New "Briefly Noted" post: AI and disciplinary hierarchies; Mapping New England; Rethinking academic range; Ottoman archives unlocked; and more.
26.02.2026 15:30
👍 0
🔁 0
💬 0
📌 0
New "Briefly Noted" post: AI and disciplinary hierarchies; Mapping New England; Rethinking academic range; Ottoman archives unlocked; and more.
The "useless" has become essential, and the "practical" has become automated. Maybe we should be more cautious about defunding fields just because we can't immediately see their application.
buff.ly/J8GxgOv
#HigherEd #AI
I'm on sabbatical and supposed to be writing. But the thing I'm supposed to be writing isn't this. New at Found History:
foundhistory.org/contingency-...
#NewEngland #Maps #Archives #History #America250
Trusting AI; Regional measles strategy; Moltbook’s agent ecologies; Why Socrates was right about AI; Knowledge-based literacy; and more.
if you are wearing a mask, whether you are a federal agent or occupying a college quad, ordinary people are going to think you’re up to no good. We learned as toddlers that bad guys wear masks.
The U.S. may lose its measles elimination status. But the surge isn't national. It's concentrated in a few states. The Southwest's rate is 15x the Northeast's.
Why this matters and why regional institutions should step up: foundhistory.org/the-measles-...
#Measles #PublicHealth #NewEngland
Have you had better luck with Transcribes?
@rlprm.bsky.social You're probably already doing this, but maybe there are some tweaks in here that could help.
It's important to use the paid version of Gemini 3 and Google AI Studio, which allows for much more granularity. There's a good tutorial here: generativehistory.substack.com/p/gemini-3-s...
I haven't benchmarked systematically myself, but I'm getting more like 90-95%. Others, who have done more systematic work have reported closer to 98-99%, including ledger books with complex abbreviations and tabular data (see generativelives.substack.com and generativehistory.substack.com).
What does it mean to trust Gemini with document transcription? How is trusting an AI different than trusting a human? My thoughts and a conversation with Claude.
#AI #Archives #DigitalHumanities #Transcription #Trust #Philosophy
buff.ly/DIrWrWD
Found History (Briefly Noted) is out!
🏛️ The medieval roots of the university
💰 Billionaires don't really believe in UBI
🔬 The myth of scientific "discovery"
📉 EnshittificationU
🪟 Lüften's OK but A/C isn't?
Read and subscribe: open.substack.com/pub/foundhis...
#HigherEd #AI #UBI #histsci #luften
Universities are medieval institutions—slow by design, optimized for consensus, built to last. We may never satisfy modern demands for efficiency, but we may outlive them.
#highered #academia #history
buff.ly/DUb1FY5
New Found History (Briefly Noted) post: Tech transfer's failings; Crypto kleptocracy; Springsteen's poetry; and more.
#AI #TechTransfer #Poetry #Crypto #Politics #HigherEd
buff.ly/bzUyVDU
Check out @ncph.bsky.social's webinar series on the WWII Homefront, starting at the end of the month and including my brilliant colleague, @cjceglio.bsky.social!
community.ncph.org/events/Event...
Gmail UI gripe: Why does the star appear on the left (in yellow) in the web app but on the right (in blue) in the mobile app? This is bad design.
Archivists/librarians please share the coolest thing in your collections that will never be digitized.
That's a good point. Big tent.
Read this.... And then look at the date. The more things change....
buff.ly/Boh0a5o
though I'm not naive enough to trust that we'll really ever see them.
Agree. Anybody who says they know what's going to happen is wrong, the evangelists and the doomers alike. It's all still up in the air, which is why we have to be actively experimenting. That's the only way to be informed advocates for the outcomes we hope to see...
If AI weren't the excuse there'd be another excuse.
Here's my take: I understand the refusal, and I sympathize with the emotions. My problem with refusal is that it's ultimately counterproductive of the ends people say they want to achieve.
Brought this little Chestnut home yesterday.
I totally get it. It's not a great situation. But the technology is moving so quickly, the paid models are the only place you can really get a sense of the state of the art.
The best response to AI is critical engagement, not protest and rejection. Nothing will work, but everything might.
#AI #HigherEd #Academia #CulturalHeritage #Education #DigitalHumanities
Also, economists should generally leave questions of why people feel the way they do alone. That’s why we have the humanities.
Why can’t economists get it? The reason people are worried about affordability even though technically inflation is low is because the things that are cheap (TVs, toys, etc.) don’t matter and the things that are expensive (prescriptions, elder care, education) do.
open.substack.com/pub/noahpini...
Thanks!
Student accommodations; HBO and Netflix; Historicizing AI; UNESCO recognizes Italian cuisine; Fighting online vice is political winner; and more.
buff.ly/NzeQjt6
I'm frustrated with the coverage of Netflix-HBO merger debate, which tends to define "choice" entirely in terms of how the merger will affect creativity. But Hollywood's choice isn't the same as consumer choice. My thoughts at: buff.ly/JwB7mUK
#HBO #Netflix #Media #Choice