Becky
@beckvalle.bsky.social
Background in geography, archaeology, & programming - agent-based evacuation models - high performance computing - geographic information systems - learning Bangla - interested in many things - UIUC CIGI Lab & CyberGIS Center - She/they
Reposted by Becky
Browsing museums, galleries, libraries, bookstores have been some of the best hours of my life, but yes, its not instant gratification and its designed to take time
The death of browsing is part of the reason art is the way it is now. Our opinions are largely fed to us by algorithms. Spending a spare 15 minutes wandering around a bookstore or comic shop or video rental place was how you found stuff you wouldn't ordinarily pick up and thereby expanded your taste
Bookselling is like the most "people go to the store and buy what looks cool to them without a particular agenda" type business left, and your purchases have a huge influence on what is ordered, what is displayed, and what is recommended.
November 29, 2025 at 7:07 PM
Browsing museums, galleries, libraries, bookstores have been some of the best hours of my life, but yes, its not instant gratification and its designed to take time
Reposted by Becky
Communities need used-book shops.
As the trends in our world are increasingly standardized and entrenched by "predictive" technologies that stifle innovation and reduce human actions into economic categories...
We need a full range of possibilities for readers and communities to explore and share.
As the trends in our world are increasingly standardized and entrenched by "predictive" technologies that stifle innovation and reduce human actions into economic categories...
We need a full range of possibilities for readers and communities to explore and share.
November 27, 2025 at 11:11 PM
Communities need used-book shops.
As the trends in our world are increasingly standardized and entrenched by "predictive" technologies that stifle innovation and reduce human actions into economic categories...
We need a full range of possibilities for readers and communities to explore and share.
As the trends in our world are increasingly standardized and entrenched by "predictive" technologies that stifle innovation and reduce human actions into economic categories...
We need a full range of possibilities for readers and communities to explore and share.
Reposted by Becky
lol no why should I accept the technology my students are being misled into using to bypass the actual process of learning anything? Which is making my relationship with them so much worse? Which makes my teaching life so much worse?
Yeah bro I totally love it 🙄
Yeah bro I totally love it 🙄
Is this platform still massively against AI or has it moved more towards acceptance?
November 26, 2025 at 7:19 AM
lol no why should I accept the technology my students are being misled into using to bypass the actual process of learning anything? Which is making my relationship with them so much worse? Which makes my teaching life so much worse?
Yeah bro I totally love it 🙄
Yeah bro I totally love it 🙄
Reposted by Becky
I feel seen donmoynihan.substack.com/p/aint-no-pa...
November 26, 2025 at 2:21 PM
I feel seen donmoynihan.substack.com/p/aint-no-pa...
Reposted by Becky
This article makes really good points about the inability of most people to cut expenses without entirely losing the ability to participate in the economy. I get tired of people telling me to live cheaper by eliminating things that are necessary for modern life.
November 26, 2025 at 9:47 AM
This article makes really good points about the inability of most people to cut expenses without entirely losing the ability to participate in the economy. I get tired of people telling me to live cheaper by eliminating things that are necessary for modern life.
Reposted by Becky
This is an insightful but deeply upsetting article about why everyone in the US feels poor, and why the current political situation emerges as a direct result.
www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
Part 1: My Life Is a Lie
How a Broken Benchmark Quietly Broke America
www.yesigiveafig.com
November 26, 2025 at 1:42 AM
This is an insightful but deeply upsetting article about why everyone in the US feels poor, and why the current political situation emerges as a direct result.
www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
www.yesigiveafig.com/p/part-1-my-...
Reposted by Becky
almost 150 years ago we invented the phone.
the latest innovation has been to uninvent it, by inventing the phone tree, customer service center, etc.
i now drive miles to talk to people whom, thirty years ago, i’d have conveniently phoned. it’s increasingly the only way to talk to a capable human.
the latest innovation has been to uninvent it, by inventing the phone tree, customer service center, etc.
i now drive miles to talk to people whom, thirty years ago, i’d have conveniently phoned. it’s increasingly the only way to talk to a capable human.
November 25, 2025 at 5:19 PM
almost 150 years ago we invented the phone.
the latest innovation has been to uninvent it, by inventing the phone tree, customer service center, etc.
i now drive miles to talk to people whom, thirty years ago, i’d have conveniently phoned. it’s increasingly the only way to talk to a capable human.
the latest innovation has been to uninvent it, by inventing the phone tree, customer service center, etc.
i now drive miles to talk to people whom, thirty years ago, i’d have conveniently phoned. it’s increasingly the only way to talk to a capable human.
Reposted by Becky
If you want your work to be reproducible, you have to remember that others don't have the insider knowledge you have. You have to be explicit.
This morning I was able to recreate a file made by someone else because they explicitly documented their definitions, calculations, and their assumptions. 🫶
This morning I was able to recreate a file made by someone else because they explicitly documented their definitions, calculations, and their assumptions. 🫶
November 24, 2025 at 2:09 PM
If you want your work to be reproducible, you have to remember that others don't have the insider knowledge you have. You have to be explicit.
This morning I was able to recreate a file made by someone else because they explicitly documented their definitions, calculations, and their assumptions. 🫶
This morning I was able to recreate a file made by someone else because they explicitly documented their definitions, calculations, and their assumptions. 🫶
Reposted by Becky
Yesterday my partner and I counted all the ads along Chicago's Brown Line for "Friend," a company selling an AI chatbot pendant, and tallied how many of those ads were defaced.
Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
November 23, 2025 at 10:46 PM
Yesterday my partner and I counted all the ads along Chicago's Brown Line for "Friend," a company selling an AI chatbot pendant, and tallied how many of those ads were defaced.
Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
Still working on a longer piece on this, but here's the quick and dirty: we counted 104 "Friend" ads total, 42 defaced.
Reposted by Becky
I turned off Gmail’s new default setting that uses your inbox to train AI, which removed all sorts of functionality that never required AI before, including inbox sorting. Went from 5 unread to like 10,000 instantly lol.
I guess I’ll be unsubscribing from literally everything! Enshittification.
I guess I’ll be unsubscribing from literally everything! Enshittification.
November 22, 2025 at 12:59 AM
I turned off Gmail’s new default setting that uses your inbox to train AI, which removed all sorts of functionality that never required AI before, including inbox sorting. Went from 5 unread to like 10,000 instantly lol.
I guess I’ll be unsubscribing from literally everything! Enshittification.
I guess I’ll be unsubscribing from literally everything! Enshittification.
Reposted by Becky
Oh wait this is actually a good idea
November 22, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Oh wait this is actually a good idea
Reposted by Becky
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Relying on ChatGPT to teach you about a topic leaves you with shallower knowledge than Googling and reading about it, according to new research that compared what more than 10,000 people knew after using one method or the other.
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
Shared by @gizmodo.com: buff.ly/yAAHtHq
November 21, 2025 at 12:49 PM
It’s widely known (and, I think, pretty uncontroversial) that learning requires effort — specifically, if you don’t have to work at getting the knowledge, it won’t stick.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Even if an LLM could be trusted to give you correct information 100% of the time, it would be an inferior method of learning it.
Reposted by Becky
15 years ago @jevinwest.bsky.social and I talked about how we needed a data scientists’ code of ethics like the Hippocratic oath.
We still do.
We still do.
November 15, 2025 at 7:41 PM
15 years ago @jevinwest.bsky.social and I talked about how we needed a data scientists’ code of ethics like the Hippocratic oath.
We still do.
We still do.
Reposted by Becky
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”
November 15, 2025 at 6:15 AM
“Don’t let the bastards grind you down. I love you all.”
Reposted by Becky
No no no begs every archivist. You are never going to be able to find anything. Please don’t start using emojis in file names. Who asked for this? What fresh hell is next?
November 12, 2025 at 10:38 AM
No no no begs every archivist. You are never going to be able to find anything. Please don’t start using emojis in file names. Who asked for this? What fresh hell is next?
A minor yet frustrating thing that AI has ruined for me is food recipes on the internet. So many food blogs I would regularly visit several years ago are impossible to find under pages and pages of worthless text or just gone.
November 11, 2025 at 5:34 PM
A minor yet frustrating thing that AI has ruined for me is food recipes on the internet. So many food blogs I would regularly visit several years ago are impossible to find under pages and pages of worthless text or just gone.
Reposted by Becky
your search box should not be so shit that I have to slap together a web scraper
November 10, 2025 at 4:35 AM
your search box should not be so shit that I have to slap together a web scraper
Reposted by Becky
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
AI Surrogates and illusions of generalizability in cognitive science
Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have generated enthusiasm for using AI simulations of human research participants to generate new know…
www.sciencedirect.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Can AI simulations of human research participants advance cognitive science? In @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social, @lmesseri.bsky.social & I analyze this vision. We show how “AI Surrogates” entrench practices that limit the generalizability of cognitive science while aspiring to do the opposite. 1/
Reposted by Becky
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
June 19, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
Reposted by Becky
So many amazing elements from vintage maps, scanned & cleaned up for re-use by @kmalexander.bsky.social
kmalexander.com/free-stuff/f...
via Evan Applegate
kmalexander.com/free-stuff/f...
via Evan Applegate
April 2, 2025 at 5:04 PM
So many amazing elements from vintage maps, scanned & cleaned up for re-use by @kmalexander.bsky.social
kmalexander.com/free-stuff/f...
via Evan Applegate
kmalexander.com/free-stuff/f...
via Evan Applegate
Reposted by Becky
Refresh the page
If you like this cartoon, I can draw one for you. www.worldofmoose.com/products/ref...
If you like this cartoon, I can draw one for you. www.worldofmoose.com/products/ref...
April 7, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Refresh the page
If you like this cartoon, I can draw one for you. www.worldofmoose.com/products/ref...
If you like this cartoon, I can draw one for you. www.worldofmoose.com/products/ref...
Reposted by Becky
Historians are going to have better records from the 19th century than the 21st, is my most medievalist futurist prediction.
We won't just lose the archives they want us to lose but also the ones they couldn't back up properly.
YOU DID WHAT?
April 7, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Historians are going to have better records from the 19th century than the 21st, is my most medievalist futurist prediction.
Reposted by Becky
@yaelrice.bsky.social and I co-authored this piece precisely to combat misguided work like this so people don't have to constantly rehearse the arguments about why it's specious. We laid it all out here for you!
hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...
hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...
April 5, 2025 at 5:54 PM
@yaelrice.bsky.social and I co-authored this piece precisely to combat misguided work like this so people don't have to constantly rehearse the arguments about why it's specious. We laid it all out here for you!
hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...
hyperallergic.com/604897/how-s...
Reposted by Becky
I wanted to quickly explain why, school kids should learn markdown instead of MS Office, and ended up writing another major Epos:
ia.net/topics/markd...
This is, I kid you not, about 1/6th of what I wrote. I'll publish the rest later.
ia.net/topics/markd...
This is, I kid you not, about 1/6th of what I wrote. I'll publish the rest later.
Markdown and the slow fade of the formatting fetish
Notes on a revolution in slow motion.
ia.net
April 1, 2025 at 7:08 PM
I wanted to quickly explain why, school kids should learn markdown instead of MS Office, and ended up writing another major Epos:
ia.net/topics/markd...
This is, I kid you not, about 1/6th of what I wrote. I'll publish the rest later.
ia.net/topics/markd...
This is, I kid you not, about 1/6th of what I wrote. I'll publish the rest later.
Reposted by Becky
Wow! This is LEATHER!
Rob Goodwin responded to me in IG and said that there is a thermoplastic base but it’s mostly tooled leather. Absolutely incredible.
#TheWheelOfTime
Rob Goodwin responded to me in IG and said that there is a thermoplastic base but it’s mostly tooled leather. Absolutely incredible.
#TheWheelOfTime
January 23, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Wow! This is LEATHER!
Rob Goodwin responded to me in IG and said that there is a thermoplastic base but it’s mostly tooled leather. Absolutely incredible.
#TheWheelOfTime
Rob Goodwin responded to me in IG and said that there is a thermoplastic base but it’s mostly tooled leather. Absolutely incredible.
#TheWheelOfTime