Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

LightNews

Miriam Posner

@miriamposner.com

14K followers 2.4K following 4.9K posts

Tired person, fighter. Labor, data, DH, obsolete software, database history, etc. www.miriamposner.com. Speaking for myself, not my employer.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Caitlin Goodman @caitlinest.bsky.social · 2h

My day is shot bc a colleague just shared this UNC press release about a still to-be-named, to-be-designed, to-be-planned AI school where the only known fact seems to be that it will replace the library school.

www.unc.edu/posts/2025/1...

University leadership announces development of new school at Carolina | UNC-Chapel Hill

The School of Information and Library Science and the School of Data Science and Society will be founding leaders of a new school to amplify and lead Carolina’s response to the information and data ne...

Reposted by Miriam Posner

MS @mimosaishere.bsky.social · 2h

"Gen. AI is still best at select tasks that do not require consistent reliability—hence its purveyors taking aim at art & creative industries..."

(h/t @robertjweisberg.bsky.social)

www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-job...?

The AI jobs crisis is here, now

It's not coming, it has already arrived.

www.bloodinthemachine.com

Reposted by Miriam Posner

AAUP @aaup.org · 2h

Over 100 Brown U students & 20 faculty members gathered outside
the campus today to demand that the university reject Trump’s loyalty oath compact. Professors & students taped their mouths shut to symbolize the compact’s threat to free speech, #academicfreedom & diversity of thought.
#DefendHigherEd

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

Nice

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

There’s a zoom info session about it this very afternoon! 4pm PST. us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: Professional Liability Insurance and Legal Resources. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting.

Join us for a virtual informational session with an AFT representative to learn more about the legal benefits and professional liability insurance available to AAUP members.

us06web.zoom.us

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

I know people who are going through costly cases like this now, so it’s reassuring to know this exists.

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

At UCLA, we can choose to get covered for personal legal insurance via ARAG, which is super useful, but it doesn’t work if you’re in a legal dispute related to your job.

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

Recently learned that if you are an AFT member—as, for example, members of the UC Faculty Association are, if we opt in to AAUP membership—you’re eligible for $6/mo professional legal insurance. Useful if, say, you’re in a dispute with your employer. www.aft.org/sites/defaul...

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

I know it’s like, why does it matter? For one thing, it helps us understand what SCM thinks it’s doing: marshaling the resources and people of the globe into one autonomously intelligent superorganism. For another, it helps us understand why responsibility is so hard to locate in both technologies.

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

I mean, I’ll try to write it up! LOL

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

I’ll try to write it up?

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 7h

Giving a talk today on the joint histories and shared DNA of supply-chain management and AI.

Two very different industries, one almost identical response. Is this some kind of bizarre coincidence? History suggests not. I want to show you today that this hallmark combinatior ignorance and omniscience is not a glitch but an unavoidable product of the configuration c both SCM and Al today.
Why do the two technologies generate the same pattern? It's because they were born of th same philosophy of technology, with the same approach to moving and hiding information.

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Jonny Morris @jonnymorris.bsky.social · 14h

Is this real or am I in a coma?

Young Conservative with a Doctor Who question mark pullover.

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Triangle Blog Blog @triangleblogblog.bsky.social · 23h

Breaking: We’ve talked to multiple individuals who have confirmed that UNC-CH is merging SILS (library and information science) and SDSS (data science and society). Announcement will be tomorrow morning. Faculty were not consulted.

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 9h

Listening and learning

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Danny K @dannykpolitics.bsky.social · 3d

WATCH: ‘Portland Frog’ pepper balled by ICE agents

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Nina Markl 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @ninamarkl.bsky.social · 9h

further thoughts on this: the idea of ‘prompt engineering’ as a ‘skill’ that requires a mix of technical and linguistic ‘skills’ has been around for a while and doesn’t seem to disappear. what i’m interested in is not whether it’s a well-defined skill (probably not) or ‘valuable’ (probably not) but

Nina Markl 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @ninamarkl.bsky.social · 10h

okay, pals, i have heard one too many prompt engineering is a real and valuable skill’, this is gonna be a research project now

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 2d

It takes no special technical expertise to know that
1) AI's main value proposition today is automating labor,
2) AI is going to supercharge economic inequality, and
3) If we do not get out in front of that policy-wise, we are fools.

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/thinking-o...

Thinking of AI as a Social Problem

No need to know the unknowable. The knowable is bad enough.

www.hamiltonnolan.com

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Anna Smith @anna-phd.bsky.social · 2d

Next up is Dr. Roderic Crooks on "Access is Capture: How Edtech Reproduces Racial Inequality." This one is for you #EduSky #literacies @civicsoftech.bsky.social and more! Hope you can make it!

Education Now Lab @edunowlab.bsky.social · 2d

Don't miss our next outstanding speaker, Dr. Roderic Crooks, on October 15, 2025, @ 7:00 pm CT. He will speak on his book "Access is Capture: How Edtech Reproduces Racial Inequality." Register today at tinyurl.com/CreativelyCr...

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 2d

“Boring Barbie” is pretty funny though

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 2d

❤️🌴🌮❤️

Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 2d

One of the more incredible stories out of LA this year has been how a taco review blog became the best on-the-ground coverage of ICE raids in the city.

They do a dispatch every day, follow-up on the kidnapped people (which almost no media outlet has done), and fact-check government claims.

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 2d

@lataco.bsky.social first began as a blog documenting local Mexican cuisine. Now, it’s an essential reporting powerhouse to the city as Trump’s mass deportation plot unfolds.

Check out the latest from our friends at Reveal: tinyurl.com/4cm2bsdr

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Elise Wang @elisewang.bsky.social · 2d

One of the more incredible stories out of LA this year has been how a taco review blog became the best on-the-ground coverage of ICE raids in the city.

They do a dispatch every day, follow-up on the kidnapped people (which almost no media outlet has done), and fact-check government claims.

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 2d

@lataco.bsky.social first began as a blog documenting local Mexican cuisine. Now, it’s an essential reporting powerhouse to the city as Trump’s mass deportation plot unfolds.

Check out the latest from our friends at Reveal: tinyurl.com/4cm2bsdr

Reposted by Miriam Posner

Cardiff UCU @cardiffucu.bsky.social · 13d

'Huddled under blankets in my freezing office, because the anti-suicide lock on the window has seized slightly ajar, I am – like everyone –frantically trying to make it work for the students, [since] any hit in our student satisfaction scores will be an excuse for management to cut more jobs.'

Huge Cardiff University Cuts Have Been A Disaster For Staff & Students -

Reading Time: 3 minutesMonths since bosses at Wales’ biggest university imposed dramatic cuts, an anonymous academic reveals what…

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 2d

It’s over for them, as of now. Get out of here, you’re compromised.

Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 2d

Obviously signing Trump’s compact is the death knell for a university, but the fact that any of them are even *considering* it exposes something deeply rotten at the heart of their leadership. It should disqualify them forever.