Notices by Real Syntactic (mirijb2@c18.masto.host)

What students saw at my office today #plushtodon #letterpress

Could people with contacts among the international #press corps please inform them that the adjective form of “Democrat”—as in a politician of the #US Democratic Party—is “Democratic,” not “Democrat”? Patrick Wintour in the Guardian today refers to US “Democrat politicians” at the Munich Security Conference. It would be helpful if he and colleagues learned that this mode of reference is a long-standing right-wing slur implying that #Democrats are “commies,” put quaintly. https://www.factcheck.org/2007/12/the-democratic-or-democrat-party/

#MagicInTheMundane sometimes the mundane really is only the mundane.

“What happens when a generation learns to mistake AI-generated eloquence for genuine understanding?” Finally someone else pointing out that Old Etonian guild-based assessment methods, where crystalline form is taken as a reliable index of thought, have enabled the Chat GPT/LLM debacle in text-based university learning. Gen AI is *a class problem*. It can be deferred by “prioritizing intellectual struggle.” Which is *class struggle.*

From: @davdittrich
https://fediscience.org/@davdittrich/115401486753023474

yoinked from corporate social media, the poster claiming that piles of these things are under every ATM (known in #Canada as a “bank machine,” where I have never not ever seen a flosser.) Is this symbolic convergence of #flosstodon with late capitalism a uniquely American thing? #usa

Why do Americans floss their teeth while withdrawing cash? Someone explain this to me.

@inthehands she is a brave kid. Wish I had been. Thanks for your thoughtful post.

@inthehands hiya. Was only girl to take 12th grade physics in my school. Teacher told me daily: “I shouldn’t have to teach you. Girls can’t do this subject.” Govt austerity=no textbooks (late 80s.) So teacher scrounged some uni ones. You had to know calculus to work most but not all problem sets. Teacher never told us which. The school didn’t offer calculus. The boys learned at home. I’m working class; no one to learn from. Never took physics or math again. Uni prof in humanities now.

@inthehands I work on figuration and repetition in poetics. Have published on Wordsworth and set theory. But believe that most of my overwhelmingly female students fear math. My daughter—all girls school—was told that girls learn differently from boys and need concreteness, context, sociality. AP calc reserved for 12th grade; boys’ schools offer from 10th. Daughter is a math major now—had to fight hard to get there.

the sheepdog training place is just off 1 Ave, which is the Canada-US border. Seen in passing: a US cop in full fatigues, Kevlar vest reading “POLICE,” searching a ditch on the US side. A giant US flag on a pole at the T-junction onto 1 Avenue, on the US side, at the fenceline of a private house, centred. And this little display a mile or so along the Canadian roadside, citing Mike Myers’s “elbows up” reference to stroppy hockey great Gordie Howe on SNL back in March. #canpoli

#IntheGoodOleDays #hashtaggames (I did not make this)

@georgetakei fentanyl flows north not south in any case. They have justified an illegal action with a fallacious pretext. On brand.

#silentSunday

@bmacDonald94 recommending David Treuer’s The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee (2019), a wonderful Indigenous-written history of Indigenous surthrivance since Wounded Knee in what’s currently called North America. I love Bury My Heart, which was timely, but must be read alongside the contemporaneous American Indian Movement, and beyond: Indigenous folks are here, thriving in knowledge and culture. Land back!

#silentSunday #dogsofMastodon

@Remittancegirl by the same token, everyone should be able to sew and/or knit. Repairing clothes well should be taught as a basic skill; well-repaired clothes should be a badge of honour.

Mastodon PSA: gift links to news articles work only when the link itself is clicked. The thumbnail at the bottom of the post links only to the paywalled version. #GiftLink s

off topic but my border collie club arranged a cookie decorating class today #bordercollie #dogsofmastodon