Alessandro
@poli.sisti.ca
610 followers 590 following 570 posts
Posts on public policy (in 🇨🇦 or abroad), humanities, classical music, altruism effective and ineffective. Many silly posts. Toronto-adjacent.
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Reposted by Alessandro
historyjobs.bsky.social
New History Job Posted Today: Assistant Professor of Ancient History | University of Maryland Department of History
Assistant Professor of Ancient History | University of Maryland Department of History
College Park, Maryland, The University of Maryland, College Park Department of History, invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position from historians of the Ancient Mediterranean worlds within the broad geographical zone that extends into Asia, Africa, and Europe. Chronological specialization is open. However, expertise in the Roman Imperial or late antique periods in particular aligns with existing areas of teaching and research expertise in the department.  Preference will be given to scholars whose work engages with the diversity and complexity of the Mediterranean world in such areas as ethnicity, gender, environment, or connectivity. In addition to exceptional scholarly promise, the successful candidate will demonstrate excellence in teaching. Responsibilities include teaching a general survey of the ancient Mediterranean and the Near East, other lecture courses, and upper-level undergraduate and graduate seminars as they align with the candidate’s interests and departmental requirements, as well as engaging in curriculum development. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS Education: A Ph.D. in History or a related field is required in hand by August 1, 2026 Experience: Teaching experience at the college or university level is required. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS We seek candidates whose research, teaching, and service have prepared them to contribute to all the pillars of the College of Arts and Humanities’ Strategic Plan: Transformative Thinking; Boundless Creativity; Expansive Empathy; and Meaningful Futures. Contributions toward those goals and values might include leadership in teaching, mentoring, research, or service toward building an equitable and inclusive scholarly environment and/or increasing access or participation of all individuals equitably and fairly. The University of Maryland, College Park, actively subscribes to a policy of equal employment opportunity, and will not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, age, sex, color, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, religion, ancestry or national origin, marital status, genetic information, political affiliation, and gender identity or expression. This search is contingent upon the availability of funds. Apply Here
dlvr.it
poli.sisti.ca
Hey @scientificdiscovery.dev, isn't today your birthday? Happy birthday!!
poli.sisti.ca
I love that :) In Toronto General Hospital, I've walked dozens of times past a wall about the treatment of the first diabetes patients there. I think it's on the 12th floor in the Eaton building. Will certainly take a closer look the next time I'm there!
poli.sisti.ca
looks like Spotify has deemed you Italian !
poli.sisti.ca
Even apart from the contents, the prose is excellent. I will keep posting as I read (hopefully will finish in the next two weeks)
poli.sisti.ca
A second coincidence: on 30 Oct 1920, he just happened to read an article by M. Barron describing the ligation of the islets of Langerhans. This was what inspired him to try this on a pancreas to isolate the "internal secretion". If he hadn't read this and clung to this idea till 1921, no research!
poli.sisti.ca
4) It's a great coincidence that Banting ended up working on diabetes at all. He was in his late 20s, trying to make a life for himself and his fiancée in London, ON, but always restless. He almost went on an expedition to the Northwest Territories instead of going to Macleod's lab in 1921.
poli.sisti.ca
Allen's severity in prescribing the starvation diet appalled patients, their families, and the health care staff Allen worked with. But he had a point—if patients diverged from the diet *at all*, that seemed to hasten their demise. Some patients did adhere, even as they gradually died.
poli.sisti.ca
3) The treatment of diabetes by "dietary regulation" (intentional starvation) was formalized later than I expected—in the 1910s, by Frederick Allen. Earlier doctors were trying things that proved much less helpful, or that even harmed patients.
poli.sisti.ca
2) Almost all this research depended on animal subjects. Banting specifically, who had trained as a surgeon on humans, killed *a lot* of dogs in 1921. Reading about the procedures was grim
poli.sisti.ca
This line of inquiry was pursued for a long time in experiments on dogs (more on this soon). No one was able to use one dog pancreas to render healthy a diabetic dog, but many were trying—Zueler in Germany, E.L. Scott in the US, Paulesco in Romania. Seems like *someone* would have got it soon after
poli.sisti.ca
Scientists who came before had figured out that the key organ was the pancreas. The "external secretions" (enzymes delivered to the small intestine) were not the key thing, so some scientists reasoned there would be "internal secretions" delivered directly from the pancreas to the blood
poli.sisti.ca
1) The scientific literature to which Banting, Best, and others at the University of Toronto contributed in the early 1920s was *so close* to figuring out what insulin was. This seems like the kind of discovery that was "due" to be made by someone.
poli.sisti.ca
Thread of things I'm learning as I read The Discovery of Insulin by Michael Bliss
Book cover, in the Special Centenary Edition with a forward by Alison Li.
poli.sisti.ca
tfw you spot a Taylor Series in the wild
franceslorenz.bsky.social
Taylor Taylor Taylor Taylor Taylor Taylor
poli.sisti.ca
I always check answers or do further research before using the output, but it's super helpful to have
poli.sisti.ca
To give more detail, here are the modest tasks I use Claude for:

* first step of research in an unfamiliar subject area—giving me books and articles to look into
* generating tables of contents and metadata from PDFs
* travel advice
* help reading legal documents to prep me to talk to a lawyer
poli.sisti.ca
I'm not an AI-booster, but I've found that Claude is *way* more reliable and less likely to confabulate answers than it was even ~nine months ago.

If you tried an LLM a while ago and didn't find it useful, I'd suggest trying again, and use a paid account. I like Claude a lot.
poli.sisti.ca
I see my alma mater has gotten into podcasts
Email from the University of Toronto welcoming Alessandro to U of T Lectures on Demand.
Reposted by Alessandro
helenbarnard.bsky.social
Can we have a 1 in 1 out policy for political podcasts?
Reposted by Alessandro
alexusherhesa.bsky.social
This particular cycle will happen over and over. Politicians and business types will never be able to resist dogpiling on the latest educational fad, because they never pay a price for being so excessively hubristic as to call the labour market five years out.
Big Tech Told Kids to Code. The Jobs Didn’t Follow.
www.nytimes.com
Reposted by Alessandro
bencasselman.bsky.social
Three responses I'm hearing a lot of here:
1. "Aha! Any excuse to hide the bad numbers!"
2. "The numbers were cooked anyway so who cares?"
3. "Fine, we'll just rely on private data."
Let's address all three in a 🧵:
bencasselman.bsky.social
Friday's jobs report will provide key evidence on whether slower hiring is turning into deeper weakness in the labor market.
If there is a jobs report on Friday at all.
My story on how a shutdown could leave us flying blind at a vital moment for the economy. #EconSky
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/b...
Government Shutdown Could Delay Economic Data at a Critical Moment
www.nytimes.com
poli.sisti.ca
the official branding seems to be "Agent Mode"