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Nick Seaver

@nickseaver.website
6.4K followers 1.1K following 3.2K posts

anthropology, algorithms, attention | he/him | The conversation is characterized by Nick's use of language, but the content of the discussion remains unknown.

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Reposted by Nick Seaver
ceej @ceej.online · 12h
emulsions… very “enemies-to-lovers”
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 15h
learned that @sthv.bsky.social uses a serial comma before the ampersand in its name today, very unsettling
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 16h
"Were there any perverts before the latter part of the nineteenth century?" is a great essay-starter
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Reposted by Nick Seaver
Mark J. Nelson @mm-jj-nn.bsky.social · 17h
New interactive/listenable blog post from me, exploring the expressive range of cat vocalizations in text-to-audio models. www.kmjn.org/notes/text_t...
kmjn.org
Text-to-meowdio models
Expressive range of AI cats
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 18h
a goat carcass is the ball in this centuries-old sport www.cnn.com/2026/09/28/s...
cnn.com
A goat carcass is the ball in this centuries-old sport | CNN
For centuries, Kok-Boru has tested the courage, horsemanship, and endurance of players across Central Asia. At the World Nomad Games, CNN explores this ancient game through the eyes of Kyrgyz champion...
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 22h
re-reading some of IN THE AGE OF THE SMART MACHINE for class prep, and this is so much more useful than the surveillance capitalism book
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 22h
just learned that Herman Miller invented the cubicle
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Kate Franklin @melucene.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Department of the History of Art and Architecture at Tufts University invites applications for a tenure-track position in Asian Art History at the rank of Assistant Professor, with a start date of September 1, 2027. All applications are submitted via Interfolio, at apply.interfolio.com/194232
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Mark J. Nelson @mm-jj-nn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Rice University's history department hiring an Assistant/Associate Professor in the History of Artificial Intelligence!
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 26/09/2026
really don’t see Seavers in the news that often (no relation, I’m pretty sure)
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 24/09/2026
fulfilling the university mission by getting advanced onto the ground by a car (I’m okay)
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 24/09/2026
using the wayback machine to figure out when exactly “fueled by evolving technological advancements” got added to my university’s mission statement
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ilinca iurascu @ilinca.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Friends, send us your proposals, abstracts, thoughts, in English or French - and please help us spread the word about this journal issue on distraction we're putting together. The CFP is attached: intermedialites.com/en/call-for-...
intermedialites.com
CALL FOR PAPERS – NO. 51 “DISTRACTING / DISTRAIRE” – intermédialités
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 23/09/2026
really the end of an era for one of the sweetest gigs going in my corner of academia socialmediacollective.org/2026/09/23/s...
socialmediacollective.org
The Social Media Collective Comes to a Close
It is with both celebration and sadness that we announce that the Social Media Collective, our research team of critical, humanistic social sciences at Microsoft Research’s New England lab, is comi…
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 22/09/2026
was reminded today that tufts apparently has the only collegiate mime troupe in the US?
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 22/09/2026
okay, so if the past several decades have involved companies shunting job training onto universities instead of doing it themselves, maybe a fake school where they take it back is actually okay www.theacademysf.com
theacademysf.com
The Horowitz Andreessen Academy
An Academy for unusually ambitious young people. Build your own projects in San Francisco, learn from the people shaping the future, and work inside leading companies.
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 22/09/2026
ngl I kind of want to teach a whole anthro of tech intro exclusively through work about elevators
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 22/09/2026
oh good
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 21/09/2026
when someone in the university meeting about AI principles suggests that the principles need to change fast because AI changes fast: the nice thing about principles is their durability and generality, such that having AI-specific principles may be at odds with the idea of "principles"
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/09/2026
one thing that is worth remember apropos this useful piece is that novel technologies do not necessarily require novel political solutions. americans have had to deal with fast-moving, disruptive technological change in the past, and they did so through collective, democratic action.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Bernie Sanders, Steve Case and Others on What Washington Should Do Now on A.I.
How can the government reel in the technology? Here are six ideas.
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Standplaats Kraków could really use some cash! @standplaatskrk.pl · 21/09/2026
regular sized ackman (@pleas4nt) on twitter:

"Well it's like Sun Tzu says in the Art of War: Hover over a friendly unit to see its attributes. Click on a friendly unit to command it."
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 19/09/2026
my child birthday present scavenger hunts are getting elaborate enough that I think I need to start using project management tools
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 19/09/2026
AI assistant in the form of the dictabird from the live-action Flintstones movie
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Reposted by Nick Seaver
Stephanie 🍉 @ageofoddish.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
mmygod
the slut gnomes of false berlin jeopardy bluesky posttoday's jeopardy categories. the last 2 are "false berlin" and "bizarre little men"
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 18/09/2026
Nick Covaleski talking about how everything got so fronty
A man with a beard and glasses stands to the left of a projection screen displaying a presentation slide titled The return of the frontier. The slide lists five categories on the left, each with a corresponding headline on the right:

The New Frontier: New frontiers in pathogen immunity
The Final Frontier: WHY WAVE ENERGY IS THE FINAL FRONTIER OF RENEWABLE ENERGY
The Electronic Frontier: Electronic Frontier Foundation EFF
The Digital Frontier: Taming the Digital Frontier
The AI Frontier: Who Paces the AI Frontier?
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 17/09/2026
dad’s night out to see YHWH Nailgun
a stage set up for a rock band with synth
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 17/09/2026
...what
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 16/09/2026
big opportunity for a whole anthology series of “reality tv adaptations of studies you have to read about in IRB training”
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 15/09/2026
I am feeling this in my 90s child habitus as I print a gajillion pages out for my students in seminar this term. Sorry, trees!
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 15/09/2026
student bought me another tesla FSD camera head from the chinese internet, which, incidentally, is from a ronaldo doll, it appears
Two doll heads are mounted to the underside of a door frame, hanging upside down. The head on the left resembles Cristiano Ronaldo with a tan complexion and a wide, toothy grin. The head on the right is a Ken-style doll head with a neutral, slightly pouty expression.
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 14/09/2026
noted
MONDAY
GOOD 宜
demolition

LUNAR 農曆
08 丁酉月 04 辛卯日
8/23-9/22 VIRGO 處女座

AVOID 忌
everything else
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 14/09/2026
hello, comrade Wall Street Journal
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 12/09/2026
new specimen
IN THIS HOUSE, WE BELIEVE:
LAWS ARE REAL
BILLIONAIRES SHOULDN'T EXIST
TARIFFS HURT MANUFACTURING RUSSIA IS OUR ENEMY THE FCC SHOULDN'T CENSOR LATE NIGHT TV TYLENOL IS SAFE RUMP IS IN THE EPSTEIN FILES
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 11/09/2026
buenas
a bottle of lizano salsa next to a fried egg over beans and rice
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 11/09/2026
oh my god www.etsy.com/listing/4515...
etsy.com
Custom Annotated Books!--tabs, Highlights, Handwritten Notes - Etsy
This Book Sets & Collections item by AnnotationsWithSyd has 94 favorites from Etsy shoppers. Ships from Nashotah, WI. Listed on Aug 28, 2026
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 10/09/2026
ooh, what is a “recording”
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Reposted by Nick Seaver
Ian Rennie @theangelremiel.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Nathan Fielder and Elizabeth Holmes doing the "we're just normal men" meme
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 08/09/2026
Got the student paper to quote my line that university AI initiatives are like kindergartners playing soccer, all swarming after the ball in the least effective possible form of coordination: www.tuftsdaily.com/article/2026...
tuftsdaily.com
Hey Claude, how is Tufts handling this AI thing? - The Tufts Daily
Like many others, I spent the first few weeks of this summer searching "internship" on LinkedIn jobs and Handshake, praying that there would be any position that required zero experience, or whatever ...
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Reposted by Nick Seaver
Alex Hern @hern.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It's finally happened: the improved quality of machine transcription and the greater ability to extract value from unlabelled data means "your tech is eavesdropping on you for marketing purposes" has crossed from "false conspiracy theory" to "true and concerning" www.theverge.com/tech/991190/...
theverge.com
LG TVs caught spying even when offline or on standby
Gamers Nexus comes for LG again.
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 08/09/2026
First class of the semester is completed. Running iteration 9 of my seminar, How to Pay Attention. Doing it fully on paper this year, but the web copy of the syllabus is here: classes.nickseaver.net/HTPA/
classes.nickseaver.net
How to Pay Attention
Undergraduate seminar critically examining attention: how it is measured, valued, and managed in social, cultural, and technical contexts, from driver monitoring to AI.
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 07/09/2026
printing approximately a trillion pages for the analog version of my attention seminar this term. Let’s find out if it’s worth it.
SEPTEMBER 15, 2026
2 READING
DAN SINYKIN AND
JOHANNA WINANT
JESSE CORDES SELBIN
N. KATHERINE HAYLES
YAEL SEGALOVITZ
READINGS
"Introduction: What Close Reading Is." In Close Reading for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2025), 1-10.
"Read with Attention': John Cassell, John Ruskin, and the History of Close Reading." Victorian Studies 58, no. 3(2016): 493-521.
"Hyper and Deep Attention: The Generational Divide in Cognitive Modes." Profession, 187-99 (2007).
"Probably Not Book Learned at All': The Gender of Attentive Reading in Woolf and Lispector." Poetics Today 47, no. 1(2026): 29-50.
DROP EVERYTHING AND READ
EXERCISE
While doing the reading this week, keep track of the distractions that interrupt you. These may be things like notifications, friends
they arise. Then
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caroline cash @cashbrowns.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Nancy 9/7/26 … Happy Labor Day 🛠️
8 Hours for Work, 8 Hours for Rest, 8 Hours for What We Will. Based on a screenprint by Ricardo Levins Morales after the organizing work done by Robert Owen.
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Reposted by Nick Seaver
Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 06/09/2026
We know how to teach books in the age of AI: small classes, close reading, research-engaged learning (which is how you ’let students see you struggle’). The issue is nobody will hire and pay the requisite # of faculty to offer this.
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 05/09/2026
really a lot of buckets in Annie’s orphanage
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 05/09/2026
newest addition to my collection of synthetic attention: the “drive man,” who sits in front of a car’s in-cabin camera and appears to be watching the road for you
a little rubber head on a metal stand
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 04/09/2026
not that we want to be playing in the "threatening universities' accreditation" game right now, but is anyone aware of any efforts to come after universities on the grounds that students aren't actually meeting credit hour requirements thanks to AI use?
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Reposted by Nick Seaver
beth semel @bethmsemel.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
ok comrade calvin's dad
Four panels from Calvin and Hobbes. Panel 1: Calvin's dad sits with an exasperated look in front of his desktop: "It used to be that if a client wanted something done in a week, it was considered a rush job, and he'd be lucky to get it." Panel 2, he's resting his chin angrily in his had: "Now, with modems, faxes, and care phones, everybody wants everything instantly! improved technology just increases expectations." Panel 3: panning back to him sitting in front of the computer; "these machines don't make life easier - they make life more harassed." Panel 4: now we can see Calvin standing behind his dad holding up a box with an outraged look on his face, saying "Six minutes to Microwave this?? Who's got that kind of time?" Calvins's dad says "If we wanted more leisure, we'd invent machines that do things *less* efficiently."
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Dan Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Next week! Hosting an @aaup.org webinar with Britt Paris on our new Toolkit for Activism in AI. 9/9 3 PM. Presentation portion recorded. More events and demos through the fall. What your dues fund! www.aaup.org/event/introd...
aaup.org
Introducing the New Toolkit for Activism on AI
The new toolkit for activism on AI shares best practices on technology procurement, auditing, bargaining, conducting information requests, and developing campaigns around technology demands for chapte...
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Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 04/09/2026
love doing these, even if the questions are basically always the same. (no option given for “I want to say freeway but internally correct myself every time to say highway instead”)
Dialect map that shows that my dialect is the most similar to people in California and Nevada, and least similar to people in New York and New England
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