Christopher Nugent
@cmbnugent.bsky.social
1.7K followers 360 following 1.3K posts
Scholar of medieval Chinese literary and manuscript culture (mostly Dunhuang), occasional potter, avid bad tennis player.
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cmbnugent.bsky.social
A quick intro for new followers: I work on medieval (~5th–11th cent.) Chinese literary and manuscript culture. My most recent book came out late last year. I also throw pots when I have time.

brill.com/display/titl...
Textual Practices of Literary Training in Medieval China
"Textual Practices of Literary Training in Medieval China" published on 20 Oct 2023 by Brill.
brill.com
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
fernmonkey.bsky.social
My friend Sascha is a professional musician and he's lost a viola bow on the way to Heathrow. Please signal boost to help him get it back.
Lost viola bow on the way from Honor Oak Station to Heathrow Terminal 2. The bow slid from its bow case somewhere along the way, possibly on the train. TFL contacted already.
It weighs 68.2 grams and has got a stamped DODD next to the frog. If any info on this, please pm me.
cmbnugent.bsky.social
Don’t do it! They’re recording your screams to train a new neural net used to produce sounds for horror films!
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
ifycomedy.com
I think we really should stop using antifa and just fully say anti-fascist and get them saying they are against anti fascism. Using antifa is giving them some distance and I genuinely think some of their base don’t even know that’s what it stands for.
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
longtimehistory.bsky.social
ICE drag girl out of car & body slam her to ground—then pin her face down & kneel on her neck.

"I'm 15!" she cries out. "I'm not resisting!"

Agents have now asked multiple area housing associations to unlock main doors—so they can go door to door.

Hoffman Estates, Illinois
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
histoftech.bsky.social
The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
jamellebouie.net
an incontestable fact of the second trump administration is it is actively trying to sicken and kill as many americans as it can
lenasun.bsky.social
NEW: @CDCgov hit hard by massive firings that several staff describe to me as a “bloodbath.”
Among those RIFd:
—leadership of the center for immunization and respiratory diseases;
—leadership of global health center
—leadership of the measles outbreak response; 1/4
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
70sbachchan.bsky.social
Argentina edition of Libertarian bible
cmbnugent.bsky.social
A thousand times this!
bcnjake.bsky.social
"There's no ethical use case for AI in the classroom" has become my personal Carthago delenda est.

I even take time to explain to my students how we won't use it in class because it's dehumanizing. To their credit, they seem to get it.

CETERUM AUTEM CENSEO INTELLIGENTIA ARTIFICIALIS ESSE DELENDAM
AI is dehumanizing

I’ve saved the most important part for last. AI is dehumanizing. Using AI means saying that the people involved in what you’re trying to do don’t matter. Because AI platforms are built on theft, using AI says that the people whose work is being stolen don’t matter. If I used AI to grade your work, which is now possible with Canvas integrations, I would be saying your work is not worth taking seriously enough to read myself. It’s saying you don’t matter enough to take seriously. A world where AI grades AI generated submissions from an AI generated assignment is not a world where people and the work they do matters, and I refuse to live in that world.

The dehumanizing aspect of AI is even worse when you consider the effects of AI on you as a student. Using AI as a substitute for doing the work yourself robs you of your voice. It prevents you from developing your own sense of who you are, what you believe, and how you express that in your own unique way and replaces it with statistically generated slop literally incapable of forming a novel thought. In a world that works to dehumanize us every day—to say who we are and the relationships we form don’t matter—I don’t want to add to that work. I don’t want to do this because the relationships you form matter. Your voice matters. You matter.

In 19th Century England, a group of artisan weavers banded together to fight against mechanization. Tools like the water frame and spinning jenny allowed factory owners to produce a worse product at a price so low that the quality of the finished product didn’t matter. These artisans, the Luddites, weren’t opposed to technology. They were opposed to technology dehumanizing people and denying them dignity. Like the Luddites, I’m not opposed to technology and embrace it when it makes our lives better. But like the Luddites, I have an obligation to resist technology that dehumanizes people in my community, and I think AI does that. So, there’s no AI in this class.
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
sherylnyt.bsky.social
BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
thetnholler.bsky.social
Amazing what happens when you give the guy a plane
cmbnugent.bsky.social
I’m peeing on the seat. Give me a raise! (which I use among friends to describe certain colleagues’ approach to their work).
cmbnugent.bsky.social
An improvement over the original. At least there’s one appealing character.
cmbnugent.bsky.social
Stop giving them ideas!!!
cmbnugent.bsky.social
Have you tried einkorn? Great flavor.
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
zerochilltea.bsky.social
so the frog is 卖娃青蛙。https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_23101624 it was designed by a mom with the last name Tong in Nanjing, inspired by the toad in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calabas.... it is a mascot of 躺平culture (lay-flat, against capitalism)
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
madpoli.bsky.social
If you're new to the Warring States manuscripts, I published a piece with my colleague Li Yumeng which introduces the *Kongzi said and *Zhongni said manuscripts. And it's open access!
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
mjsdc.bsky.social
It is pretty galling that the Supreme Court spent four years telling Biden "you can't do that without Congress" then allowed Trump to seize a once-unthinkable amount of power from Congress within nine months and concentrate law-making authority almost entirely in the executive branch.
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
tedmccormick.bsky.social
The basic structure of so much commentary, some in the guise of academic study, reduces to:

(1) generative AI products are detrimental to the goals of education

(2) therefore, the goals of education must change.

Without the tacit axiom that AI has authority behind it, that just doesn’t follow.
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
amateurexpertop.bsky.social
once again re-airing my unpopular opinion that widespread use of the abbrev "antifa" for "anti-fascist" opened a welcome door for fascists to elide who & what their opposition actually is (almost everyone)
premthakker.bsky.social
Trump's Executive Order on Antifa is written such that someone recording masked agents snatching people off the streets, or asking these agents what they're doing, can be deemed a "terrorist."
Section 1.  Antifa as a Terrorist Threat.  Antifa is a militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.  It uses illegal means to organize and execute a campaign of violence and terrorism nationwide to accomplish these goals.  This campaign involves coordinated efforts to obstruct enforcement of Federal laws through armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other law enforcement officers, and routine doxing of and other threats against political figures and activists.  Antifa recruits, trains, and radicalizes young Americans to engage in this violence and suppression of political activity, then employs elaborate means and mechanisms to shield the identities of its operatives, conceal its funding sources and operations in an effort to frustrate law enforcement, and recruit additional members.  Individuals associated with and acting on behalf of Antifa further coordinate with other organizations and entities for the purpose of spreading, fomenting, and advancing political violence and suppressing lawful political speech.  This organized effort designed to achieve policy objectives by coercion and intimidation is domestic terrorism.
Reposted by Christopher Nugent
amateurexpertop.bsky.social
"antifa" sounds spooky & mystifying & mixes right into a reactionary jingo scare salad along with "MS-13" & "al qaeda" (bad). saying someone is "anti-fascist" puts them in ideological company with Captain America & Our Boys Who Stormed the Beaches at Normandy (unimpeachably good)