Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 17h

Yes, this, exactly! Everyone is out here claiming their legs fall off for 25% of their lives, when the data is like “eh, you might be slightly more tired but the impact is likely smaller than a 2 degree temperature difference”.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 18h

I follow some running subReddits & I’m exhausted by the recent constant drumbeat of women falling into pseudoscience about menstrual cycle & athletic performance. I really think it’s due to MAHA influencers telling women they’re delicate flowers who shouldn’t run marathons in their frail state 🙄

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 19h

On top of the inhumanity, the corruption is also exhausting.

flipinidaho @flipinidaho.bsky.social · 22h

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

The building is in a 27 million dollar foreclosure filed by Wells Fargo. The next day, Wells Fargo filed an emergency motion for receivership. The fascist regime kindly emptied the building for donor Wells Fargo.

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 4d

I think this album is her weakest and I’ll never forgive her for making me listen to Wood. Also, I want some justice for Charli…at 35, punching down on someone less famous is a bad look.

This may be the boldest opinion I’ve ever posted on the internet, please don’t cancel me.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 4d

Exhorting children and then threatening their parents with violence is surely pro-family policy, right? 😡

Aura Bogado @aurabogado.bsky.social · 5d

Shelters that house unaccompanied minors are bracing for "Freaky Friday," the start of an ICE operation that will first issue letters to children, seeking to pressure them to return to the countries they've fled in exchange for a cash payment. If they decline, their parents will be targeted by ICE.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 4d

During my 10-mile run today in DC, I counted over 30 National Guard members. Not one of them seemed to be doing anything other than standing around and making the citizens feel like we live in occupied territory. Just a reminder that this is not, and should never be normal.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 5d

Awesome, so if universities “proactively” agree to sell out their students, staff, faculty, and academic freedom, the administration will let them keep money that has already been appropriated. And shame specifically on UT for the proactive boot-licking.

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

Trump Administration Asks Colleges to Sign ‘Compact’ to Get Funding Preference

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Nicole Holliday

The Conversation U.S. @us.theconversation.com · 6d

RIP Jane Goodall, who has died at 91.

She was a gentle disrupter who reshaped how we understand our place in nature. Her research with chimpanzees revolutionized science, and her boundless optimism touched the world.

buff.ly/5Hwx3Z7 🌎🩺

A photo of Jane Goodall, in her later days with a quote from her: "The greatest danger to our future is our apathy.

Each one of us must take responsibility for our own lives, and above all, show respect and love for living things around us, especially each other."

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 6d

A colleague shared that a recent poll of UC students in DC showed 23% of them saying they'd be excited to vote for AOC as president in 2028. This is exactly why, and it's the type of compassionate leadership that I hope people demand in the future.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · 6d

A bus of Bronx middle schoolers pulled up to the Capitol this morning for a long-planned field trip just a few hours after the government shut down.

All Capitol tours were cancelled as the guides can’t work in shutdown.

So I escorted them in myself and gave them a personal tour. They were great!

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 6d

So excited to see this research! My students just learned the word “sycophantic” today, for exactly this reason! We talked about the types and qualities of conversations you can have with a sycophant, and why this matters for how we process the output of LLMs.

Steve Rathje @steverathje.bsky.social · 6d

🚨 New preprint 🚨

Across 3 experiments (n = 3,285), we found that interacting with sycophantic (or overly agreeable) AI chatbots entrenched attitudes and led to inflated self-perceptions.

Yet, people preferred sycophantic chatbots and viewed them as unbiased!

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Thread 🧵

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 6d

Imagine telling a black, female professor who lives in Los Angeles that the government isn’t out to get them when it has explicitly promised to do so. Bye, troll.

Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

I live in Pasadena, where ICE has certainly terrorized people. But it pails in comparison to DTLA, where they’ve been tear gassing journalists.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

This is only compounded by the fact that pretty much all speech and visual “AI” systems dramatically underperform for minoritized populations due to smaller training data, poor model assumptions, and the fact that tech companies DGAF about black people.

ali alkhatib @ali-alkhatib.com · 7d

cops are 1,000,000% going to use AI-generated "security footage" to coerce Black kids into confessing to things they didn't do because fighting it will seem absolutely hopeless.

SKEETER Without A Pause @iamgregordeee.blacksky.app · 7d

Shoutout to every stupid MFer embracing & glazing AI but specifically Black people because this kind of technology is absolutely horrifying for us

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

Also, I’m a former census bureau employee and I have a Ph.D. in a field where I both do and teach quantitative research. But no amount of qualifications will ever be enough for these folks, especially not when I look like this.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

Love to be treated this way online on a post whose point was that the president has threatened war on millions of Americans (including me). And what was his issue? I used city populations instead of MSA numbers when talking about how many people Trump declared war on. Some of y’all are exhausting.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

Literally, I told you that I used city populations from the U.S. Census bureau. You used MSA numbers. My stats aren’t sloppy, you’re just being mean, and totally missing the point at the same time.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

Podcasts! I like Atlas Obscura and 99% Invisible for late evening!

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

Yes the MSAs are obviously much bigger, I should’ve specified city pop but I forgot that Bluesky is pedantic.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

I went by city limits, not MSA, but you’re correct that many, many more people would be impacted. I live in the LA metro, I’m very aware.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

If the Dems concede, lots of people lose their healthcare. If they don't, lots of people lose their healthcare. So why in the world would they not at least try to fight at this point?

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

Unbelievably racist video, but of the 30 seconds, about half of it is claiming that Latinos (not specifically immigrants, even) are "too stupid" to speak English. English-only and English-superiority narratives are a bedrock of this regime's racism. They know nothing about how language works.

The Daily Beast @thedailybeast.bsky.social · 8d

Donald Trump’s AI posting habit reared its ugly head again Monday amid a looming government shutdown in the form of a racist video featuring top Democratic leaders.

Trump Posts Jaw-Dropping AI-Generated Clip as Shutdown Looms

The post was criticized soon after.

trib.al

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

Of course the 100% tariff on pharmaceuticals was a grift. It's always a grift to put more money in his pockets.

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

He lied to Congress when he said he didn't oppose women in the military. Indict him.
"The new rules will put in place the “highest male standard” for fitness in combat roles, he said, which are “gender neutral.”But he acknowledged women may not be able to meet them" www.politico.com/news/2025/09...

Hegseth uses rare meeting of generals to announce new military standards

He warned commanders who don’t support the changes could leave the service.

www.politico.com

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 7d

The president has *literally* declared war on over 16 million people, including everyone in our 3 largest cities/commercial centers. That's it, that's the post.

Acyn @acyn.bsky.social · 7d

Trump: San Francisco and Chicago, New York, Los Angeles… We'll straighten them out one-by-one. It will be a major part for some of the people in this room. It’s a war too. It’s a war from within

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Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 8d

Mr. Wendel by Arrested Development is what radicalized me about housing policy as a child :)

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