I want to clarify something, because I think my original email read like boilerplate SEO spam, and that’s on me.

I didn't pull your name from a random list. I came across Ghostland while I was digging into American folklore and the way abandoned places hold collective memory. I picked it up, read it, and genuinely found myself stuck on it, particularly the way you tied "zombie homes" and economic decay to the ghost story tradition. It wasn't what I expected, and it stayed with me.
471808230
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Max Fawcett @maxfawcett.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
These snivelling cowards. Canadians will not forget that America treated Putin's Russia like its best friend and us like an enemy. Ever.
921199427
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The local news came toy office today and filmed me giving keys to our School’s new Eddie Goldenberg Chair, Talia Bettcher. Exciting story! But would you believe they did like five takes and I couldn’t keep a straight face? I’d never be an actor. www.ctvnews.ca/kitchener/ar...
130
Reposted by Ian Milligan
ℳatt @matttomic.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I've seen everyone sharing that US Dialect Quiz so I decided to make my own, much crappier, CANADIAN DIALECT QUIZ to guess where in Canada you're from
A flow chart I have created with multiple questions and the answers determine where you're from.

Question 1 is do you call it a hydro bill (which then branches down to ON, QC, BC, MB) or an electric bill (which then branches down to SK, AB, NS, NB, PEI, NL)

Question 2 is do you call it a cabin (BC, MB, AB, SK) cottage (ON and atlantic) camp (northern Ontario) chalet (QC) or bungalow (Cape Breton)

To delineate BC from MB: do you call it dinner or supper

To delineate southern Ontario rural or big city: have you heard of a stag & doe

To delineate SK from AB: do you call a hoodie a bunnyhug

And finally to delineate NL from the other atlantic provinces: whaddayat? (Correct answer: dis is it b'y)
1452052749
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
My new glasses are “anti stress,” which I think is how they’re selling progressive/bifocal lenses to elder millennials. 🤓
240
Reposted by Ian Milligan
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 01/09/2026
the press has gotten completely habituated to the ugly and hateful behavior of the people in this government so i will be surprised if anyone ever asks hegseth why he thinks it is appropriate to mock children for wanting to learn, grow and maybe serve their country
14073711179
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Zack Beauchamp @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
The Lake Ontario name change is insanely unpopular: just 14 percent support it. By point of comparison, 14 percent of Americans also believe that the moon landing was fake.
27683158
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Ladies & gents: I give you what is easily the dumbest Canadian think-tank paper of the entire fucking decade. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU USE H-INDEXES YOU ABSOLUTE MUPPETS. H-INDEXES ARE CORRELATED WITH AGE & FIELD OF STUDY ALL THIS TELLS YOU IS WHITE SCHOLARS ARE OLDER & MORE LIKELY TO BE IN SCIENCES.
macdonaldlaurier.ca
The equity excellence trade-off: A study of EDI in the Canada Research Chairs Program | Macdonald-Laurier Institute
The analysis reveals that EDI has actively weakened Canadian research and reduced overall academic performance at Canadian universities.
710227
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Let me get this straight. The Secretary of Defence in the United States was making fun of the... literal teenagers who are in the Canadian Cadets program? Dreadful. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
theglobeandmail.com
Pentagon defends Hegseth’s controversial post about Canadian cadet program
He posted an image from the Cadet Training Centre in Vernon, B.C., depicting two young women in uniform with the caption ‘this is real’ alongside a Canadian flag
132
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
So might be a controversial take here, but I'm not sure this auguers well for relations across the 49th parallel.
220
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
And it’s starting to look like we will have a kitchen again one day!
030
Reposted by Ian Milligan
MapQuest @mapquest.com · 27/08/2026
We’re not changing it.
17536227311514
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Alex Usher @alexusherhesa.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
2025-26: the first year Canadian universities employed more tenured/TT professors over the age of 70 than under the age of 35.
22165102
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I know this will make me seem like the world's biggest dope who is late to wake up to what's going on, but while I'd maintained some work travel to the United States, that ends today. (obligatory and geuine administrator note that I do not judge other Canadians for the decisions they make)
181
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Just as long as we don’t have to use their broken passport machines, I’m open to a conversation. 😅
000
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
🙄
010
Reposted by Ian Milligan
John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 22/08/2026
At this point I'm pretty sure no one who negotiates with this administration expects it to either offer a reasonable deal or to honor the terms of the deal once it's been set. The question is whether to treat it like the unreliable bully it is. We have Canada's answer, for now at least.
811546245
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Great to see unity across the Canadian political spectrum!
000
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
How dare we retaliate to America breaking treaties? Hard to imagine these folks can say this with a straight face. They have no shame, eh?
000
Reposted by Ian Milligan
David Cochrane @davidwcochrane.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
21 days before the 25th anniversary of September 11th, the United States imposes 50% tariffs on the country that gave its citizens refuge during the worst terrorist attack in US history.
14042911477
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Misty De Méo @cdrom.ca · 22/08/2026
I feel like there's an interesting dynamic where Canadians have been freaking out for the past year and a half over US tariff threats to destroy our economy and annex us by economic force, and American friends who seem to be mostly unaware it's happening and don't get why we're on edge all the time
625863
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Max Fawcett @maxfawcett.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
👀👀
4635581
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
This will just be one more doomscroll item for Americans, but know that this is significant and existential for Canadians. I am waking up mad and I bet millions of my fellow Canadians are too.
090
Reposted by Ian Milligan
Jim Clifford @jimclifford.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Mark Humphries is thinking carefully about teaching history and GenAI. Humanities professors risk driving away the few students still in our programs if we double down on in-class reading and writing. substack.com/@generativeh...
substack.com
No More Muddling Through
Why the détente between students and professors over AI will end in 2026.
483
Reposted by Ian Milligan
The Oxford Publicity Partnership Ltd (OPP) @oxfordpublicity.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Read @hopkinspress.bsky.social author Ian Milligan's @ianmilligan1.bsky.social contribution in @HistoryToday—‘Preservation is what makes an Information Age’. www.historytoday.com/archive/head... You can buy Ian's book, AVERTING THE DIGITAL DARK AGE, in Europe from your nearest bookshop!
historytoday.com
What is an Information Age?
From the printing press to the internet, the spread of information has changed the world. How do we recognise an age defined by it?
022
Ian Milligan @ianmilligan1.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Anyhoo, back to vacationing!
020