Chanders

juergen_hubert, 5 months ago to history

I suspect that the introduction of moveable type to Germany greatly contributed to both witchcraft panics and anti-Jewish pogroms.

Even before the first actual, regular newspaper was published in 1604, Germany was rife with "news sheets" that printed all sorts of lurid and fantastical tales in order to increase sales. Think of modern-day tabloids or FOX News at their worst. And all those tales must be true, or else they wouldn't have been printed, right?

Some of the tales are rather amusing (like the Sankt Andreasberg cat that gave birth to 300 kittens and a goat in a single night while under the influence of a comet). But then there's a tale of a Jew who supposedly tried to "torture" blessed altar bread and, when he could not destroy it "with fire or water", he tried to "bake it into a cake". And then the dough became red, and he beheld a vision of Baby Jesus within the oven...

Such tales took on lives of their own, and helped keep all sorts of bigotries alive. Just like modern-day social media do...

(By the way, if anyone can give me some recommendations for scholarly works on the early era of mass printing, I am all ears - so far, I've mainly picked up individual anecdotes.) #printing #witchcraft #antisemitism #history

vicgrinberg, 6 months ago to books

Bought some books - mostly again with Daunt Books Marylebone (@DauntBooksPub) 📚

(And yes, asking about whether I read out the ones I bought before would be extremely impolite 🙃)

#books #bookstodon

Chanders, 1 year ago to random

The anxiety spike I’ve seen on this website since the Trump town hall is real. Solidarity from abroad.

Chanders, 10 months ago to fediverse

So here’s my typology of what academics will end up where:

#fediverse: shy people; people who bother to have social media principles & can afford to have social media principles

#bluesky slightly type-A nerds. The kind who cared about student government or the model UN. They also think they are slightly too cool for #mastodon

#threads the heavy hitter six-figure and over public intellectuals; folks who parlay social clout into media exposure

#twitter people who never log on.

Chanders, 10 months ago to random

“reflexive contrarianism is, as the economist Adam Ozimek puts it, a “brain rotting drug.” Those who succumb to that drug “lose the ability to judge others they consider contrarian, become unable to tell good evidence from bad, a total unanchoring of belief that leads them to cling to low quality contrarian fads.””

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/06/opinion/robert-kennedy-jr-silicon-valley.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Chanders, 8 months ago to random

Right, this is annoying.

Chanders, 10 months ago to random

Happy United States Independence Day to all my peeps.

Chanders, 3 months ago to random

I’ve generally been pretty supportive/ forgiving of Biden. Even his support for Israel, not because I agree with the policy, but I can’t imagine him temperamentally or politically doing anything else.

But linking the border bill and Ukraine aid has been an utter debacle. Truly a failure of political skill and a massive strategic unforced error.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/ukraine-aid-border-bill-israel-senate

inquiline, 4 months ago to random

I don't know who needs to hear this but make your draft/submission as easy as you can for a reader to follow. Have a friend or peer read it first, not for specialized meaning, but for follow-ability. I try extremely hard to be a generous reviewer but if I can't tell what you mean, over and over, I can't even offer a constructive critique.

inquiline, 5 months ago to random

It is unspeakably grim that this (really long) HR training module (that I am still doing) has a suicide prevention hotline number plastered across the bottom. I'm not even sure how to parse this but WTAF.

inquiline, 6 months ago to random

Oh I see the blah ranch house in my neighborhood that sold for $2M in June 2022 and was relisted after they "upgraded" it into vulgar fanciness for $3.9M in April 2023 has still not sold and they've had to successively drop the ask price down to $2.8M now.

Very normal housing market. (I rent)

Zeb_Larson, 6 months ago to random

Mastodon periods of activity posting really come and go, and right now it feels like we're mostly in a lull. Outside of the handful of regular accounts I can count on, it feels sleepy around here.

Chanders, 6 months ago to random

I appreciate it when someone posts over here that “they are doing most of their posting at BlueSky these days so follow me there” so I can then unfollow them here.

Chanders, 2 months ago to random

We live in strange times.

From: @zuck
https://www.threads.net/@zuck/post/C4yMa0Gxxph

Chanders, 2 months ago to random

An RPG set in the Westing Game Universe.

Chanders, 6 months ago to random

Thanksgiving week is definitely the hardest week to live abroad, even for a curmudgeonly American-skeptic like me.

Chanders, 6 months ago to random

These NYT Biden-Trump poll results are a living nightmare.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/us/politics/biden-trump-2024-poll.html

Chanders, 6 months ago to random

Never noticed this amazing tag on Elizabeth Eisenstein's NYT obit:

"This article is set in 8.7 point Imperial and was printed on one of several presses, including the Goss Colorliner. It is also published, permanently if intangibly, at nytimes.com/section/obituaries."

*cc *@jeffjarvis

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/24/books/elizabeth-eisenstein-historian-of-movable-type-dies-at-92.html