Mel Campbell
@incrediblemelk.bsky.social
1.5K followers 440 following 4.5K posts
Film/TV critic, copyeditor, author and shadow academic on Wurundjeri Woiwurrung country
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Reposted by Mel Campbell
jediofgallifrey.bsky.social
The texas national guard arrived in chicago today, marking the farthest north a confederate army has ever gotten.

dark days.
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
What paper trail does this ‘Alex’ provide the tenant? I’ve heard horror stories of REAs remotely wiping the message history of these apps they force us all to use so the tenant has no evidence for tribunal of when they first requested the repair

I’d be screenshotting every fkn thing ‘Alex’ says
Reposted by Mel Campbell
purplepingers.bsky.social
Nelson Alexander requiring tenants to use an AI chatbot to report urgent repairs. Reportedly this chatbot cannot differentiate between urgent and non-urgent repairs. Incredible.
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
A fascinating tension between a neopagan religion’s ‘revived cred’ (how long it’s existed as a modern praxis), & its ‘traditional cred’ (its claimed continuity with ancient folk custom)

Dievturība (est. 1925) has more revived cred than Wicca (1954), the younger & more diffuse Anglophone neopaganism
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
“Institutions have sent a clear message to the majority of faculty that their labor is not valued, easily replaceable, and that they have no vested interest in developing their teaching or research. These are prime conditions for a workforce to embrace automation of their labor…”
biblioracle.bsky.social
I strongly urge everyone to not just read this warning from @marcwatkins.bsky.social, but heed it, and be vocal and forceful pushing back against using AI to grade student writing. This must be anathema if we're going to have a world where learning means something. substack.com/inbox/post/1...
The Dangers of using AI to Grade
Nobody Learns, Nobody Gains
substack.com
Reposted by Mel Campbell
tomquinn.bsky.social
Kidnapped in international waters, extraordinary rendition to a genocidal state, and then imprisoned indefinitely.

You'd think this would trigger the immediate expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador for these inexcusable actions against an Australian citizen.
earleyedition.bsky.social
An Australian woman who has not agreed to sign a waiver acknowledging she sought to 'illegally break Israel’s naval blockade' on Gaza will be “indefinitely detained” in Israel’s Ketziot prison unless she agrees to sign the waiver.
Australian woman on pro-Palestinian aid flotilla will be ‘indefinitely detained’ by Israel unless she signs waiver
Madeleine Habib, who captained the Conscience ship, was arrested by Israeli forces on 8 October and detained in Israel’s Ketziot prison
www.theguardian.com
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Currently indexing a book on queer theory and so many key terms use 'queer' to modify a noun that I am cackling to myself at the idea of a massively unhelpful index where all those terms are listed under Q

(generally I love 'queer' as an indexing term because it populates the Q section)
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
You’re going to need to be more specific with your subtweet if I’m to understand what pathway you mean
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Community group writing to & calling their local MP, or protesting outside their office, to get them to act on pressing moral issues:

Cops: You have committed a Crime Against Social Cohesion

Big business lobbyist:

You get direct access to MPs to push your profit agenda, as a fun lil sports club!
AFP launches National Security Investigations teams to target groups causing harm to social cohesion | Australian Federal Police
The AFP has set up new National Security Investigations (NSI) teams to target groups and individuals causing high levels of harm to Australia’s social cohesion, including the targeting of federal parl...
www.afp.gov.au
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Ahh, the internet: where inarticulate people say, “you didn’t read what I said”

Babyhead, I did. Then I said something. That’s called “replying”

Then they go: “I wasn’t even talking to you!”

(stroking their tiny baby head) On ‘social’ media, people you don’t know might respond to what you say
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
It was on Apple TV+ so it should still be on there
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
I'm so excited there's a new season of 'Drops of God' starting in January! Based on a manga, this French–Japanese wine-dynasty drama was unbelievably slept-on
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Germany says it will boycott Eurovision if lsraeI is banned

in 15 out of the past 20 years Germany hasn’t cracked the top 10

It was in the bottom five in three of the past five contests

Liebchen, go ahead. Auf wiedersehen!
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
As the only thing they understand is money, wouldn’t it be nice if the original IP owners all sued them not just for copyright infringement but also (depending on the legal regime) for moral rights violation, as the usage of these assets to purvey genocide damages the actual creators’ reputations
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
What gets me isn’t the laziness as much as the impunity. Their hasbara devs can be as sloppy as they like when the US (and the rest of the West) will always run cover for whatever they say
theserfstv.bsky.social
Losing my mind and what look like video game assets but instead were used to justify war crimes and genocide in the real world
NEW: Since October 2023, the IDF Spokesperson's Unit has released dozens of 3D animations illustrating alleged Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian sites

The style is unmistakable: satellite zoom-ins, black & white wireframes, and red-textured houses - a new visual language of war.Our analysis of 43 official IDF videos found recycled 3D environments, spatial inaccuracies, and assets lifted from unrelated artists and institutions.We traced over 30 unique assets to Washington-based 3D creator Ian Hubert, who makes bespoke models created for his sci-fi project Dynamo Dream, available to  his Patreon subscribers. 

Models of parking lots, antennas, + pipes were repurposed as Hamas and Iranian military sites @evanhill
·
11m
Fascinating work here tracing how the IDF recycled 3D assets from a cyberpunk sci-fi art project, the Scottish Maritime Museum and elsewhere to populate its widely-seen models of supposed enemy locations in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. One of the most infamous, the alleged underground Hamas command center at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, used to justify an unprecedented assault on the biggest medical center in Gaza, was actually an animation the IDF had used the previous year, saying at the time it was a tunnel beneath a UN school.
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
I suspect her parents had spiritual wealth in mind. Also, Puritan names often reference having heaps of kids (Increase, Has-descendants, More-fruit, Multiply) so Wealthy in terms of family?
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Welcome to the wild world of Puritan names: not just virtues e.g. Faith, Hope, Prudence, Chastity but also

Praise-God
Has-Descendants
More-Fruit
Be-grateful
Sorry-for-sin
Fly-fornication 😬
Search-the-scriptures
Job-raked-out-of-the-ashes
If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
don't make me open up Wikipedia again
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
More on the Persian Bird…

Its wild range spanned Pakistan in the west, through the subcontinent SE into the Indochinese Peninsula

In ancient India, China, Egypt, Persia, Judea & Greece it was originally a fighting bird & became a symbol of ferocity

Only in the Hellenistic era was it bred for food
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
I originally posted this in the middle of the Australian night, from deep in a Wiki-hole

it can't be for nothing

the people must learn of Wealthy Hotchkiss
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
John Brown Jr, son of the militant US slavery abolitionist, married a woman with the amazing name of Wealthy Hotchkiss (1829–1911)
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
maybe the "Times Higher Eduction" rankings are different to the "Times Higher Education" rankings
robbiemoore.bsky.social
Rank the macerated remains of our university system from 1 to 10
Headline in the Guardian: University of Melbourne rated best in Australia in global rankings report
Times Higher Eduction ranks university as 37th in the world, with five other Australian schools in top 100
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
Anyway I have been going back over my files from past projects, and saw that a file I worked on a few years ago was labelled "32nd draft"

that's… a lot of drafting
incrediblemelk.bsky.social
I keep various lists to cross-reference my academic editing projects:

by citation style
by client's university affiliation
by research discipline

Now that I work on more books than theses, I've just started a new list by academic press, so I can see whose style guides I already have