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Reposted by Tab Combs

👻madeline boOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 13h

the answer to the trolley problem is not to pick who to sacrifice, it’s to dismantle the system that led to an unsafe trolley crossing.

if any part of your morality strategy involves picking a group to let die on a hill, throw the entire strategy out. it’s wrong.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 12h

oh no!!

Reposted by Tab Combs

Costa Samaras @costasamaras.com · 1d

In my remarks at UVA about AI & the environment, I said the next 10 years of AI energy policy, in data centers, power infrastructure, & society, will set the trajectory of costs and emissions, and who bears those costs and emissions, for the next few decades. We don't want to look back with regret.

Scott Doney @scottdoney.bsky.social · 1d

Thanks so much @costasamaras.com for participating in today’s AI & Environment panel hosted by @uvaenvironment.bsky.social it was a great event with other panelists from @uvaenvisci.bsky.social and UVA @weldoncoopercenter.bsky.social

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

Oh heck no, 2025. You do not get to take Dolly, too.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

FWIW. I am "anti" a campus that bans a safe, vital mode of transport, and any person who insists e-bikes are for people who can't pedal

@padremiguel.bksy.social I am on your side.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

100%

I wear a helmet. If and when I get smashed by a driver, odds are the only thing my helmet will do is maybe, just maybe, sway the responding cop into believing the crash wasn't my fault.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

prohibited on campus entirely? or just in dorms?

if the former, that's completely bonkers

if the latter, there's a rationale but I hate it

Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

kind of a personal question, and also irrelevant

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Reposted by Tab Combs

Emily Hunt @emily.space · 1d

Oooh the Nobel Prize is out today, so it's time for my yearly round of ignoring that news and reading about many of the women who were snubbed of the prize in the past and who the Nobel Prize committee refuses to apologise for. 🧪🔭

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

Some more light reading to pull you from the depths of despair:

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Recurrent patterns in the application of traffic impact analyses: Safety first or last?

Conventional traffic impact analysis (TIA) neglects traffic safety in development review procedures, often serving as an afterthought because the traf…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

If you feel yourself being drawn in by a vision of uncongested city streets, please come talk to me. I can help. Traffic Impact Assessment will charm you, exploit your fear of driving slowly, and then will STAB YOU RIGHT IN THE BACK.

It's ok though. You're worth saving.

Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

I got not beef with people getting in touch with their spiritual selves, but please, people, #TIA is snake oil. Do not fall for it! Please read my paper and save yourselves from that false prophet, "congestion mitigation"

#TrafficImpactAssessment

doi.org/10.1177/0739...

Evolution in Local Traffic Impact Assessment Practices - Tabitha S. Combs, Noreen C. McDonald, William Leimenstoll, 2023

This study evaluates the state of traffic impact assessment (TIA) practice at the local level in North Carolina and the Washington D.C. metro area. Using semist...

doi.org

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

Reader, I can assure you there is nothing in my paper that would lead any reasonable (or honestly, any unreasonable) human to draw that citation from it.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

I am increasingly baffled...and alarmed.

What is the value of citations--one of the primary ways academics are judged--if they are generated through #AI #slop?

#AcademicSky #Academia

screenshot of the paragraph in which my research on traffic impact assessment is cited. The text reads: "Adaptation is an effort to modify movement patterns to suit specific requirements, such as adjusting, changing, rearranging, revising, and adding variations. Meanwhile, origination is creating new movement patterns to suit certain situations or problems, such as designing, composing, building, creating, constructing, and creating something new (Combs, McDonald, and Leimenstoll 2023)."

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

I got not beef with people getting in touch with their spiritual selves, but please, people, #TIA is snake oil. Do not fall for it! Please read my paper and save yourselves from that false prophet, "congestion mitigation"

#TrafficImpactAssessment

doi.org/10.1177/0739...

Evolution in Local Traffic Impact Assessment Practices - Tabitha S. Combs, Noreen C. McDonald, William Leimenstoll, 2023

This study evaluates the state of traffic impact assessment (TIA) practice at the local level in North Carolina and the Washington D.C. metro area. Using semist...

doi.org

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 1d

My paper on traffic impact assessment being cited in a literature review on using #AI to build a case for spiritual and religious awakening (I think?) was not the citation alert I was expecting this morning.

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Reposted by Tab Combs

Geoff Green @geoffgreen.org · 2d

My youngest has been e-biking to school since freshman year in 2022, and just broke 5,000 miles of riding—most of them on the way to and from school and midday college classes. Read what we've learned @triangleblogblog.bsky.social.

5,000 miles - Triangle Blog Blog

A group civics blog covering town council, education, transportation, and recreation in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC.

triangleblogblog.com

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

I am not necessarily anti all possible uses of #AI. But I am deeply concerned about how the notion of being wary of its consequences while advocating for guardrails and opt-in policies is seen as [insert your favorite derogation] by those who have the least to lose.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

These are, of course, the same observers who implore us to stay in our lanes when we share an opinion that is deeply informed by our expertise but is counter to whatever armchair opinion they got from their golf buddies.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

does "it's like ripping off one of our legs and then beating us with it for not running faster" work?

#AI

Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

I have a lot of analogies for knowledge consumers telling knowledge producers to "embrace AI" and all of them are NSFW

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

When you finish your rant at me with "Embrace it!" you're really saying you have no clue that #genAI is actively stealing our work, bastardizing it, regressing it to the mean, and then shoving it back at us.

And then you chastise us for pushing back.

Take your seat, sir.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

When you say "good instructors will figure out how to engage students anyway," you're really saying you have no idea what life in a modern day classroom looks like, or the expectations on any modern day instructor.

So again, take a seat please.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

When you say "honest students will use AI to gain a deeper understanding of the topic," you're really saying you have no idea what AI is, nor of what we are trying to achieve in higher education.

So take a seat please.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

Funny how so many people who've never taught think the only thing to worry about with #AI in #education is students using it to cheat.

I'm not worried about student using AI to cheat. I'm worried about how AI is cheating students.

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Tab Combs @drtcombs.bsky.social · 2d

I have a lot of analogies for knowledge consumers telling knowledge producers to "embrace AI" and all of them are NSFW

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Reposted by Tab Combs

JB_AU @jbau.bsky.social · 10d

AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations”

Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · 10d

Doctorow on the impending economic collapse when the AI bubble bursts. pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

Pluralistic: The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh (27 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

pluralistic.net

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