Ryan Cordell
@ryancordell.org
he/him—textual technologies enthusiast—Associate Professor at UIUC's School of Information Sciences & Department of English—co-director of the Viral Texts Project (viraltexts.org) & Director @skeuomorphpress.org —also https://theanxiousbench.bandcamp.com
Pinned
Ryan Cordell
@ryancordell.org
· Sep 5
Exhalation EP, by The Anxious Bench
3 track album
theanxiousbench.bandcamp.com
Late this summer I got to go into the studio with @pablohutch.bsky.social & our buddy Tim to record some tunes—and our EP is up today on Bandcamp!
I feel a little weird as a middle-aged dude asking folks to listen to my band—but I'm pretty proud of these songs & would love if y’all gave em a listen
I feel a little weird as a middle-aged dude asking folks to listen to my band—but I'm pretty proud of these songs & would love if y’all gave em a listen
By far one of the most impactful readings of the semester in "Writing with Robots" has been @johnrgallagher.bsky.social's piece on LLM’s propensity to substitute lists for argumentation—students are suddenly *noticing* the lists everywhere & engaging them critically
The Curious Question of AI-written Lists: Or, LLMs are Genre Machines
Ending with a solution for teaching writing
meresophistry.substack.com
November 16, 2025 at 3:44 PM
By far one of the most impactful readings of the semester in "Writing with Robots" has been @johnrgallagher.bsky.social's piece on LLM’s propensity to substitute lists for argumentation—students are suddenly *noticing* the lists everywhere & engaging them critically
In case you were thinking all college tours are basically the same, the Cordell family did just nope out of a post-tour info session after a disastrous tour convinced both twins & parents “this school is definitely not for us”
November 15, 2025 at 6:56 PM
In case you were thinking all college tours are basically the same, the Cordell family did just nope out of a post-tour info session after a disastrous tour convinced both twins & parents “this school is definitely not for us”
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
When I think about how exquisitely careful NEH staff were to be fair, impartial, and rigorous, and how much work people put into grants so small they’re pocket change…I just want to scream.
Fired Scholars and Big Grants to Favored Projects: Inside Trump’s N.E.H.
www.nytimes.com
November 15, 2025 at 4:12 PM
When I think about how exquisitely careful NEH staff were to be fair, impartial, and rigorous, and how much work people put into grants so small they’re pocket change…I just want to scream.
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
I (finally?) had someone reach out asking how to find a paper that I never wrote. To be fair
"Reprogramming Style: Style Transfer for Computational Stylistics." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-21
does sound like my bs. Where do LLM hallucinations go on my CV?
"Reprogramming Style: Style Transfer for Computational Stylistics." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-21
does sound like my bs. Where do LLM hallucinations go on my CV?
November 14, 2025 at 6:16 PM
I (finally?) had someone reach out asking how to find a paper that I never wrote. To be fair
"Reprogramming Style: Style Transfer for Computational Stylistics." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-21
does sound like my bs. Where do LLM hallucinations go on my CV?
"Reprogramming Style: Style Transfer for Computational Stylistics." Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, vol. 34, no. 1, 2019, pp. 1-21
does sound like my bs. Where do LLM hallucinations go on my CV?
November 14, 2025 at 4:56 PM
This linocut that my colleague made for tomorrow’s Yiddish printing event @skeuomorphpress.org looks absolutely incredible
November 13, 2025 at 10:32 PM
This linocut that my colleague made for tomorrow’s Yiddish printing event @skeuomorphpress.org looks absolutely incredible
I’m pretty pleased by this riff on a @iamdylanlewis.bsky.social / @umdbooklab.bsky.social print I worked up for my “Writing with Robots” class’ visit to @skeuomorphpress.org today
November 13, 2025 at 6:01 PM
I’m pretty pleased by this riff on a @iamdylanlewis.bsky.social / @umdbooklab.bsky.social print I worked up for my “Writing with Robots” class’ visit to @skeuomorphpress.org today
If a skilled improv actor was given the prompt, “act like the guiltiest motherfucker alive” they could not perform the role better than DJT is right at this moment
November 13, 2025 at 4:57 PM
If a skilled improv actor was given the prompt, “act like the guiltiest motherfucker alive” they could not perform the role better than DJT is right at this moment
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
November 12, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
Oh you rich conspiring pedophiles & all your smug weaselly defenders, please lecture me again about how my trans kid is a threat to American family values
November 13, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Oh you rich conspiring pedophiles & all your smug weaselly defenders, please lecture me again about how my trans kid is a threat to American family values
Sometimes I really love working in the weird makerspace (the CU FabLab) where @skeuomorphpress.org is housed
Overhearing a FabLab colleague advising a student about an escape room project: "oh, we *have* an altar. It’s down in the basement!"
The layers of oddball projects in this building
Overhearing a FabLab colleague advising a student about an escape room project: "oh, we *have* an altar. It’s down in the basement!"
The layers of oddball projects in this building
November 12, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Sometimes I really love working in the weird makerspace (the CU FabLab) where @skeuomorphpress.org is housed
Overhearing a FabLab colleague advising a student about an escape room project: "oh, we *have* an altar. It’s down in the basement!"
The layers of oddball projects in this building
Overhearing a FabLab colleague advising a student about an escape room project: "oh, we *have* an altar. It’s down in the basement!"
The layers of oddball projects in this building
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Get em while they're hot! #DHmakes 🔥
Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
November 12, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Get em while they're hot! #DHmakes 🔥
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Holy shit, just learned about the typewriter art of Montserrat Alberich Escardívol, a Catalan typist. Using an extra wide typewriter and 180 color ribbons, she built up elaborate images from simple characters like 'm' and '.' and ';'. Here is her typewritten painting of the Cathedral of Barcelona.
November 12, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Holy shit, just learned about the typewriter art of Montserrat Alberich Escardívol, a Catalan typist. Using an extra wide typewriter and 180 color ribbons, she built up elaborate images from simple characters like 'm' and '.' and ';'. Here is her typewritten painting of the Cathedral of Barcelona.
I know there’s big news today, but in smaller, local news we have some extras of the Le Guin poster, available with donations to @skeuomorphpress.org until the stack is claimed
Now that our edition of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Rant About 'Technology'" is (finally!) printed, bound, packed, & with campus mail, on its way to folks, we’re making approximately 60 of the internal poster available separately
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
If you’d like to claim one see the order form at forms.gle/BKJQWSmcnuq8...
November 12, 2025 at 5:23 PM
I know there’s big news today, but in smaller, local news we have some extras of the Le Guin poster, available with donations to @skeuomorphpress.org until the stack is claimed
I’m increasingly noting the rhetorical turn "of course AI has enormous potential" or some variation thereof—especially in papers/talks/etc. where the argument is essentially "this technology is deeply flawed, perhaps entirely broken"—is this a concession to the dominant inevitability narrative?
November 11, 2025 at 10:59 PM
I’m increasingly noting the rhetorical turn "of course AI has enormous potential" or some variation thereof—especially in papers/talks/etc. where the argument is essentially "this technology is deeply flawed, perhaps entirely broken"—is this a concession to the dominant inevitability narrative?
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
This past weekend Skeuomorph GA @divinetautology.bsky.social led a workshop for kids & parents as part of the "Spurlock Sundays" series in local museums & cultural orgs—participants drew designs & then overprinted them—the results are delightful!
November 11, 2025 at 9:31 PM
This past weekend Skeuomorph GA @divinetautology.bsky.social led a workshop for kids & parents as part of the "Spurlock Sundays" series in local museums & cultural orgs—participants drew designs & then overprinted them—the results are delightful!
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
I got one of the wood lasercut blocks of @queermedieval.bsky.social's to print better: "We can be soft & brave / silly & right" and "hope comes from us" #DHmakes
November 10, 2025 at 10:01 PM
I got one of the wood lasercut blocks of @queermedieval.bsky.social's to print better: "We can be soft & brave / silly & right" and "hope comes from us" #DHmakes
I’ve been teaching awhile now & still get anxious about silly things
Like I know—I KNOW—BookLab is a popular class. It fills, quickly, every single spring
But I still worry every year—what if *this time* they don’t enroll? What if they don’t *like* it anymore?
<checks enrollment> oh no its fine
Like I know—I KNOW—BookLab is a popular class. It fills, quickly, every single spring
But I still worry every year—what if *this time* they don’t enroll? What if they don’t *like* it anymore?
<checks enrollment> oh no its fine
November 11, 2025 at 4:05 PM
I’ve been teaching awhile now & still get anxious about silly things
Like I know—I KNOW—BookLab is a popular class. It fills, quickly, every single spring
But I still worry every year—what if *this time* they don’t enroll? What if they don’t *like* it anymore?
<checks enrollment> oh no its fine
Like I know—I KNOW—BookLab is a popular class. It fills, quickly, every single spring
But I still worry every year—what if *this time* they don’t enroll? What if they don’t *like* it anymore?
<checks enrollment> oh no its fine
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Actually if you're ever puzzled by the name, you can simply… ask the model.
(we did a relatively good job at personality tuning).
(we did a relatively good job at personality tuning).
November 10, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Actually if you're ever puzzled by the name, you can simply… ask the model.
(we did a relatively good job at personality tuning).
(we did a relatively good job at personality tuning).
Listen, the technology & alternative approach to LLM training is interesting & all, but can we focus on the most important detail, which is that the larger model is named "Baguettotron?"
It’s named Baguettotron, people.
BAGUETTOTRON.
It’s named Baguettotron, people.
BAGUETTOTRON.
Breaking: we release a fully synthetic generalist dataset for pretraining, SYNTH and two new SOTA reasoning models exclusively trained on it. Despite having seen only 200 billion tokens, Baguettotron is currently best-in-class in its size range. pleias.fr/blog/blogsyn...
November 10, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Listen, the technology & alternative approach to LLM training is interesting & all, but can we focus on the most important detail, which is that the larger model is named "Baguettotron?"
It’s named Baguettotron, people.
BAGUETTOTRON.
It’s named Baguettotron, people.
BAGUETTOTRON.
As always seems to be true @skeuomorphpress.org, the most recent tech is hardest to maintain
We love this 90s-era Brother typewriter—it’s lightweight, super portable, clear impression—but its ink comes in proprietary cartridges that are just gone—ribbon is easy to find for our older machines
We love this 90s-era Brother typewriter—it’s lightweight, super portable, clear impression—but its ink comes in proprietary cartridges that are just gone—ribbon is easy to find for our older machines
November 10, 2025 at 4:07 PM
As always seems to be true @skeuomorphpress.org, the most recent tech is hardest to maintain
We love this 90s-era Brother typewriter—it’s lightweight, super portable, clear impression—but its ink comes in proprietary cartridges that are just gone—ribbon is easy to find for our older machines
We love this 90s-era Brother typewriter—it’s lightweight, super portable, clear impression—but its ink comes in proprietary cartridges that are just gone—ribbon is easy to find for our older machines
Reposted by Ryan Cordell
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 9, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
He is a computer safety researcher.
And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.
In under 1600 words.
aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
I know the past weeks have been extremely painful but don’t worry, we got absolutely nothing for it & it was completely useless
November 10, 2025 at 4:19 AM
I know the past weeks have been extremely painful but don’t worry, we got absolutely nothing for it & it was completely useless
If Democratic Senate leaders were coaching the Chargers in this game
“Welp looks like we’d better forfeit.“
“Welp looks like we’d better forfeit.“
November 10, 2025 at 4:11 AM
If Democratic Senate leaders were coaching the Chargers in this game
“Welp looks like we’d better forfeit.“
“Welp looks like we’d better forfeit.“