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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 1d

Nope

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 3d

You are a sly momma!

Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 3d

kelseyociardha.substack.com/p/telling-my...?

Telling My Kids They Won’t Live Forever

With a little help from picture books

kelseyociardha.substack.com

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Amy Fried @asfried.bsky.social · 14d

Censorship has come to Maine #mepolitics open.substack.com/pub/barharbo...

Signs Referencing Climate Change Along with Web Pages Removed from Acadia National Park

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by The Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund.

open.substack.com

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 19d

I’m not local there but people that I was with are and planned to.

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 20d

It’s really awful. The pollution was so very visible and spread for miles in the still air. Much more obvious than when in port in Portland

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 21d

@portcruisecontrol.bsky.social in Bar Harbor this morning Norwegian Getaway with a plume of smoke that trailed for miles while anchored. Photographed from a distance which made it more stunning. Not always noticeable on breezy days. This boat will be in Portland later this month

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Mark Kastenmeier @markkastenmeier.bsky.social · 22d

blog.nature.org/2019/10/29/f...

Fear the Squirrel: How Wildlife Causes Major Power Outages

Squirrels may pose a bigger threat to the power grid than cyber-attack.

blog.nature.org

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · 26d

This Chesapeake treasure is ours for $450K. The lighthouse at the mouth of the Potomac comes with 4BRs, hurricane-rated windows, and more than a little romance. Crab pots convey! #FridayNightZillow www.zillow.com/homedetails/...?

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 26d

Some baby mussels hanging in a tide pool with periwinkles, barnacles and seaweed #maine

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · 26d

Regarding COVID vaccinations and deaths, there are big regional disparities in both.

(Both as per 2/23/23, when the CDC stopped updating official data.)

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Morgan J Freeman @mjfree.bsky.social · 29d

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 29d

Question 1, on the November ballot, would set up a barrage of new restrictions on absentee ballots. This would considerably negatively affect older voters and people with disabilities.

Bolts @boltsmag.org · 29d

“We’re not even a voting rights advocacy organization, but we’ve had to become one,” says the director of the Maine Council on Aging. She is fighting a ballot measure that would restrict ballot access, greatly affecting older voters, this fall.

A Ballot Measure Targets Mail Voting in Maine

Question 1, on the November ballot, would set up a barrage of new restrictions on absentee ballots. This would considerably affect older voters and people with disabilities.

boltsmag.org

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Your Local Epidemiologist @ylepidemiologist.bsky.social · Sep 8

1/ Fall 2025 #vaccines are here: flu, RSV, and Covid-19. Keeping track of them isn’t always easy—especially with Covid-19 guidance in flux—but clarity is the antidote to confusion. But you know what? Clarity is the antidote to confusion and that’s what I’m providing today. 👇

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 7

wow, I only have heard of 3 of these...

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 7

Great conversation about vaccine misinformation www.statnews.com/2025/09/06/c...

I inserted myself into a conversation at a bar about Covid and vaccines. Here’s what happened

What happened when a public health scientist overheard four men sharing misinformation about Covid — and decided to talk to them about it.

www.statnews.com

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 6

Are you anxious about AI? You should be. An important read.

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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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 5

Having been ED of a large capital campaign in NH that required the purchase and demolition of a school building. We got approval for the demolition prior to obtaining bids and designs architects and contractors. Why wasn’t this the process?

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · Sep 2

WELL NOW, would you look at that? A massive GLOBAL study revealed COVID-19 vaccines utilizing mRNA technology PREVENTED OVER 2.5 MILLION deaths WORLDWIDE between 2020 and 2024.

It reveals that vaccinations didn’t JUST protect against illness.

They PRESERVED nearly 15 MILLION years of human life.

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Leadership Portland @leadportlandme.bsky.social · Sep 2

Interested in applying for the Class of 2026? You have questions? We can help! DM or email carol(at)leadership-portland.org for a link to our virtual info session Thursday Sept 4, 2025 5pm via Zoom - we will walk through the program and we answer all your questions! @leadership_portland

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 2

Missing my dog in these Maine woods. 🌲

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

LumenARRT! @lumenarrt.bsky.social · Aug 29

NO HUMAN IS ILLEGAL

Projection magic on Saturday evening at the Cumberland County Jail in Portland. We were there to stand against ICE brutality along with many, many other Mainers. #abolishice #noiceforme #vigil #mepolitics #mainedsa #presentemaine #idealmainesocialaidandsanctuaryband

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Your Local Epidemiologist @ylepidemiologist.bsky.social · Aug 28

12/ This is a shortened version of my newsletter, which breaks down this whole issue. To read the full breakdown and see the answers to more questions click here 👉 yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-v...

Love,
The YLE Team 💖