Category Archives: Robert’s posts

Bryan Garner’s “Tip of the Day”

You really must subscribe. Today’s was delightfully humbling: racket; racquet. For the implement used in net games, racket is standard in American English and British English alike. The variant racquet appears in some proper names (e.g., the Palm Springs Racquet Club) seemingly because the “fancy” … Continue reading

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Welcome them in.

In a piece for The Conversation Canada, my Kwantlen Polytechnic University colleague Jeffrey Meyers writes about Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder, two eminent American scholars who fled Yale University and the United States, taking positions at the University of Toronto, … Continue reading

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Pope Francis

“When people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection.” “A little bit of mercy makes the … Continue reading

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Amtrak’s social-media marketing

My favourite way to travel is by train, so I follow all of Amtrak’s accounts. They are very witty: When Southwest Airlines announced they were charging for bags, Amtrak posted on X, “Guess we’re the only ones doing free baggage now.” … Continue reading

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Fake friends

In his article “Enshittification, artificial intelligence, and the privatization of public education,” Dr. Chris Samuel warns that artificial intelligent’s infiltration into education (AIED) will likely mimic the same depressing “enshittification” users saw in platforms like Facebook, Google, and X/Twitter. First, … Continue reading

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Happy Public Domain Day!

From The Public Domain Review: Another year dawns… and another bevy of works dust off their copyright and emerge fresh-faced, full of hope, into the elysian plains of the public domain! On this year’s Public Domain Day (which falls each January … Continue reading

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Pernicious Balance

Scholarly journals hide everything from people who can’t afford to read them. Large language models steal everything from people who can’t afford to lose anything.

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Retirement

Reposted from basil.CA: 2025 Next year, at summer’s end, I will be retiring from Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I will remain open to other contract opportunities elsewhere after that, but this will be it for me as a full-time prof. The … Continue reading

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“AI-powered bias meter”

Watching owners of once-great American newspapers destroy their own property has been truly shocking to me.

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Feedback

When interviewing candidates for teaching positions at my university, I often ask them how they provide and receive feedback in the workplace, to get a quick, vivid picture of their character and initiative. When you give clear and useful feedback … Continue reading

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