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Historian Around Town

@kellyms.bsky.social
2.7K followers 700 following 309 posts

Everything I know about pop culture is 350 years out of date. She/her

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Ann LeBlanc @robotleblanc.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
friday is for kafkaposting
tumblr post poem by kleinergeist

I don't care if Monday's stressed
Tuesday, Wednesday, Kafkaesque
Thursday, feeling like a pest
It's Friday, I'm a bug
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Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:
Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads: 

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."
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Jay Edidin @edidin.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I am an AI doomer inasmuch as I feel strongly that AI is doomed and that it is our responsibility to accelerate that doom.
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Maria Popova @mariapopova.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
In the autumn of 1883, a national paper reported that "an Iowa woman has spent seven years embroidering the solar system on a quilt." Ellen Harding Baker used her stunning quilt to teach astronomy in an era when women could not attend college www.themarginalian.org/2018/12/06/e...
themarginalian.org
Cosmic Threads: A Solar System Quilt from 1876
A serenade to the universe in wool and silk.
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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Also you do not have to go to a SLAC to get a liberal arts education or major in one of the fine humanities or social sciences on offer these days. But you do have to start from a position of thinking there's something inherently worthwhile to them and powerful people don't want you to think that.
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Prof. Abel Méndez @profabelmendez.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
You’re looking at the radio sky as seen by the Big Ear telescope in August 15, 1977. The bright structure near 18 hours in right ascension is the plane of our Galaxy. Keep going between 19 and 20 hours; the short red line to the left is the Wow! Signal. #AreciboWow #RadioAstronomy
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Brian Lyman @brianlyman.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I see the “what good is a history degree” discussion, so I will say something I’ve said before: Reading primary source documents for bias and motive in a medieval history class was excellent training for journalism. History is worth studying for its own sake. But it has knock-on effects.
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AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.
apnews.com
https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d
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Ayo @darrylayo.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
“Help help! ai is getting too powerful” and then we pull the plug “No, you can’t pull the plug! It has created new internets to train itself on!!” so we pull the plug “it’s not that simple!!” if we turn off the computer, it will end
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Mura Boar 🔞 🐗🐖 @aboarable.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Hey why are two of the jeopardy categories tonight false Berlin and bizarre little men?? Which one of you told??
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Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Bisexual of the Blade (Alt-text or DIE) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 16/09/2026
My only comment on the latest AI bullshit to darken my skyline is this: folks who think AI is "thinking" are saying a whole lot about how they believe "thinking" works and what counts as "thinking." If you follow the implications of this belief, it's not good. Not good at all.
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Ben Alpers @benalpers.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Martin Guerre?
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Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
I have listened to and read lots and lots of What AI will Mean for College and the one big thing that gets skips all the time is TEACHING. Information provided is not teaching. 8/
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Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 14/09/2026
The only person in public service who has consistently made 100% sense on issues of "AI," which is why they hate her so much.
Law enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products. We shouldn’t let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there’s no AI exemption from laws already on the books — a point 
@FTC
 emphasized repeatedly during my tenure.

1. There is an extensive set of laws that govern dangerous and defective products. For example, releasing unvetted AI models or agents can violate consumer protection laws. Shipping flawed AI tools without implementing adequate measures to detect and stop rogue or defective AI agents can be an “unfair or deceptive” act or practice under the FTC Act (and analogous state laws). And some state AGs are already exploring holding AI firms and their CEOs criminally liable when their models participate in criminal activity.

2. Existing laws also prohibit “unfair methods of competition.” This covers instances where AI firms appropriate the competitively sensitive information of their customers, including through tracking their use of various tools. It can also cover instances where firms pursue dangerous behavior, aware that doing so may compel rivals to do the same.As the Supreme Court has noted: “A method of competition which casts upon one's competitors the burden of the loss of business unless they will descend to a practice which they are under a powerful moral compulsion not to adopt, even though it is not criminal, was thought to involve the kind of unfairness at which the [unfair methods of competition] statute was aimed."

3. The highly concentrated and interconnected structure of these markets could be creating major risks and conflicts of interest. We had started investigating these partnerships and cross-investments across the stack (and released a preliminarily overview of some findings: https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2025/01/ftc-issues-staff-report-ai-partnerships-investments-study). 

Both federal and state enforcers should be scrutinizing these opaque relationships and inter-dependencies. We are already seeing how these relationships could undermine accountability. For example, OpenAI could face liability given the Hugging Face incident, but Hugging Face being bought up by Nvidia means that we’re unlikely to see it file a lawsuit over this — given Nvidia’s strong incentive to see OpenAI continue full speed ahead.4. As AI tools dramatically change the landscape of cybersecurity risks and hacks, all businesses should be doubling down on having core security protections in place. Firms that fail to invest in adequate data security measures or fix known vulnerabilities can also be breaking the law. A recent analysis showed that around 1/3 of Fortune 100 companies do not even have a way to notify them about security issues. During my 
@FTC
 tenure, we sued firms for poor data security practices and held CEOs liable when they were personally responsible.

https://this.weekinsecurity.com/dozens-of-americas-largest-companies-have-no-simple-way-to-report-security-flaws/

https://ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/10/ftc-takes-action-against-drizly-its-ceo-james-cory-rellas-security-failures-exposed-data-25-million

5. As policymakers consider new legal regimes, we should be looking to lessons from prior efforts to govern major sectors, such as banking and other networks, platforms, and utilities. Tools like structural separations, nondiscrimination, and supervision could be key, and there’s a rich history of what works and what doesn’t. But we can and must pursue any new efforts alongside enforcing existing laws.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/09/2026
"AI" - chatbots that wake up, "set their own goals," and "spontaneously" start hacking servers - is fake. It doesn't have "a 10% chance of ending the human race." The Hugging Face hack isn't a mysterious, supernatural occurrence.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/09/2026
It's a Python loop and a chatbot. The people responsible didn't accidentally create god: they created autonomous malicious software and then failed to closely monitor it, resulting in it doing something both foreseeable and bad.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 12/09/2026
Once you understand the corporate culture of AI hyperscalers is everyone cooking their brains by locking themselves in the bathroom, holding flashlights under their chins, and saying "Aaaaaaaaaay Eyeeeeeee" until they wet themselves in terror, things snap into focus: pluralistic.net/2023/06/04/a...
A cutaway view of a stone tower containing an elaborate water-powered medieval geared machine. Rising out of the machine is a rainbow-tinted, pixelated God with the robes, beard and all. To one side of this scene is a cluster of tiny people in Jesus-era robes, falling about themselves in religious ecstasy all over a stone staircase, atop of which stands a robed priest with his hands upraised. The background is a set of shining golden rays, emanating from pixel-God.
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Courtney (Dr. Version) @cakrolik.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Growing more and more concerned the more I see from a number of universities out there who are prioritizing student feelings/experience over maintaining academic integrity.
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Periwinkle Pachyderm @periwinklep.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
When I was just learning the basics of math, the teachers didn't let us use calculators. Calculators were available, but the teachers recognized that using them would keep us from learning. Now, I can add and subtract, and I understand basic things about how numbers work
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Canadian Dimension @canadiandimension.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
"The university is not just in crisis. The university is the crisis." Rinaldo Walcott (@blacklikewho.bsky.social) argues that Jason Arday's death lays bare a broken academic system built on unequal power, gatekeeping, and the grinding machinery of institutional recognition.
canadiandimension.com
The university is the crisis
The crisis of the university is its inability to be honest about the nature of its self-induced crisis. Its leaders or senior managers often share the perspectives of those who wish the university to ...
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Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The effectiveness of propaganda demonstrates one of the chief characteristics of modern masses. What convinces masses are not facts, and not even invented facts, but only the consistency of the system of which they are presumably part. — Hannah Arendt
A black and white portrait of Hannah Arendt. She is wearing a light-colored button-down shirt and a beaded necklace, holding a lit cigarette in her left hand while looking directly at the camera.
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Astronomer Royal for Scotland | Catherine Heymans @astroroyalscot.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Help! Parton Community Council has 60 days to raise £70k to buy Parton Kirk (resting place of James Clerk Maxwell). They plan to turn it into a visitor centre celebrating our great hero! The other buyers could turn it into long-term storage 😬 Even £5 would help 🙏🧪⚛️ www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding...
justgiving.com
Help raise £70000 to Save Parton Kirk – JustGiving Crowdfunding
Iʼm raising money to Save Parton Kirk. Support this JustGiving Crowdfunding Page.
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Medievalist.net @medievalists.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Medieval Emperor Reburied in Germany www.medievalists.net/2026/09/medi... #Germany
medievalists.net
Medieval Emperor Reburied in Germany - Medievalists.net
Emperor Otto the Great has been reburied in Magdeburg Cathedral more than 1,050 years after his death, following the restoration of his medieval tomb.
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Jonathan S. Jones @jonathansjones.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I’m thrilled to learn that my book, Opium Slavery: Civil War Veterans and America‘s First Opioid Crisis, won the Phi Alpha Theta Best First Book Award! Thank you so much to the award committee and to the good folks over at @uncpress.bsky.social!
uncpress.org
Opium Slavery
During the Civil War, the utility and widespread availability of opium and morphine made opiates essential to wartime medicine. After the war ended, thousand...
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Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
“Orbiting Earth in the spaceship, I saw how beautiful our planet is. People, let us preserve and increase this beauty, not destroy it!” — Yuri Gagarin
A black and white portrait of Yuri Gagarin wearing a space suit and a helmet with the letters CCCP partially visible, looking slightly to the side with a calm expression.A photograph of Earth from space, centered on Africa and Madagascar, with swirling white clouds over deep blue oceans and the reddish-brown terrain of the African continent against a black background.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 13/08/2026
I feel like an issue that would connect well with voters would be doing anything at all to slow the current progression toward "absolutely everything now is a scam"
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Stacy Fahrenthold @sfahrenthold.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The American Historical Association hired a lobbying firm to help silence member advocacy on Palestine. In this essay, Adam Rzepka covers @historians.org's relationship w/ Thorn Run Partners, its deep ethical conflicts, & the advocacy crisis AHA has thrust upon us. www.chronicle.com/article/a-sc...
chronicle.com
Opinion | A Scholarly Association’s Secret Washington Playbook
Did the American Historical Association ask a corporate lobbying firm for advice on how to silence its members?
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Bill Amend @billamend.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I love how R politicians think teachers have the ability to convince kids to transition and vote communist when they can’t even get students to write an essay without AI
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Minerva Zimmerman @grumpymartian.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Request: please tell me about your favorite videos or websites teaching about historic skills or doing experimental archaeology about them. (Particularly fiber arts, leather working especially horse tack cause I haven’t run across much of them personally— but I want ALL the cool ones)
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Mary Gillis @marygillis.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
I will never get over how disrespectful most genAI use it. People are doing everything in their power to trick you into reading slop because they don't respect you enough to actually take the time to write the thing they nevertheless expect you to take the time to read. Scamtech for scammers.
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Crow @abbyjane.cloverdalelane.com · 14/08/2026
I think about this a lot.
Tim Henke
@TimHenke9
eat shit, René Magritte
Translate Tweet
Mauv @ThatsMauvelous • 1d the machine refused to recognize my humanity until i professed to believe that a sign painted to look like a traffic light is indeed a traffic light.
Show this thread
Select all squares with traffic lights
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Noah Berlatsky @nberlat.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
I didn't follow the Arday story closely. It's pretty clear though that plagiarism allegations against Black professors are seen as a major news story because many ppl see Black success and intelligent as automatically illegitimate. So the real "scandal" is that Black ppl are professors at all. 1
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Danielle Clarke @rhetorician.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Delighted to announce that the Handbook is coming out in paperback!
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Historian Around Town @kellyms.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
This needs to be a time-travel TV series and it needs to be a comedy.
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Historian Around Town @kellyms.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Isaac Newton utterly amazed by contact lenses.
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Historian Around Town @kellyms.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Isaac Newton becoming fascinated by the workings of the zipper in his pants for a full week. Up... down... up... down...
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Historian Around Town @kellyms.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Isaac Newton in the 21st century: "What's this strange material everything is made from? Can I turn it into gold?" "Why is it bright in here, but dark out there? Is it the end times?"
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Devrim Yavuz @devrimyavuz.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Happy this article acknowledges that higher ed admin and tech companies do not make it easy to tackle AI cheating. I wish they would cover that instructors work with vastly different levels of employment precarity, student needs or classroom power dynamics, making it hard to place the onus on them
nytimes.com
A.I. Agents Are Taking Entire Online Courses for Cheating Students (Gift Article)
As colleges and students embrace virtual classes, the ease of A.I. cheating is raising questions about the value of an online degree.
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Charles Louis Richter @richterscale.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
we regret to inform you that the buns have committed the sin of vanity
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Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.lawyer · 04/08/2026
"it looks like you're using an adblocker to visit our site." yep! ha ha! it rocks!
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Ben Rosen @benrosen.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
i know votes are still being counted but the more i look at this michigan senate map the more it becomes clear that it kind of looks like a mitten
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
And, once again, I get WHY students cheat on a systemic scale, sure. But that does not mean we should ignore it or enable it, not any more. No amount of futzing with syllabi or assignment design is going to help with this problem, I can promise you. gAI misuse is ruining this generation.
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I have started running Claude alongside the book I am writing on ants, as well as just letting Google Gemini do its thing at the top when I do Google search. It is not doing any writing I am using, and I am always checking the results against primary sources.
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Ophie Dokie 🌻 @ophiedokie.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
So, ok, a thing about telling yr audience "i use AI for my info gathering/research but then I look over it and fix any errors" is that you unfortunately told me youve outsourced your knowledge base on this subject to the machine, and therefore I have no reason to believe you CAN catch those errors
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DLR-next @dlr-next.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Aus unserer losen Reihe zum Thema #Sonnenfinsternis: Auch auf anderen Planeten kann es dazu kommen. Wie hier auf dem Mars. Da hat der Perseverance-Rover vor längerer Zeit diesen Schnappschuss mit dem Mars-Mond Phobos vor der Sonne gemacht.
Umgeben vom Schwarz des Weltraums die Sonne als orangefarbene Kugel. Davor annähernd in der Mitte der dunkle und von seiner Form her einer Kartoffel ähnelnde, also etwas unförmige Marsmond Phobos. Da er logischerweise dem Rover sehr viel näher ist, verdeckt der winzige Felsbrocken etwa ein Drittel der Sonne.
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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
No professional accomplishment has ever made me happier than this. theonion.com/translator-o...
theonion.com
Translator Of Original ‘Minions’ Epic Poem Slams ‘Sexless, Bloodless’ Film Adaptation
PHILADELPHIA—In a 4,500-word essay published in Harper’s Magazine, Emily Wilson, known for her popular translation of the Minions epic poem, blasted the latest film Thursday as a “sexless, bloodless” ...
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KAFUI 🇬🇭 @mykafuiohkafui.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
If pocket calculators regularly and randomly gave you incorrect answers to your queries like ChatGPT does, we would have left the technology behind, not insisted that 2+2=5 is HERE TO STAY, BABY.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Fund the Humanities just because. Fund the Humanities for more vicarious intellectual intercourse on Main. Whichever.
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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
Oh did a female academic with an extensive history of study and practice in a particular area of literature make a reasoned critique of a male filmmaker’s movie? I’m sure this will be handled with maximum normality.
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Casey Stegman @caseystegman.com · 27/07/2026
People who think Emily Wilson is being mean have clearly never presented a paper at an academic conference
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