Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 30m(“Got seasick from a Prezi” is another great academic “date yourself”) 110
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 10hHometown on the internet! And they even have hometown hero Tuffi (Tuffi is a baby elephant. Tuffi had zero interest in being transported in this thing, so jumped off. It ended well) 060
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 01/10/2026We overlapped at Harvard. I was very sorry to hear about this turn of events. Thanks for posting this. 010
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 01/10/2026I’m still super-confused they don’t have it. 010
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 30/09/2026The dress was lost on me. I believe people, but can’t reconstruct their ocular achievements. 010
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 30/09/2026My eyes keep jumping between the two options, but the strong initial impression was goat. 120
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Oh I hate grading history Mad Libs. Where can you even go for points? 020
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 30/09/2026And that's without even factoring in the kids who miss zoom school because they could watch the lecture videos in triple time... 131
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 29/09/2026The last Greek thing I'm doing with my "Crime and Punishment" class is Thucydides to get some war in there. That means an appearance of the fantastic BBC adaptation from 1991 called "The War That Never Ends." Thucydides in 70 minutes with excellent actors.imdb.com 030
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Starting the day off with a gentle "that writing task you've been putting off for months? Yeah, that didn't even take a full two hours of concentrated effort." 030
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 29/09/2026This is great to hear (and I love the layout) 171
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Happy National Coffee Day from double Julius (who is questioning both this weird beverage he’s never heard of and why I’m writing stuff on Cicero) 050
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 29/09/2026And with an amphitheater and all… Very cool. 010
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 29/09/2026I love premade baked tofu, so, yes, this sounds awesome. 010
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 29/09/2026No, this is "hate that Crusader Kings expansion pack!" 130
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Usually when an ad is like this you then go on the department website and see like 4 Spain specialists in desperate need of not that. But no, this seems just "ugh, Spain." Fascinating. 110
Reposted by Isabel KösterColette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 28/09/2026These gpt’s are NOT your ~thinking partner~, they are not your assistant. They exist to steal your brilliance at SCALE. Yes, of course, there are machines that are closed systems that aren’t genAI, that actually do support research. That’s not what I’m talking about. 17116
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Yes, and it's worth remembering that the enrollments thing is getting some STEM fields very hard as well because they can't get the numbers for classes beyond the 1–2 intros the aspiring pre-meds need. Physics is a poster child here. They often get screwed in the same emails that come after us. 150
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 28/09/2026To be followed up with a cool "don't we have AI for that math thing now?" if they say another word. 030
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Language courses aside, the idea that sequences build on each other and that you need to have a body of foundational knowledge to succeed in what the course catalog calls upper division classes is something we've lost. 1131
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 28/09/2026Yes, and also a great reluctance to have prerequisites for anything. The main reason why math/science classes in college are hard is that there's stuff you're just expected to know that will not be taught again in later classes. 1131
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 28/09/2026It was already pretty wild before the pandemic. I'm sure other people have also had course evaluations where "estimate the total amount of time you spent on this class per week" came out to well under even just the scheduled meeting time. 030
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 26/09/2026Supernatural yogurt to go with supernatural Socrates (not pictured: supernatural coffee because no one needs caffeinated Socrates) 021
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 26/09/2026What?! Oh don't worry about "reputational risk"... you can go straight to "reputational damage." 083
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 26/09/2026I mean, the weather hasn’t committed to a new season yet nice summer downpour and all… 110
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Tell them you’ll be there! Apparently that can summon copies. 010
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Classics prof amateur hour/self-own: I don’t want my students to have to buy another book, so how bad can this open access translation of Plato’s Crito possibly be? Well, “my supernatural Socrates” (ὦ δαιμόνιε Σώκρατες)… it’s an awkward read. 080
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 25/09/2026Simcity 2000 and Commander Keen are truly “they don’t make them like that anymore” games. 020
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Today’s AI-generated book promo scam pitches a workshop on my book for “ambitious professionals.” Again, I have no practical advice to offer on temple robbery except “don’t.” 2132
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Since inscriptions came up earlier: those corpora are usually a beast to track down and $$$. Also, museum and exhibit catalogs. But: getting things shipped from abroad is borderline impossible right now unless you have a publisher set up for US distribution, so that complicates things. 110
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 23/09/2026Yes, and then in the next round you use friends’ published books to check formatting stuff. 070
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 22/09/2026Or just trying to compensate for the horrors… 120
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 21/09/2026You appear to need to finish a sentence. Do you require assistance?static.klipy.comClippy Says HiALT: Clippy Says Hi 130
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 21/09/2026But at least this time I have Zeus's Law, which I came this close to setting as an ID term on the midterm. 030
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Though the last time I taught this class, Serial Season 1 was really taking off, so that was the best possible tie-in for talking about legal storytelling, appealing to a jury of 1000s etc. I miss having that tie-in for Athenian homicide week this time. 120
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 21/09/2026I had forgotten what a trip of logical fallacies Antiphon's _Against the Stepmother_ is. That will be so much "questions? comments? concerns? unconvinced noises?" fun in class tomorrow.en.wikipedia.orgAgainst the Stepmother for Poisoning - Wikipedia 040
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 21/09/2026I got asked a couple of weeks ago whether my textbooks were on Instagram. Here we are, I guess. 001
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 20/09/2026Probably sooner than that. Cultural memory seems to be like 2 years max. (“Are you bitter about having made too many outdated jokes lately, Isabel?” -“Nah”) 011
Reposted by Isabel KösterAsheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 20/09/2026Too many of us in the humanities have naturalized the idea that our job is to do bildung for 18-24 year olds and STEM is for serious research. 712213
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I switched my own flashcards to Anki over the summer since you control the degree of robot infestation. For notetaking, I'm a big fan of Obsidian (again, no AI unless you install a plug-in), but the learning curve is interesting. 160
Reposted by Isabel KösterJeremy Cohen @jeremyfcohen.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I'm putting together a list for my students of productivity, notetaking, flashcard, transcribing, language learning, annotation, etc apps that don't use generative AI. Any recommendations? 853
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 19/09/2026I’m waiting a little longer with flu, but I intend to carry on with Widow’s Bay and maybe a little more of For All Mankind to facilitate the installation of fresh covid microchips. 010
Isabel Köster @iotasubscript.bsky.social · 17/09/2026I haven’t seen the full list yet (geo-block), but I think we can assume that “academic size and shape initiative” once more stands for “let’s vandalize the humanities.” 041