iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Stephen Ramsay

Chris Forster @cforster.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

What works does the r/classicliterature subreddit consider "classic"? This post gives you an answer (and some media ecological theorizing for good measure): cforster.com/2026/09/redd... With thanks to @mellymeldubs.bsky.social & @mariaa.bsky.social, whose work on Goodreads I borrow from.

cforster.com

The Reddit Classics

Reflections on the most frequently mentioned works in the /r/classicliterature subreddit.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

The good news is that tei2jsonl can generate a JSON record for //w in eebo-tcp at a rate of about 1.8 million tokens per second. The bad news is that it takes 12 minutes (end-to-end) to process the 1,387,424,934 <w> tokens in eebo.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Fun fact: I have known Matt since we were both in our (early) twenties. I think we were in our fifties before I asked, "Dude, what's with your eyes?" But I think that's because for the thirty-plus-year interval, it was very hard to imagine Matt any other way. Like, he looks like Matt! I.e., perfect!

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Every time I see the ballroom, I think, "This is exactly the aesthetic that inspired the Bolsheviks."

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I think MZ would rather not have to play this game at all. He'd rather fund his yacht the way he always has and not blow all this money competing with AI companies The bright solarpunk future he describes is one in which he doesn't have to worry about this shit and still wins at being super rich.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

The lettuce thing? Whatever. Jalapeños? I practically live on chili peppers. And sure, most of us spice freaks moved on to serranos years ago after they started breeding Js for normies, but this still poses a serious nutritional emergency.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

For the last two months, I've been working on tei2jsonl. I will blog the full rationale (basically, quickly load embedding dbs). But this morning, I would like to celebrate the fact that it just processed over 22 million word tokens across 410 eebo text in about 11 seconds.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

People seem to be confused about the basic motivations of tech oligarchs. Here's the deal: If it makes lots of money, it doesn't matter if it's a *soap bubble.*

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Funny how nearly comical levels of security incompetence are being cast by AI companies as "It's alive!"

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

New Blog Post: "The Fate of the Hobbyist Programmer" stephenramsay.net/posts/fate-o...

stephenramsay.net

The Fate of the Hobbyist Programmer

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

I knew that gigantic frontier models were going to beat smaller local models on most tasks. What has been surprising is how smaller, more focused local models *blow away* larger more general local models on some tasks.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Well, I have my Pedantry Merit Badge. I've read it in English several times and in Greek at least once, generally prefer books to people, and I thought the movie was amazing. Lots of clever choices. Several moments of true visual/thematic brilliance.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

It must be like banging your head against a wonderwall.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

NPR: "The 'Great American State Fair' will run from June 25 through July 10, promising to bring state-themed pavilions, movie screenings, musical performances, military flyovers, nostalgic snacks . . " What, pray, is a "nostalgic snack?"

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

*The New Yorker* has a review of Nolan’s *Odyssey,* which, of course, they have not seen. They don’t hate it, but I’d say they’re ready to do so.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

During World Cup matches, I periodically hear an arpeggiated (and doubled) C-major chord. Does anyone know what this signifies?

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Reposted by Stephen Ramsay

Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

"Hiring of college grads is down across the board. But certain majors are able to access opportunities in a wider array of industries, new LinkedIn data shows." ENGLISH ENGLISH ENGLISH 69% VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS 68% www.forbes.com/sites/courtn...

The Most Versatile Majors Chart, TOPPED BY ENGLISH and VISUAL&PERFORMING ARTS

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

The press keeps saying that tonight's match is "meaningless." The US is playing a country with metal dots in its name. This is serious.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

"Archaeologists Unearth ‘Prototype’ of Stonehenge Monument Nearby." Thing is, it was written in Python by a bunch of physicists. No comments, no structure, no tests. A big dude with a black robe and very long beard kept saying, "Can we just build this fucking thing in C already?" So they did.

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Reposted by Stephen Ramsay

Kate Sánchez @ohmymithrandir.bsky.social · 17/06/2026

i love world cup

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

What? You're trying to keep track of the scores without Plain Text Sports? You need Plain Text Sports. Here's the overarching concept: You click on this link, and it gives you . . . the scores. It does not give you "not the scores," but since you want the scores . . . plaintextsports.com

plaintextsports.com

Plain Text Sports

Instant live sports scores, play-by-play, and box scores

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Tips for new readers: The “map” between *Ulysees* and The Odyssey is probably the least interesting thing about this delightful, often hilarious novel. It’s a story, not a crossword puzzle. #bloomsday

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Reposted by Stephen Ramsay

Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 09/06/2026

Realized just today that my students—plural, cause it’s a whole thing—getting early, offline iPods for their music collections are reaching as far back into media history as we were getting into vinyl in the early 2000s

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

I have a new album out. stephenramsay.bandcamp.com/album/the-ob... Apologies to those who follow me for DH. (Then again, the Venn diagram between DH-ers and lovers of microtonal drone records may be wider than I think).

stephenramsay.bandcamp.com

Client Challenge

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Normally, I try to engage in as much aggressively pedantic gatekeeping as I can when it comes to drone. But on #droneday? Everyone should just hold that note as long as they can.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

The idea of a Texas Senate race hinging on a theological dispute from the fourth century is actually kind of interesting.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

One thing this whole encyclical business has made plain yet again: The media absolutely loves saying the word "pontiff."

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

It's a shame Reggie Foster didn't live to take a shot at "Babel Syndrome." "Syndroma Babelicum" is one option, but where's the art in that?

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

Thinking about a programming assignment where I give students a bloated, slow, increasingly typical piece of garbage software. Assignment: Make the fans stop, make it idle at ~0%, and stop the earth from crying out over the user's tortured battery.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Way back in the day, I suggested, as a THATCamp prompt: “Why does every CMS suck?” If I could have seen the SaaS future, I might have used . . . stronger language.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Are there any sea shanties specifically about the Strait of Hormuz?

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

I don't know quite know what to make of the "convergence toward the mean" that we see in AI-generated video animations. Does all of human art ultimately tend toward a combination of Thomas Kindade and Fraggle Rock? Huge, if true.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Great! I'm glad you're all here for our annual Professionally Facilitated Visioning Exercise for the university. As you know from the updated Envisioning Our Future packets you received this morning, our question for the afternoon will be "Where Do You See Yourself in Eight Hours?"

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

Connecting to a repo that is giving the warning, "connection is not using a post-quantum key exchange algorithm." Love this. Whatever the next thing is, we need to call it "post-quantum." "I'm undertaking a post-quantum analysis of Dickens." "My work is situated firmly within post-quantumism."

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

You know how when the title of an article on the web ends in a question mark the answer is “no?” There’s some version of this for articles declaring things to be over.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

I have the honor of being the Chair of the MLA Forum on Linguistics and Literature. This year, we are sponsoring a panel entitled, "The Language of Trauma" at the 2027 MLA Convention in Los Angeles. #MLA #Linguistics

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Reposted by Stephen Ramsay

Gabriel Hankins @gabrielh.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Coming this August! Have me come tell your students that everyone is a digital humanist now, in an age of pervasive digital mediation -- happy to bring free copies

Cambridge Introduction to Digital Humanities

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 14/01/2026

How does anyone work in Python with this virtual environment nonsense? I remember when Python was new. "Batteries Included!" Uh huh. Today: We give you the batteries. You're on your own with the single-use hex wrenches. And the instructions are in Linear A. Also requries knowledge of darke magick.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Everyone is reading *On Tyranny* and *1984*, but the text that speaks to our time is really Alfred Jarry's 1896 masterpiece *Ubu Roi.* STANISLAS: Sire, we are down on the register for only one hundred and fifty-two fix-dollars, which we've already paid over six weeks ago come Michaelmas.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

I'm going to teach Go this semester. Why not a dynamically typed language like Ruby or Python? Mainly because, in my experience, the answer to 90% of all the questions beginning programmers ask is some version of "What type is that?" Go might have just the right amount of type discipline.

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Reposted by Stephen Ramsay

Brett Bobley @brettbobley.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Hi folks. I'll be speaking at #MLA2026! It is session 438, The Humanities Funding Landscape, Saturday at 10:15AM in MTCC - 606. Come learn about our humanities programs @schmidtsciences.bsky.social. I'll also be talking a bit about my last (sad) days at the NEH. Grab me if you wanna chat!

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

What's that? We're supposed to post our hyperfixations? Here's one of maybe five. Years ago, I decided I wanted my kitchen knives and pocket knives to be really, really sharp. Like, sharp enough to shave with. Sharp enough to perform surgery. Sharp enough to come with a warning label.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

My pour over method already approaches the fabrication of semiconductors in terms of complexity and tolerances. For Christmas, I got a Flair Pro 3 (manual espresso machine). Let the madness begin. #coffee

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 25/12/2025

Καλά Χριστούγεννα! Χρόνια Πολλά!

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Reposted by Stephen Ramsay

Amy Earhart @aearhart.bsky.social · 22/12/2025

This looks great. I’m sorry to miss mla this year.

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

"Font debate" is trending?! I love font debates! Marco Rubio . . . Times New Roman . . . oh, for fuck's sake . . .

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Stephen Ramsay @sramsay2.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

I have been thinking a lot lately about the aging stockpile of XML tooling upon which our installed base of #TEI rests. I regard the situation as dire: lots of tools that were written in Java, haven't been meaningfully touched since the aughties, and which weren't designed for modern workflows. #DH

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