Melinda Baldwin
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mbaldwin.bsky.social
Melinda Baldwin
@mbaldwin.bsky.social

#histSTM studying scientific publishing, funding, and peer review. Associate prof @ UMD College Park. All opinions mine!

Philosophy 26%
Physics 22%
One explanation for economic populism in the US is the recurring cycle of bubbles and bailouts that happens without any democratic input

Reposted by Melinda Baldwin

So-called "smart" devices are pushed heavily for the holidays, but be mindful of what you're opting that gift recipient into. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...
Think Twice Before Giving Surveillance for the Holidays
With the holidays upon us, it's easy to default to giving the tech gifts that retailers tend to push on us this time of year: smart speakers, video doorbells, bluetooth trackers, fitness trackers,
www.eff.org

Something tells me this person does not, in fact, have trademarks on all of those phrases.

I agree. Summers has said repeatedly, both in public and private, that he believes women are not as smart or talented as men. He has no business in a classroom. FEEL FREE TO REPEAT THIS INSIGHT.
I know that at this point it's a subplot in the Epstein files drama, but I feel compelled to point out, once again, that Larry Summers HAS NO BUSINESS teaching students at ANY university ever again!

My latest cries into the abyss, in @thenation.com

www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Why Is Larry Summers Still Employed?
The revelations about the economist’s attempts to pressure a women into a “relationship”—with guidance from Jeffrey Epstein—should finally disqualify him from teaching students.
www.thenation.com

This is it. This is exactly it. Even if you leave aside his objectionable behavior towards his female colleagues, how could a female student have equal opportunity to succeed in a class taught by someone who believes women are not as smart as men?
I have been feeling depressed and discouraged that this man has the power and influence he does at my school and in my profession

And I am a tenured professor at Harvard! How much more protected can I be?

Imagine how STUDENTS feel. Junior faculty. This quote nails it
I know that at this point it's a subplot in the Epstein files drama, but I feel compelled to point out, once again, that Larry Summers HAS NO BUSINESS teaching students at ANY university ever again!

My latest cries into the abyss, in @thenation.com

www.thenation.com/article/soci...
Why Is Larry Summers Still Employed?
The revelations about the economist’s attempts to pressure a women into a “relationship”—with guidance from Jeffrey Epstein—should finally disqualify him from teaching students.
www.thenation.com

I vote he stays on the OpenAI board but never comes within a hundred yards of a student ever again.

Why is he still teaching?! That's where the students are!!!
Larry Summers tells @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social
he’s stepping back from all public commitments in light of his messages with Epstein, saying he is “deeply ashamed” and hopes “to rebuild trust and repair relationships.”

He will continue teaching.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
Remember: they used thousands of academic books too! If you’re a scholar, check for your books too. This isn’t just novelists and pop writers, it’s academic books too!
AI advocates have warned that if every author in the class action filed a claim, it would "financially ruin" the entire industry.
Authors celebrate “historic” settlement coming soon in Anthropic class action
Advocates fear such settlements will “financially ruin” the AI industry.
arstechnica.com
Larry Summers tells @theharvardcrimson.bsky.social
he’s stepping back from all public commitments in light of his messages with Epstein, saying he is “deeply ashamed” and hopes “to rebuild trust and repair relationships.”

He will continue teaching.

www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
I think the universities didn’t convey clearly enough to Larry Summers and Laurence Krauss that they were expected to get sexual harassment PREVENTION training
Bsky hasn’t heard the story about the time that I was giving a virtual colloquium to the Aspen Center for Physics in September 2020 and Lawrence Krauss, Geoff Marcy, Christian Ott all attended as a group

ACP now has a policy that would prevent this from happening, because of that incident 🔭

"She didn't want to text me late because she takes her early presentation very seriously" SHE WANTS YOU TO GO AWAY, LARRY

What in the actual hell. Econ seminars are rough enough on grad student presenters without a lecherous senior colleague hitting on you afterwards. I read this account and I recognize the behavior of someone who has NO interest in this man but also knows he can ruin her career.
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.
The emails have Summers reporting to Epstein about his attempts to date a Harvard economics student & to hit on her during a seminar she was giving.

Her whole statement is just incoherent and I'm baffled. He preyed on girls who looked younger than they were, but also somehow those same girls looked legal to passerby? What is Kelly even arguing here??

Reposted by Melinda Baldwin

After the Neil Gaiman stuff began coming out, I wrote this in August 2024. You can skip the first part (search for the phrase "eternally timely"). It's about burning down to the ground the pedestals we put people on for various reasons. www.moryan.com/a-burn-it-do...
A Burn It Down video extravaganza, and thoughts on Neil Gaiman, creative gods, American Gods and rotten pedestals
Hello!  Chicago folks, on Wednesday, Aug. 14 at 7 p.m., I’ll be in conversation with my friend Steve Darnall at The Book Cellar in Chicago. The occasion is the reissue of Uncle Sam, a brilliant graph...
www.moryan.com

I've heard similar things about academics known as verbal abusers or harassers of grad students and colleagues. "So-and-so is a genius, their 'lack of social skills' is just the price we pay."

Come on. "We" don't pay that price. Grad students do. Junior colleagues do. Women do.

I once wrote a mildly critical piece about Feynman (VERY MILD, other historians scolded me for going too easy on him) and got many comments and missives calling me an ignorant hater who didn't understand Feynman's brilliance. His "quirks" were the price to pay for his genius, didn't I see that?
“I have decided that Feynman would have done what I did.. and I am therefore content.. no matter what..:)“
— Lawrence Krauss

🧪⚛️
thinking about how i get anxious writing emails because i don't want to sound like a moron while larry summers is apparently typing emails like this:

u kno she dint want to talk tomorrow. make me bad pheel.

Reposted by Melinda Baldwin

“I have decided that Feynman would have done what I did.. and I am therefore content.. no matter what..:)“
— Lawrence Krauss

🧪⚛️
Like on a serious note, this is a decade after Epstein had been prosecuted and Larry Summers was still gossiping with him
The first photo of my new book, courtesy of my editor... "The Most Awful Responsibility: Truman and the Secret Struggle for Control of the Atomic Age" comes out in early December! Feel free to pre-order it today! www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

Reposted by Melinda Baldwin

Apparently all you needed to do to predict the NYC election results was read that one N.K. Jemisin novel.

It really says a lot about us as a society that we've decided the solution to people being unhoused is somehow "no one gets to sit down, ever."

Reposted by Melinda Baldwin

I think hostile architecture is the perfect metaphor for our current culture. We will refuse to have comfortable outdoor seating just to prevent the people we don’t want to be there from using it. We will all just be uncomfortable.

Subscribe to @theonion.com now to secure YOUR whimsical holiday wrapping paper insert! (You can't have this one, it's mine and I saved it from December 2024 fair and square.)
BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice: