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dan-punday.bsky.social
Professor of English at Mississippi State University. I've published on narrative theory, contemporary US (mostly) literature, and computing. Currently working on infrastructure as a narrative issue. Also sometimes makes pottery.
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Rereading a bit of a classic, *The Novel and the Police*. But can you imagine an author photo like this today on an academic book? Seriously. 1988. What a time.

submitted 21 minutes ago • 0 comments

For a fun, distracting read on a Sunday morning, here is Nick Montfort 15 years ago doing a deep dive into the origins of the word "Zork." Be sure to read the comments, where Infocom founders Marc Blank and Dave Lebling pop in to share their own recollections.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Increasingly thinking that the AI debate should be about a positive understanding of scarcity. We can all agree that there should be plenty of houses, food, etc. But shouldn't images, essays, poems actually be a bit scarce? Should we be paying for those, with time, energy, and real money?

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

It is fascinating to see how the more prestigious the school, the more likely they are to cave. I'm as guilty as the next person in buying into school rankings. But I suspect a lot of people now see the reality: prestige equates to complicity to power and money. Stick with state and small schools.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Heading to Jazz fest in New Orleans next weekend. Last year we had a ball. But having to pick which acts to see is just nuts. Last slot on Sunday is Trombone Shorty, Patti LaBelle, Kingfish, and Marty Stuart (among others). Festival formal is awesome, but so much FOMO.

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

Gardening. Slightly disturb a tomato or pepper you’ve been tending for 4 months: I’m dead forever! Yank out a weed, throw it on the sidewalk to roast in the heat for a week: I guess I’ll grow here.

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

I want you all to know that I am passing on posting an enraged comment on the stupid NEH grant for statues thing. Did you know that the NFL draft starts tonight? Isn't that fun? For all its flaws, I do love football, and can't help but think that every year my Steelers are going to win the draft.

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

I know I just posted about this, but this is surprisingly addictive. Just make up a batshit crazy saying, and see how Google will justify it and say it's a well-known proverb. So far, I've done "kiss me like I'm from Neptune" and "Don't let the dog drive the tractor."

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Just a reminder: 10 years ago or so, Google mostly just worked. Students would take classes and write papers, revise, and get better at writing based on sources we taught them to evaluate for accuracy. Then folks cooked up AI and broke all the ways we get and convey info, for absolutely no reason.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

On the flip side, what will they do without that sweet gig of doing a ton of academic work for zero dollars? How will they scrape by if the government shuts them down?

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

Giving money to Harvard, even if you're happy they're standing up, is silly. People like this, though, deserve all the financial support we can give them.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

My wife sent me a pic of some folks she's at a quilting camp with, and I jokingly replied that they seemed like a dangerous bunch: wouldn't want to run into them in a dark alley. She replied, "Some of us have 5 for fighting!" Perfect use of a hockey reference. Always amazed by this woman.

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Or public universities, FFS.

submitted 14 days ago • 1 comment

I know: trivial post in terrible times. But, I don't understand airports that lack good restaurants. I'm in Miami, and just ate in a place that requires ordering by QR code and seems hostile to customers. You've got all these people who have money to travel. They'll buy beers and bad-for-you-food.

submitted 16 days ago • 0 comments

Social Security so fucked that even Thomas Pynchon can't retire

submitted 18 days ago • 2 comments

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

I have a bit of writing I’m working on now where I refer to *Bleeding Edge* as “his most recent, and perhaps last novel.” Glad to be wrong.

submitted 19 days ago • 0 comments

you don't need to be jacques lacan to see how desperately transmuting material loss into symbolic gain is really just slapping a fancy new signifier atop a yawning black hole but hey it doesn't hurt

submitted 23 days ago • 150 comments

I'm sure that this is obvious to a lot of people, but using Apple's built-in text-to-speech (I'm sure Windows has similar) is a great way to figure out the time of a presentation. Just let the robot read it aloud and time it. Keeps you honest by not rushing.

submitted 36 days ago • 1 comment

Working on a scholarly book ms. Can we all agree to just not write those summaries of the upcoming chapters in the intro? None of us read those, right?

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

What, is my to do list done on a Saturday afternoon? (Don’t look at email, don’t look at email, don’t look at email) How nice.

submitted 37 days ago • 0 comments

Listening to a podcast where the hosts casually say that universities have done a terrible job of keeping down costs. I have tons of opinions on this but I'm responding just from personal experience. Anyone have a good, accessible article explaining where tuition rises come from?

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Doing some writing, I have this line: "Barth’s funhouse functions largely as a metaphor in his short story, although it would of course be possible to imagine a novel organized more literally around such a space." There must be a bunch of novels/films that do this, right? Any examples come to mind?

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment

Oh, so we're already at the defying-court-orders stage of this administration?

submitted 43 days ago • 1 comment