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Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 1h

It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Reflect Orbital's fucking stupid giant mirror satellite, with absolutely NOTHING useful to offer, which will cause countless safety issues, ecological disasters, and destroy the night sky, is going to launch.

A bunch of astronomers and I have sent out […]

Original post on mastodon.social

mastodon.social

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 42m

I want a laptop setting that’s “I’m sitting in the damn sun, so crank that screen up to burn-my-eyes-out bright and battery life be damned”

Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 6h

Gotta say I’m disappointed with @frameworkcomputer and I hope that they reconsider their recent decisions.

I’d been using ThinkPads for 20+ years until switching to Framework for my latest laptop two years ago, and I’ve been an evangelist for them ever since.

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Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

Popehat Agitates And Irritates @kenwhite.bsky.social · 20h

Jack Posobiec is criticizing Weimar Republic Germany the right way.

--Ezra Klein

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 1d

The world is terrible, but this morning I’m bringing a class to look at cool stuff—late Edo & Meiji-era prints, nineteenth-century Japanese books (plus an early 19th c. Chinese Gospel of Matthew), and in pride of place, a 13th c. printed Buddhist scroll from Japan

photo of a long table with displays of Asian books and prints; in the foreground is an old scroll with vertical Chinese text

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Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

Chris Levesque @levesque-chris.bsky.social · 2d

We need more Hugh Thompsons and Ron Ridenhours in the world.

Official photo of Hugh Thompson, Jr. In olive drab fatigues in front of an American flag.

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Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

LiteralGrill @literalgrill.sakurajima.moe.ap.brid.gy · 3d

Ya know, right now would be an AMAZING time for Mastodon's leadership to break bread with the Black programmers that really wanted to help make this place less racist.

Bluesky just banned a prominent Black user from basically being seen by anyone. **Because Bluesky's CEO is mad about their […]

Original post on sakurajima.moe

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 3d

You know what I love?

When I get done grading an assignment and then I discover that Canvas has inexplicably just not saved the grades or comments for a third of the class.

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Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

Carrie Shanafelt @carrideen.c18.masto.host.ap.brid.gy · 4d

Over the weekend, I wrote to the nearly 200 members of c18.masto.host who joined us in 2022-2024 and then stopped logging in over a year ago. I've gotten several emails back saying that after committing to Bluesky, social media as a whole came to feel like a bad idea. It is my hope that keeping […]

Original post on c18.masto.host

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 4d

Hey friends! I’m looking for a good article-length reading on sawm (fasting) in Islam to use with undergrads. What I’m looking for is a scholarly work on the practice from a religious studies/cultural studies perspective—but all the scholarship I can find is stuff like “health effects of fasting […]

Original post on historians.social

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 4d

I just noticed how Roger L’Estrange’s name is printed here (“L’ſtrange”) and for some reason it really amuses me.

(This is from Hannah Wooley’s _The Accomplish’d Lady’s Delight_, 2d ed., London, 1677)

#bookhistory #histodons

image of early modern book page with text:

Licenſed Rog. L’ſtrange. April 15. 1675.

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 4d

Trying to figure out what “Бурдье Пьер” could possibly mean in Russian before realizing that it’s just Pierre Bourdieu’s name.

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 4d

Why is everything ProQuest does the literal worst?

#academia

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 4d

TFW you realize that you never locally saved the chapters you scanned to assign as readings for one of your classes at a previous job after putting them on Canvas, so now they only exist in Canvas courses you no longer have access to.

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 5d

I feel so loved

screenshot showing a generic “person” icon next to a drop-down menu with the text “Hi, User”

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 5d

Brushing the chalk dust off my trousers after class and remembering the elderly professor I had as an undergrad who used to use the blackboard very extensively—and, because of where he would rest his right hand when he was standing and thinking, would often wind up with a chalk-dust hand print […]

Original post on historians.social

historians.social

Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 6d

for years now I’ve kept teaching-related files in paths like ~/docs/$INSTITUTION/$SEMESTER/$COURSE, which can be a lot to type, so I created a symlink in my home directory pointing to the semester to save on typing

but of course the old path is so ingrained in my habits that I find myself […]

Original post on historians.social

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Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

myrmepropagandist @futurebird.sauropods.win.ap.brid.gy · 7d

And it's a little sad. Because it's not like there aren't a few dozen exciting use cases for LLMs and image generation engines.

For example speech to text. Using an LLM to clean up dictation, which tends to be horrible, is pretty effective. What LLMs do well is find the most obvious answer […]

Original post on sauropods.win

sauropods.win

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 7d

OMG our campus IT has so colossally borked something that all of our on-line services (Canvas, student information, classroom database, etc.) all now redirect to their service status page—which helpfull reports that all systems are up!

What an embarassment.

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Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

Elen Le Foll 🇫🇷 🇬🇧 🇩🇪 @elenlefoll.fediscience.org.ap.brid.gy · 7d

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/01/anti-defamation-league-removes-extremism-research

Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 7d

One thing I really love about the woods at this time of year is the colours give away which trees are actually the same tree: aspen poplars like these send up shoots, so many trunks are actually the same tree, even if they're separated by a large distance […]

[Original post on mastodon.social]

2 fluffy light coloured dogs running next to each other across a grassy meadow, ringed by poplar trees. They are green or different shades of yellow in distinct clumps. The sky above is blue.

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 7d

RIP Jane Goodall <https://apnews.com/article/jane-goodall-obit-78698397851bc7634717206f7eba07b2>

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 7d

Something like half the SMS messages I receive are scammers. And of the rest, probably 80+% of them are from delivery apps or appointment reminders. Well under 10% of my incoming SMS messages are communication with real people I know.

*sigh*

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Reposted by Thanasis Kinias

Prof. Sam Lawler @sundogplanets.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy · 8d

Suvarth Mahadevan talking about Habitable-zone Planet Finder instrument on Hobby-Eberly Telescope (which incidentally has a bullet hole in the mirror, because... Texas)

This is optimized for cool M stars - smaller planets around small stars produce larger radial velocity signatures. M stars are […]

Original post on mastodon.social

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Thanasis Kinias @tkinias.historians.social.ap.brid.gy · 8d

OK, seeking a tech recommendation: I need new Bluetooth headphones. The criteria are:
– in-ear rather than over-the ear (for use in hot/sweaty conditions)
– sweat-resistant (see above)
– earpieces physically connected to each other (not separate earbuds)
– direct USB-C charging (nothing […]

Original post on historians.social

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