Category Archives: Robert’s posts

Sure Why Not

Posted on July 8, 2025 by Robert Basil

God. The agency said that if a house of worship endorsed a candidate to its congregants, the I.R.S. would view that not as campaigning but as a private matter, like “a family discussion concerning candidates.” (The title is a fine … Continue reading →

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Almost time to go

Posted on June 14, 2025 by Robert Basil

Kwantlen Polytechnic University has been at or near the centre of my life for more than two decades. We’ll keep the newsfeed here up into my retirement years, though.

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Bryan Garner’s “Tip of the Day”

Posted on May 19, 2025 by Robert Basil

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.

Posted on May 14, 2025 by Robert Basil

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

Posted on April 21, 2025 by Robert Basil

“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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Fake friends

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Robert Basil

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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Pernicious Balance

Posted on December 17, 2024 by Robert Basil

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

Posted on December 17, 2024 by Robert Basil

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 →