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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Ryan J. Gallagher @ryanjgallag.com · 1d

Of course, people don't agree on what is "safe" and "fair" and that's why moderation is hard. But you can't solve a network-level problem with individual-level tools

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Ryan J. Gallagher @ryanjgallag.com · 1d

Moderation isn't simply about taking things down, it's also about building a collectively safe space. Telling someone they can just "label" (or hide/block) something they don't like won't address their concern that their community isn't safe

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Jeff Lockhart @jwlockhart.bsky.social · 5d

I'm excited to share my new paper with a former student, Tommy Smith. "'This Work Would Not Have Been Possible without...': The Length of Acknowledgments in Sociology Books"

Open Access in @sociusjournal.bsky.social : doi.org/10.1177/2378...

Main figure from the paper. Violin plots showing the length of acknowledgments sections in books by sociologists, broken out by gender, race, sexuality, parents’ education, millennium of author’s PhD, and publisher type.

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · 8d

come network about networks with your network???

NetSci 2026 @netsciconf.bsky.social · 8d

📌 Save the Date!

The flagship conference of the Network Science Society - 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝗦𝗰𝗶 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲 - is coming to Northeastern University’s Network Science Institute, 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝟭-𝟱, 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟲.
Prepare to share ideas, discoveries & challenges in network science.

Registration opens soon! 🔗 www.netsci2026.com

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

JT Scott @jtforward2.bsky.social · 18d

This morning at 11am, corner of Hathorn and Broadway in Somerville MA. 3 ICE vehicles idling on nearby corners. I was following two ICE cars that were cruising around the neighborhood.

This person was just walking down the sidewalk when two ICE vehicles stopped and officers jumped out to stop him.

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Nicholas Weaver @ncweaver.skerry-tech.com · 18d

Why is this horrible for Universities?

Just about everyone who isn't a citizen or green card holder already who's hired for a tenure track faculty position is hired through an H1B and then, after 3-5 years, applies for a green card.

This is literally "No more foreign professors can be hired"

Gergely Orosz @gergely.pragmaticengineer.com · 18d

Those on an H1B cannot return to the US from tomorrow (Sunday) unless paying $100K. This is an out-of-the blue presidential action. We’ll see software engineers stranded abroad.

One easy to predict outcome: those on US visas will travel less… for work, for conferences etc.

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 26d

Must read

www.bostonreview.net/articles/a-g...

A General Air of Anxiety - Boston Review

The Red Scare targeted my father. He taught me the meaning of resistance.

www.bostonreview.net

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · 25d

there are a lot of examples, even in canonical-ish works of network science or computational social science, where the stated downstream implications of data-driven analyses have so much potential for harm if taken seriously and/or circulated widely! and they often are!!

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · 25d

currently reading this and stopping every few pages to go Oh No

but i just wanted to emphasize the extent to which data, especially ill-gotten data or really dubious acts of quantification, get used to build up & justify dangerous rhetoric.

Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 26d

Words can damage people and nations. Words can be DELIBERATELY CRAFTED to undermine and hurt an adversary in wars that run hot or cold. Militaries know that. Propagandists know it. Can we please not pretend that all rhetoric is the same? Some words are not harmless. wwnorton.com/books/978039...

Stories Are Weapons

A Book Riot Best Book of 2024 One of Publishers Weekly's Top 10 Politics/Current Events books of Spring 2024 A sharp and timely exploration of the dark art o...

wwnorton.com

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · Sep 8

yes, that one! alas 💀

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · Sep 8

there’s a bluesky api users discord that might be a good place to lurk & learn more if you’re really invested

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · Sep 8

going profile by profile was doable for starter packs and the follower network but idk if that would work at scale for posts

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Sabrina Imbler @sabs.bsky.social · Sep 3

I wrote about the intentionally byzantine process of getting a COVID vaccine this fall
defector.com/how-the-fuck...

How Are You Supposed To Get The COVID Vaccine Now? An Explainer | Defector

As the muggy malaise of summer winds down, you might find yourself interested in taking advantage of one of several safe and proven vaccines to help protect you from the inevitable brumal surge of res...

defector.com

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · Aug 27

it is amazing! i’m lucky enough to live nearby and go browse in person like a feral goblin!!

Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · Aug 27

i love the formosa oolong and earl grey de la creme from mem tea! memteaimports.com

MEM Tea Imports & Shop | Carefully sourced, simply enjoyed

We cup tea from over two thousand lots each year to bring customers the select few that meet our highest-quality standards. We hope the great care and pride we take in sourcing our products is evident...

memteaimports.com

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Brooke Fitzwater, PhD (she/her) 🐟🪱🏳️‍🌈♾️ @oceanfilly.bsky.social · Aug 27

With fall fast approaching, many students will start applying for graduate school. If you need tips and tricks when interviewing with the PI and deciding where to apply/accept - A thread 🧵

Feel free to add to this!

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Katie Collins @spissatella.bsky.social · Aug 23

Learning how to linocut simply to illustrate my most banger bsky posts 😂

A hand holding up a piece of white paper on which is printed in blue a picture of a clam and the words NO HEADS NO LEGS NO GODS NO MASTERS NO GENDERS. Behind this is the inked lino block

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · Aug 15

Okay, an ill-advised story time. I do not talk about my body unless it is entirely on my terms and it is unidirectional. BUT, this is so familiar to me. I am not athletic. (I’ve written about that.) But I also don’t have much somatic sense — don’t know where my body is in space.

Jessica Price @delafina777.bsky.social · Aug 14

like, no matter how hard I work out, I am never going to be athletic

I know because I tried for two years—gym 6x a week, trainer 3x/week, 3-4 hours of exercise a day

I was still clumsy, tired all the time, and not particularly strong or competent at physical activities

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · Aug 13

The First Lego League is a competition that schools from all over the place compete in. As part of the competition they need to consult with an expert. A lot of clubs use our program to make that connection.

This year's theme is archaeology. It's all-hands-on-deck for archaeologists.

Skype a Scientist @skypeascientist.bsky.social · Aug 13

This is an official Skype a Scientist HQ Mayday Alert to all Archaeologists.

We've already gotten more requests for archaeologists than we have archaeologists. We have 38. We need a lot more than 38!

Dig yourself into this database, we NEED ya
www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html

Sign Up

Skype a Scientist gives you the opportunity to connect with students and the public around the world.

www.skypeascientist.com

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Sarah Tuttle @niais.bsky.social · Aug 13

I keep seeing this circulating, and I'm disappointed in my colleagues in the natural sciences who think if they can "shed" enough of their humanity they will some how be protected from fascism.

Scientists who are bending to jingoism to try and protect funding aren't asking the right questions.

Matthew J Kuiper @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · Aug 13

In which a Yale prof calls for jettisoning humanities to make way for science-only universities.

“scientists… are being punished for the sins of [humanities scholars] because we all live under one roof. I cannot see a compelling reason for our continued cohabitation.”

Unyoke the Sciences From the Humanities

Arts and sciences typically cohabitate. Should they?

thedispatch.com

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · Jul 6

i’m curious whether you’re using a deterministic node ordering (such that cluster merging happens the same way each run) or, if not, how much variation you see between early iterations. i think different implementations make different choices wrt randomness and i’m not as familiar with neo4j 👀

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · Jul 6

mood?

A road with cones demarcating new lanes (because there's construction ahead). There's a bright orange sign that says "Utility Work Ahead" but someone has added an F to the beginning so it says "Futility Work Ahead".

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Alyssa Smith (job market era) @cetaceanneeded.bsky.social · Jul 3

Have you considered looking at any more matrix-y approaches, like PCA variants? We used this (arxiv.org/pdf/2004.05387) pretty successfully on a Twitter sub-network & found clusters like Magic the Gathering enthusiasts & Home Depot managers. also +1 to the rec from @ryanjgallag.com for graph-tool!

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Alyssa Smith (job market era)

Japanese American National Museum @jamuseum.bsky.social · Jul 2

The use of national security rhetoric to justify mass incarceration echoes the same logic that led to the forced removal and incarceration of over 125,000 Japanese Americans—our parents, grandparents and extended families—under Executive Order 9066.

#AlligatorAlcatraz #NeverAgainIsNow

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