Darren S. Layne
@funkyplaid.bsky.social
Historian of 18th-century Scotland focused on Jacobite Studies and Digital History. Curator of JDB1745. Chair, Jacobite Studies Trust. PhD via University of St Andrews. In love with a swan and two cats. Currently watching the leaves in Portland, OR.
Pinned
Darren S. Layne
@funkyplaid.bsky.social
· Aug 20
First post on Bluesky as a brief intro:
Hi folks, I'm Darren, an historian in the PNW interested in 18thC British & Vast Early American history, with a focus on Jacobite studies and the social and cultural identity of plebeian Scots during the Jacobite era. Looking forward to connecting with you!
Hi folks, I'm Darren, an historian in the PNW interested in 18thC British & Vast Early American history, with a focus on Jacobite studies and the social and cultural identity of plebeian Scots during the Jacobite era. Looking forward to connecting with you!
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
My kids have whooping cough, there are no toys on the shelves, and my brother-in-law was deported despite being a US citizen. But at least I know there won't be black Santa Clauses this year.
November 28, 2025 at 6:28 PM
My kids have whooping cough, there are no toys on the shelves, and my brother-in-law was deported despite being a US citizen. But at least I know there won't be black Santa Clauses this year.
Many things bring me a profound sense of thankfulness this year; not the least of which is the individual and community resilience that I see all around me. No matter your concentric communities and identities, I'm wishing you a bountiful and restorative harvest. Except for ICE. Fuck those guys.
November 27, 2025 at 8:45 PM
Many things bring me a profound sense of thankfulness this year; not the least of which is the individual and community resilience that I see all around me. No matter your concentric communities and identities, I'm wishing you a bountiful and restorative harvest. Except for ICE. Fuck those guys.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
Some photos from @bryonycoombs.bsky.social fantastic workshop, Embodied Knowledge: Experiential Learning and Manuscript Studies hosted at the Centre for Research Collections here in Edinburgh.
November 27, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Some photos from @bryonycoombs.bsky.social fantastic workshop, Embodied Knowledge: Experiential Learning and Manuscript Studies hosted at the Centre for Research Collections here in Edinburgh.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
How Republicans commemorated Thanksgiving in 1869--with a multi-racial/multi-ethnic gathering of people at a table with a centerpiece celebrating universal suffrage and self-government, and with an engraving of Castle Garden, the pre-Ellis Island point of disembarkation for immigrants.
November 27, 2025 at 6:01 PM
How Republicans commemorated Thanksgiving in 1869--with a multi-racial/multi-ethnic gathering of people at a table with a centerpiece celebrating universal suffrage and self-government, and with an engraving of Castle Garden, the pre-Ellis Island point of disembarkation for immigrants.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
My apologies if you wished my shitposts contained the levels of appropriate scholarly nuance for a conversation someplace where we don't refer to them as skeets.
November 27, 2025 at 7:10 PM
My apologies if you wished my shitposts contained the levels of appropriate scholarly nuance for a conversation someplace where we don't refer to them as skeets.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
Happy Thanksgiving
November 27, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Happy Thanksgiving
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
Are you still massively against me breaking into your home and stealing all your stuff so I can sell it or have you moved more towards acceptance?
Is this platform still massively against AI or has it moved more towards acceptance?
November 26, 2025 at 3:02 PM
Are you still massively against me breaking into your home and stealing all your stuff so I can sell it or have you moved more towards acceptance?
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
"Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea" -- @davelevitan.bsky.social
November 26, 2025 at 1:26 PM
"Google at its peak was basically the best information retrieval system in human history and they and every competitor decided going from there to “you didn’t want answers you wanted half-assed auto-complete 80%-wrong hallucinations” in a few years was the right idea" -- @davelevitan.bsky.social
If this is actually how our justice system works, I'd like to get off this ride, please.
OpenAI says they aren't liable for the suicide of a user their chat bot urged to kill himself because suicide is a violation of the TOS
Additionally, OpenAI argues its not liable because Raine, by using ChatGPT for self-harm, broke its terms of service
November 26, 2025 at 7:06 AM
If this is actually how our justice system works, I'd like to get off this ride, please.
Add in the increased reliance on AI copy-editing and plans for automated 'peer review', and we're in real trouble. I'm seeing a significant drop in professional discretion in final prints seemingly across the board. This impacts the author as much as it does the rep of the press!
Very here for these shots being fired. I know that academic publishing is a tough business and margins are tight, but the precipitous drop in production quality across the board in recent years (without a corresponding drop in prices!) has really been something to behold.
I recently got a volume from Brill's series, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, and the poor quality of the paper and binding would be surprising at any price: much more so at over $200. Caveat lector et emptor.
November 25, 2025 at 5:40 PM
Add in the increased reliance on AI copy-editing and plans for automated 'peer review', and we're in real trouble. I'm seeing a significant drop in professional discretion in final prints seemingly across the board. This impacts the author as much as it does the rep of the press!
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
Thou shalt not shame people for not being dressed up and super nice on commercial flights when you use tax dollars to buy private jets for yourselves.
November 24, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Thou shalt not shame people for not being dressed up and super nice on commercial flights when you use tax dollars to buy private jets for yourselves.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
As far as I'm concerned, "Dr" has two things going for it. One, I fucking earned it with my own hard work. Two, it's gender neutral. So people can take "pretentious" and shove it up their fucking arses.
On the ‘it’s pretentious to style yourself Dr’ debate – sure, it probably is, but on the other hand the titles and the robes are just about the only fun part left in academia, and I’m not willing to cede them to the grey, managerial fun police just yet. Embrace the pomposity.
November 24, 2025 at 5:39 PM
As far as I'm concerned, "Dr" has two things going for it. One, I fucking earned it with my own hard work. Two, it's gender neutral. So people can take "pretentious" and shove it up their fucking arses.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
Neither Trump, nor half of his cabinet have “ancestors” who were in North America before the revolution. I’d guess that less than half of current US citizens do. “Your ancestors” is doing a lot of implicitly white Christian nationalist work here.
November 22, 2025 at 11:16 PM
Neither Trump, nor half of his cabinet have “ancestors” who were in North America before the revolution. I’d guess that less than half of current US citizens do. “Your ancestors” is doing a lot of implicitly white Christian nationalist work here.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
It's that time of year
November 22, 2025 at 11:54 AM
It's that time of year
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
NEW — Today, Cook County became the first county in the U.S. to establish permanent funding for guaranteed income at the county level.
The Cook County Board of Commissioners approved $7.5 million for the program through its FY 2026 budget, which totals $10.12 billion.
thetriibe.com/2025/11/cook...
The Cook County Board of Commissioners approved $7.5 million for the program through its FY 2026 budget, which totals $10.12 billion.
thetriibe.com/2025/11/cook...
Cook County becomes the first county in the US to establish permanent funding for guaranteed income • The TRiiBE
On Thursday, the Cook County Board of Commissioners approved the FY 2026 budget, which includes $7.5 million to fund the county’s guaranteed basic income program.
thetriibe.com
November 20, 2025 at 11:47 PM
NEW — Today, Cook County became the first county in the U.S. to establish permanent funding for guaranteed income at the county level.
The Cook County Board of Commissioners approved $7.5 million for the program through its FY 2026 budget, which totals $10.12 billion.
thetriibe.com/2025/11/cook...
The Cook County Board of Commissioners approved $7.5 million for the program through its FY 2026 budget, which totals $10.12 billion.
thetriibe.com/2025/11/cook...
Downtown Portland, Oregon in the morning. Lawless. Overrun. Completely aflame. And no stores at all anymore.
This is not AI. Nor is it fake news. This is my Portland and your Portland. It’s a wonderful place to be and we’re going to keep it that way.
This is not AI. Nor is it fake news. This is my Portland and your Portland. It’s a wonderful place to be and we’re going to keep it that way.
November 20, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Downtown Portland, Oregon in the morning. Lawless. Overrun. Completely aflame. And no stores at all anymore.
This is not AI. Nor is it fake news. This is my Portland and your Portland. It’s a wonderful place to be and we’re going to keep it that way.
This is not AI. Nor is it fake news. This is my Portland and your Portland. It’s a wonderful place to be and we’re going to keep it that way.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
If an attractive young woman a third my age didn't want to date me, then why did she ask me for feedback on an economics paper?
by Larry Summers
by Larry Summers
November 17, 2025 at 6:54 PM
If an attractive young woman a third my age didn't want to date me, then why did she ask me for feedback on an economics paper?
by Larry Summers
by Larry Summers
Today's task is calculating blackmail as percentages of assessed rent in western Stirlingshire just before the last Jacobite rising. What a way to create an economy out of thin air...until it almost inevitably backfired. Truly a rock and a hard place for both tenants and landlords. #ArchiveGlam
November 15, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Today's task is calculating blackmail as percentages of assessed rent in western Stirlingshire just before the last Jacobite rising. What a way to create an economy out of thin air...until it almost inevitably backfired. Truly a rock and a hard place for both tenants and landlords. #ArchiveGlam
Sincere congratulations to @drleith.bsky.social on her receipt of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the 18th-Century Scottish Studies Society. Leith is a committed and prolific scholar who continues to make major contributions to numerous fields within Scottish Studies.
www.sfu.ca/scottishstud...
www.sfu.ca/scottishstud...
Leith Davis receives Lifetime Achievement Award from Eighteenth-Century Scottish Studies Society
Professor Leith Davis has been recognized with a prestigious award for her outstanding contributions to 18th-century Scottish Studies over the course of her career.
www.sfu.ca
November 15, 2025 at 6:27 PM
Sincere congratulations to @drleith.bsky.social on her receipt of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the 18th-Century Scottish Studies Society. Leith is a committed and prolific scholar who continues to make major contributions to numerous fields within Scottish Studies.
www.sfu.ca/scottishstud...
www.sfu.ca/scottishstud...
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
For no particular reason….posting former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell’s mugshot before he went to Federal prison for committing numerous crimes on behalf and or/at the direction of President Nixon including obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
November 15, 2025 at 2:05 AM
For no particular reason….posting former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell’s mugshot before he went to Federal prison for committing numerous crimes on behalf and or/at the direction of President Nixon including obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
Love to see community action against this AI nonsense! neighborhoodview.org/2025/11/13/d...
November 14, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Love to see community action against this AI nonsense! neighborhoodview.org/2025/11/13/d...
Holy moly, what a piece from Audrey Watters on grief and AI.
"We grieve because we love. We grieve because we care. We grieve because we know that the machines do not, and that the community we try to foster -- on campus, in the classroom, in our scholarly works -- is threatened with erasure."
"We grieve because we love. We grieve because we care. We grieve because we know that the machines do not, and that the community we try to foster -- on campus, in the classroom, in our scholarly works -- is threatened with erasure."
AI Grief Observed
These remarks were delivered this evening at the Creatively Critical Tech Speaker Series at Illinois State University.
"There is no good way to say this."
These are the opening words of Yiyun Li’s l...
2ndbreakfast.audreywatters.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Holy moly, what a piece from Audrey Watters on grief and AI.
"We grieve because we love. We grieve because we care. We grieve because we know that the machines do not, and that the community we try to foster -- on campus, in the classroom, in our scholarly works -- is threatened with erasure."
"We grieve because we love. We grieve because we care. We grieve because we know that the machines do not, and that the community we try to foster -- on campus, in the classroom, in our scholarly works -- is threatened with erasure."
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
we need a department of kerning
November 13, 2025 at 2:54 AM
we need a department of kerning
Reposted by Darren S. Layne
Normal person in a liberal constitutional democracy: "The state should be judicious in how it uses physical force and these actions seem like overreaches."
MAGA: "Any state actions that constrain MY behavior or the behavior of people like me is tyranny, but it can do whatever it wants to THEM."
MAGA: "Any state actions that constrain MY behavior or the behavior of people like me is tyranny, but it can do whatever it wants to THEM."
November 13, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Normal person in a liberal constitutional democracy: "The state should be judicious in how it uses physical force and these actions seem like overreaches."
MAGA: "Any state actions that constrain MY behavior or the behavior of people like me is tyranny, but it can do whatever it wants to THEM."
MAGA: "Any state actions that constrain MY behavior or the behavior of people like me is tyranny, but it can do whatever it wants to THEM."