Someone on my train just now said that ‘I don’t really see Switzerland as a holiday’

Has anyone asked ChatGPT what good writing is yet?

Horrible news.

Museum Wales: At least 90 jobs cut and Cardiff building may close bbc.com/news/articles/…

This is right, and the actual issue is that we’re told, more and more, that everything needs to be for everybody

The key thing is probably writing anything in the first place…

It’s still crazy to me how the Egyptian story—and especially its armed struggle— remains for the most part occluded in global accounts of decolonization

This is also true of most of the subfields adjacent to my own research (eg Cold War history, post-colonial African history, diplomatic history, French history). The quality of published scholarship is not only often very good, but generally accessible to a much broader public.

I think this goes for most humanities but in my bit of it see, e.g. Christina Riggs @christinajriggs.bsky.social christinariggs.com/blog/

People are being very weird about this, it genuinely sucks that you now need to sign up for a loyalty scheme at every supermarket you visit in order to get realistic prices, and that you need a bespoke phone app to do it

The rain here is horizontal

Do you think anybody has told them he's dead? Will they still have his name on the voting paper?

Is it deeply inappropriate of me to be upset that ChatGPT and other essay assignment conventions might not be helping students learn important skills and cognitive operations? Should I be rejoicing at this progress? Correct me if I’m wrong.

It's important that historians, collectively, connect with the general public. It does not follow, and is IMO counterproductive to insist, that historical research should always or even primarily address the general public. Historical knowledge grows through specialized work.

Good sunrise

Thought I would read an archaeology article for fun. I stopped when I came to these lines:
'The results of the excavation were disappointing in that no preserved timbers at all were found. In addition no artefacts were found.'
Fair play to the author though - ground out 8k words

.Carla Denyer: the greens are calling for a suspension of arms sales to Israel. Carla was also the only politician doing the rounds this am prepared to point out the overnight Iranian attack was in response to Israel bombing their consulate, which is itself a breach of intl law

All the Ukraine/Russia war experts turned affirmative action experts turned Gaza hospital ballistics experts turned academic plagiarism experts turned “AI analysts are now gonna shift to become Persian Gulf and Iran policy experts.

Livestream today our #Sudan -event 'Art in Times of War and Displacement', co-hosted by MiCT - Media in Cooperation and Transition & goetheinstitut in Exile at the ACUD in #Berlin , starting at 6pm #Khartoum time & featuring Amna Elhassan, Mazin Satti & Hadeel Osman: teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/…

Wondering about seriously going back to my old blog and writing about what it’s like to start a permanent job after almost a decade of postdocs and in this higher ed environment.

News from Australia.
- Rising demand for arts degrees DESPITE discriminatory fee structures
- Humanities grad employment rates up from 81.7% in 2021 to 86.6% in 2022
- Median grad salaries at $66,700 (vs STEMM at $66,000 and business and management $65,000 theguardian.com/australia-news…