Jen Whyte 🍁
@whyjenwhy.bsky.social
Thinker about old stuff at Duke University. I have a website and this is a link to it: https://www.jenniferlwhyte.com/
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Jen Whyte 🍁
@whyjenwhy.bsky.social
· Nov 21
Epiphenomenalists dni
Update: turns out that when you manually back up all your files in anticipation of Doing the Thing you learn that your files needed a good clean a long time ago. Why is the entire Final Fantasy IX soundtrack in the folder for the philosophy of math course I took in 2018
Part of me really wants to try switching to Linux right now, knowing full well that I will get very Into It almost immediately, part of me thinks I should save it as a good, safe option for a midlife crisis down the line.
November 27, 2025 at 11:50 PM
Update: turns out that when you manually back up all your files in anticipation of Doing the Thing you learn that your files needed a good clean a long time ago. Why is the entire Final Fantasy IX soundtrack in the folder for the philosophy of math course I took in 2018
Part of me really wants to try switching to Linux right now, knowing full well that I will get very Into It almost immediately, part of me thinks I should save it as a good, safe option for a midlife crisis down the line.
November 27, 2025 at 9:08 PM
Part of me really wants to try switching to Linux right now, knowing full well that I will get very Into It almost immediately, part of me thinks I should save it as a good, safe option for a midlife crisis down the line.
I hate how discussions of Alberta pipelines frame the debate as Alberta economics vs. BC environmentalism, as if there's nothing economic about BC's desire to not have oil spills in it.
November 27, 2025 at 8:16 PM
I hate how discussions of Alberta pipelines frame the debate as Alberta economics vs. BC environmentalism, as if there's nothing economic about BC's desire to not have oil spills in it.
One of my favorite historical facts is that I could have a conversation with a Roman in late antiquity using the idioms 'lingua franca' and 'it's all Greek to me', and he would completely understand both idioms but assign them opposite meanings
November 27, 2025 at 5:53 PM
One of my favorite historical facts is that I could have a conversation with a Roman in late antiquity using the idioms 'lingua franca' and 'it's all Greek to me', and he would completely understand both idioms but assign them opposite meanings
I love saying 'greetings'. So precise. So specific. No need for me to pick a suitably greetings-ish phrase and for you to interpret it as a greeting. No ambiguity. Just getting my intention right out there. I'm greeting you. You're being greeted. That's what's happening right now. Greetings.
November 24, 2025 at 9:21 PM
I love saying 'greetings'. So precise. So specific. No need for me to pick a suitably greetings-ish phrase and for you to interpret it as a greeting. No ambiguity. Just getting my intention right out there. I'm greeting you. You're being greeted. That's what's happening right now. Greetings.
This is why I never engage with any media that gets described as 'a love letter to [genre x]'. Why would I want to read genre x's love letters? Why would I want to read any love letter that isn't addressed to me?
Have I ever listened to Hey Jude by The Beatles? Absolutely not. It's addressed to Jude, not me. What about Annie's Song by John Denver? Nope. Not my song so none of my business. Everyone should treat the private communications of musicians with the same level of respect as I do.
November 23, 2025 at 7:00 PM
This is why I never engage with any media that gets described as 'a love letter to [genre x]'. Why would I want to read genre x's love letters? Why would I want to read any love letter that isn't addressed to me?
Reposted by Jen Whyte 🍁
Discourse surrounding “AI” these days often feels like a guy showing you his shovel and you say, “that’s a nice shovel” and he says “I am going to perform surgery on my mother with this shovel” and you say “Oh God please don’t that is not what a shovel is for.”
November 19, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Discourse surrounding “AI” these days often feels like a guy showing you his shovel and you say, “that’s a nice shovel” and he says “I am going to perform surgery on my mother with this shovel” and you say “Oh God please don’t that is not what a shovel is for.”
Guy whose favourite sports teams are the Rangers, Golden Knights, Magic, Warriors, and Wizards: hey, so this sports game is fun, but I have this other game at home I like better if you want to go play that
November 16, 2025 at 7:42 PM
Guy whose favourite sports teams are the Rangers, Golden Knights, Magic, Warriors, and Wizards: hey, so this sports game is fun, but I have this other game at home I like better if you want to go play that
"It's for the good of the students" It would be good for the students to live in a society that had institutions that were not at the beck and call of their government.
November 12, 2025 at 4:17 AM
"It's for the good of the students" It would be good for the students to live in a society that had institutions that were not at the beck and call of their government.
Probably my most unpopular academic opinion is that you're not in a position to make the case against plagiarism to your students (or anyone else) if you don't even bother to check the license on the images you put in your slide decks, let alone credit them correctly.
November 11, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Probably my most unpopular academic opinion is that you're not in a position to make the case against plagiarism to your students (or anyone else) if you don't even bother to check the license on the images you put in your slide decks, let alone credit them correctly.
In light of the Vancouver PWHL team choosing 'The Goldeneyes' as their name, here's a list of James Bond Film titles, ranked by how good they would be as a hockey team name, worst to best.
🧵
🧵
November 6, 2025 at 7:34 PM
In light of the Vancouver PWHL team choosing 'The Goldeneyes' as their name, here's a list of James Bond Film titles, ranked by how good they would be as a hockey team name, worst to best.
🧵
🧵
Are there blood pressure meters available in the skydome? Asking for a friend
November 2, 2025 at 3:50 AM
Are there blood pressure meters available in the skydome? Asking for a friend
Let's go aarakocra
November 2, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Let's go aarakocra
You'd think that MLB teams would design variant Halloween jerseys to get around this problem. Very difficult party to theme, this one.
October 31, 2025 at 5:18 PM
You'd think that MLB teams would design variant Halloween jerseys to get around this problem. Very difficult party to theme, this one.
Writing a protest song for the No Kings protests, call that royalty free music
October 30, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Writing a protest song for the No Kings protests, call that royalty free music
I'm not a linguist, so I don't know how to properly categorize the phenomenon, but there's a specific kind of accent a man can have that apparently means he can only ever talk about baseball
October 30, 2025 at 12:47 AM
I'm not a linguist, so I don't know how to properly categorize the phenomenon, but there's a specific kind of accent a man can have that apparently means he can only ever talk about baseball
See, like I say. Baseball is easy. They throw a ball at you, and you hit it. And then you do it again.
October 30, 2025 at 12:14 AM
See, like I say. Baseball is easy. They throw a ball at you, and you hit it. And then you do it again.
If the standard model ever develops a need for another pair of quarks they should call them based and cringe
October 29, 2025 at 11:59 PM
If the standard model ever develops a need for another pair of quarks they should call them based and cringe
I think the US government has not quite internalized that there's nothing in the world more pathetic than 'person who takes personal offense at Doug Ford'. It's like complaining that you got flipped off by an inflatable tube man
October 29, 2025 at 2:35 PM
I think the US government has not quite internalized that there's nothing in the world more pathetic than 'person who takes personal offense at Doug Ford'. It's like complaining that you got flipped off by an inflatable tube man
How it started: "I'll have to simplify the rules a lot, given that baseball games already take almost as long as a D&D session even when nobody's rolling to hit"
How it's going: "How do you get a meaningful definition of a 'strike zone' when players vary so widely in height and number of limbs"
How it's going: "How do you get a meaningful definition of a 'strike zone' when players vary so widely in height and number of limbs"
Let's say you happen to be designing a baseball minigame to spring on your D&D party for the session that coincides with the World Series. You need to give it a suitably fantasy name, so that the party does not realize they are playing baseball until they are playing baseball.
What do you call it?
What do you call it?
October 25, 2025 at 7:27 PM
How it started: "I'll have to simplify the rules a lot, given that baseball games already take almost as long as a D&D session even when nobody's rolling to hit"
How it's going: "How do you get a meaningful definition of a 'strike zone' when players vary so widely in height and number of limbs"
How it's going: "How do you get a meaningful definition of a 'strike zone' when players vary so widely in height and number of limbs"
The Reagan Foundation response is hilarious. They're trying to treat an actual real dead person as if he's a fictional character over which they can assert IP rights. I cannot think of a more fitting target as the first representative of this particular sort of bullshit future
October 25, 2025 at 4:31 PM
The Reagan Foundation response is hilarious. They're trying to treat an actual real dead person as if he's a fictional character over which they can assert IP rights. I cannot think of a more fitting target as the first representative of this particular sort of bullshit future
Regret to inform everyone that the ball is, in fact, based
October 25, 2025 at 3:49 AM
Regret to inform everyone that the ball is, in fact, based
Let's say you happen to be designing a baseball minigame to spring on your D&D party for the session that coincides with the World Series. You need to give it a suitably fantasy name, so that the party does not realize they are playing baseball until they are playing baseball.
What do you call it?
What do you call it?
October 22, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Let's say you happen to be designing a baseball minigame to spring on your D&D party for the session that coincides with the World Series. You need to give it a suitably fantasy name, so that the party does not realize they are playing baseball until they are playing baseball.
What do you call it?
What do you call it?
Fun fact about me is that the last time the Blue Jays won the World Series was the day I was born. Is this the year I will be released from the curse? Can I finally die?
October 21, 2025 at 3:32 AM
Fun fact about me is that the last time the Blue Jays won the World Series was the day I was born. Is this the year I will be released from the curse? Can I finally die?
I built an AI model that writes haunting sci-fi novels in which a vast and unknowable alien other produces seemingly-real replicas of your lost loved ones, just as you remember them but also hollow, since we cannot know the alien other if we do not know ourselves. I call the model 'Stanislaw LLM'
October 17, 2025 at 5:47 PM
I built an AI model that writes haunting sci-fi novels in which a vast and unknowable alien other produces seemingly-real replicas of your lost loved ones, just as you remember them but also hollow, since we cannot know the alien other if we do not know ourselves. I call the model 'Stanislaw LLM'