Anne Hjortshøj
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annesaurus.bsky.social
Anne Hjortshøj
@annesaurus.bsky.social
Fractional design exec & advisor
This Portland Press Herald review of a boutique listed on a NY Times “best of” list is a masterclass in polite Maine evisceration. So many levels of shade.

(For the uninitiated, “Connecticut” is shorthand for…a lot.)

archive.is/UVH0l
December 24, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Spoke with my elderly mother yesterday. She recalled working with a guy who had had measles as a young teen. It caused him to stop growing, which is why he was only about 5’ 4”. His sister also had measles. It made her deaf.

Vaccines are a blessing.
December 20, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
The New School owns about a billion dollars worth of art, most of which is not on display. They could sell the two Warhols they own and raise $100 million tomorrow. But they’d rather close academic departments.
New School “administrators have started to implement a plan to close, overhaul or merge about 30 academic programs or majors; pause nearly all admissions to doctoral programs; and offer buyouts or early retirement to what professors say is about 40 percent of the full-time faculty.”
Falling Enrollment, Money Woes: The New School Seeks a Path to Survival
www.nytimes.com
December 19, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
Lewiston votes down AI data center after public outcry
Lewiston votes down AI data center after public outcry
One councilor said the data center proposal for Bates Mill No. 3 yielded 'by far' the most public feedback he's received on a single issue.
www.pressherald.com
December 17, 2025 at 1:00 PM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
As we mourn Rob Reiner, don’t skip this: he was, pretty much, personally responsible for overturning California’s Prop 8 banning same sex marriage.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/bus...
How Rob Reiner became anti-Prop. 8 kingpin
Rob Reiner reflects on the critical role he played in getting California's gay marriage ban overturned.
www.hollywoodreporter.com
December 15, 2025 at 1:37 PM
This is straight out of a 1970s TV plot (quicksand was a popular plot device at the time). Pretty rare in real life! bsky.app/profile/wash...
Austin Dirks walked through a shallow stream of water in a Utah canyon that looked and felt similar to dozens of others the avid hiker has passed.

But during his Sunday hike, his left foot suddenly sank into the ground.
Rescuers questioned the call but it was real: A hiker was trapped in quicksand
A hiker's backpacking trip turned into a rescue mission after he became trapped in quicksand in a canyon in Utah’s Arches National Park.
wapo.st
December 13, 2025 at 5:14 AM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
Q: So your job is to judge people, but not to judge people for judging people.

A: You’re making it sound like I approve of Krampus’s methods. I don’t. Just because you share a holiday with someone doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything. I love kids.
The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner Interviews Santa Claus
For several centuries, Santa Claus has been one of the most prolific mythical gift-givers in the world. Formerly known as Saint Nicholas of Myra, a...
buff.ly
December 6, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
I've updated my document that tackles four of the common arguments used to encourage teachers to use AI.

I hope this will be helpful to those educators wanting to push back on AI mania.
Resisting School AI Mania Help Sheet
Help Sheet: Resisting AI Mania in Schools K-12 educators are under increasing pressure to use—and have students use—a wide range of AI tools. (The term “AI” is used loosely here, just as it is by man...
docs.google.com
October 14, 2025 at 7:23 PM
In addition to all of the other benefits already reported about NYC congestion pricing, "In the first six months of the program, air pollution – in the form of particulate matter 2.5 micrometers and smaller – dropped by 22% in the Congestion Relief Zone (CRZ)"

news.cornell.edu/stories/2025...
Congestion pricing improved air quality in NYC and suburbs | Cornell Chronicle
Cornell researchers tallied the environmental benefits of New York City’s congestion pricing program and found air pollution dropped by 22% in Manhattan, with additional declines across the city’s fiv...
news.cornell.edu
December 9, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Watched a doc on Robert Johnson (blues pioneer/man who invented the raw material for rock n’ roll), and it turns out that instead of meeting the devil at the crossroads, he in fact left the Delta for a year to…take guitar lessons in his hometown?
December 8, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
The USPS posting a NINE BILLION DOLLAR LOSS!!! sounds terrible. Certainly worse than if you said "USPS costs thirty dollars per person per year" even though that means the same thing and more accurately describes a government service
December 5, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Finally watched (against my will) Tron: Ares. The most positive review I can muster is that it‘s nice that someone finally did a Hackers sequel.

(Also, hiring Jared Leto was entirely optional, and yet…)
December 2, 2025 at 1:44 PM
Good marketing: focus on an authentic message that resonates with the slice of the market most likely to yield a return.

Bad marketing: attempt to hit every market by averaging every possible message to create lowest-common-denominator slop.

Example: bsky.app/profile/nycs...
The centrists’ new idea is summoning the imagery of a parking lot to win elections
November 30, 2025 at 3:30 PM
I’m glad that Team Minimize Trump’s Damage Minimally is being challenged.
Wow — Senators Van Hollen, Smith, Murphy, Sanders, Warren, Markey, Merkley, Heinrich have created an official internal "Fight Club."

They're challenging Schumer & Gillibrand's leadership, arguing the party is using an old, corporate-friendly playbook insufficient to take on Trump or win elections.
Chuck Schumer Faces Pushback From a ‘Fight Club’ of Senate Democrats
www.nytimes.com
November 26, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
BREAKING: This is huge news, the EU's equivalent of the 🇺🇸Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.

🇪🇺Court of Justice just ruled all 🇪🇺countries must recognise same-sex marriages granted in other member states.

This effectively legalises gay marriage across 🇪🇺
www.reuters.com
November 25, 2025 at 10:10 AM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
Tip for any ambitious capitalist out there. You know what there’s going to be an ENORMOUS market for in the near future? Authentic human expression. Most normal people fucking hate AI slop and there’s already emerging a significant backlash against it.
According to Hiatus Kaiyote bassist Paul Bender, this AI scam problem is “symbolic of how little these tech people give a fuck about actual music and the people who make it.”
Why Is It So Easy to Flood Streaming With AI Slop?
And what the hell is Operation Clown Dump?
www.hearingthings.co
November 23, 2025 at 1:41 PM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
I once knew a Federal bank examiner, and one time someone asked him why we had to KEEP inspecting banks over and over. He basically said every new batch of business school grads invents bank fraud from first principles.
AirBnB CEO calling it “vibe revenue” just 👨‍🍳 😘

The underlying cause of every bubble - debt masquerading as financial innovation - depends on not just short financial memory & speculative neophytism, but reinventing jargon of finance, like how each generation of kids has new ways to say same things.
November 22, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Boston in a nutshell bsky.app/profile/keeg...
I’m at the prayer chapel. I’m at the Dunkin Donuts. I’m at the combination prayer chapel and Dunkin Donuts. #aarsbl25
November 22, 2025 at 3:21 PM
Reposted by Anne Hjortshøj
Seals singing in a sea cave

#Orkney 🦭🎧
November 21, 2025 at 5:54 PM
When I was a kid, there was a terrible reading instruction program called ECRI. It focused on vocabulary building: look at word, say a word, write a word, be tested on that word. The state of Maine required this in public schools. It was remedial and ineffective. bsky.app/profile/kiss...
I‘d read some of @ehanford.bsky.social’s reporting on disastrous reading instruction over the years but the Sold a Story podcast has been making me swear out loud while I do the laundry. At one point the hairs actually stood up on my arms.
November 21, 2025 at 2:18 PM
As background, every US-based parent I know who has a neurodivergent child in public school has had to hire a lawyer to get their child the level of support to which they are entitled by law. The subterfuge in Lexington is enraging, but not surprising. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/20/m...
Lexington man exposes school district for intentionally overestimating costs of public records - The Boston Globe
“Hopefully, when I let them know the cost, they will not want to do it," an official wrote in an email.
www.bostonglobe.com
November 20, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Headlines should not troll. It's a grubby way to fan engagement ("Have women ruined the workplace?" is another one for the ages), and often contradicts the actual reporting. The "paper of record" shouldn't have this much contempt for its readers. bsky.app/profile/ohno...
Jesus fucking Christ
November 16, 2025 at 6:35 PM
I realized years ago that many people above a certain level of celebrity or wealth value their network more than they do any sort of morality, because their network signals and reinforces their class membership.
November 13, 2025 at 12:21 PM