chad black 💚
@chadblack.bsky.social
Impostor. Latin America, Theory, Marx, Freud, Lacan, Horror, Monsters. Cycling, trail running, music. RDU, TYS, UIO, ABQ, BAL, SAN
I struggled for years with plantar fasciitis. Did everything expensive and cheap short of surgery- OTC inserts, custom inserts, different shoes, shockwave therapy, massage, PT, fascia scraping, cortisone injections, stretching, etc. The thing that finally worked... barefoot kettlebell workouts.
December 12, 2025 at 3:27 AM
I struggled for years with plantar fasciitis. Did everything expensive and cheap short of surgery- OTC inserts, custom inserts, different shoes, shockwave therapy, massage, PT, fascia scraping, cortisone injections, stretching, etc. The thing that finally worked... barefoot kettlebell workouts.
Learned from a student's paper today, that I apparently published a book with Duke in 2020 on colonial Mexico. 😂 I guess I can finally go up for Full Professor.
December 10, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Learned from a student's paper today, that I apparently published a book with Duke in 2020 on colonial Mexico. 😂 I guess I can finally go up for Full Professor.
The LLM and the AI boom is an expression of capital's desire to free itself from its dependence on labor, from the impossibility of fully subsuming the reproduction of labor power.
December 9, 2025 at 7:29 PM
The LLM and the AI boom is an expression of capital's desire to free itself from its dependence on labor, from the impossibility of fully subsuming the reproduction of labor power.
It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.
For a couple of years now, I've been fascinated with what's happening at small liberal arts colleges, which are running out of money for reasons unrelated to Trump funding cuts. Businessweek let me go deep on the problems, and one college that's trying to blaze a new trail.
Why a College Fighting for Survival Is Slashing Econ and Physics Majors
At Albright in Pennsylvania, the new president is cutting programs, selling art and real estate, and vowing not to hire anyone with tenure. Is this the way forward for liberal arts colleges?
www.bloomberg.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:18 PM
It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.
I don’t use bookmarks or fold down pages. But I do write and highlight all over the books I read. Never seems to be hard to find where I left off.
December 8, 2025 at 9:50 PM
I don’t use bookmarks or fold down pages. But I do write and highlight all over the books I read. Never seems to be hard to find where I left off.
The four corners ain't playing with turbulence at 34,000 ft tonight!
December 6, 2025 at 12:55 AM
The four corners ain't playing with turbulence at 34,000 ft tonight!
Most of the YouTube review of my year was completely off, neglected all the subscriptions I watch, and clearly slop. But I'll give it this... I do have perfect travel bags (as a transcontinental commuter) and I do have films to recommend for most occasions.
December 4, 2025 at 2:15 AM
Most of the YouTube review of my year was completely off, neglected all the subscriptions I watch, and clearly slop. But I'll give it this... I do have perfect travel bags (as a transcontinental commuter) and I do have films to recommend for most occasions.
However the rest of the film aged, Harry Connick Jr's soundtrack to When Harry Met Sally is still fantastic.
November 24, 2025 at 1:42 AM
However the rest of the film aged, Harry Connick Jr's soundtrack to When Harry Met Sally is still fantastic.
The new modern workplace: people using AI to "write" email responses to AI summaries of emails their colleagues "wrote" with AI.
November 21, 2025 at 5:08 PM
The new modern workplace: people using AI to "write" email responses to AI summaries of emails their colleagues "wrote" with AI.
Reposted by chad black 💚
"academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it... The dominant four collectively generated... $12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024."
November 18, 2025 at 6:48 AM
"academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it... The dominant four collectively generated... $12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024."
As an air-road warrior, commuting between California and Tennessee weekly, the selfish part of me wishes we had the reverse— free underseat bag, charge of overhead bin space, free checked bags.
A perfect example of capitalist incentives leading to worse outcomes is checked baggage on planes.
To squeeze more money out of passengers, airlines now charge exorbitant fees for checked bags – so everyone brings carry-on rollers instead, so there’s never enough room in the overhead bins.
To squeeze more money out of passengers, airlines now charge exorbitant fees for checked bags – so everyone brings carry-on rollers instead, so there’s never enough room in the overhead bins.
November 17, 2025 at 8:42 PM
As an air-road warrior, commuting between California and Tennessee weekly, the selfish part of me wishes we had the reverse— free underseat bag, charge of overhead bin space, free checked bags.
The happiness whenever a friend decides to read Stoner.
November 17, 2025 at 8:03 PM
The happiness whenever a friend decides to read Stoner.
On my first flight today, my seatmate spent half the flight writing an email with chatGPT. Prompt, read the result, re-write the prompt, read the result, re-write the prompt, and on and on. Like, dude, just write the email. High level HR manager or some such.
November 17, 2025 at 6:45 PM
On my first flight today, my seatmate spent half the flight writing an email with chatGPT. Prompt, read the result, re-write the prompt, read the result, re-write the prompt, and on and on. Like, dude, just write the email. High level HR manager or some such.
It's interesting to me that del Toro essentially removed the class panic from Frankenstein and replaced it with a thoroughly oedipal interpretation.
November 14, 2025 at 8:46 PM
It's interesting to me that del Toro essentially removed the class panic from Frankenstein and replaced it with a thoroughly oedipal interpretation.
The one thing the new Frankenstein is really missing is a catchy rendition of Putting on the Ritz.
November 14, 2025 at 2:10 AM
The one thing the new Frankenstein is really missing is a catchy rendition of Putting on the Ritz.
I would send separate emails for every single point in every lecture in any way tangentially related to the topics, and when a point doesn’t get cleared, put CENSORED on the slide and show all of them to class.
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Texas A&M adopts policy requiring professors to get OK from school president to discuss certain race and gender issues.
November 14, 2025 at 1:07 AM
I would send separate emails for every single point in every lecture in any way tangentially related to the topics, and when a point doesn’t get cleared, put CENSORED on the slide and show all of them to class.
So much of this is solved by returning to a 90% top marginal tax rate on all types of income. Just remove the wealth that breeds immunity and buys protection.
November 13, 2025 at 3:27 AM
So much of this is solved by returning to a 90% top marginal tax rate on all types of income. Just remove the wealth that breeds immunity and buys protection.
Yes, I did exit a plane at 9:15 at gate B14 in Charlotte and sit down on a plane at 9:21p at gate E15, that pushed back 9min later. Maybe a new personal record run.
November 11, 2025 at 3:28 AM
Yes, I did exit a plane at 9:15 at gate B14 in Charlotte and sit down on a plane at 9:21p at gate E15, that pushed back 9min later. Maybe a new personal record run.
American Airlines is such an operational disaster. When the FAA/shutdown causes cancelations, you can be assured that AA will add its own delays on top of it. Flight canceled this morning for the shutdown, and delayed now because of AA.
November 10, 2025 at 9:04 PM
American Airlines is such an operational disaster. When the FAA/shutdown causes cancelations, you can be assured that AA will add its own delays on top of it. Flight canceled this morning for the shutdown, and delayed now because of AA.
So, so many of our social/political problems could be mitigated if not outright fixed by legitimate progressive taxation on corporate revenues, income, and capital gains.
November 7, 2025 at 9:54 PM
So, so many of our social/political problems could be mitigated if not outright fixed by legitimate progressive taxation on corporate revenues, income, and capital gains.
If you're curious about the impact of staffing shortages on ground delays, the FAA maintains a very useful website on the current state of the national airspace. You'll see numerous airports where departure and arrival delays are described as "other", almost always staffing. nasstatus.faa.gov
National Airspace System
The Federal Aviation Administration's National Airspace System (NAS) dashboard
nasstatus.faa.gov
November 7, 2025 at 5:37 PM
If you're curious about the impact of staffing shortages on ground delays, the FAA maintains a very useful website on the current state of the national airspace. You'll see numerous airports where departure and arrival delays are described as "other", almost always staffing. nasstatus.faa.gov
Reposted by chad black 💚
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
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November 6, 2025 at 8:43 PM
A List of Things Said to Have Been Ruined by Women
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As much as anything, Andrews' answer betrays enormous ignorance about the discipline of history. But that's fine, I guess, when everything exists as caricature for rhetorical ends. A little truth seeking about historical method and practice might be in order.
I wish Douthat had followed up and asked Andrews what "areas of inquiry" have been "ruled out of bounds in history" because they are "too controversial" and lead historians away from "truth seeking."
November 6, 2025 at 10:58 PM
As much as anything, Andrews' answer betrays enormous ignorance about the discipline of history. But that's fine, I guess, when everything exists as caricature for rhetorical ends. A little truth seeking about historical method and practice might be in order.
What's that, am I even more anxious now that American Airline's operational disasters are to be compounded by FAA-mandated flight cancellations at the airports I fly through and to weekly? Yes, yes I am. Bi-coastal commuting has its problems.
November 6, 2025 at 9:04 PM
What's that, am I even more anxious now that American Airline's operational disasters are to be compounded by FAA-mandated flight cancellations at the airports I fly through and to weekly? Yes, yes I am. Bi-coastal commuting has its problems.
Horror is my favorite film genre to think through the trauma of subjectivation, of becoming the psychoanalytic subject. It engages viscerally the confusions of historical time, of the rift torn asunder by the compulsion of signification, of the sociality and extimacy of the unconscious, etc.
November 4, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Horror is my favorite film genre to think through the trauma of subjectivation, of becoming the psychoanalytic subject. It engages viscerally the confusions of historical time, of the rift torn asunder by the compulsion of signification, of the sociality and extimacy of the unconscious, etc.