@besswww.bsky.social - Bess W

28 Aug 2026 13:04 +0000

update: https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/faculty-meeting-icebreakers I wish this were more academia-specific though, like Name 3 scholars who should have cited you (fastest icebreaker ever) [contains quote post or other embedded content]

28 Aug 2026 12:57 +0000

Makes sense that the @cpsc.gov is really good at ASMR [contains quote post or other embedded content]

27 Aug 2026 16:30 +0000

start of school gossip: college students telling me about orientations, RA training, etc where the presentations were blatant AI and everyone in the room audibly groaned. & about their service industry jobs that have bad AI images representing the actual food and drinks that they serve.

26 Aug 2026 16:18 +0000

hot tip - do not use this icebreaker in a meeting of research academics: "what is a common misconception about your field?"

18 Aug 2026 15:44 +0000

Congrats @elleryefoutch.bsky.social. Come for a deep dive into the Blaschka glass flowers, stay for 19th century bodybuilding history steamy enough to be censored by the internet. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

07 Aug 2026 19:50 +0000

Any disability-aware faculty want to share how they are approaching "return to paper" and more device restrictions from an inclusive perspective? Feels like I'm back in 2005 with "you will fail this class if you use a phone."

07 Aug 2026 17:41 +0000

Realizing I never really thought about how people board a zeppelin. This never happened - it is a composite photo - but it's definitely on the top of my list of ways to board a vehicle.

06 Aug 2026 14:16 +0000

seriously academics can we come up with another name for a day or multi-day faculty meeting that is not "retreat"?

11 Jun 2026 15:30 +0000

Follow-up: the end of conference plenary with a chat g summary of reflections that people put into the conference app. Sigh [contains quote post or other embedded content]

08 Jun 2026 18:23 +0000

Ever since I've been in academia (almost 20 yrs) people have been talking about the end of the traditional academic conference yet they largely persist. What changes have you seen in conferences that you think make a difference? I'll start

08 Jun 2026 17:37 +0000

0 days since I have heard "I asked [AI tool] about this and.." in a keynote/commencement speech, etc

05 Jun 2026 18:31 +0000

Coming soon! Reissue of Design for Independent Living, an exceptional document of disabled expertise in collab with architecture students in the 1970s, by Raymond Lifchez and Barbara Winslow. New intro by me, Aimi Hamraie & Ignacio Galán. https://www.upress.umn.edu/9781517921408/design-for-independent-living/

22 May 2026 17:58 +0000

TIL that the term "tarmac" is a shortening of "tarmacadam" referring to tar + a technique of layering crushed stones for hard surfaces (named for engineer McAdam who invented it in 19th c). Basically a precursor to asphalt - but oddly seems mainly to refer to airport paved areas today - right?

04 May 2026 23:02 +0000

This post has great alt text that helped me realize that even when names are provided IDK who 80% of these people are. But pretty clothes! Very bad sponsors! (But let's be honest the met & it's sponsors have never been great) [contains quote post or other embedded content]

16 Apr 2026 20:40 +0000

me: oh my next book is going to be way more succinct and won't go down every rabbit hole like my dissertation-to-book also me: reading entire books to inform 1 to 2 sentences of current hodgepodge of partial drafts

27 Mar 2026 20:36 +0000

I need a punch card for how many times I've been at a disability-focused event where someone claims they don't need a microphone.

07 Jan 2026 23:08 +0000

it seems like a fair number of people I know from students to colleagues are starting to write in this way where parts of paragraphs are bolded. I am not a fan. Where does this come from and is it preferred by anyone?

20 Dec 2025 00:31 +0000

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17 Dec 2025 15:41 +0000

love to hear that my university hired a consulting firm to assess our research support - probably spending more than I would earn in research funds in 5 careers. Forgive me for not feeling that marginalized topics, non STEM, and smaller-scale funding are going to be hot topics for them.

11 Dec 2025 12:49 +0000

I realize this isn't the main thing here but isn't Times New Roman no longer even packaged with Microsoft Word? (while Calibri is the default there) Maybe worth saying there isn't really a single font that is considered most accessible.. but TNR is very poor for readability. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

09 Dec 2025 18:14 +0000

I'm sorry, but it's just too funny that medical leave is called FML

04 Dec 2025 20:25 +0000

LOL @ this romantic post about the least romantic first date location you could possibly imagine. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

30 Oct 2025 16:02 +0000

just wild how still, almost 20 years into researching what I've been researching, a friend is like "have you seen this masters thesis from 1985" and i click 2 links and have it on my computer, and I've never seen it before. I am thinking AI cannot do this but I do appreciate that regular search can.