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Nathan Holbert

@snowdaylearninglab.org

1.3K followers 590 following 2.1K posts

Learning Scientist. Maker and designer. Player of games and toys. Dad. Associate Professor @ Teachers College, Columbia University. Pop & Play host http://tc.edu/popandplay

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Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · Jun 13

The GOP’s destruction of granting agencies like NSF and NIH is decimating the scientific community. On this episode we tried to provide a clear and brief explanation of what has happened and why it matters for those that may not be familiar. Listen and share! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/p...

The Impacts of Cutting Federal Funding For Research (Pop Off)

Podcast Episode · Pop and Play · S5 Bonus · 22m

podcasts.apple.com

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Reposted by Nathan Holbert

Sexy Vampire President Warren G. Harding @popeawesomexiii.bsky.social · 9d

Killer: Drink this cyanide.

Me: But Halloween is just a few weeks away!

Killer: *sigh* Drink this pumpkin spice cyanide

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Reposted by Nathan Holbert

Sonali Rajan @sonalirajan.bsky.social · 3h

So proud of our latest piece, now out in AJPH and co-authored with some of my favorite people:

ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/...

Firearm Violence Prevention in Peril: A Call to Defend Our Public Safety Infrastructure | AJPH | Vol. 115 Issue 11

American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) from the American Public Health Association (APHA)

ajph.aphapublications.org

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Reposted by Nathan Holbert

Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 4h

he's going to come after you either way, so you might as well act with integrity

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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 16h

#WarRavagedPortland

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Reposted by Nathan Holbert

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 15h

"Why would OpenAI and Microsoft spend $23 million to give 'free training' on how to use AI to teachers? Because they love teachers? No. Because they want to get their products into public schools in an attempt to cultivate the education market. ... To automate teachers, in other words."

Hamilton Nolan @hamiltonnolan.bsky.social · 1d

It takes no special technical expertise to know that
1) AI's main value proposition today is automating labor,
2) AI is going to supercharge economic inequality, and
3) If we do not get out in front of that policy-wise, we are fools.

www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/thinking-o...

Thinking of AI as a Social Problem

No need to know the unknowable. The knowable is bad enough.

www.hamiltonnolan.com

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Reposted by Nathan Holbert

GHOULLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 1d

this is such a fucking idiotic farce

Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 1d

Kristi Noem confronts enemy combatants in the Portland war zone today.

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Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 1d

(Interestingly he does NOT look like Ox from Stripes. RIP to a legend)

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 1d

John Candy doesn’t deserve this, but the guy in the middle looks like Dale from Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

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Reposted by Nathan Holbert

danielle weisberg @danielleweisberg.bsky.social · 1d

it’s my constitutional right to not love this country actually

Alissa Walker @awalkerinla.bsky.social · 3d

“There will be,” adding that federal immigration officers would be “all over” the event.

People should not attend the event, she went on, unless they are “law-abiding Americans who love this country”

Kristi Noem Says ICE Will Be ‘All Over’ the Super Bowl

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Nathan Holbert

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 1d

Was at an ed tech event yesterday with two panels: big tech, and startups. Big ed tech talked entirely about profit, scale, evaluation, and adopting AI because it’s inevitable. Startup talked about learning, focusing locally, supporting community, and taking with AI. Incredible contrast

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Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 1d

a woman in a pink jacket says i 'm not like a regular mom

Alt: Amy Poehler in a pink jacket winking while she says "I'm not like a regular mom, I'm a cool mom"

media.tenor.com

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 1d

At one point on big tech, a Google rep assured the audience everyone on the panel is thoughtful about how their tech, and AI specifically, might negatively impact children before adopting, except the meta rep. That got a laugh. The whole thing was gross.

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 1d

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Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 1d

I know he has no issue lying, but I do wonder if the reason he thinks Portland, Chicago, etc. are “war zones” is that his inner circle is just constantly showing him footage like this or AI slop.

Michael Leo Owens @milophd.bsky.social · 1d

“A clear visual clue that the photograph was not taken in Portland was that the first officer’s shield is marked “Policia”, the Spanish or Portuguese word for police.”

🧘🏾‍♂️🧘🏾‍♂️🧘🏾‍♂️

Robert Mackey @robertmackey.bsky.social · 2d

The Oregon Republican Party tried to help Donald Trump make the case for military intervention in Portland with an image of a fiery protest — but since Portland is calm, they had to fabricate one by merging old photos of police in Ecuador and protesters in Brazil www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 2d

Sadly evergreen

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 2d

10 new video game projects just launched from this awesome skeet.

Rakesh Khanna @blaftrakesh.bsky.social · 3d

When I was researching my book Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India, I learned of a 1000-year-old myth about Roman tech being used to build killer robots to guard the Buddha's remains in Pataliputra, and a Hungarian folklorist read my book & got excited about it, & she managed to dig up a🧵(1/3)

Romanised Pali manuscript of the Lokapannati

Ghosts, Monsters, and Demons of India
p. 60
Bhoota Vahana Yanta
Bhoota Vahana Yanta means “spirit movement machine.” The term is used
for several varieties of robot drone assassins and sword-wielding machine-
men mentioned in the Lokapannati, a Pali-language text written between
1000 and 1200 CE by Saddhammaghosa of Thaton, but concerning
events that took place much earlier, around 500 to 200 BCE.
According to the story, robots were first invented by engineers of the
early Roman Republic. These robots were used for commerce, in agriculture,
as a police force, and as executioners. The secret of how to build these
spirit-engines was fiercely protected. If any engineer dared to take the designs
out of the city, one of his own executioner robots would come after
him and kill him.
At that time, in Pataliputra (then in the kingdom of Magadha, now
Patna in the state of Bihar), there lived a young man who had heard of the
Romans’ magical androids. He became so determined to learn the secrets
of their manufacture and share them with the people of Magadha that he
arranged his own death. Then, on his deathbed, he vowed to be reincarnated
as a Roman.
This indeed took place. In his new life, the man grew up to join the
Roman guild of engineers. He even married the daughter of the Master
Robot-Maker, and had a son by her.
Once he learned the secrets of the Bhoota Vahana Yanta, the man resolved
to transfer the information back to Pataliputra. But he was well
aware that now, since he was a member of the guild, he would be killed as
soon as he left. So he cut a gash in his thigh, inserted the plans in his flesh,
and sewed the wound back up.

Reposted by Nathan Holbert

Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 2d

John Roberts’ Constitution: The federal government protecting people’s right to vote or giving them health care violates the sacred principle of state sovereignty but if the deranged POTUS and his bloodthirsty advisers want to use the military to invade other states for being too liberal that’s fine

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Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 2d

In the midst of an ever evolving constitutional crisis and a closed government, we’re still trying to also be human. Touch grass, commune with others, play! Our pod is a small effort to help with that. New episodes every two weeks.

What's Poppin': Summer Edition

Podcast Episode · Pop and Play · 10/02/2025 · 18m

podcasts.apple.com

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 3d

God bless Portland

competentposter @competentposter.bsky.social · 4d

wizard frog is insane

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 3d

Act 3 complete. What a game.

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 3d

What is even the point of constantly arguing this point? As a scientist I understand that the meaning of words matters. But so many seem eager to litigate the meaning of fascism until we discover the exact right number of people, of the wrong color, in a camp.

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 4d

Still funny, much more frustrating the second time around. Depression is a helluva thing Trobbio.

Nathan Holbert @snowdaylearninglab.org · 5d

The long game wins again

Reposted by Nathan Holbert

Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 5d

like, i don't really know how to adequately express the anger that i feel watching this video. not showing your face, lazily teargassing random people on a neighborhood street without getting out of your car - the image says more about these goons than i could articulate bsky.app/profile/clan...

Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 5d

Logan Square neighborhood, Chicago. Man wearing a balaclava in a white, unmarked vehicle, pulls the pin on a tear gas canister and tosses it in the road.

"Just trying to grab some lunch and these fucking losers showed up. FUCK ICE!"
source: www.reddit.com/r/LoganSquar...

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 5d

Hadn't seen this "Cartography of Generative AI" before. From Estampa, a collective of programmers, filmmakers and researchers working in the fields of audiovisual media and digital environments: cartography-of-generative-ai.net

“Cartography of Generative AI (2024)” shows a sprawling, diagrammatic ecosystem of how generative AI is produced and maintained. The background is light pink with turquoise and yellow highlights. The left side has a turquoise vertical sidebar with labeled sections such as AI imaginaries, Critical expertise, Data sciences, Silicon Valley, and AI harms.

The main diagram maps the flow of generative AI development from top to bottom:

Top left: A globe icon with arrows represents global energy consumption, linked to servers and calculation power (chips, GPUs, and companies like TSMC).

Top center: Rows of red server racks show data centers, connected to big data platforms and pipelines of training data (shown as orange blocks).

Top right: Yellow stacks and schematic diagrams depict the supply chain of raw materials (e.g., cobalt, lithium) and scenes of mining.

Upper right corner: A vignette labeled digital colonialism shows resource extraction sites and cables crossing oceans.

Middle section:

Blue isometric office-like spaces labeled AI start-ups and Silicon Valley venture capital, with tiny illustrated workers at desks, computers, and whiteboards.

Orange and yellow arrows and blocks represent the movement of datasets, training, and alignment processes.

A section labeled human labour shows rows of workers annotating data.

Lower section:

Gridded platforms in orange and yellow depict data extraction from the internet—social media, images, sound, text—and web scraping from sources like Wikipedia, Reddit, Flickr, YouTube.

Groups of small figures interact with large wireframe cube models labeled generative AI engines.

Other vignettes show AI products (like chatbots), digital gig work, and consumer use.

Far right:

Layers of stacked chips show advanced chip production and global supply chains.

A blue network node diagram illustrates the infrastructure economy behind AI technologies.

Boxes at the bottom describe research and governance structures.

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