Michael Lee

@robbertleusink Rather ironic, to say the least, given France's (non-) role in lifting that siege.

In 1683, Viennese bakers worked through the night while the Ottoman army tunneled under the city walls When the siege was broken, they baked a pastry in the shape of the crescent moon on the Ottoman flag Literally: to eat the symbol of the enemy That pastry is somehow now the signature breakfast of secular, multicultural, progressive France...

@mar80549 .

Good morning from inside my tent, which I have turned into my humble art gallery. If you like it, leave a dot to help boost the post

They may be doing everything to keep her quiet but Catherine Connolly @PresidentIRL remains a rare light in the darkness.

@Sally_Sharif1 80-85 seems far too high - even having 64 as an average seems a little generous, but it's definitely more realistic. When I taught, any grades over 80 were extremely rare.

I just gave a closed-book, pen-and-paper midterm exam in my 300-level course at UBC with 100 students. All exams were graded by an experienced graduate-level TA according to a rubric. *** The average was 64/100.*** My class averages at UBC are usually 80-85. Context: • This was the first midterm, covering ONLY 4 weeks of material. • Students had a list of possible questions in advance: no surprise questions. • Questions included (a) 3 concept definitions, (b) 3 paragraph-long questions, and (c) a 1.5-page essay. • I have taught this class multiple times. Nothing in my teaching style changed this semester. • We read entire paragraphs of text in class, so students don't have to do something on their own that wasn't covered during the lecture. • Students take a 10-question multiple-choice quiz at the end of every class (30% of the final grade). • Attendance is 95-99% every class. Attention during lectures and participation in pair-work activities are very high → anticipating the end-of-class quiz. *** But unfortunately, I suspect many students are not reading the material on the syllabus. They are asking LLMs to summarize it instead.*** After the midterm, students reported: • They thought they knew concept definitions but couldn't produce them on paper. • They thought they understood the arguments but struggled to connect them or identify points of agreement and disagreement. My view: It might be “cool” or “innovative” to teach students to summarize readings with ChatGPT or write essays with Claude. But we may be doing them a disservice: reducing their ability to retain material, think creatively, and reason from what they know. If you only read what AI has summarized for you, you don’t truly "know" the material. Moving forward: We have a second midterm coming up. I don't know how to convey to students that the best way to do better on the exam is to rely on and improve their own reading skills.

“So, the idea that universities should train our students for specific jobs, for the sake of offering ‘direct routes to employment’, is both absurd and ridiculous. The most important skill we can teach our students is the subtle art of thinking.”

A Palestinian student has been accepted to Trinity College Dublin but urgently needs to pay a €500 deposit to secure her place. Unfortunately, she cannot afford the amount, and the deadline is approaching. If any individual or organisation can help, please contact me and I will connect you with her directly. Even a small act of support can help keep her academic future open.

@david_perell Terrible for books as well

Big glass windows like this belong in the back of the building, where you're guaranteed privacy and have an outside view. But too many modern buildings have big glass windows in front. Bad for the tenants because they lose privacy and bad for the neighbors because all-glass is often ugly. Stone, brick, or wood is generally better for the front of the home.

@itsjohncrotty I thought the standard explanation for the association of the shamrock with St Patrick (and later by extension Ireland) was because Patrick used the common plant in his ministry as a natural symbol of the Holy Trinity.

The logo of the IRFU features shamrocks, which are of much older Irish association than most realise They were first linked to Ireland in the late 1500’s, visitors commenting on their use It was suggested the Irish were eating the herb, which may have been confused with watercress or occurred in times of famine Saint Patrick was linked to Green in 1597, the adoption of both likely linked. Within a century the Irish were wearing Green on St Patrick’s Day The likely inspiration goes all the way back to Gaelic times Irelands Annals were eulogising green pastures, it being a desirable outcome following land clearance. St Brigid was said to settle in the Curragh being inspired by its ‘plains covered in clover blossom’ There may even be pictorial examples - the below stylised green plants appearing in a highly ‘Irish’ themed book in 1180! An association stretching at least 500 years may well extend back another 1000 #ireland #6nations #engire

The BBC just released a new adaptation of Lord of the Flies, the classic novel by William Golding. It's beautifully made, but it's still telling the wrong story. A few years ago, I went looking for the *real* Lord of the Flies. I wanted to know: has it ever actually happened? Have kids ever been shipwrecked on a deserted island? It took me a year of research, but I found it. In 1965, six boys from a boarding school in Tonga stole a boat, got caught in a storm, and drifted for eight days without food or water. They washed up on 'Ata, a remote, uninhabited island in the Pacific. They stayed there for 15 months, and what happened on that island was the exact opposite of William Golding's novel. These boys set up a small commune. They built a food garden, stored rainwater in hollowed-out tree trunks, created a gym with improvised weights, and built a badminton court. One of them, Stephen (who would later become an engineer) managed to start a fire using two sticks. They kept it burning the entire time. Of course they fought too. But then they argued, they had a rule: go to opposite ends of the island, cool down, then come back and apologize. As one of them told me: ‘That's how we stayed friends.’ Back home, everyone assumed that the boys – Luke, Stephen, Sione, David, Kolo and Mano — were dead. When they were finally discovered by an Australian captain named Peter Warner, he radioed their names to Tonga. After twenty minutes, a tearful response came back: ‘You found them! These boys have been given up for dead. Funerals have been held. If it's them, this is a miracle!’ Peter commissioned a new ship, hired all six boys as his crew, and named the boat the Ata, after the island where he found them. They remained friends for the rest of their lives – Peter and Mano even became soulmates. I tracked them down, and it became one of the central chapters of my book Humankind. Here's what struck me most: William Golding (the author of Lord of the Flies) was a troubled man, an alcoholic who once said ‘I have always understood the Nazis, because I am of that sort by nature.’ I think he was projecting his own darkness onto children. And we turned it into a lesson about human nature that we teach to millions of kids around the world. I think the real lesson is the opposite. When real children found themselves alone on a real island, they didn't descend into savagery. They cooperated, they took care of each other, they survived. I'm not saying that the Tongan castaways were representative of all kids everywhere. But I am saying that every kid who has to read or watch the fictional Lord of the Flies also deserves to know what actually happened when it played out in real life. Stories are never just stories. We become the stories that we tell ourselves.

Elites have been trying to erase "Palestine" for decades. That's why I wrote my dissertation on the history of the word, idea, concept of Palestine. Who called the place Palestine, when, where, what did it refer to and did it matter to people? academia.edu/34686627/The_I…

The British Museum has removed the word “Palestine” from its Ancient Middle East displays — despite the term appearing in Herodotus, Roman records, medieval maps, Ottoman sources, and even Shakespeare. Erasing a word erases a people. I’ve written about why this matters, and what we can do next. 👇 open.substack.com/pub/1taghrid/p… #HistoryIncludesPalestine @21WIRE @AsaWinstanley @s_m_marandi @alon_mizrahi @FranceskAlbs @guychristensen_

First they steal your history. Then they bomb what remains. Then they erase you.

@GregDaly Geographical descriptions of the area go back to the 4thC BCE, with the work of Pytheus of Massalia, following his travels. He labelled these islands 'Prettanike nesoi', which possibly refers to the Pretani (Greek name for the tribe based in present-day Co Down).

We need to stop buying into silly things suggesting Ireland wasn’t a place until the English said so. At least one late-seventh-century text refers to Tara as our capital, the High King’s seat. The Cáin Adomnáin from 697 includes the then High King on its list of guarantors. /1

@ThirdVenetia @ssphinxe And had to rely on German mercenaries for any kind of military presence from the 16thC on

@ssphinxe Yes. It was a combination of Ottoman expansion and encroachment by the emerging nation-states that resulted in the Venetian Republic adopting a more defensive strategy.

On Venetian commercial decline: From the 15th to the 16th c., the Venetian nobility, traditionally entrepreneurs, began favouring investments into the newly acquired mainland empire, turning into rentiers. Gradually conspicuous spending rose -- banquets, villas, art.

@aliciaandrz Comedy was never meant to be comforting.

things that happen to women in Shakespeare’s “comedies”: she is threatened with death for not marrying who her father wants her adopted son is stolen after she is drugged into submission she is gaslit & tormented by her husband until her spirit is broken she is beat up on her wedding day are you laughing yet?

@DrHelenFry My father served in it, but he's long gone now. He barely talked about it, never wore a poppy, so I've only sketchy details of what he did

Do you have a family member who served in the Second World War?

@MichaelAArouet @Credit_Junk Similarly, Italy has only existed as a single country since 1870, and its unification proved far more problematic than anyone anticipated. It's a complex story, and a good question.

@Credit_Junk Well, 40 years of socialism always make people poorer

I have never understood the massive economic gap in Italy. Why is the North, with its various industries, one of the wealthiest areas in Europe, while the South remains so extremely poor? Same country, same language, same culture, same laws and taxes. Can someone please explain?

I wouldn't watch #Hamnet if you care deeply about historical accuracy. Nice use of l'ombre chinoise, though.

I’m watching the latest scenes from Minneapolis with the same horror as so many people. We feel inches from the abyss. Five years ago, in the wake of Jan. 6, I wrote a personal piece about the Belfast of my youth and the U.S. of today. I so wish I’d been wrong.

@RobLooseCannon So many tunnels, and stories about them. Has anyone written a book about Dublin's tunnels?

Dubliners love a good secret tunnel, and there's dozens beneath our ancient city. Builders excavating on Thomas Street unearthed a forgotten network of tunnels from the days of the old Roe’s whiskey distillery, which closed in 1926. Archaeologists initially found a layer of stratified soot, then more evidence of large furnaces. Then they discovered a subterranean complex of tunnels, three meters high and one and half meter wide. Some of these ingenious shafts were used to move heated air from the furnaces, at an uphill angle, toward the old distillery grain stores. The original humble whiskey producer grew exponentially during the 19th century. At its peak of operation, the warehouses alone held 23,000 casks, which is over a million gallons of whiskey. Archaeologists believe the complete tunnel network could extend across seventeen acres, all the way down to the Liffey! Roe’s original entrance was almost directly opposite Guinness’s.They competed for the hearts, as well as the mouths of Dubliners. When the stout superstar helped pay for the restoration of St. Patrick’s cathedral, Roe’s donated £250,000 for the improvement of Christ Church cathedral. The archaeologists' survey also found evidence of cooperage; the dying craft of hand-making barrels. As the largest distillery complex in the world at that time, Roe’s also hosted stables and sixteen massive fermenting vats. The Dublin Time Machine has previously visited the magnificent 150-foot tall smock windmill on the site, called St Patrick’s Tower. Incredibly, the massive structure survived Roes's downfall, albeit without its sails. Several historic and economic events signed the death warrant of Roes whiskey. The War of Independence was hugely disruptive to staffing, production, and distribution. Likewise, exports to the states were hammered by Prohibition in America. The final coffin nail was a market flooded with cheap blended scotch. Guinness now has some of its offices and car park over the site of Roe’s Whiskey Distillery. Of course, the Guinness brewery has extensive tunnels of its own. One which is sometimes open to visitors runs beneath James Street, connecting the brewery sites on either side of the road. The 19th century brick-lined tunnel has an extremely modern feeling elliptical vaulted ceiling. In addition to personal, it also transported porter lines from their vat houses down to the racking shed. Rumour has it another tunnel, which once carried a light rail system, was not actually blocked up and is still used either to house an emergency power plant or to cater for high-class executive guests...