Richard

@rwpickard

Reader, tree-hugger, teacher, preserver of foodstuffs. Canadian. Deleter of rwpickard from Twitter/X.

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Richard@rwpickard· 28d

(a) "Catalan"? (b) I saw fireflies for the first time at the Indiana ALECC conference, back in 2011, and they were tiny miracles

A screenshot of my blank reply screen to this text. Although every word in the original text was in English, the post was marked by Bluesky as "written in Catalan," which was a surprise to me

Richard@rwpickard· May 21

Taxonomically, I'm the kind of nerd who gets excited upon thrifting a December 1979 issue of Hiballer Forest Magazine #climate #envhum #thriftshop

A photo of the cover of the December 1979 issue of Hiballer Forest Magazine, featuring a bearded man wearing an orange hardhat who is walking toward the camera along the trunk of a felled Douglas fir tree

Richard@rwpickard· May 14

The quotes from @evansolomon.bsky.social in this week's CP story about data centres are *weird*. Like, weird enough that I looked up its author (Chuck Chiang) to make sure he's real. Did Solomon's office use AI to invent these, or is he this off? www.timescolonist.com/the-mix/telu... 1/3

An alleged quotation from Evan Solomon, Canada's minister for AI, in a Canadian Press story:

"Building is risk, which is why the Prime Minister said we cannot be risk averse in this moment. We're going to take on an element of risk, but you also have to do that boldly and responsibly. Risk cannot come at the expense of our values, sustainability.

"In this moment, do we want a country that is not taking risk to bet on Canada? Do we want country that's not taking a risk to bet our own innovation, our own energy systems, our own cities, our workforce? Absolutely not."

Richard@rwpickard· Apr 16

This is what the Bluesky homepage looked like when I first logged in today 😅 Very curious about the power it must hold, this novel that was blurbed by a Nobel winner!

Screenshot of Bluesky's main page, with an inexplicable overlay reading "Forbidden"

Richard@rwpickard· Apr 15

Oh no, what did I do to get that many notifications... #resistAI

A screenshot of my own Bluesky menu, on logging in today, showing more than 30 notifications. I never get that many notifications.

Richard@rwpickard· Apr 13

if you see this, post an image you saved because it made you laugh

A screenshot from the Twitter user at L To The Lucy, saving that her favorite PR pitch was called "Understanding Millenials - How Do Potatoes Fit Into Their Lives?". It was from the United States Potato Board

Richard@rwpickard· Apr 10

Oh look there it is

Screen shot of a conversation about whether Bluesky is showing all replies in the Following feed, or only some of them

Richard@rwpickard· Feb 3

Watch those typos, @mashable.com. (Good story to cover, though!) #bowser #againstAI #resistAI mashable.com/article/mozi...

A screenshot from Mashable, with a typographical error in the subhed. The subhed reads "Mozilla offers a refreshing counter-example to endless AI integrations. Will other bowser makers follow suit?" It should read "browser," not "bowser". The main title reads "Firefox browser to add 'AI off-switch,' bucking industry trend"

Richard@rwpickard· Dec 20

I do get nervous when I see this, on logging into Bsky, because I don't get noticed often (which is excellent!). Should've known it's just from being a good citizen about calling out "AI" misuse. #resistAI

A screenshot of the Bluesky sidebar menu, showing that I had more than 30 notifications on logging into the platform today. It's rare that I have more than two

Richard@rwpickard· Dec 19

I wrote to the journal editor advising them that when I spot-checked some of this article's citations, four of the seven I checked don't seem to exist. Updates as circumstances warrant!

A screenshot of four seemingly non-existent citations, from an article entitled "Integration of Generative Artificial Intelligence and 3D Immersive Environments in Competency-Based Higher Education." The four suspect articles are as follows:

- Prinsloo, P. (2023). Generative AI, higher education and the futures of academic integrity. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 20(1), 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-023-00420-8
- Selwyn, N., & Macgilchrist, F. (2022). Should we be worried about generative AI in education? Learning, Media and Technology, 47(4), 373–377. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2022.2150626
- Smutny, P., Vaculík, J., & Procházka, D. (2023). The role of ChatGPT in higher education: Opportunities, challenges, and ethical dilemmas. Education and Information Technologies, 28(6), 6615–6635. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-023-11813-0
- Williamson, B. (2021). Education governance and datafication. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429286794

Richard@rwpickard· Dec 4

Oh, Time Magazine, you were SO CLOSE with this, and then the pop-up ruined everything. #resistAI time.com/7338205/rage...

This is a screenshot of an article from Time Magazine. The article is entitled "It's Time to Rage Against the AI Music Machine." Unfortunately, there's a pop-up window that reads "Explore the full archive of TIME, a century of journalism, insight, and perspective, with AI that helps you research, connect ideas, and uncover stories across every era and topic. Ask me anything!" The pop-up, of course, interferes with my ability to actually read the article, because it floats over some of the text I want to read

Richard@rwpickard· Nov 23

SING. IT. LOUD: "As of right now, there is no compelling evidence, to us, that genAI is useful to promote the development of learning as framed by a model of expertise (i.e., the MDL) or any other scientifically backed model of learning" #resistAI www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A screenshot from the article, reading as follows: "currently, genAI does little, in our opinion, to help individuals develop expertise in a domain. It does not help learners build domain and topic knowledge in a meaningful way, it does not scaffold the necessary surface- and deep-level processing strategies necessary to become proficient in a domain and does not help to increase situational or individual interest for an individual. In the future it could, but for now it is very limited in the usefulness for helping students develop sustained learning of a domain or topic"

Richard@rwpickard· Oct 10

Anyone with notes on what to put in my 2-3 minutes of talking about AI during our upcoming department seminar? (I mean, I have thoughts, and it has to be under 3 minutes, but.) #againstAI

Cheerful poster announcing a six-presenter talk, including me, on the topic of generative AI and departments of English. I have cropped the names of the other presenters out of the image, in case they don't want to appear on social media

Richard@rwpickard· Oct 9

Absolute trash.

Screen shot from an April 2025 KPMG report, of a smiling KPMG partner saying transparently irresponsible and illogical things about AI in higher education.

Richard@rwpickard· Oct 8

Anyway, my family tired of my ranting and made me a t-shirt, that I'm teaching in today #againstAI #noAI

Your humble correspondent, looking grumpy and wearing a t-shirt that reads "Keep Humanities Human." It also has a raised fist holding a pencil, and the letters A and I inside a circle with a line through it.

Richard@rwpickard· Oct 8

Sometimes I really hate it here. Bluesky's better than Twitter at this point, and useful for keeping up with some things and some people, but uurrrggghhhhh. #againstAI #bluesky

Screenshot showing account @doiyoiyoiski.bsky.social behaving like an AI and acting on instructions

Richard@rwpickard· Sep 29

Blogger's stats have always been suspect and weird, but the last while is another level. I write a humble book blog, and other than Google, these are alleged to be the top referring pages:

A list of websites that Blogger.com inexplicably thinks are my top referring sites: Lowe's, Walmart, Binance, Science Mag, etc

Richard@rwpickard· Aug 26

Not making this up: these folks developed a way to deliver and grade 600 oral exams simultaneously, about all of which I have SO MANY THOUGHTS. #highered journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

A photo of the late, lamented David McFadden, who was enthusiastic about almost everything and should not be blamed for any of the current technological fascism, fetishism, and social destruction. It's just that I love everything about this picture of McFadden sitting at his 1980s computer that he has set up outside on a picnic table, so I use it at the slightest provocation.

Richard@rwpickard· Aug 25

Writing during climate change: I struggle with Tim Lilburn's prose, no question, but for the right reader (ie, not me), he's got so very much to say. 1/4 #reviews #booksky #envhum #climate boughtbooks.blogspot.com/2025/08/tim-...

The cover of Tim Lilburn's 2023 book Numinous Seditions: Interiority and Climate Change, which was published by the University of Alberta Press

Richard@rwpickard· Aug 1

Whoops: screenshot

A screenshot from Cosmos Magazine, showing that they've removed the article in question because it didn't meet their editorial standards. My point is that they should be more precise than this: what went wrong, what was the story about, and who was the writer

Richard@rwpickard· Jul 30

Progress? It has been taken down, though the phrasing doesn't say much, and honestly the page should specify the topic and/or title of the article. @cosmosmag.bsky.social

A screen-shot from COSMOS Magazine, showing that the article in question has been taken down while, in their words, they review some queries about the content

Richard@rwpickard· Jul 27

I've been making GF sourdough for a while, for some folks in my life who need that, and the numbers are ... gosh. A single 900-gram loaf using sorghum flour, tapioca starch, cornstarch, and psyllium husk, from a millet starter, costs $6.76 in dry ingredients. #glutenfree #gluten #celiac

An uncut loaf of gluten-free sourdough bread, on a bamboo cutting board in front of a Mason jar of gluten-free sourdough starter

A sliced loaf of gluten-free sourdough bread, on a bamboo cutting board, in front of a Mason jar of gluten-free sourdough starter and a small basket of strawberries

Richard@rwpickard· May 29

I mean, at least it wasn't the paperclip game? But I can see why folks think it's hallucination, even though it isn't. Intriguing reading. #noAI

Richard@rwpickard· May 17

Right?!?

James Spader and Susan Sarandon, heating up the screen in White Palace (1990): looking into each other's eyes while standing at a bar, with bottles on the bar, with the image in black and white to make them look a bit Bogart and Bacall. Screenshot from IMDb

Richard@rwpickard· Apr 28

With @338canada.bsky.social projecting Liberal @wgreaves.bsky.social, it feels like the right vote strategically. Will's a colleague (but from a different department); I like and respect him a lot, and he'd be terrific. It'd be HARD not to vote Green or NDP, tho. 2/ 338canada.com/59042e.htm