@revdrmgc.bsky.social
Illinoisan, Michigander, and now Kansan.
All in on the Midwest.
PhD in Historical theology and ordained elder.
All in on the Midwest.
PhD in Historical theology and ordained elder.
Reposted
A few days ago, I wrote up some thoughts on generative AI and the work of historians: “At best, we’re talking about software that’s very good at making sentences seem sentence-shaped.”
Generative AI and History
Generative AI lacks the ability to understand context, …
writing.jasonheppler.org
December 26, 2025 at 1:17 PM
A few days ago, I wrote up some thoughts on generative AI and the work of historians: “At best, we’re talking about software that’s very good at making sentences seem sentence-shaped.”
Reposted
It happened again!
#4 sounds like a lovely book but I didn't write it. Have had whānau up and down the country send me clippings lol
Whoever put together this list that has been circulated to regional papers, didn't fact check.
Whoever put together this list that has been circulated to regional papers, didn't fact check.
December 25, 2025 at 10:24 PM
It happened again!
My son's first St. Paul sandwich!
December 25, 2025 at 2:59 AM
My son's first St. Paul sandwich!
Reposted
Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing a text, writing an email, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing since the dawn of time.
December 23, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing a text, writing an email, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing since the dawn of time.
Reposted
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
Why Do Historians Still Have To Go To Archives?
Why do historians go to archives? Hasn’t everything already been digitized?
contingentmagazine.org
December 22, 2025 at 1:40 AM
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Reposted
Wait until you hear that LLMs can only train on digitized/datafied info.
Most of the FACTS scholars use are in archives/libraries.
Less than 1% of archival colletions worldwide have been digitized.
Also: lots of facts are not even in archives, but in the attics.
Most of the FACTS scholars use are in archives/libraries.
Less than 1% of archival colletions worldwide have been digitized.
Also: lots of facts are not even in archives, but in the attics.
suspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research:
they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.
they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.
December 21, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Wait until you hear that LLMs can only train on digitized/datafied info.
Most of the FACTS scholars use are in archives/libraries.
Less than 1% of archival colletions worldwide have been digitized.
Also: lots of facts are not even in archives, but in the attics.
Most of the FACTS scholars use are in archives/libraries.
Less than 1% of archival colletions worldwide have been digitized.
Also: lots of facts are not even in archives, but in the attics.
Reposted
please let “bugs bunnying” become the slang for manipulating an LLM into ignoring its guardrails, i have never seen a more succinct and evocative term for it
Highly amused by the stories of companies using agentic AI chatbots to run their internal company stores, only for their employees to immediately Bugs Bunny the chatbot into giving them free stuff www.aiweirdness.com/when-a-chatb...
When a chatbot runs your store
You may have heard of "agentic AI", which is basically the idea that you can hook up a large language model to controls that do real things. The controls might run internet searches, run commands to o...
www.aiweirdness.com
December 21, 2025 at 4:20 PM
please let “bugs bunnying” become the slang for manipulating an LLM into ignoring its guardrails, i have never seen a more succinct and evocative term for it
Reposted
“I’m trying to set myself up to be less of a burden ...”
More baby boomers and Gen Xers are sifting through paperwork and making other end-of-life plans to ensure their children aren’t left with the financial and emotional toll of caretaking.
More baby boomers and Gen Xers are sifting through paperwork and making other end-of-life plans to ensure their children aren’t left with the financial and emotional toll of caretaking.
Overwhelmed caring for aging parents, baby boomers try to spare their kids
Baby boomers and Gen Xers are taking steps to ensure their children aren’t left with the financial and emotional toll of caretaking.
www.washingtonpost.com
December 21, 2025 at 7:30 PM
“I’m trying to set myself up to be less of a burden ...”
More baby boomers and Gen Xers are sifting through paperwork and making other end-of-life plans to ensure their children aren’t left with the financial and emotional toll of caretaking.
More baby boomers and Gen Xers are sifting through paperwork and making other end-of-life plans to ensure their children aren’t left with the financial and emotional toll of caretaking.
Reposted
Anyway, we’re revising our entire curriculum to incorporate more work by Shroomie Joe The Stoned Research Assistant Who Has Visions Of Papers That Don’t Exist!
(Shroomie Joe’s PR team says he is the future, and you don’t want to get left behind by other companies that trust Shroomie Joe, do you?)
(Shroomie Joe’s PR team says he is the future, and you don’t want to get left behind by other companies that trust Shroomie Joe, do you?)
If I hired a research assistant who made up multiple papers that didn’t exist, and when I asked why he said “Well I’m hallucinating 30-40% of the time”, that guy would be fired, and I’d have a talk with his advisor, and it would be my go-to anecdote at every conference for the next few decades
December 21, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Anyway, we’re revising our entire curriculum to incorporate more work by Shroomie Joe The Stoned Research Assistant Who Has Visions Of Papers That Don’t Exist!
(Shroomie Joe’s PR team says he is the future, and you don’t want to get left behind by other companies that trust Shroomie Joe, do you?)
(Shroomie Joe’s PR team says he is the future, and you don’t want to get left behind by other companies that trust Shroomie Joe, do you?)
Reposted
Please take 7 and a half minutes and watch this.
Seth Remembers Rob Reiner
YouTube video by Late Night with Seth Meyers
youtu.be
December 16, 2025 at 2:52 AM
Please take 7 and a half minutes and watch this.
Reposted
This is V bad
Carnegie Mellon’s literature PhD is being liquidated in favor of “computation,” casualized labor, and AI.
That has profound ramifications for, students, faculty, and program alums like myself.
I wrote it about it (w/ Catherine Evans, a current PhD student).
www.chronicle.com/article/a-co...
That has profound ramifications for, students, faculty, and program alums like myself.
I wrote it about it (w/ Catherine Evans, a current PhD student).
www.chronicle.com/article/a-co...
Opinion | A Coup at Carnegie Mellon?
The university is replacing the humanities with more computers.
www.chronicle.com
December 15, 2025 at 10:03 PM
This is V bad
Reposted
It's hard to overstate how impossible this demand is from Purdue's administration to implement these AI requirements by next fall. We are nowhere close to understanding what AI proficiency means or what it looks like in education.
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
December 14, 2025 at 2:28 PM
It's hard to overstate how impossible this demand is from Purdue's administration to implement these AI requirements by next fall. We are nowhere close to understanding what AI proficiency means or what it looks like in education.
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
Reposted
schools that are still based on reading books are gonna have a real niche
It’s been fun while it lasted: “Purdue University will begin requiring that all of its undergraduate students demonstrate basic competency in artificial intelligence starting with freshmen who enter the university in 2026.”
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
www.forbes.com/sites/michae...
Purdue University Approves New AI Requirement For All Undergrads
Purdue University will begin requiring that all of its undergraduate students meet an AI competency requirement starting with freshmen who enter the university in 2026.
www.forbes.com
December 14, 2025 at 3:03 PM
schools that are still based on reading books are gonna have a real niche
Reposted
oh yeah: that’s it — whodunnits are always character studies, which makes the whodunnit a perfect genre for meditations on Virtue
Knives Out: Integrity in the face of greed.
Glass Onion: Bravery in the face of cowardice.
Wake Up Dead Man: Grace in the face of Wrath.
Glass Onion: Bravery in the face of cowardice.
Wake Up Dead Man: Grace in the face of Wrath.
December 14, 2025 at 12:47 AM
oh yeah: that’s it — whodunnits are always character studies, which makes the whodunnit a perfect genre for meditations on Virtue
Reposted
Via me and @alejacorazonhm.bsky.social: CBP posted a pic of two detained Iranians, saying, “No fun in the sun when you are unlawfully present.”
According to their Episcopal priest, they’re Christian converts seeking asylum, and deporting them may be a death sentence religionnews.com/2025/12/09/b...
According to their Episcopal priest, they’re Christian converts seeking asylum, and deporting them may be a death sentence religionnews.com/2025/12/09/b...
Priest says sisters slated for deportation are Christians who could face persecution by Iran
WASHINGTON (RNS) — ‘We all feel a wound in our body of Christ, knowing what’s happening to them,’ said the Rev. Fran Gardner-Smith.
religionnews.com
December 9, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Via me and @alejacorazonhm.bsky.social: CBP posted a pic of two detained Iranians, saying, “No fun in the sun when you are unlawfully present.”
According to their Episcopal priest, they’re Christian converts seeking asylum, and deporting them may be a death sentence religionnews.com/2025/12/09/b...
According to their Episcopal priest, they’re Christian converts seeking asylum, and deporting them may be a death sentence religionnews.com/2025/12/09/b...
Reposted
The older I get, the more I realize my teenage derision with Mrs. Bennet was naive at best. She has FIVE kids on the brink of pecuniary distress and needs a lie down sometimes. Meanwhile, I had an unpleasant 10 second interaction with a stranger, and I'm done for the day.
December 7, 2025 at 8:53 PM
The older I get, the more I realize my teenage derision with Mrs. Bennet was naive at best. She has FIVE kids on the brink of pecuniary distress and needs a lie down sometimes. Meanwhile, I had an unpleasant 10 second interaction with a stranger, and I'm done for the day.
Reposted
Sri Lankans sift mud to unearth victims four days after deadly cyclone reut.rs/447BW5g
Sri Lankans sift mud to unearth victims four days after deadly cyclone
Cyclone Ditwah barrelled through the Indian Ocean island nation last week, setting off a landslide in the central region of Mawathura.
reut.rs
December 3, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Sri Lankans sift mud to unearth victims four days after deadly cyclone reut.rs/447BW5g
Reposted
This is too much.
A 6-year-old boy is missing after ICE arrested him and his dad in NYC last week and shipped them off to separate facilities. www.thecity.nyc/2025/12/02/i... @thecity.nyc @gwynnefitz.bsky.social
ICE Arrested and Separated Chinese Father From 6-Year-Old Son, Advocates Say
The father and son were detained at an ICE check-in on Nov. 26, advocates say. The son’s location is currently unknown, while the father is being held at an upstate ICE facility.
www.thecity.nyc
December 3, 2025 at 2:15 AM
This is too much.
Reposted
This cross-pollination IS how new ideas happen. EVERY field needs humanistic thinking, that's why they call PhDs "Doctors of Philosophy"
Alt text for those who need it. This is amazing.
December 2, 2025 at 11:38 AM
This cross-pollination IS how new ideas happen. EVERY field needs humanistic thinking, that's why they call PhDs "Doctors of Philosophy"
Reposted
Thinking of illegal orders... today is the anniversary of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre when the US Army slaughtered 100s of Cheyenne & Arapaho people, mostly women & children. Captain Silas Soule refused orders and helped bring truth to light.
coloradonewsline.com/2025/11/26/a...
coloradonewsline.com/2025/11/26/a...
An Army captain who refused orders in 1864 today is remembered with reverence for his defiance | Colorado Newsline
The Sand Creek Massacre comes to mind in reading about U.S. Rep. Jason Crow's call for members of the U.S. military to refuse illegal orders.
coloradonewsline.com
November 30, 2025 at 12:22 AM
Thinking of illegal orders... today is the anniversary of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre when the US Army slaughtered 100s of Cheyenne & Arapaho people, mostly women & children. Captain Silas Soule refused orders and helped bring truth to light.
coloradonewsline.com/2025/11/26/a...
coloradonewsline.com/2025/11/26/a...
Reposted
Amazing story, state legislator and Turning Points USA leader who crusaded against bogus voter fraud claims pleads guilty to attempted election fraud. azmirror.com/briefs/turni...
Turning Point leader, former GOP Rep pleads guilty to attempted election fraud | Arizona Mirror
Austin Smith election fraud guilty plea: Former GOP Rep admits forging 100+ signatures on ballot petitions in Arizona
azmirror.com
November 23, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Amazing story, state legislator and Turning Points USA leader who crusaded against bogus voter fraud claims pleads guilty to attempted election fraud. azmirror.com/briefs/turni...
Just spent 50 cents for this at half off day at our local thrift store. Possibly hit the jackpot.
November 29, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Just spent 50 cents for this at half off day at our local thrift store. Possibly hit the jackpot.
Reposted
Straight up war crime
Every single congressional Democrat needs to be out there, right now, insisting that Pete Hegseth resign right now and announcing that he will be held accountable for committing war crimes.
If you do not demand accountability here and now, they will only become more emboldened.
If you do not demand accountability here and now, they will only become more emboldened.
Exclusive: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody” in the first strike on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean. After two men survived, the mission commander ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, according to two sources.
November 28, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Straight up war crime