Avoid static, wordy nominalization. Prefer compelling verbs.

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We are all of us works in progress. Sometimes progress looks messy.

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ChatGPT Can Be Broken by Entering These Strange Words, And Nobody Is Sure Why

Reddit usernames like ‘SolidGoldMagikarp’ are somehow causing the chatbot to give bizarre responses. […] “I’ve just found out that several of the anomalous GPT tokens (“TheNitromeFan”, ” SolidGoldMagikarp”, ” davidjl”, ” Smartstocks”, ” RandomRedditorWithNo”, ) are handles of people who are (competitively? collaboratively?) counting to infinity on a Reddit forum. I kid you not,” Watkins…

AP Style: try to determine, and then respect, a source's preferences when it comes to describing disabilities.

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Pa. agency explains why it enacted new ‘no force-on-force rule’ for Bushy Run, other sites

Attending the re-enactment of the Battle of Busy Run was a favorite and familiar part of our homeschool curriculum. The end to battle reenactments at Bushy Run Battlefield has left many members of the community saddened and frustrated. But in Harrisburg, officials with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission consider the new “no force-on-force” policy…

An afternoon with Ben Franklin.

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The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

“I have always understood the Nazis,” Golding confessed, “because I am of that sort by nature.” And it was “partly out of that sad self-knowledge” that he wrote Lord of the Flies. Rutger Bregmen writes: “began to wonder: had anyone ever studied what real children would do if they found themselves alone on a deserted island?…

Misaligned interior and exterior portholes. Bulkheads from the deck below visible above the floorboards. I can fix all these issues, but I have to stroll through my model looking for them first. Leveling up my texturing skills. #blender3d #design #aesthetics #blender3dart

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The Toulmin model for analyzing arguments came up at a faculty pedagogy workshop today. I spent some downtime updating a web page I posted in 1999.

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Time lapse movie shows exoplanets orbiting star HR8799, 133 light years away. (Published in a Northwestern University press release yesterday.)

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It’s been a Dwarf Fortress afternoon.

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I wish I could credit the designer. This is brilliant.

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Just submitted final grades for the compressed course that began the day after fall grades were due.

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Mindset matters. Sometimes it’s an accomplishment just to make it through the day. But we can aspire to be better than the worst parts of our environment & our attitude.

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Academics work to detect ChatGPT and other AI writing

Today I met a class of English majors who love writing, and who expressed concern that AI writers will put them out of a job. Human- and machine-generated prose may one day be indistinguishable. But that does not quell academics’ search for an answer to the question “What makes prose human?” […] “Think about what…