George S
@harmonygritz.bsky.social
Also @ harmonygritz elsewhere. #HigherEd and #EdTech interests keep my blood boiling. Our fractured social networks remind me of the Battlestar Galactica diaspora. I am the other person you see wearing a mask in the store.
Reposted by George S
Not a new story, but this morning's rabbit hole is the fact that Larry Ellison has bought the Eagle and Child, a pub on St Giles in Oxford, and Norman Foster is redesigning it oxfordclarion.uk/the-bird-and...
December 1, 2025 at 6:19 AM
Not a new story, but this morning's rabbit hole is the fact that Larry Ellison has bought the Eagle and Child, a pub on St Giles in Oxford, and Norman Foster is redesigning it oxfordclarion.uk/the-bird-and...
Reposted by George S
once gave a talk called "metaphor is more important than data" - maybe I ought to haul those slides out...
AI’s safety features can be circumvented with poetry, research finds
Poems containing prompts for harmful content prove effective at duping large language models
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Tired: learn to code
Wired: learn poetry
Poems containing prompts for harmful content prove effective at duping large language models
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Tired: learn to code
Wired: learn poetry
AI’s safety features can be circumvented with poetry, research finds
Poems containing prompts for harmful content prove effective at duping large language models
www.theguardian.com
December 1, 2025 at 6:27 AM
once gave a talk called "metaphor is more important than data" - maybe I ought to haul those slides out...
Reposted by George S
“The only people who get angry when hearing service members being told to ignore illegal orders are people who intend to issue illegal orders.”
November 30, 2025 at 7:58 PM
“The only people who get angry when hearing service members being told to ignore illegal orders are people who intend to issue illegal orders.”
Reposted by George S
From the people who brought you “corporations are people,” comes new and improved, “people are corporations.”
December 1, 2025 at 12:25 AM
From the people who brought you “corporations are people,” comes new and improved, “people are corporations.”
Reposted by George S
We just published a deep look into David Sacks, the White House's AI and Crypto czar. The story examines how he has been able keep hundreds of stakes in AI-related and crypto companies as he influences gov policy in those very industries.
Here's what we found:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/t...
Here's what we found:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/t...
Silicon Valley’s Man in the White House Is Benefiting Himself and His Friends
www.nytimes.com
November 30, 2025 at 7:24 PM
We just published a deep look into David Sacks, the White House's AI and Crypto czar. The story examines how he has been able keep hundreds of stakes in AI-related and crypto companies as he influences gov policy in those very industries.
Here's what we found:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/t...
Here's what we found:
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/t...
Kind of how it works #OnHere nowadays.
If you think it works like that over in the fediverse too, then it does... for you.
If you think it works like that over in the fediverse too, then it does... for you.
Likes on a post go up: oh cool, a good post
Reposts go up: nice, people think others should see it
Saves go up: my legacy is secure
Reposts go up: nice, people think others should see it
Saves go up: my legacy is secure
November 30, 2025 at 6:51 PM
Kind of how it works #OnHere nowadays.
If you think it works like that over in the fediverse too, then it does... for you.
If you think it works like that over in the fediverse too, then it does... for you.
Reposted by George S
Realtors know that, in many parts of the country, if you educate people about climate risk, the housing market will collapse.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/c...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/c...
Zillow Removes Climate Risk Scores From Home Listings
www.nytimes.com
November 30, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Realtors know that, in many parts of the country, if you educate people about climate risk, the housing market will collapse.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/c...
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/c...
Reposted by George S
Let me give some insight on this, as a producer in the dub industry who worked with major streamers, who's witnessed first-hand where this push for AI is coming from.
tl;dr: Only CEOs want this. Tell them how much you hate it. Be loud, email, call, @, post. You will kill this.
🧵⬇️
tl;dr: Only CEOs want this. Tell them how much you hate it. Be loud, email, call, @, post. You will kill this.
🧵⬇️
The only thing less human than these AI dub performances is the decision to sign off on them
A company this big can pay human actors a decent wage, not produce slop that intentionally removes the human element.
A company this big can pay human actors a decent wage, not produce slop that intentionally removes the human element.
November 30, 2025 at 4:55 AM
Let me give some insight on this, as a producer in the dub industry who worked with major streamers, who's witnessed first-hand where this push for AI is coming from.
tl;dr: Only CEOs want this. Tell them how much you hate it. Be loud, email, call, @, post. You will kill this.
🧵⬇️
tl;dr: Only CEOs want this. Tell them how much you hate it. Be loud, email, call, @, post. You will kill this.
🧵⬇️
👀
NARRATOR: It was, in fact, preordained and inevitable
#AI #conferences
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
NARRATOR: It was, in fact, preordained and inevitable
#AI #conferences
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI
Controversy has erupted after 21% of manuscript reviews for an international AI conference were found to be generated by artificial intelligence.
www.nature.com
November 30, 2025 at 1:42 AM
👀
NARRATOR: It was, in fact, preordained and inevitable
#AI #conferences
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
NARRATOR: It was, in fact, preordained and inevitable
#AI #conferences
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Reposted by George S
I wish journalists would stop making misleading claims like: "As the technology improves, it's harder to distinguish from human work, and it's shaking academia to its core with some very big questions" - the similarity is superficial, the gulf from human work massive. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...
How artificial intelligence is reshaping college for students and professors
This year’s senior class is the first to have spent nearly its entire college career in the age of generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, like text and images. A...
www.pbs.org
November 30, 2025 at 12:36 AM
I wish journalists would stop making misleading claims like: "As the technology improves, it's harder to distinguish from human work, and it's shaking academia to its core with some very big questions" - the similarity is superficial, the gulf from human work massive. www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...
Reposted by George S
Jessica Taggart, Andrew Kennedy, and I have a new piece out that's about UVA's Faculty AI Guides program, but it's really about how centers for teaching and learning can be key players in an institution's response to disruption. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Responding to Disruption? Consult a Center for Teaching and Learning
A guest post by Derek Bruff, Andrew Kennedy and Jess Taggart.
www.insidehighered.com
November 25, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Jessica Taggart, Andrew Kennedy, and I have a new piece out that's about UVA's Faculty AI Guides program, but it's really about how centers for teaching and learning can be key players in an institution's response to disruption. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
Reposted by George S
This AP news story is incredible from front to back but I wanted to flag something super serious and wildly illegal that may have flown under the radar. It’s called parallel construction and it’s when intel is washed from spy agencies and used by local cops. apnews.com/article/immi...
1/
1/
Border Patrol is monitoring US drivers and detaining those with 'suspicious' travel patterns
The U.S. Border Patrol is monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide in a secretive program to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious.
apnews.com
November 22, 2025 at 7:00 PM
This AP news story is incredible from front to back but I wanted to flag something super serious and wildly illegal that may have flown under the radar. It’s called parallel construction and it’s when intel is washed from spy agencies and used by local cops. apnews.com/article/immi...
1/
1/
This one is specifically troubling enough to get me thinking about our “cautiously civil” discourse around #AI matters in my uni system.
We’ve been wary (fearful?) of citing examples where an easily replicated usage is a problem.
We’ve been wary (fearful?) of citing examples where an easily replicated usage is a problem.
November 29, 2025 at 8:19 PM
This one is specifically troubling enough to get me thinking about our “cautiously civil” discourse around #AI matters in my uni system.
We’ve been wary (fearful?) of citing examples where an easily replicated usage is a problem.
We’ve been wary (fearful?) of citing examples where an easily replicated usage is a problem.
This is from a thread about the immediate cave-in at #Northwestern, but should hit home for any group of faculty who are still having Sisyphean dreams of shared governance.
November 29, 2025 at 5:00 AM
This is from a thread about the immediate cave-in at #Northwestern, but should hit home for any group of faculty who are still having Sisyphean dreams of shared governance.
I see people saying
“I would use alt text but I keep forgetting!”
Thankfully, @bsky.app has a setting for that.
- Go to Settings
- Then Accessibility
- Toggle “Require alt text before posting” to the active setting.
Now Bluesky will remind you to add alt text to all of your posts.
“I would use alt text but I keep forgetting!”
Thankfully, @bsky.app has a setting for that.
- Go to Settings
- Then Accessibility
- Toggle “Require alt text before posting” to the active setting.
Now Bluesky will remind you to add alt text to all of your posts.
November 29, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Yes… I’m still missing the #GooglePlus days of casual but fruitful interactive convo among many independent voices.
Catching folks in interviews isn’t bad, but harder to sustain.
#flow #serendipity
Catching folks in interviews isn’t bad, but harder to sustain.
#flow #serendipity
Baratunde Thurston names the moment: things fall apart. Systems crack. Certainty dissolves.
And yet — that’s where beginnings start.
👍 Tune into the conversation: bit.ly/baratundeforward
And yet — that’s where beginnings start.
👍 Tune into the conversation: bit.ly/baratundeforward
November 28, 2025 at 10:18 PM
Yes… I’m still missing the #GooglePlus days of casual but fruitful interactive convo among many independent voices.
Catching folks in interviews isn’t bad, but harder to sustain.
#flow #serendipity
Catching folks in interviews isn’t bad, but harder to sustain.
#flow #serendipity
Reposted by George S
I have regularly seen that reviewers and editors do not open supplemental files or read tables and figures tbh. I got comments back from reviewers particularly from software research journals that were continually wrong about the details in the paper itself. So yeah idk if review can be the savior
"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se
November 28, 2025 at 5:11 PM
I have regularly seen that reviewers and editors do not open supplemental files or read tables and figures tbh. I got comments back from reviewers particularly from software research journals that were continually wrong about the details in the paper itself. So yeah idk if review can be the savior
Reposted by George S
I wrote a bit about this many years ago on Twitter-that-was: the algorithm has gradually eroded "here's what you want to see" by replacing it with "here's what we'd like you to want to see."
It continues to trade on its former reputation solely due to inertia. Underneath, it's all ads.
It continues to trade on its former reputation solely due to inertia. Underneath, it's all ads.
love to live in a world where all my personal data is relentlessly harvested so that megacorps can feed it into their all-knowing algorithms and yet somehow the end result is that algorithm going “we think you’d like Clarkson’s Farm”
November 28, 2025 at 11:54 AM
I wrote a bit about this many years ago on Twitter-that-was: the algorithm has gradually eroded "here's what you want to see" by replacing it with "here's what we'd like you to want to see."
It continues to trade on its former reputation solely due to inertia. Underneath, it's all ads.
It continues to trade on its former reputation solely due to inertia. Underneath, it's all ads.
Reposted by George S
Anything to please the corporate donors.
November 27, 2025 at 10:48 PM
Anything to please the corporate donors.
Reposted by George S
The designer of Mouse Trap, Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Lite Brite, and many other toys has passed away.
What a legacy of joy!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/a...
What a legacy of joy!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/a...
Burt Meyer, 99, Dies; Made Lite-Brite and Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots
www.nytimes.com
November 24, 2025 at 7:49 PM
The designer of Mouse Trap, Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Lite Brite, and many other toys has passed away.
What a legacy of joy!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/a...
What a legacy of joy!
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/21/a...
I once again threaten to revive the #TodaysAargh feature from other social-media spaces that don't exist anymore.
#AIslop
#AIslop
"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se
November 27, 2025 at 7:26 PM
I once again threaten to revive the #TodaysAargh feature from other social-media spaces that don't exist anymore.
#AIslop
#AIslop
Reposted by George S
@miriamgrace.bsky.social made a request that led me down an interesting rabbit hole.
This will visualize any bluesky post as a node diagram,, with different weights applied to relative account reach of people interacting with it. It’s pretty interesting.
There’s a quick demo to play with
This will visualize any bluesky post as a node diagram,, with different weights applied to relative account reach of people interacting with it. It’s pretty interesting.
There’s a quick demo to play with
Bluesky Post Visualizer
Visualize Bluesky post interactions with force-directed graphs
dr.eamer.dev
November 27, 2025 at 9:24 AM
@miriamgrace.bsky.social made a request that led me down an interesting rabbit hole.
This will visualize any bluesky post as a node diagram,, with different weights applied to relative account reach of people interacting with it. It’s pretty interesting.
There’s a quick demo to play with
This will visualize any bluesky post as a node diagram,, with different weights applied to relative account reach of people interacting with it. It’s pretty interesting.
There’s a quick demo to play with
[Sheldon voice] It's true because it's true, a tautology
people who hate cranberry sauce prefer ketchup on their turkey
November 27, 2025 at 7:11 PM
[Sheldon voice] It's true because it's true, a tautology
Reposted by George S
“I would never argue that tech hasn’t done some good things. I just don’t see why this toxic ideology had to accompany it. These are tools. I mean, modern dentistry is great. But your dentist doesn’t insist you worship him.” —Paulina Boorsook. Glad she’s now getting 💐 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley
www.nytimes.com
November 27, 2025 at 6:56 PM
“I would never argue that tech hasn’t done some good things. I just don’t see why this toxic ideology had to accompany it. These are tools. I mean, modern dentistry is great. But your dentist doesn’t insist you worship him.” —Paulina Boorsook. Glad she’s now getting 💐 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/27/t...
Reposted by George S
They did it again! NYC subway Thanksgiving 2025, via @scootercaster.com!
November 27, 2025 at 4:19 PM
They did it again! NYC subway Thanksgiving 2025, via @scootercaster.com!