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Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
@davehowcroft.com
430 followers 470 following 870 posts
Computational linguist teaching computers to use their words. Queer. Catholic. Immigrant. they/them

Languages: en, de, fr, sv
Also available at https://mastodon.social/@_dmh
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davehowcroft.com
Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 @davehowcroft.com · Dec 2
On the bright side, at least it still isn't sending all your data to Google and you *can* disable things like this. Idk why people still use Chrome.
sundogscoops.bsky.social SCOOPS 🍖 @sundogscoops.bsky.social · Dec 2
firefox AI and slop disablers from tumblr for the people from local hero mckitterick. Tried it on my end and the browser is significantly faster now

(copy paste-able in the alt text)
browser.ml.enable browser.ml.chat.enabled browser.ml.chat.menu browser.ml.chat.page browser.ml.chat.page.footerBadge browser.ml.chat.page.menuBadge browser.ml.linkPreview.enabled browser.ml.pageAssist.enabled browser.tabs.groups.smart.enabled browser.tabs.groups.smart.userEnabled extensions.ml.enabled browser.search.visualSearch.featureGate
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
kilinguistics.bsky.social
Linguistic racism on full display.
premthakker.bsky.social Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 1d
How much more in your face can it be?

"Why are you asking me for my paperwork?"
"Because of your accent."
"You have an accent too."
"Where were you born sir?"
"Where were you born at?"
"Put your hands behind your back."
January 18, 2026 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
gretchenmcculloch.com
New favourite example of scalar implicature
"More than 3 years ago, the famous Roman emperor Julius Caesar passed away" written over a marble bust of Caesar.
January 18, 2026 at 4:13 PM
davehowcroft.com
As a Floridian, I can attest that I had no idea what the purpose of a scarf really was when I moved to colder climes. Floridians do not know how to cope with the cold
franceslarina.bsky.social Frances Larina @franceslarina.bsky.social · 1d
Jake is from Florida & no doubt flew in for the photo ops.

I spent a few winters in MN and WI and am very much enjoying the locals leverage their home field advantage.
startribune.com Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com · 1d
Right-wing influencer Jake Lang is stuck in a window recess against Minneapolis City Hall.

He’s soaked with freezing water after counterprotesters hurled water balloons at him. bit.ly/4baGhJn
January 17, 2026 at 8:05 PM
davehowcroft.com
Yayyyyyy gay bar and friendly humans
January 17, 2026 at 8:03 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
nycsouthpaw.bsky.social
I have a sneaking suspicion that neither the World Cup nor the LA Olympics will feature full European participation, if they happen at all.
katie0martin.ft.com Katie Martin @katie0martin.ft.com · 1d
Are we honestly doing the World Cup over there? For real?
January 17, 2026 at 6:33 PM
davehowcroft.com
The shameless murderers and thugs harassing our neighborhoods have joined Bluesky and been verified! Here's the account for an agency that never should have been created: @icegov.bsky.social
January 17, 2026 at 6:07 PM
davehowcroft.com
In high school I did the International Baccalaureate and my higher maths instructor was British and insisted on "real" marking with a transformation to yield US grades. Her method was 10*sqrt("real" mark). So a 64 becomes an 80, an 81 becomes a 90, a 100 remains a 100.
katrinanavickas.bsky.social Katrina Navickas @katrinanavickas.bsky.social · 2d
As an undergrad, I experienced the shift from the bizarre Greek grading system at Oxford to numerical marking.

I (humble brag) got one of the top firsts, and my highest mark was 74.
markmccormack.bsky.social Mark McCormack @markmccormack.bsky.social · 2d
Also; when I was at Durham, it was understood that it was *impossible* to score more than 78 on an assignment and 72 was *really good*. Work was done to use the fuller range of grades during my time. This was both a good thing and will see an increase in 1sts.
January 16, 2026 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
kilinguistics.bsky.social
This is awesome! I have been curating a list of #linguistics journals, with information on their publishing model (and also on whether they admit submissions created by LaTeX, a high-quality, professional Open Source way to produce scientific documents).

uni-duesseldorf.sciebo.de/s/BvRY0u3rDY...
January 16, 2026 at 9:05 AM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
christianilbury.bsky.social
The CfPs for LavLang32 at Edinburgh is now OPEN! A reminder of our stellar lineup:

• Dr. Nikki Lane (Duke)
• Dr. Kevin Guyan (UoE)
• Prof. Erez Levon (Bern)
• Dr. Stamatina Katsiveli (American College of Greece)
• Dr. Eddie Ungless (UoE)

Submit a paper here: lavlang32.ppls.ed.ac.uk?page_id=231
January 5, 2026 at 10:09 AM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
jeremymberg.bsky.social
Great news! The unethical hepatitis B vaccine trial planned for Guinea-Bissau has been cancelled.

Public pressure and insisting that clinical trials pass ethics analysis worked.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

1/2
Controversial US study on hepatitis B vaccines in Africa is cancelled
$1.6m project drew outrage over ethical questions about withholding vaccines proven to prevent disease
www.theguardian.com
January 15, 2026 at 4:48 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
criminalerin.bsky.social
Who knew gambling incentivises corruption anyhow brb ttyl betting on when the US will invade Cuba (trading volume is now up to over $600k btw)
January 15, 2026 at 5:47 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
devezer.bsky.social
every big data paper with a bold story that is impossible to comprehend, evaluate, and independently verify reminds me of DOPRA. i've come to increasingly appreciate small, unassuming papers with humble conclusions that you can track word for word, data point by data point, assumption by assumption.
A tweet from Lior Pachter from July 26, 2024: "I think this paper is a Denial of Peer Review Attack (DOPRA). It's kind of like a DoS (denial of service) attack. There is so much data, so many methods, so much code, so many figures, so many panels, so much supplement, so much text, that it is overwhelming. 18/"
January 15, 2026 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
abeba.bsky.social
are you displeased with today’s AI safety evaluation landscape and curious about what greater conceptual clarity, methodological soundness, and rigour in AI evaluation could look like? if so, consider coming to Dublin to pursue a PhD with me

apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a...

pls repost
About the PhD: Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity. This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as: What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation? How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena? What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail? How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies? Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation. The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.
January 15, 2026 at 11:55 AM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
richardsever.bsky.social
One of my concerns with AI-assisted research in biology is that we're already looking only in the lamplight and AI incentivizes us to narrow the beam. Seems like it's happening...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Artificial intelligence tools expand scientists’ impact but contract science’s focus - Nature
Artificial intelligence boosts individual scientists’ output, citations and career progression, but collectively narrows research diversity and reduces collaboration, concentrating work in data-rich a...
www.nature.com
January 15, 2026 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
bgrueskin.bsky.social
If you see federal agents pulling into your driveway, reporters, power down your electronic devices ASAP.

That's the advice from @runasand.bsky.social, via @columjournreview.bsky.social

www.cjr.org/news/hannah-...
The full extent of what the FBI will be able to gather from Natanson’s devices will rest on her, and the Post’s, digital security hygiene. “It really depends on, were the devices up to date?” Sandvik told me. “What type of authentication was used? Was encryption enabled on the drive? Was lockdown mode enabled on the phone? Were disappearing messages used on Signal?” If Natanson uses Macs, for instance, even if they are fully encrypted, “that encryption only kicks in when the device is fully powered off,” she said. “When you power the device on and you log in that first time, that is when you unlock or decrypt the drive.” The same would apply to a phone. “So if she knew this and she saw the FBI outside her door,” Sandvik noted, “the smartest thing to do would have been to go and power off all her devices.”
January 15, 2026 at 4:40 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
georgiatomova.bsky.social
Then don't forget to say this is just associational and not causal! But do make sure to provide an overstated policy implication of the aforementioned spurious association anyway.
georgiatomova.bsky.social Georgia Tomova @georgiatomova.bsky.social · 3d
One cynical take could be that this is a result of the practice of getting familiar with a dataset/source and then "finding research questions to answer in it". Instead of forming well thought out research questions and then finding appropriate data to answer them, whether that be admin, survey, etc
January 15, 2026 at 4:49 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
techconnectify.bsky.social
It is important to remember this.

My ballots are printed and distributed by my *county* and the worse things get the more those folks at the county offices will become defiant.

Do not obey in advance!
jamellebouie.net jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 3d
the question to ask about this is, okay, he wants to cancel the midterms. how does he get the VA state board of elections to cancel the midterms? how does he get the georgia board of elections to do it? how does he convince republican house members to quit their jobs and give up their paychecks?
ryanhatesthis.bsky.social Ryan Broderick @ryanhatesthis.bsky.social · 3d
Trump says a lot of deranged shit, but, per this Reuters article — and the threats of invoking the Insurrection Act in Minnesota this morning — he is very clearly exploring how to cancel the midterms.
www.reuters.com/world/us/fiv...
January 15, 2026 at 4:42 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
aaup.org
"We seem to be entering an age of state control armed only with the delusional hope that if universities hide and say nothing about all of the obvious ways in which the nation is slouching toward the demise of democracy, they will avoid political retribution."
Opinion | Where’s the Outrage? Universities Need to Speak Up.
The lack of response to the killing of Renee Nicole Good is shameful.
www.chronicle.com
January 14, 2026 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
rufustsuperfly.bsky.social
Charlie Kirk from The Charlie Kirk Show, Oct. 26, 2023:
January 15, 2026 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
stevewang251.bsky.social
Swarthmore College is hiring a 3-year Visiting Assistant Professor in Mathematics. We're a Math+Stat dept. with ~23 faculty. Friendly colleagues, excellent students, beautiful campus, convenient location (Philly suburbs). Happy to answer any questions.
www.mathjobs.org/jobs/list/27...
#AcademicSky 🧪
aerial photo of the Swarthmore College campus in autumn, showing the main quad with fall foliage and the Philadelphia skyline in the distance
January 15, 2026 at 12:22 PM
davehowcroft.com
Man, unfortunate day for this hotel www.booking.com/hotel/us/bay...
January 15, 2026 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com
pretty contemptible to let these violent thugs stay at your crummy motel and put your staff and neighbors at risk if you ask me
adaptable.bsky.social Hal @adaptable.bsky.social · 4d
A few more, including maps of where they're taking the people they snatch, and a hotel receipt.
Map and instructions on where to take the people they kidnap More instructions on where to take people they kidnap. Receipt from the hotel ICE is staying at in Wisconsin.
January 15, 2026 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
hilaryagro.com
Lmao they're so scared, this is deranged
An email from a health care company about making their employees sign a pledge An email from a health care company about making their employees sign a pledge swearing they think for-profit health insurance and executives are important
December 9, 2024 at 4:36 AM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
rmcelreath.bsky.social
I am reading "Killer Instinct: The popular science of human nature in 20th century America" by Nadine Weidman, and I am learning a lot. I was aware that Konrad Lorenz (father of field of ethology, winner of 1973 Nobel prize) was a Nazi, but didn't know he was so enthusiastic about it.
predominantly ‘Jewish’ ­ human psy­ chol­ ogy with a new psy­ chol­ ogy that was ‘properly German.’ ”51 Lorenz joined the Nazi party in June of 1938. By 1940, he was appointed to the Kant Professorship of Psy­ chol­ ogy at the Albertus University of Königsberg in East Prus­ sia, which came along with the directorship of an Institute of Comparative Psy­ chol­ ogy. Adapting his domestication theme to the Nazi context, Lorenz wrote two articles in 1940 making explicit connections between Nazi racial hygiene and his own studies of animal be­ hav­ ior; the second of ­ these was published in the official Nazi journal for biology teachers.52 Lorenz quickly became part of the Nazi war machine. In Oc- tober 1941, just eight months ­ after assuming his Königsberg position, he was drafted into the German Army, first as a military psychologist in Poznan, a city in western Poland taken over by the Nazis ­ after their inva- sion of Poland in 1939. In Poznan, as a member of the Nazi Office of Race Policy, Lorenz administered ­ mental tests aimed at sorting “mixed Poles and Germans into German-­ like ­ people that could be rehabilitated and Poles who could not,” and who ­ were subsequently sent to concentration camps.53 When such psychological testing was discontinued, he worked as a physician and psychiatrist at the reserve hospital in Poznan.54 Along with ­ these practical activities, Lorenz continued to support Nazi ideology through intellectual ­ labors. In 1943, he published another article extol- ling the virtues of race purity, and warning of the disruptive effects of do- mestication on animals’ instincts.
January 15, 2026 at 12:25 PM
Reposted by Dave Howcroft 🦔 in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
iwriteok.bsky.social
They aren't specialists in violence they're just dicks the government gave badges to, don't mythologize being a thug because you're scared of loud noises
nilsgilman.bsky.social Nils Gilman @nilsgilman.bsky.social · 6d
It’s worth considering that an overnight dismantling of ICE in 2029 would release into the wild a whole herd of specialists in violence with scant other marketable skills.
January 15, 2026 at 1:47 AM