Rachel Burdin
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rsburdin.bsky.social
Rachel Burdin
@rsburdin.bsky.social
2K followers 740 following 460 posts
Ling prof in NH; intonation, lg. variation, lg. and identity, Jewish languages. Occasional runner, knitter, garment maker. she/her.
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rsburdin.bsky.social
The best kitties, Gandalf (2010-2023) and Carrot (2011-2025), world champions at snuggling and synchronized lounging, who are both sorely missed.
A grey and white cat and an orange and white cat lounging on a white quilt with green and red flowers
November 14, 2025 at 1:04 AM
rsburdin.bsky.social
In case anyone is wondering they are really, truly arguing that if too many women are in a field it will "erode" but only in some cases because reasons. It's maybe OK if we have too many female veterinarians but not, heaven forbid, historians.
Libresco Sargeant: What’s the protective element there? Or what can be learned from veterinary medicine to take into white-collar work? It just seems odd that you’re describing this general dynamic that women, you say, would undermine completely the rule of law, that we’ll lose the rule of law in our lifetimes when women become a majority of lawyers. If it’s that stark in law, I’d expect — if your claim is true — some erosion in veterinary medicine, or pharmacy, which is also dominated by women, and where you can track the failures because people die. Andrews: I would not expect to see a catastrophic effect from feminization in veterinary medicine. I don’t know, like, why is that hard to see? Douthat: But is that because —— Andrews: Well, no. Let me maybe reframe it in a way that will make a point that seems very obvious to me, clear to the people at this table. If there are more female historians than male historians, that will have some effects on what gets studied in history. You will have more social history and feminist history, and a lot less military history and economic history Andrews: Well, no. Let me maybe reframe it in a way that will make a point that seems very obvious to me, clear to the people at this table. If there are more female historians than male historians, that will have some effects on what gets studied in history. You will have more social history and feminist history, and a lot less military history and economic history. Now, I’m willing to say that that’s sort of fine, and that maybe the old male-dominated history profession did not do enough social history. And we can all probably agree that the correct balance for the history profession is a little bit of each. That’s kind of a neutral result of feminization. On the other hand, the fact that certain areas of inquiry are ruled out of bounds in history or in psychology now because they are too controversial, that — which is what wokeness is — seems like a genuine problem. That’s not just that feminization has caused some changes, and some of them are good and some of them are bad, and we all need to learn how to live with the world being different now — that’s a bad thing, because it involves history or psychology not doing what it is supposed to do, which is pursue the truth.
November 6, 2025 at 2:05 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Who robbed the Louvre? Right answers only
Polish actress Kamilla Baar playing Magda, an art forger in the film "Vinci", which is about an elaborate heist to steal DaVinci's "Lady with Ermine" from the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow.
October 20, 2025 at 1:53 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
I get so annoyed in my in laws subdivision because they all decided for some reason to get flag holders that install on the *back* of their mailboxes like this so they all look backwards and I hate it!!!
An american flag mounted on the back of a mailbox. It looks out of proportion and backwards and ridiculous
July 11, 2025 at 11:11 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Been reading all the thinkpieces about LLMs in education and then happened upon this in Wayside School is Falling Down and I gotta say I'm kind of vibing with Mrs. Jewls at the moment
"Now, don't be that way," said Mrs. Jewls. "The computer will help us learn. It's a lot quicker than a pencil and paper." "But the quicker we learn, the more work we have to do, complained Todd. "You may set it over there on the counter, Louis," said Mrs. Jewls. Louis set the computer on the counter next to Sharie's desk. Then he collapsed on the floor. "Now watch closely," said Mrs. Jewls. Everyone gathered around the new computer. It had a full-color monitor and two disk drives. Mrs. Jewls pushed it out the window. They all watched it fall and smash against the sidewalk. "See?" said Mrs. Jewls. "That's gravity." "Oh, now I get it!" said Joe. "Thank you, Louis," said Mrs. Jewls. "I've been trying to teach them about gravity all morning. We had been using pencils and pieces of paper, but the computer was a lot quicker."
July 3, 2025 at 3:59 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Admitting kids to college based on how well they "yes, and" a large language model. What could possibly go wrong???
For example, the partnership is testing one “test-less assessment” task in which a student coordinates with two artificial intelligence-run avatars to tell a story, according to Laura Slover, who leads the Skills for the Future project. “They each build on each other’s ideas,” she said. “They have to listen so that they’re picking up the ideas and creating linkages to build the next part of the story ... [and] giving each other feedback in real time.” Students would be evaluated based on things like how well they accepted and used the AI characters’ ideas and feedback. It’s not clear, though, how well simulation tasks of this sort can measure students’ ability to work with other people, particularly in problem-solving and healthy disagreements.
May 26, 2025 at 12:53 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
I was obsessed with Understanding Comics by @scottmccloud.bsky.social and my child has been obsessed with the BSC graphic novels by @goraina.bsky.social so naturally we picked up The Cartoonist Club as soon as we could and now she's making zines

(She did give me permission to post this.)
A child's handwring on a small piece of paper. "front covr, picture of a heart, Love Book" Interior of a small mini comic. A child's artwork in pencil. A heart, a moon, storm clouds and lightning, hearts Small piece of paper. A child's handwring. "Bak covr", with an eraser mark showing that the o used to be an a. Hearts.
May 6, 2025 at 12:43 AM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Work for which he received political recognition!
"For this work he was selected for Foreign Policy's top 100 Global Thinkers issue for 2014"
May 3, 2025 at 12:33 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
The kid's art teacher uses egg cartons as disposable paint pallettes and between Passover and Easter I have a feeling she's going to be pretty well set for awhile
5 egg cartons
April 20, 2025 at 11:19 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
This one is my favorite/most unsettling of that genre
Richard Scarry illustration of a piglet gazing longingly at a butcher counter.
April 17, 2025 at 12:51 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Local dealership clearly feeling some kind of way about the proposed tariffs and their potential impact on sales. FWIW, this is a combined foreign (Toyota) and domestic (Ford) dealer.
Sign at car dealer. "over 400 vehicles in stock. No tariffs"
March 28, 2025 at 3:15 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
A small spring break project to distract from The Horrors, courtesy of Joann fabrics going out of business
A small button down. A beige fabric with bluey and bingo, and alternating orange and blue buttons.
March 21, 2025 at 3:06 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
I finished in 2:07 (my goal was 2:10!) and also they gave us soup at the finish line
A bowl of soup
March 16, 2025 at 4:53 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Positive update today:
A variety of muffins and coffee cake
March 13, 2025 at 4:51 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
A small tragedy in the office kitchen
A munchkin box! The munchkin box has coffee cups and sugar packets in it :(
March 12, 2025 at 4:10 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Related, I've got this XKCD up in my office

xkcd.com/1735/
XKCD comparing the Fashion Police with Grammar Police. key bullet point: "Vindictive about things that are often uncomfortably transparent proxies for race or social class"
March 1, 2025 at 2:33 AM
rsburdin.bsky.social
@hadaskotek.bsky.social asks for her to redisplay her final slide #lsa2025
"Stop forcing AI into fucking everything. Nobody asked for it, everyone hates it"
January 10, 2025 at 9:39 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Happy New Year/Hanukkah Sameach
Three chanukiahs, fully lit
January 1, 2025 at 11:52 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Bonus features include various commenters attempting to represent the r-lessness
TikTok comment: THE FAWTH FLAAW
November 26, 2024 at 1:14 AM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Of course, the odometer reset right around 998 so I couldn't get a picture 😭
A RadWagon odometer showing 3.4 miles
November 1, 2024 at 8:51 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Definitely no Eldritch horrors lurking over here
Fog. Trees. A road.
October 23, 2024 at 12:31 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Checking out the linguistic landscape at Teatotaller
Campaign flyers in Indonesian, Spanish, and English
October 19, 2024 at 7:22 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
Aurora in Dover! I was getting alerts all day and was determined to stay up tonight to see it and then they obliged us by coming out while the older kiddo was still awake
A red night sky
October 10, 2024 at 11:56 PM
rsburdin.bsky.social
TIL Mahalanobis distance was invented to deal with skull measurements to examine variation based on caste and so maybe not the best guy to bring up in your "maybe he wasn't racist!" section
Wikipedia extract: racial superiority or white supremacy.[122] Fisher had a close personal relationship with Indian statistician P.C. Mahalanobis, and significantly contributed to the development of the Indian Statistical Institute; and Fisher's graduate
October 5, 2024 at 10:51 AM
rsburdin.bsky.social
My license plate number is obscenely high, marking me as a From Away but hey, I was relatively early here!
Bluesky number 196,082
September 17, 2024 at 12:32 AM