Jason Heppler

did a snake write this

Your guide already highlights transparency and user trust; refining threat models, versioned documentation, user-centered examples, and layered information will make the advice more vivid and immediately actionable. All suggestions: Bruce Schneier, Eva Galperin

I know that bad news is coming when a co-worker messages me with "You're gonna be so mad..."

Grammarly has rolled out an AI-powered "expert review" feature where its simulacrum of me makes suggestions for your text. My real edits are usually along the lines of "Throw this into the sea."

“Generative AI is really bad at doing history. But it can enable me to do good history.”

Grammarly turned me into an AI editor against my will and I hate it The company tells Platformer it will let experts opt out of the controversial feature — but how different is it than what every other AI company is doing?

.@caseynewton.bsky.social reports you can email them to opt out: www.platformer.news/grammarly-ex...

A variety of eggs in different colors and sizes are arranged on a textured surface.

A lot of great posts recently on this topic of "vibe coding as enabler," including the two linked here.

For me it's manifested as a way to scratch a digital project itch I've had for a decade, a data explorer for a set of Brewery directories from 1899 - 1918:
hadro.github.io/brewery-guid...

Official map from NOAA depicting the relative rank of winter 2025-2026 temperatures at a county level across the contiguous U.S. Many counties in the western and central U.S. are depicted in dark red color, signifying record-warmest winter. All other counties in the west and central U.S. are depicted in dark orange colors, signifying a "near record warm" rank.

The official NOAA stats out this week confirm that winter 2025-26 was the warmest on record across a huge portion of the western and central U.S., which has contributed to extremely low mountain snowpack & worsened the CO River crisis. Meanwhile, record March heat is in forecast.

ah I see @histoftech.bsky.social got co-opted by this. And Nathan. I guess I'm going to start emailing friends I find in here.

A lot of journalism folks are offering editing advice as Grammarly’s AI “experts” Grammarly's AI-powered "Expert Review" promises "writing feedback by subject-matter experts," and if you write about journalism, there's a good chance that includes you.

This whole thing is such a baffling product decision www.niemanlab.org/2026/03/a-lo...

uuhhhhh what

Honestly, I am absolutely disgusted by academics suggesting that AI can do the reading and writing for you. At a certain point, what you're bragging about is fraud. And in a broader sense, what you're contributing to is the erosion of knowledge and the destruction of trust in academic publishing.

A DOGE staffer assigned to the National Endowment for the Humanities to flag grants for "DEI" tries to explain what "DEI" is. This deposition is part of a lawsuit by the @acls1919.bsky.social, @historians.org and @modernlanguage.bsky.social.

New BBC le Carré series Legacy Of Spies starring Matthew Macfadyen, Charlie Hunnam, Daniel Brühl and Devrim Lingnau Islamoğlu announced The series will chart George Smiley’s overarching quest for his nemesis, Russian master-spy Karla, through the defining era of our modern age, the Cold War

Wait wait did we all miss that the Beeb is doing a new Le Carre Show

Calling Cormac McCarthy’s authorial style a “mistake” that AI no longer makes is so funny

Curious, can a deceased expert they’ve co-opted also opt out?

my main point: a lot of people who are skeptical of AI are speaking from a place of pretty damn rational and reasonable anxiety about what their future looks like, not just petty beefs about being outclassed at trivia (and like, Wikipedia has existed for a very long time, so what)

Grammarly turned me into an AI editor against my will and I hate it The company tells Platformer it will let experts opt out of the controversial feature — but how different is it than what every other AI company is doing?

"Grammarly curated a list of real people, gave its models free rein to hallucinate plausible-sounding advice on their behalf, and put it all behind a subscription. That's a deliberate choice to monetize the identities of real people without involving them, and it sucks." @caseynewton.bsky.social

I can't compete with this.

from @jasonheppler.org
"Generative AI is really bad at doing history. But it can enable me to do good history."
jasonheppler.org/2026/03/09/v...

💯 Have lots to say, but too busy implementing complex project-specific geo-statistical methodology w/Claude. Key: I drive the bus, b/c I can.

How are historians rethinking environmental and social history via improved OCR of imperial archives?

Join us this Wednesday 3pm UK time to hear from @jimclifford.bsky.social and @historyjacob.bsky.social - registration link below.

I think I've told you this before, but I cannot wait for your book!

Justin Fox Deposition (Part 3) in MLA-ACLS-AHA Lawsuit about the NEH YouTube video by ModernLanguageAssoc

It's stunning how ignorant the DOGE bros were who were sent into agencies. Justin Fox cannot even articulate in his own words what his "present understanding of DEI" is: he can't even formulate a coherent sentence about it. I wouldn't hire him for basic tech support. #NEH
youtu.be/jomaMvItnew?...

Welcome to the Bills of Mortality Project - Death by Numbers

Excited to announce that our project Death by Numbers, led by my colleague Jessica Otis, has won the Renaissance Society of America’s Digital Innovation Award for 2026.

Behind, ahead | Lincoln Mullen How agentic AI coding tools have changed the possibilities for digital history, making once-rare programming skills widely accessible, and with an argument that digital history should be judged by the quality of its ideas, not the difficulty of its implementation.

Lincoln asks, what if generative AI has reduced the technical barriers to doing digital history? Similarly I ask, with an example, what if vibing Just Works?

Behind, ahead | Lincoln Mullen A historian reflects on how agentic AI coding tools have changed the possibilities for digital history, making once-rare programming skills widely accessible, and argues that digital history should be...

Really great essay from my colleague @lincolnmullen.com: “When we held the vibe coding event, I watched a first-year graduate student make an insightful map in an hour, a map that was at least as technically sophisticated as the one I had used in my job talk a decade earlier.”

One thing I have learned from years of talking with and reporting on truckers is that times like these always wipe out small shipping companies and owner operators. It’s brutal and it sucks, for them and for everyone who depends on them (ie all of us)

It’s a compulsion.

Behind, ahead | Lincoln Mullen A historian reflects on how agentic AI coding tools have changed the possibilities for digital history, making once-rare programming skills widely accessible, and argues that digital history should be...

A few months ago I realized my rare and valuable skill—writing code as a historian—was still valuable but no longer rare. Now I'm thinking about what it means when the technical barriers to digital history drop away.

NO NO NO YOU DON’T

GUYS LET ME PLEASE SPREAD THE GOSPEL OF FREE TAX USA

federal is free, state is $16, handles even my chaotic freelancer taxes just fine, same step-by-step “designed for normies” kind of interface as TurboTax but NOT EVIL

tell everyone you know

www.freetaxusa.com

If I’m excited about anything in the age of LLMs, it’s a similar view Lincoln comes to: technical details are easier to implement now, meaning we have a chance to focus more on the _history_ we digital historians produce.