Dr. Kurtis Hanlon

Aaron Gunn: If the federal government truly believes in the private property rights of Canadians, they should probably stop opening every public meeting by proclaiming the gathering on the “unceded territory” of this or that First Nation. Doing so reinforces the radical and dangerous legal concept that most Canadians live on “stolen land”. This is Canada. One country. For all Canadians.

𝗠𝗣 𝗰𝗿𝗮𝘀𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗺𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝙇𝙤𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝘾𝙝𝙞𝙚𝙛𝙨 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 𝘼𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙣 𝙂𝙪𝙣𝙣: “𝘾𝙝𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙭, 𝙗𝙪𝙙.” March 11, 2026 Chiefs from four First Nations communities are urging the public to please approach Aaron Gunn with no caution whatsoever. He is completely harmless, though momentarily unsettled by the alarming possibility that someone might acknowledge the land before a meeting. Yesterday on social media, the MP appeared to crash out and demand to speak to the manager of land acknowledgements, a position that observers confirm does not exist. Chiefs whose territories make up the riding had two words for the MP - Chillax, Bud. Land acknowledgements have never seized private property, cancelled a mortgage, repossessed a pickup truck, or altered a single title deed anywhere in Canada. They are simply people recognizing the history of the place where they are standing. No one is going anywhere. Canada will survive the brief moment of honesty. Until then, Chiefs across the region continue to reassure the public that land acknowledgements have not, to date, resulted in any land back. Hegus John Hackett, Tla’amin Nation Chief Darren Blaney, Homalco Nation Chief Nicole Rempel, K'ómoks Nation Chief Kevin Peacey, Klahoose Nation

Conservative MP for Powell River–North Island, Aaron Gunn, is, uh, well he’s being trolled a bit for his condemnation of land acknowledgements yesterday. Message from K’omoks, Klahoose, Homalco & Tla’amin Nations: “Chillax, bud.” #bcpoli

Lizzy loves that place. She displays the tarot cards we got with our drinks proudly on a shelf.

Why AI Chatbots Agree With You Even When You’re Wrong Language models often abandon correct answers to please users. Scientists are studying why—and are teaching AI to push back.

“Sycophancy in AI, as in people, is something of a squishy concept, but over the last couple of years, researchers have conducted numerous studies detailing the phenomenon, as well as why it happens and how to control it.”

Ok, rebooked for tomorrow. Too bad that my planned day with friends before the conference is basically erased, but it is what it is. At least I'll make it in time to hear all the panels I want to attend.

I hope the system just rebooks me while I'm in the air to Amsterdam, but I don't even see the new plane being brought in yet. I just want to get in the air. T_T

Wellllll, my first of three flights to get to Vancouver for #AAS2026 is kaput. They're bringing a new plane, but there's no way I see myself getting into Vancouver by Wednesday night. Glad I had a little extra time before the conference, but rescheduling transfers sucks.

Coming to Vancouver for #AAS2026? If travelling light, I highly recommend taking the Skytrain directly from YVR airport to conference site (and nearby hotels). Only $10 CAD, clean, comfortable. Takes only 30 mins and way cheaper than taxi or Uber. 2 zone fare, get off at last stop, 5 min walk.

Phew, teaching day is done. My travel to #AAS2026 starts in a little over 6 hours when I get on a couple of busses to overnight to Prague airport for a two-layover flight to Vancouver.

Totally worth it, though. And the harsh travel will help reset me for jet lag. Yay Vancouver!

thread: tour the silliness of people trusting genai and the model’s nonreasoning on Asian Studies topics

Had a Brain Blast in the shower about the manuscript I'm finishing up. I was worried when I found two other studies that seemed to do what I was doing, but with more data. But I figured out how my Gamified Grading scheme adds something that's missing from both of them. Woo!

Showers are awesome.

Got into a flow state editing a manuscript tonight and shot way past my bedtime. Now I'm trying to will my body to sleep so I can get up at a normal time. Not working so well...

Pedagogy Under Threat (in the U.S. and Beyond) - Sponsored by AAS Diversity and Equity Committee Sat, March 14, 2026 10:30 AM - 12:00 PM PDT Location: VCC, Room 212 Over the last decade, higher education has experienced a disconcerting variety of threats which have taken a variety of forms at institutions globally, include but are not limited to restrictions on academic freedom, budget cuts and the adjunctification of instruction, the elimination of entire departments, surveillance, and much more. In recent years, the United States in particular has been a site of further and accelerated existential attacks on the infrastructure of the humanities, area studies, higher education as a whole, and students whose identities or activism make them vulnerable, destabilizing the foundations of critical pedagogy and rejecting the necessity of diversity, equity, and justice for educators and students alike. The reckless and often extractive push towards new and little-understood technologies like generative AI without consideration of their influence on teaching, research, or student development further hinders instructors of every discipline and background. Finally, the militarization of campus security, including intensive surveillance technology, has restricted free speech. With repercussions far beyond North American academic circles, these trends both echo and resonate with the experiences of colleagues and institutions around the world. These targeted forms of disempowerment have effects well beyond US borders, necessitating that we both raise awareness of these issues and collaborate on strategic paths forward.

As we get closer to #AAS2026, a number of scholars on the Diversity and Equity Committee panel "Pedagogy Under Threat (in the U.S. & Beyond)" have found that they cannot attend the conference due to visa issues. We are therefore encouraging scholars to stop by and share in this important discussion.

An illustration of a dinosaur playing Basket-ball by a 9 year old kid. A year later, showing how art evolve with time and how important it is to keep the creativity going to inspire younger generations to try and evolve. I helped him with advices for the proportions but everything else was made by himself.

I met the kid today and to my surprise he still draws now and then!

So I asked him to draw the dinosaur playing basket-ball again, to see the progresses he made

And wow, look at the evolution!

This makes me so happy

That's why teaching art values is important, AI could never make this happen.

I have watched this approximately 47 times and laughed out loud 47 times

Why Language Models Hallucinate. A paper released by OpenAI in September of 2025.

Back in September, OpenAI released a paper showing that ChatGPT will always make things up.

Not sometimes. Not until the next update. Always. It's how the system fundamentally works. Which means there is no "fix."

"Prove the ai isnt sentient" is the same game christians play when they do the "prove god isnt real." The burden of proof is actually on y'all, because programmers have been able to dupe people with chat bot for decades. Its relatively easy to trick people into thinking somethings sentient.

Night In The City (feat. Dana Jean Phoenix) *** BUY ALBUM AT at rossocorsarecords.bandcamp.com/album/take-my-time *** Night in The City featuring Dana Jean Phoenix on vocals. Guitars by Jesse Bullet. From the album Take My Time, out Decembe

I'm working away here on a Saturday night, and I needed to take a break to dance around to this song. It's such a banger. It has that Gloria Estefan style syncopation and the amazing Axel F style synths. Click the link and crank the volume!
soundcloud.com/highwaysuper...

As someone with a mid-grade aphantasia, I endorse this message. Sure, I had to start drawing things and figure it out as it was coming out of the pencil, but I learned to animate and even made a webcomic when I was in college. No excuse to use the climate-destroying plagiarism machine.

FYI (for funsies) my comps exams were in

1. Waka (Japanese) poetry
2. Pre-modern Japanese literature
3. Adaptation Theory

I had a written paper, an annotated syllabus, and a take-home exam, respectively, with an oral exam for all of them together once I was done.

I almost tripped Michael Dukakis. Twice.

Two human-sized figures in colorful traditional Hinamatsuri doll wear--but they both have dinosaur heads and hands.

Hinamatsuri, brought to you by the Fukui Dinosaur Museum.

I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.

a close up of a person 's face in a black and white drawing . Alt: A still image of Jahy in her diminutive human form, animated by moving the camera frame. Her eyes are full of tears as she slams down her glass and yells "aaaaaaaaaaaa" in exasperation at the situation she finds herself in.

Me assigning readings for my students: "yes, this will be good for them to digest and analyze. It's not that much."

Me having to read those readings myself:

a close up of a person 's face in a black and white drawing . Alt: A still image of Jahy in her diminutive human form, animated by moving the camera frame. Her eyes are full of tears as she slams down her glass and yells "aaaaaaaaaaaa" in exasperation at the situation she finds herself in.

Me assigning readings for my students: "yes, this will be good for them to digest and analyze. It's not that much."

Me having to read those readings myself:

I need to update the data in the slideshow of my manga/anime class. My data stopped around 2015 because I didn't want to look up fresh numbers, but now they're different enough that I kinda have to.

What an expertly called shot

I cannot stress how much no one should be using Grammarly. Ever.

It steals your chats. It steals your work. Remove it from your phone, your pc, your life.

roadhouseendgame i was talking to my mom about cardassians and said something along the lines of what must it be like to be a cardassian civilian. like abstractly knowing the rest of the galaxy thinks of your species as 'the evil ones' and kinda sorta knowing your government runs labor camps and torture prisons and is a military empire, and it's a huge deal for everyone else in the galaxy, but you just like run a restaurant so it's not a big part of your daily life, so you just like, go about your day and make soup and don't think about it' and then halfway through my sentence i actually heard myself and then had to go sit down for like ten minutes. like sat down in a chair and stared at the floor for ten minutes

whoops