Erin K. Maher
@erinkmaher.bsky.social
2.8K followers 430 following 3K posts
Academic copyeditor, line editor, and indexer in the arts and humanities. PhD in musicology, UNC Chapel Hill (2016). She/her/Dr. It's pronounced "mar."
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Reposted by Erin K. Maher
Next week I’m participating in an editors panel to introduce the various levels of editing to first-time academic authors (because someone decided I’m qualified for that?) SO: question for academic authors—anything you wished you’d understood better about copyediting before you first published?
I am never going to talk to my computer unless I need to for accessibility reasons someday, and if that happens, I'd really prefer it to be less cursed than this.
This is the future of Windows. Microsoft wants to rewrite Windows to turn computers into AI PCs that you talk to. It's now bringing AI features to all Windows 11 PCs today, in a bid to convince you to talk to your PC and let AI control it. Full details 👇 www.theverge.com/news/799768/...
Microsoft wants you to talk to your PC and let AI control it
Copilot Voice and Vision are now rolling out.
www.theverge.com
I think maybe they aren't fully aware that prison is a real thing
I don't know about this, man.
Hello, Welcome to Folsom Prison
What to Expect Behind the Gates


When you attend Folsom Prison Experience, you’re more than a fan—you’re an inmate for the night.

Before the show even begins, you’ll head through intake, get your mugshot taken, and meet others on your cellblock. Swap stories, find out what everyone’s “in for,” and settle in for a night behind the gates of one of the most infamous prisons in the world.

Buttons that say "Experience a Show" and "Shop Our Merch," and a photo of two middle-aged men with beards and glasses dressed as like comedy police officers?
Sometimes I'm scrolling through a list of tribute acts to check if a theater around here is going to have anything that isn't that (🙄) and I see something that makes me stop scrolling and stare at the wall.
HOME | Folsom Prison Experience
Now you get to be part of a masterpiece that has stood the test of time. Buy a ticket to history and join the Experience!
folsomprisonexperience.com
Reposted by Erin K. Maher
He really thinks he's got a great catchphrase going.
Reposted by Erin K. Maher
Facial expressions common to all humans! 🙃
PainChek is one of these behavioral models, and it acts like a camera‑based thermometer, but for pain: A care worker opens the app and holds a phone 30 centimeters from a person’s face. For three seconds, a neural network looks for nine particular microscopic movements—upper‑lip raise, brow pinch, cheek tension, and so on—that research has linked most strongly to pain. Then the screen flashes a score of 0 to 42. “There’s a catalogue of ‘action‑unit codes’—facial expressions common to all humans. Nine of those are associated with pain,” explains Kreshnik Hoti, a senior research scientist with PainChek and a co-inventor of the device. This system is built directly on the foundation of FACS. After the scan, the app walks the user through a yes‑or‑no checklist of other signs, like groaning, “guarding,” and sleep disruption, and stores the result on a cloud dashboard that can show trends.
I don't want Copilot or Gemini, I want to be able to paste a bullet-point list from a Word document into an email.
Reposted by Erin K. Maher
I uploaded my first #college recommendation letter of the year last night, and discovered that #Naviance (the platform many schools use to submit college applications to the Common App program) now has an LLM-based "assistant" for writing these rec letters. #EduSky
Part of an online flyer from PowerSchool's Naviance platform. It reads:

AI Powered Letter of
Recommendation
EFFORTLESS LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION WITH AI
ASSISTANCE
Naviance’s AI-powered Letters of Recommendation tool helps
teachers quickly create personalized, high-quality letters
using existing student data. It supports privacy, flexibility,
and full editorial control, addressing time constraints, large
caseloads, and incomplete profiles.
sometimes I think about how Billy Strings and Alicia Keys are the same stage name concept
I somehow haven't had anyone give me a hard time about it, but I would probably end up grumbling something about how self-employed people don't get paid sick days.
I had a mentor who was a composer with like seven part-time jobs and I guess I thought that sounded doable. (And now here I am! Full-time freelancing is kind of like having seven part-time jobs! And one of them is editing/indexing music theory textbooks, so I do actually use my undergrad degree!)
7. Why did you want to major in your major?
I used to do a Twitter search for "57 states" from time to time, and I always found posts from *that day* where conservatives were still bringing it up.
I'm generalizing, but why do conservatives remember political irritations for so much longer than liberals?

It's been 17 years since Obama said some voters "cling to their guns, to their religion" and I heard a senator denounce that last month.

Obvious theory: Media ecosystem puts it on repeat
Imagine caring about Kaepernick in the year of our lord 2025
sometimes I think about how that guy from two of my current favorite bands has the names of *both* elder Large Adult Sons

(I, of course, also share part of my name with a public figure who sucks)
Screenshot from the Wikipedia page for Eric D. Johnson (Fruit Bats / Bonny Light Horseman) showing that his middle name is Donald.
Reposted by Erin K. Maher
Check it out: we turned our September "Identify Your Audience and Find Target Presses" webinar into a free self-paced course, with video clips and a worksheet!

(We took out all the info that would have identified participants and their projects and re-recorded some clips)

#AcademicSky
Get a taste of our teaching styles and learn how to identify your audience more succinctly in this FREE course.

workshops.dissertationtobook.com/l/pdp/audience

#academicbookcentral #academicwriting #freeworkshop
Reposted by Erin K. Maher
Mike Johnson is as if "I haven't seen the tweet" was a muppet.
Routledge index turnaround time
Halloween is coming! Share a 4-word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

You forgot tracked changes.
In honor of Hallowe'en coming up, share a 4-word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

Copyedit this in Adobe.
Reposted by Erin K. Maher
First encore at the Ronn McFarlane-Paul O'Dette lute duo recital today: John Dowland's "My Lord Chamberlain, His Galliard" - for two people to play on a single lute. And I thought playing piano, four hands, was tricky to coordinate!
Reposted by Erin K. Maher
If we really put our heads together and keep the evening of December 24 clear, I am convinced we can Christmas Carol this man.
Trump: "I don't think there's anything that's gonna get me in heaven. I think I'm not maybe heaven bound. I may be in heaven right now as we fly on Air Force One. I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make heaven."
I had a whole existential crisis a few months ago when I was asked to fact-check an AI-generated summary of a meeting I attended. What is a summary? What is meaning? What is accuracy? Will I be able to read in the future if it's all Like This?

(And then I insisted on taking notes next time.)
AI “summaries” are not summaries but slop
I am the most "grape juice and grocery store bread and it's not literally Jesus" Baptist, but this whole thing is making me so emotional. 😭
What Fr Dowling is doing here was not just "offering communion to detainees". A full on Eucharistic Procession is a really fucking big deal. In Catholic theological framing, those folks were the honor guard with the very great privilege of escorting Jesus himself to the detention center.
I live down a hill from one of those Cute Walkable Towns and would 100% get hit by a car if I tried walking up it. 🫠