sara simon
@sarambsimon.bsky.social
1.8K followers 1.2K following 970 posts
phd student in us history • former newsroom software engineer & data journalist • she/her • chicago smbsimon.github.io
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sarambsimon.bsky.social
beautiful, no notes
cait.bsky.social
guy in a legal advice reddit wants to know how to get out of paying google the money he owes them after vibe coding one of his apps into running 40 times a second for several days straight, but says it's not his fault bc they should have stopped him by making it harder to use
r/LegalAdviceUK u/ShavedAp3 • 3d
Join
Google want to charge me 7 k for API access what can I do as they are denying appeals
Debt & Money
Hi there and thanks for reading.
I tried to keep this brief and just ended up rambling on trying to get as much in as possible so here is my edited hopefully a lot smaller problem.
Google are charging me 7k for a mistake that I told them about within a day, the bill went from about £45 to 16k in a day! when I asked for help I was told "dont worry well reset it as a one off, you'll need to put measures in place and ill guide you through those after you agree" So i did he then said "I will monitor it for a further 24 - 48 hours and then tell you how to put the measures in place. " Less than 24 hours later the bill was now 23k and I found out how to stop it myself. Then came the long back and forth to get it reset.
Fast forward 5 months they have finally given me a 20k credit but with VAT the total bill at the time of the credit was 27k
The 20k would have cleared the costs at the time of making them aware they claim its both our responsibilities to monitor costs I feel I did that by contacting them as soon as I saw the irregularity.
I asked them to reconsider they said no the appeal has said that is their final offer so 1 now owe 7k.
Is there anything I can do here from a legal standpoint. I don't have 7k I barely have £45.
Thanks for reading I am in England if it helps. Intentional or not, OP used either 36k (16 + 20) or 43k (16 + 27) of API credit. Obviously what API it is matters, but with google maps, 16k would equate to ten million pulls. Or two hundred thousand Gemini 2.5 calls with 1000 token input and 5k token output.
Those aren't numbers that something running correctly should run up for any average person or company. So either google screwed up something (which is unlikely that it would only happen to one person in the entire network) or OP has some app or something which isn't running properly and is sending too much to the API.
Edit: It was OP's app, polling google maps nearly 40 times a second for days.

tom_watts • 3d
According to other posts he ended up polling Google maps direction API 2300 times per minute for a few days. Looks like a combination of OP not knowing coding and asking ChatGPT to do it for him, and potentially Google's backend doing something weird in interpreting the janky code.
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146 ShavedAp3 OP • 3d
Even if that was the case and it wasn't the sign up process doesn't have the documentation I refer to.
Funnily enough though asking an LLM to help me find it still took some digging after it did.
If you work in the field im sure its easy but those just tinkering or learning not so much.
If google didnt want people like me using it they could make it far harder to do so, they could have hard limits in place for sole users to prevent stuff like this and so many other things.
Should they well clearly they don't think so and no doubt you agree that doesn't make it the right opinion it just makes it yours.
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Reposted by sara simon
lenasun.bsky.social
NEW: @CDCgov hit hard by massive firings that several staff describe to me as a “bloodbath.”
Among those RIFd:
—leadership of the center for immunization and respiratory diseases;
—leadership of global health center
—leadership of the measles outbreak response; 1/4
Reposted by sara simon
jhppl.bsky.social
US public health is in crisis. In this special JHPPL issue edited by @oberlanderunc.bsky.social & @sarahgollust.bsky.social, you’ll find articles that help contextualize the erosion of public health infrastructure & adoption of policies harmful to public health. read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/advanc...
Advance Publication | Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law | Duke University Press
read.dukeupress.edu
sarambsimon.bsky.social
it will probably be a bit before it turns into anything real (a diss chapter, perhaps?) but i'd be happy to send it, in its current status, your way!
Reposted by sara simon
camrodriguez.bsky.social
if you're a national outlet zooming in to cover immigration raids in chicago and you're only in broadview or elwood you're doing it wrong, just saying
Reposted by sara simon
annakornbluh.bsky.social
week 7, in a city under siege for 32 days and counting, and the students who are able to come to class despite the blitz are showing up like their lives depend on those 50 minutes of togetherness, poetry, and big questions
miriamposner.com
IDK, man. School started 2 weeks ago for us, and once again students remind me that they’re so curious and interested in the world and anxious to ask big questions. We hear that these questions are no longer useful or relevant, but wherever that’s coming from, it’s not what students believe.
sarambsimon.bsky.social
a fabulous panel! and fabulous live-skeeting from ben, with the perfect alt text on this image
bhgross144.bsky.social
Our next speaker, @sarambsimon.bsky.social, is talking about the 1890 Census, but she breaks from SHOT tradition by shifting the focus from Herman Hollerith to John Shaw Billings.

At a time when there was no permanent census bureau, Billings came up w/the idea of using punch cards... #SHOT2025
John Shaw Billings and his very dignified mustache. (Wikipedia)
Reposted by sara simon
tedmccormick.bsky.social
This also indicates the essential dishonesty of saying “it’s just a tool.” A hammer is a tool. Nobody writes about the “inevitability” of hammers. Nobody has ever studied the harmful effects of hammers on learning and concluded that teachers must all hit their students with hammers “responsibly.”
sarambsimon.bsky.social
jesszimmerman.com
Literally begging you to post about Just Some Stuff. We will see the news I absolutely promise. Twenty people will repost the same exact thing about the news. Only you can post about a turtle you saw
katelynburns.com
i don't mean to come off as rude but we cannot sustain ourselves on outrage and anger forever. i think it's even more important now to post about other things too. even if it gets less engagement. you never know who will find it cool and interesting.
sarambsimon.bsky.social
i switched over to apple music this summer and it was very easy, fwiw
sarambsimon.bsky.social
also she did much of high school homeschooled, iirc
sarambsimon.bsky.social
ok this has been my theory!!
sarambsimon.bsky.social
i discovered a few months ago that i can turn my phone on airplane mode to bypass all ads on a free chess app, with the added benefit being that i now regularly forget to untoggle airplane mode once i'm done
mollytaft.com
as a lifelong internet addict it is remarkable how much the past nine months have compelled me to log off
sarambsimon.bsky.social
also: they both go to starbucks! kathleen kelly today would never
Reposted by sara simon
joolia.bsky.social
"It feels as if everything has vanished. Not only the tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza erased without graves, without records, as if they had never existed – so many other things have been hollowed out: basic conceptions of morality, decency, compassion, humanity, hope, future."
Disappearing people, disappearing morals – how two years has changed Gaza and Israel | Orly Noy
There can be no healing until the world stares into and acknowledges the void torn open by this conflict, says Israeli journalist Orly Noy
www.theguardian.com
Reposted by sara simon
tamigraph.bsky.social
Probably worth paying more attention to *why* tech oligarchs and this administration, in particular, are so eager to build data centers. What do we think they’re going to be used for? Endless AI for good projects or…?
Reposted by sara simon
erinbartram.bsky.social
If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.
CFP: A Time of Monsters
The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...
contingentmagazine.org
Reposted by sara simon
tiffany.thetriibe.com
it’s challenging being a Black-owned newsroom during this time of anti-DEI and political attacks, but we persevere. that’s what our ancestors did.

if you can, consider making a contribution — big or small — to fuel our reporting on Chicago.

if you know a $$$ person in your life, spread the word.
thetriibe.com
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This moment demands more revolutionary voices in journalism. Support independent, Black-owned journalism today.

Make a monetary contribution: buy.stripe.com/00w14n5ZRbhk...
The TRiiBE is independent, Black-owned media.
Reposted by sara simon
sarambsimon.bsky.social
i know it sounds so simple, but i really believe that a return to coursepacks provided with all class readings printed would go a huge way here
Reposted by sara simon
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
important for us in the US to note: even a solidly right wing government can't ignore this.
Reposted by sara simon
lyndab08.bsky.social
I’m so struck by this video. A regular day in Logan Square in front of a grocery store and ICE pulls up and tear gassed people. Funston Elementary School is right across the street as well. This is a major corridor in Logan Sq. No concern for human safety

Video from: www.reddit.com/r/chicago/co...