Matthew Kirschenbaum

1,085 Followers
188 Following
131 Posts
Professor of English at the University of Maryland, though I speak only for myself here. Author of three books. Main interests are book history (letterpress to digital) and media studies, especially what the cool kids call media archaeology. Here you’ll also find tabletop gaming, cats, cooking, and sometimes some of my politics. Google for the rest . . .
@bookish @kawulf Whoah! Looks like they really got into it!

Since I’ve had a slight uptick in followers here, for whatever reason:

I don’t use this platform much. Just haven’t taken to it. The occasional announcement is all. I’m more active on 🦋, same username.

Thank you @mwichary for the shout out! I still remember our first conversation. Can’t wait for SHIFT. https://arstechnica.com/culture/2023/10/shift-happens-is-a-beautifully-designed-history-of-how-keyboards-got-this-way/
Shift Happens is a beautifully designed history of how keyboards got this way

Marcin Wichary on his long quest to capture everything that shaped modern type.

Ars Technica
NYC folks especially, happening this Friday at NYU. #CriticalAI

ICYMI: Don't Text Me About the Textpocalypse, my AI-generated response to @mkirschenbaum feat. @mkirschenbaum

https://youtu.be/0HgwXNDAI9A?si=AmL3kZds0fmjWSU0

#chatgpt @mkirschenbaum

Don't Text Me About the Textpocalypse

YouTube
Couldn’t be more thrilled that my article “Granulalr Worlds: Situating the Sand Table in Media History” is out in Critical Inquiry, the 50th Anniversary issue no less. If anyone who doesn’t have institutional access would like a copy I am happy to send. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/726299
This is kind of #bookhistory interesting. Trailer for DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK (1939). The cuts are shot as fingers turning the pages of the novel, with the next scene shown playing on the newly exposed leaf. This seems like a pretty high end special effects for 1939?
@bookish as in so many other domains, tech is merely surfacing things never before made explicit.
Pssst! Wanna build your own #bookhistory BookLab? We’ll show you how! App,y by Aug. 28 for this online RBS short course. https://rarebookschool.org/courses/library/l140v/
Building a BookLab | Rare Book School

Course Length: 6 hours Schedule: 7–9 p.m. ET on 16 October, 23 October & 30 October Format: Online Course fee: $500 This short course will explore practical approaches and strategies for building a student-centered book arts makerspace—a “booklab”—with an emphasis on those institutions with modest and even scant resources. It will be based upon the instructors’ success in jointly conceiving, developing, and directing BookLab at the University of Maryland since 2018. We will explore start-up considerations, such as physical space and budget, as well as essential purchasing. [...]

Rare Book School
When it comes to training LLMs, tokenization is fracking. Discuss.