Here’s a gift link. Jacques Ellul argued that you can’t separate the good aspects of technique from the bad. In that context, this paragraph stands out:

Optimists about generative AI have high hopes for its ability to produce future scientific breakthroughs — accelerating discovery, eliminating most types of cancer — but the technology is currently undermining one of the pillars of scientific research, inundating editors and reviewers with an endless stream of papers. Paradoxically, the better the technology gets at producing competent papers, the worse the crisis becomes.

I love a genuinely good experience as a peer reviewer. The current manuscript I’m reviewing is one that I’m very well suited to review (which does not happen enough), and the authors have clearly improved the paper since the last round. It’s nice when things work like they’re supposed to.

Les Cowboys fringants is a Québécois folk rock band that has gotten a lot of my attention over the past five years (though I’ve enjoyed their music for even longer than that. I have a bunch of their albums, but over the past few months, I’ve taken to listening to some of their concerts that have been recorded. I do this while I’m working, so I’m usually listening to the sound rather than watch the visuals, but I do enjoy taking the occasional peek at what’s happening on stage, too.

Once again, my spring break has consisted of: trying to catch up on work, telling myself that it’s spring break and therefore okay to not catch up on as much work as I expected, and feeling guilty about not catching up on as much as I expected

Look, I know I’m always complaining about my university employer’s schedule being out of sync with local schools, but I want to point out the absurdity of it being easier to deal with kiddo’s school suddenly cancelling for snow because I’m on Spring Break.

TFW a special issue deadline gets extended by a month after you dropped everything for a week to meet the original deadline. Alas.

In a Zoom meeting with the dean, with my X-Wing and Enterprise-D posters clearly visible in the background. Living my most professional life.

If these numbers are right, the first (“small”) installment alone could potentially be higher than the total of all my paychecks between being hired at UK and my eventual retirement—and this is just a severance pay package.

This is a depressing read but an important one.

One of the most frustrating experiences I’ve ever had with a journal appears to be coming to a happy conclusion, and that’s not a bad way to start a Monday.

I mean, I’ve always wanted to live and work in France, but I’ve never wanted to feel like I would have to.

Laugh to keep from crying.

Me, all of December: “Next semester, I have a course release and a once-a-week evening class. I’m going to get so much research done during the day!”

Me, on February 7th: “Wow, it’s great to finally be getting to research this semester.”

No, I’m not ready for classes to start next week, but schools are cancelled for snow and I’m under the weather, so kiddo and I are watching the new Wallace and Gromit this morning.

I’m stress-eating banana bread to put off grading, how’s your end of semester going?

McSweeney’s content on academia is always darkly hilarious, and this is no exception.

What a gross offer to receive.

This week, I’ve encountered Ursula K. LeGuin’s anarchist vision of what a university could be as well as a number of reminders of how much things aren’t like that vision.

It feels weird to be giving advice to first-year faculty, because I still feel like I don’t know anything, but my spouse recently pointed out that I’m now more senior than most of the people I turned to for advice during my first year…

Interesting read wirh important implications for how we think about research quality.

I bought this book in the beginning of the year after coming into some gift card money for my local indie bookstore. Last summer, a mental health counselor on campus had recommended it as something I might look into; he hadn’t read the book himself, but it had come highly recommended from a colleague. I’m glad I picked up a copy, but I’m not sure it’s as good as I hoped it would be.

This is a darker version of some of the thoughts I had when I first heard about the “PhD comparison.”

Before you click through to the article, I also want to use this short post as a complaint that I don’t think “intelligence” is a thing—and that PhDs certainly wouldn’t be a measure of it if it were.

Let’s be honest: I’d much rather be at my department’s writing retreat today (with free lunch, to boot!) and that my kid be going to (definitely not free) summer camp. All that said, I’m deeply grateful that a professor’s schedule is flexible enough that I can respond to a sick kid pretty easily.

I don’t know if I love or hate that McSweeney’s has so much content for academia.

Too much truth in this.