Dr Victoria Austen
@vickyausten.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Classics at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Public Engagement Coordinator for @peoplingthepast.bsky.social
Gif Enthusiast.
My own unique mix of 🇬🇧🇨🇦🇺🇸
victoriaausten.com
Public Engagement Coordinator for @peoplingthepast.bsky.social
Gif Enthusiast.
My own unique mix of 🇬🇧🇨🇦🇺🇸
victoriaausten.com
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
OUTLOOK: You replied to this message on 5/22/2025 11:44 AM.
ME: Oh that's really helpful actually. Can I see the reply?
OUTLOOK: What reply?
ME: The reply I sent to the message.
OUTLOOK: What message?
ME: Oh that's really helpful actually. Can I see the reply?
OUTLOOK: What reply?
ME: The reply I sent to the message.
OUTLOOK: What message?
October 28, 2025 at 5:24 PM
OUTLOOK: You replied to this message on 5/22/2025 11:44 AM.
ME: Oh that's really helpful actually. Can I see the reply?
OUTLOOK: What reply?
ME: The reply I sent to the message.
OUTLOOK: What message?
ME: Oh that's really helpful actually. Can I see the reply?
OUTLOOK: What reply?
ME: The reply I sent to the message.
OUTLOOK: What message?
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
“Their [auxiliary troop] small bases were peopled not merely with servicemen, but rather should be understood as integrated communities consisting (at least in part) of formal or informal family units.”
In today’s new #PeoplingBlog, Andrew L. Goldman takes us through his archaeological project at the ancient Roman auxiliary base at Gordion in central Anatolia, and discusses the possibility that Pannonian soldiers were stationed at this site:
peoplingthepast.com/2025/11/21/b... 🧵/1
peoplingthepast.com/2025/11/21/b... 🧵/1
November 21, 2025 at 3:44 PM
“Their [auxiliary troop] small bases were peopled not merely with servicemen, but rather should be understood as integrated communities consisting (at least in part) of formal or informal family units.”
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
In today’s new #PeoplingBlog, Andrew L. Goldman takes us through his archaeological project at the ancient Roman auxiliary base at Gordion in central Anatolia, and discusses the possibility that Pannonian soldiers were stationed at this site:
peoplingthepast.com/2025/11/21/b... 🧵/1
peoplingthepast.com/2025/11/21/b... 🧵/1
November 21, 2025 at 3:35 PM
In today’s new #PeoplingBlog, Andrew L. Goldman takes us through his archaeological project at the ancient Roman auxiliary base at Gordion in central Anatolia, and discusses the possibility that Pannonian soldiers were stationed at this site:
peoplingthepast.com/2025/11/21/b... 🧵/1
peoplingthepast.com/2025/11/21/b... 🧵/1
In other news, water is wet.
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 1:47 PM
In other news, water is wet.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Museums should stop displaying their collections as if patrons will view them, and start designing them for robbers who will be stealing them.
Saw a post today that advised writers to stop writing as if a human will read it and start writing for an LLM that will be summarising.
As someone who really enjoyed trying to develop a peculiar but readable authorial voice, I find this incredibly depressing.
As someone who really enjoyed trying to develop a peculiar but readable authorial voice, I find this incredibly depressing.
November 20, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Museums should stop displaying their collections as if patrons will view them, and start designing them for robbers who will be stealing them.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Get them, MacArthur Fellow Jeffrey Miller
November 19, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Get them, MacArthur Fellow Jeffrey Miller
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
There sure has! And it’s open access! www.routledge.com/Ancient-Past...
November 19, 2025 at 1:41 PM
There sure has! And it’s open access! www.routledge.com/Ancient-Past...
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Yes, I will be blaming this very slow day on the Cloudflare outage even though it’s only affected about 30% of things that needed doing.
November 18, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Yes, I will be blaming this very slow day on the Cloudflare outage even though it’s only affected about 30% of things that needed doing.
Tell that to Homer.
just remembered this time I turned in a story to my workshop where a dog died and someone gave me the feedback “dogs shouldn’t die in stories”
November 18, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Tell that to Homer.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Despite Cloudflare disruptions, happy to report all print books are functioning as usual.
November 18, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Despite Cloudflare disruptions, happy to report all print books are functioning as usual.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care?
The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity
www.cityam.com
November 18, 2025 at 6:27 AM
I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
www.cityam.com/the-british-...
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success
November 17, 2025 at 7:20 PM
POV: you are a young woman celebrating a recent academic success
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
It’s the universities encouraging students to use AI that really gets me. All this “we need to accept it’s here and teach them to use it” does not help students learn to think. Writing is for thinking and communicating, not just producing words.
I spent a lot of time this semester explaining why it produces bad work but at the end of the day, they're being asked to do a thing they find difficult, and this makes it easy for them, without any meaningful consequence. And the university encourages them to use it.
November 18, 2025 at 3:46 AM
It’s the universities encouraging students to use AI that really gets me. All this “we need to accept it’s here and teach them to use it” does not help students learn to think. Writing is for thinking and communicating, not just producing words.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
quoting Gisele Pelicot: The shame must switch sides.
November 17, 2025 at 1:45 PM
quoting Gisele Pelicot: The shame must switch sides.
Once again, I’m BEGGING billionaires read to the end of the myth.
Jeff Bezos will be co-CEO of AI startup Project Prometheus
Jeff Bezos will be co-CEO of AI startup Project Prometheus
Jeff Bezos has a new job.
buff.ly
November 17, 2025 at 12:34 PM
Once again, I’m BEGGING billionaires read to the end of the myth.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
THEN YOU PURCHASE THEM AND DO NOT USE THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS
Open AI loses copyright case in Germany.
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Judge Elke Schwager summarized the case saying that if you want to build something and need components, "then you purchase them and do not use the property of others."
Blow for OpenAI in Germany as court rules song lyrics used illegally
A German court ruled on Tuesday that OpenAI violated copyright on nine popular songs in a lawsuit that marked another attempt to prevent the free use of artists' content online. The Munich Regional Co...
www.yahoo.com
November 14, 2025 at 9:23 PM
THEN YOU PURCHASE THEM AND DO NOT USE THE PROPERTY OF OTHERS
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
I hate that AI has made me approach cute animal videos with an air of suspicion. I resent having to harden my heart to the possibility of an unlikely friendship between a very large dog and a very small one
November 14, 2025 at 2:01 PM
I hate that AI has made me approach cute animal videos with an air of suspicion. I resent having to harden my heart to the possibility of an unlikely friendship between a very large dog and a very small one
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
This is a real flight school, teaching people to fly planes!!! Like????
November 14, 2025 at 12:17 AM
This is a real flight school, teaching people to fly planes!!! Like????
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
I’m sorry I just found out that in 1379, as in, 650 years ago, a baby girl was born in Yorkshire and named Diot Coke
history is a fucking joke lmao
history is a fucking joke lmao
November 13, 2025 at 10:50 PM
I’m sorry I just found out that in 1379, as in, 650 years ago, a baby girl was born in Yorkshire and named Diot Coke
history is a fucking joke lmao
history is a fucking joke lmao
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
look as someone who can be incapacitated for weeks by the fear that I put the wrong number of exclamation points into an email this has been a fascinating glimpse into a some brains that work extremely! differently! from! mine!
November 13, 2025 at 5:28 PM
look as someone who can be incapacitated for weeks by the fear that I put the wrong number of exclamation points into an email this has been a fascinating glimpse into a some brains that work extremely! differently! from! mine!
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.
November 12, 2025 at 10:23 PM
Well, it's a little clearer now why billionaires are so invested in technology that produces better written emails.
Not that I needed one, but here’s another reason to hate endnotes.
Footnotes ftw.
Footnotes ftw.
I fuckin hate these downloaded pdf chapters from books with endnotes!!! When the endnotes are in a separate pdfs I have to go download!!!! Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!
November 13, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Not that I needed one, but here’s another reason to hate endnotes.
Footnotes ftw.
Footnotes ftw.
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
'But much to the detriment of learning... we have seen education redefined as something else -- as a product, not a process. As certification, not transformation. The liminality has been shattered; instead of ritual, society has demanded “outcomes” and “optimization.”'
November 13, 2025 at 2:11 AM
'But much to the detriment of learning... we have seen education redefined as something else -- as a product, not a process. As certification, not transformation. The liminality has been shattered; instead of ritual, society has demanded “outcomes” and “optimization.”'
Reposted by Dr Victoria Austen
November 12, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Just in time to be doing a class on “coins as communication during the Third Century Crisis” with my Art&Arch crew on Friday 😅
The American penny died on Wednesday in Philadelphia. It was 232. The cause was irrelevance and expensiveness, the Treasury Department said. Nothing could be bought any more with a penny, as the cost to mint the penny had risen to more than 3 cents. nyti.ms/48bFd5K
November 12, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Just in time to be doing a class on “coins as communication during the Third Century Crisis” with my Art&Arch crew on Friday 😅