And by trained, I mean in the sense that a gun is trained on its target, of course— there’s someone holding the gun.

People tell me that it’s hard to buy an oven now that isn’t “smart” and trained on your every movement.

Me, I’m going turkey al pastor style. Maybe you ought to try it sometime.

Connected to this, it’s fun when I show students the passage where Rheticus praises the new astronomy of Copernicus because you can calculate the coming of Antichrist more accurately (among many other technical/mathematical issues he discusses), and they’re like, wut?

I’m looking forward to hearing what the student does with Voltaire’s truly vile remarks in their class.

It was a good example of how poorly cited things can be on the web, and how you need to learn something about the processes of publication, the making of critical editions, and so on, so that you know what you are looking at on your screen — and how it helps to get hold of printed materials.

I get this all the time as someone who studies the history of science in the Middle Ages, and therefore histories of astrology, magic, and religion. (“Do you believe in astrology?” Etc)

In Montpellier years ago, I was kindly taken to a restaurant for an American Thanksgiving dinner. It was like that Star Trek episode where the “aliens” knew only images of the food and wine that they try serve to Kirk and gang.

Ellis makes the inoculation order seem like the top-down decision of wise George Washington rather than what it really was: Washington changed his mind after being pressured to do so by his soldiers, officers, and medical staffers (and after his wife Martha sought inoculation for herself)

with, as opposed to against

I see your point! Still, as a Marin Co. person you might like, I think, his memoir Sleeping Where I Fall, a book I picked up on a whim in grad school. SF Mime Troupe, the Diggers, Olema & n. Cal communes, Black Panthers,Hell’s Angels, Cal Arts, etc. A period and area I enjoyed reading his pov about.