Ethan Cecchetti

Worksheet titled: "Evolving from Eel-less Language" and it includes a column titled "Instead of" with a red X, and a column titled "Say this" with a green checkmark. The "Instead of" column includes sayings like "You're doing it wrong" and "Look at those used condoms in the water!" The "Say this" column includes sayings like, "You're grabbing an eel by the tail" and "Hey! Manhattan eels!" I don't have the space here to list all of them. But each expression in the "Say this" column is a bonafide (read that in a Wharvey Gal's accent) historical eel metaphor. We'd all be better off if we talked more about eels.

We're all trying to be careful with our language, so as not to offend, or not to lose federal funding for talking about paragraph transitions.

To help you out, here's a worksheet to guide you in swapping out troublesome phrases for real, historical eel expressions.
🗃️🧪

We need adjustments that make offloading to AI structurally hard, not just against the rules. If using AI is _harder_ than doing the learning, the problem basically goes away. Having In-class exams is an easy example, but those don't work everywhere. It's also a moving target right now, annoyingly.

Pure enforcement is for sure the wrong option. Getting more students to intrinsically value learning is the holy grail here, but I don't think we'll ever get enough students to rely purely on that.

For students who are self-motivated to learn (which most faculty were when we were students), just pointing out that you won't learn if you use AI is really effective. But those students are going to be just fine anyway. We need a way to make the degree reliant on learning for everyone else. (3/3)

The problem is, the credential is valuable because it means you learned things. If anyone can get the credential without learning, it becomes meaningless. This is why cheating is a problem for institutions, not just individuals.

We have to make learning a prerequisite of a degree again. (2/3)

As an instructor, I think about this a lot.

The problem is incentives. Many students are not trying to learn. They want a credential to get a job to make money. The existing system tries to force learning to get the credential, but AI is breaking that and students are skipping the learning. (1/3)

I'm constantly trying (/failing) to get this point across.

If you're a trained expert in a field, then it may be worthwhile to question the scientific consensus of your peers.

If you're not, the scientific consensus is absolutely the best you can do and it's arbitrary foolishness to disregard it.

every single person writing credulously about "elon will put people on the moon" should have to pin this post to their monitor

👏 Immigrantion 👏 improves 👏 everyone's 👏 lives! 👏

a brown wire-haired pup stands on a wooden deck in a grassy yard. he looks at us with golden eyes and his right ear flipped inside out. he has a pipe-shaped stick in his mouth, giving him the appearance of a sophisticated and dapper gentleman. just give him a deerstalker cap and a cloak, and he'd give Sherlock Holmes a run for his money.

This pup found a stick shaped like an old timey pipe earlier today and has already solved three mysteries. 13/10

Highlighting the speaker who stood in front of the Surprise mayor and told him to consider what the Mayor of Ohrdruf must’ve thought before he died by suicide: “He might have thought ‘how is this my fault I had no jurisdiction over this’ maybe he said ‘this site was not subject to local zoning.’”

The "Large boulder the size of a small boulder" meme. The Facebook post is from 27th January 2020

Today is "Large boulder the size of a small boulder" day!

“This is not who we are.”❌

“I’m going to speak up and take action to make sure this is not who/what we continue to be.”✅

“We’re acting like [insert region/country/oppressive group outside the U.S.]”❌

“The U.S. has a long history of oppression, discrimination, and harm that informs the present.”✅

Let’s talk about abolishing ICE.

Very few people who say “abolish ICE” mean “abandon all immigration enforcement.” Rather, they mean “the structure of immigration enforcement is irretrievably broken and needs to be reorganized, just like we did 23 years ago when we created ICE.”
/1

The best long-running series (see quoteskeets)

the very, very old etymology of two computery terms...

The tails on since letters (like A) are going to make decent kerning really hard in the Celtic Script. Even in just "ABC" it's distractingly inconsistent.

The letters on the second font are a bit smashed together for my tastes, but I'm not sure that's as big a problem.

King of England on a checkerboard pattern tile floor

Y’all might not appreciate it, but it took him 87 moves and 14 hours to get here

Year 1 data on congestion pricing in Manhattan…

* Vehicle traffic: -11%
* Foot traffic: +3.4%
* Storefront vacancy: -0.9%
* Pollution: -22%
* Revenue for mass transit: $548M

So YES this has been a huge success.

Reposted b Bruno J. Navarro @brunojnavarro.b... 4d started / going TechCrunch https://techcrunch.com Microsoft CEO says up to 30% of the company's code was written by Al 29 Apr 2025 - Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that 20% to 30% of code inside the company's repositories was "written by software" meaning... Next article Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com Microsoft admits almost all major Windows 11 core features are broken 1 day ago - Except it's not totally terrible. What makes it terrible is the privacy invasions and the consent issues Microsoft has with its users, along ... Followed by Endless Screaming @infinitescream... 1m ΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΑΗΗΗΗ H

Sometimes the scroll is startlingly on point.

“Most of us live off Hope”

Ever true 💔

Wins 2025 hands down

There are four types of guys online. No exceptions.

Congrats! I have decided to be happy for you despite the existential dread it induces.

Gotta max out those bathrooms. Each one adds a TON to the sale price! No need to look at what's in them.

You're already writing your dissertation? But you were a new great student like...last month!

Oh no, am I getting old?

Offit told me that Kennedy is a "liar" and a "terrible human being." I asked him to explain. "It doesn't matter what I say," Offit said. "He thinks the medical journals are in the pocket of the industry, he thinks that the government is in the pocket of the industry, he thinks I'm in the pocket of industry, and he's wrong." Offit continued: "If he has data showing he's right, then fucking publish it. He can't, because he doesn't have those data." I asked Offit if he saw a way to reverse the public's rising distrust in science. "I don't think there is any way to regain that trust other than have the viruses do the education, and the bacteria do the education, and then people will realize they paid way too high a cost," he said.

presented without comment

I actually thought this was @theonion.com before I looked more carefully at the post.

POND RULES: No swimming, jumping or gallivanting. Do not disturb the pond witch. No fishing with dynamite. Sacrifices to water gods on alternate Wednesdays only - NO EXCEPTIONS! Taunt the crows at your own risk. If a hand comes out of the water to beckon you, turn and walk away. Do not feed the weretrout. Is the water burning with cold unholy fire? Report it to the ranger! They’re not ducks. Run. Have fun!

You know, I'm not sure I ever really read the Pond Rules at our local nature preserve all that closely before

Today’s xkcd made me cry.

In a good way.

xkcd.com/3172/