Stephanie
@stephaniekirmer.com
Sociology, urbanism, Chicago, machine learning and AI
Pinned
Stephanie
@stephaniekirmer.com
· Aug 1
Driving is dirty, dangerous, selfish, and expensive, and there are myriad better ways for people to move around their lives if we would only give them the chance.
Reposted by Stephanie
These declines are MASSIVE.
And the comparative silence in media coverage is absolutely DAMNING.
“Why are ppl always so afraid of crime?”
THIS is why. When crime goes up, media trips over itself to report it.
Falls to pre-war (!!) levels? Just CRICKETS.
And the comparative silence in media coverage is absolutely DAMNING.
“Why are ppl always so afraid of crime?”
THIS is why. When crime goes up, media trips over itself to report it.
Falls to pre-war (!!) levels? Just CRICKETS.
I count 10 cities in 2025 that are on track to have the fewest murders since at least 1970. Newark is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1956 (though only have data through Oct this year) and San Francisco is on pace to have the fewest murders since 1942.
December 23, 2025 at 10:03 PM
These declines are MASSIVE.
And the comparative silence in media coverage is absolutely DAMNING.
“Why are ppl always so afraid of crime?”
THIS is why. When crime goes up, media trips over itself to report it.
Falls to pre-war (!!) levels? Just CRICKETS.
And the comparative silence in media coverage is absolutely DAMNING.
“Why are ppl always so afraid of crime?”
THIS is why. When crime goes up, media trips over itself to report it.
Falls to pre-war (!!) levels? Just CRICKETS.
Reposted by Stephanie
The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5
December 23, 2025 at 1:28 AM
The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5
If your alderperson voted for this heinous Chicago city budget, give them a call and a piece of your mind. You have influence over your local reps.
December 22, 2025 at 4:39 PM
If your alderperson voted for this heinous Chicago city budget, give them a call and a piece of your mind. You have influence over your local reps.
Reposted by Stephanie
really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense
One explanation for Bari killing the story is that she did so as a public act of fealty to the administration. But another is that, as an inexperienced journalist, she doesn’t understand that a refusal to go on the record is a kind of comment in and of itself
December 22, 2025 at 2:19 PM
really cannot be emphasized enough that bari weiss has literally never done journalism. i don’t mean that in the pejorative sense. i mean that in the “has never performed the job she was hired to do” sense
Reposted by Stephanie
Sometimes the no comment is the entire story!
One explanation for Bari killing the story is that she did so as a public act of fealty to the administration. But another is that, as an inexperienced journalist, she doesn’t understand that a refusal to go on the record is a kind of comment in and of itself
December 22, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Sometimes the no comment is the entire story!
Truly the worst of all possible scenarios- corporations don’t pay their fair share and now our city budget is going to be more than 50% for cops.
Chicago just sold off its unpaid ambulance bills to debt collectors, to pay for an 8% increase in the police budget
December 22, 2025 at 3:35 AM
Truly the worst of all possible scenarios- corporations don’t pay their fair share and now our city budget is going to be more than 50% for cops.
Reposted by Stephanie
Nenko Gantchev should still be alive—home with his family. After 30 years contributing to Chicagoland as a small business owner and taxpayer, ICE detained him, ignored his medical needs, and he died in custody. This system is cruel, reckless, and must be held accountable.
Bulgarian Chicago business owner dies in ICE custody, sparking calls for 'immediate investigation'
https://abc7chicago.com/post/bulgarian-chicago-business-owner-nenko-gantchev-dies-ice-custody-family-congresswoman-call-immediate-investigation/18301520/
https://abc7chicago.com/post/bulgarian-chicago-business-owner-nenko-gantchev-dies-ice-custody-family-congresswoman-call-immediate-investigation/18301520/
Bulgarian Chicago business owner dies in ICE custody, sparking calls for 'immediate investigation'
A Bulgarian man from Chicago arrested during an immigration enforcement 'blitz' has died while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at a Michigan private prison, the ABC7 I-Team has learned.
abc7chicago.com
December 20, 2025 at 2:42 AM
Nenko Gantchev should still be alive—home with his family. After 30 years contributing to Chicagoland as a small business owner and taxpayer, ICE detained him, ignored his medical needs, and he died in custody. This system is cruel, reckless, and must be held accountable.
The fact that CTA does exactly nothing to try and remedy bus bunching is my obsession. How they claim they can achieve 10 minute or less headways without taking real action on this baffles me.
6 buses an hour doesn’t necessarily mean 10-minute service without actual headway management
I'd much rather the CTA just crew the #6 to run every 5-7 minutes than pretend they're running the #26 every 10 when it's only coming a third of the time!
December 19, 2025 at 2:36 AM
The fact that CTA does exactly nothing to try and remedy bus bunching is my obsession. How they claim they can achieve 10 minute or less headways without taking real action on this baffles me.
Reposted by Stephanie
since 311 calls are in the news I think it's worth noting that the city app is **English only**
which says something about who the city believes it is serving
which says something about who the city believes it is serving
December 16, 2025 at 1:37 AM
since 311 calls are in the news I think it's worth noting that the city app is **English only**
which says something about who the city believes it is serving
which says something about who the city believes it is serving
Reposted by Stephanie
Right now, Chicago City Council is weighing drastic cuts to the very safety programs that have driven this unprecedented drop in severe injuries and fatalities on our streets — cuts that would mean more dangerous speeding, more violent crashes, and more families grieving loved ones taken too soon.
Tell Chicago lawmakers: Don't cut funding for safe streets | Active Transportation Alliance
According to the Chicago Department of Transportation, fatal crashes have fallen 30 percent since their peak in 2021 — more […]
activetrans.org
December 11, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Right now, Chicago City Council is weighing drastic cuts to the very safety programs that have driven this unprecedented drop in severe injuries and fatalities on our streets — cuts that would mean more dangerous speeding, more violent crashes, and more families grieving loved ones taken too soon.
Had a pretty good year on @transit.app
December 11, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Had a pretty good year on @transit.app
This whole story was fucked up from the beginning but this is a whole new level…
Lawsuit filed by family of Krystal Rivera, shot to death by her partner Carlos Baker over the summer, alleges Baker was struggling to accept her decision to end their romantic relationship when he fatally shot her during a foot chase. #chicago @schuba.bsky.social @ctoner.bsky.social
Family of Chicago Cop Killed in Botched Chase Sues Chicago Police Department and Partner Who Shot Her
Officer Krystal Rivera's family says in the wrongful death suit that Officer Carlos Baker was struggling to accept her decision to end their romantic relationship when he shot her in the back in Chath...
illinoisanswers.org
December 11, 2025 at 4:45 AM
This whole story was fucked up from the beginning but this is a whole new level…
Reposted by Stephanie
This is the future Mayor Johnson and City Council are keeping from you. #PlowTheSidewalks
I know that many other cities don’t plow their sidewalks, leaving it up to property owners. This is completely crazy to me.
Our sidewalk plows look like this and they do a pretty good job.
Our sidewalk plows look like this and they do a pretty good job.
November 30, 2025 at 1:23 AM
This is the future Mayor Johnson and City Council are keeping from you. #PlowTheSidewalks
Reposted by Stephanie
What if — hear me out — instead of hiring a person to only plow in front of a single business, we hired them to go down the entire block….and the next…and the next…
We could even have a small fleet to cover whole swaths of the city. #PlowTheSidewalks
We could even have a small fleet to cover whole swaths of the city. #PlowTheSidewalks
But *how* will they #PlowTheSidewalks? With what technology?
November 29, 2025 at 9:53 PM
What if — hear me out — instead of hiring a person to only plow in front of a single business, we hired them to go down the entire block….and the next…and the next…
We could even have a small fleet to cover whole swaths of the city. #PlowTheSidewalks
We could even have a small fleet to cover whole swaths of the city. #PlowTheSidewalks
Reposted by Stephanie
It’s blowing my mind that schools, universities, public services would run headlong into this. We spent 15 years documenting black boxes. This is a black box in a black hole!
I don't understand how anyone can watch how blatantly Grok is manipulated to answer the way ownership desires it to and then act like the other LLM chatbots couldn't possibly be similarly but less obviously compromised to produce responses in whatever way corporate interests and priorities dictate.
November 23, 2025 at 11:16 PM
It’s blowing my mind that schools, universities, public services would run headlong into this. We spent 15 years documenting black boxes. This is a black box in a black hole!
This is the kind of art we need in our lives blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/21/c...
Chicago Artist Starts His Own Postal Service — And Will Deliver And Read Mail To Anyone For Free
A whimsical yet very serious public art project by Logan Square artist Charlie Dean is gaining traction as an alternative to a paid postal service, designed to be used for monumental conversations or ...
blockclubchicago.org
November 22, 2025 at 3:41 PM
This is the kind of art we need in our lives blockclubchicago.org/2025/11/21/c...
Reposted by Stephanie
This is fucking brilliant, and you should read it: lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani
It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…
lithub.com
November 8, 2025 at 3:24 PM
This is fucking brilliant, and you should read it: lithub.com/maybe-dont-t...
Reposted by Stephanie
Do I add this to my CV as an invited lecture? 🤔
November 8, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Do I add this to my CV as an invited lecture? 🤔
Reposted by Stephanie
i can’t believe a good thing happened we should do this more often
November 5, 2025 at 2:26 AM
i can’t believe a good thing happened we should do this more often
Reposted by Stephanie
Improve your product from the inside out. Dr. Janna Lipenkova's new article teaches you how to use SLMs to analyze user feedback and support chats in real-time, providing insights before launching user-facing AI features.
It Doesn’t Need to Be a Chatbot | Towards Data Science
A more organic, incremental approach to integrating AI into existing products
towardsdatascience.com
November 5, 2025 at 1:34 AM
Improve your product from the inside out. Dr. Janna Lipenkova's new article teaches you how to use SLMs to analyze user feedback and support chats in real-time, providing insights before launching user-facing AI features.
Reposted by Stephanie
“”AI” is a failed technology. … LLMs haven’t met any markers of success we’d apply to, well, literally any other technology.” Great article by Ethan Marcotte @ethanmarcotte.com
ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/agains...
ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/agains...
Against the protection of stocking frames. — ethanmarcotte.com
“Artificial intelligence” is a failed technology. It’s time we described it that way.
ethanmarcotte.com
November 1, 2025 at 4:59 PM
“”AI” is a failed technology. … LLMs haven’t met any markers of success we’d apply to, well, literally any other technology.” Great article by Ethan Marcotte @ethanmarcotte.com
ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/agains...
ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/agains...
This is awesome news- I loved this experience the past few months
Car-free "Meet Me On Milwaukee" events will return to Wicker Park next year. blockclubchi.co/49yN4LU
November 3, 2025 at 11:55 PM
This is awesome news- I loved this experience the past few months
Reposted by Stephanie
I said there was something up with this operation and they just put it in the deck. The real business model is Ads, Data Mining, and Licensing of the products built on the data.
Ads. Data. Licensing. With a side of courier bot. 9/14
Ads. Data. Licensing. With a side of courier bot. 9/14
November 3, 2025 at 8:00 PM
I said there was something up with this operation and they just put it in the deck. The real business model is Ads, Data Mining, and Licensing of the products built on the data.
Ads. Data. Licensing. With a side of courier bot. 9/14
Ads. Data. Licensing. With a side of courier bot. 9/14
Reposted by Stephanie
Republicans understand that the best way to kill social programs is to paint their beneficiaries as Black, as support for these programs declines — even amongst white people who need them — when they think large numbers of Black people will benefit.
news.stanford.edu/stories/2018...
news.stanford.edu/stories/2018...
November 1, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Republicans understand that the best way to kill social programs is to paint their beneficiaries as Black, as support for these programs declines — even amongst white people who need them — when they think large numbers of Black people will benefit.
news.stanford.edu/stories/2018...
news.stanford.edu/stories/2018...