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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 4d

for many posts from this account, it's a pity that we only get to see the postcard

Postcard From The Past @pastpostcard.bsky.social · 4d

Tonight I am going in for a Fancy Dress and I am going as a squid.

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Richard D. Morey @richarddmorey.bsky.social · 4d

Also - contrast b/w the response when I advocate teaching R instead of SPSS -- "No hurry, let's not rush into it" (still waiting) -- & others re: use of LLMs -- "It's inevitable, we're behind; need it implement it ASAP!" -- is telling. Learning to code is freeing. Overhyped LLMs create dependency.

Excerpt from Guest & van Rooij, 2025:

As Danielle Navarro (2015) says about shortcuts through us-
ing inappropriate technology, which chatbots are, we end up dig-
ging ourselves into “a very deep hole.” She goes on to explain:

"The business model here is to suck you in during
your student days, and then leave you dependent on
their tools when you go out into the real world. [...]
And you can avoid it: if you make use of packages
like R that are open source and free, you never get
trapped having to pay exorbitant licensing fees." (pp.
37–38)

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Jenneke van der Wal @jennekevanderwal.bsky.social · 5d

CALL FOR COLLABORATORS
The MapLE project is looking for 5 collaborators working on African languages, to collect and analyse data on the speaker’s and addressee’s knowledge in grammar. Will you join our project?
See the website for details:
epistemicity.net/call-collabo...

Call collaborators

Call for collaborators MapLE project The NWO Vici project ‘Mapping Linguistic Epistemicity’ (MapLE) invites 5 collaborators to help with data collection and analysis. Come join the MapLE team! Desc…

epistemicity.net

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 7d

I think we're in WOTY territory here, ling types

Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 7d

An arrest of a person due entirely to the person having dark skin color is now known across the country as a "Kavanaugh stop," based on Justice Kavanaugh's justification of the practice. slate.com/news-and-pol...

There’s a New Lawsuit Against “Kavanaugh Stops.” It’s Absolutely Devastating.

These detentions, far from the “brief” inconvenience the justice described, are often lengthy, violent, and dangerous.

slate.com

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Burrito Justice @burritojustice.bsky.social · 8d

quick while the government is shut down let’s all switch to metric

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 8d

ah, a government shutdown! now I can finally do some real work.

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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 8d

Similar/identical language for NSF. Here's my transcription of an email shared with me by staff.

President Trump opposes a government shutdown and strongly supports the enactment of H.R. 5371, which is a clean Continuing Resolution to fund the government through November 21, and already passed the U.S. House of Representatives. Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking the Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands. If Congressional Democrats maintain their current posture and refuse to pass a clean Continuing Resolution to keep the government funded before midnight on September 30, 2025, federally appropriated funding will lapse.

A funding lapse will result in certain government activities ceasing due to a lack of appropriated funding. In addition, designated pre-notified employees of this agency would be temporarily furloughed. P.L. 116-1 would apply.

The agency has contingency plans in place for executing an orderly shutdown of activities that would be affected by any lapse in appropriations forced by Congressional Democrats.

Brian Stone
Performing the Duties of the Director

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Chinese Open Science Network (COSN) @chineseopensci.bsky.social · 8d

@btscon.bsky.social BTS2025 is approaching, please check the program for the exciting talks/hackathon: bigteamscienceconference.github.io/program/

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katherine morayati @morayati.bsky.social · 8d

a lot of tech-press AI coverage, from both boosters and skeptics, is extremely US-centric compared to the adoption of AI elsewhere in the world - which by most measures outpaces the US, by some measures wildly. good to see some reporting that isn't www.technologyreview.com/2025/09/25/1...

Excerpt from Technology Review article on how AI and machine translation are affecting endangered languages: Abdulkadir Abdulkadir, a 26-year-old agricultural planner who spoke with me over a crackling phone call from a busy roadside in northern Nigeria, said that he spends three hours every day fiddling with entries in his native Fulfulde, a language used mainly by pastoralists and farmers across the Sahel. “But the work is too much,” he said.

Abdulkadir sees an urgent need for the Fulfulde Wikipedia to work properly. He has been suggesting it as one of the few online resources for farmers in remote villages, potentially offering information on which seeds or crops might work best for their fields in a language they can understand. If you give them a machine-translated article, Abdulkadir told me, then it could “easily harm them,” as the information will probably not be translated correctly into Fulfulde.

Google Translate, for instance, says the Fulfulde word for January means June, while ChatGPT says it’s August or September. The programs also suggest the Fulfulde word for “harvest” means “fever” or “well-being,” among other possibilities.

Abdulkadir said he had recently been forced to correct an article about cowpeas, a foundational cash crop across much of Africa, after discovering that it was largely illegible.

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 10d

we have talked about this! if you have suggestions they are welcome!

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 12d

some day I will get around to publishing my magnum opus, "syntax is phonetics (because phonology is phonetics)", then we'll see who's laughing

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 12d

This is indeed awful and senseless. Context for those not familiar with the GRFP - second-year students are normally also allowed to apply, and there was no warning about this change, which came later in the cycle than allowed by NSF's own policy

Erica D. Pratt @pratted.bsky.social · 12d

Announcing such a major change to NSF GRFP this late in the cycle is incredibly cruel. 2nd yr students (mine included) have been working so hard on their proposals despite ongoing uncertainty. They are driven and passionate about being outstanding scientists and helping those coming up behind them.

This means individuals in the following statuses at the time of application are eligible:

Undergraduate in the final (senior) year of a bachelor’s degree program
Bachelor’s degree-holder with NO enrollment in a graduate degree program (non-degree graduate coursework allowed)
Individual enrolled in a joint bachelor’s-master’s degree program with at least three undergraduate years completed
First-year graduate student in their first graduate degree program with less than one academic year completed in the degree program (according to institution’s academic calendar)
Individuals enrolled in joint bachelor’s-master’s degree programs are considered graduate students. For GRFP, joint bachelor’s-master’s degrees are defined as degrees concurrently pursued and awarded.
Not be a current NSF employee.

Applications that do not meet eligibility requirements will be returned without review as being ineligible for a fellowship.

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 13d

"The problem with 🇺🇸 higher ed is that it is brainwashing students into a culture of victimhood & that federal research grants are an unchecked situation" is the sort of thing you can only write, in 2025, if you are a lying charlatan or you've never stepped foot on an actual college campus in years.

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Elisabeth J. Kerr @elisabethjkerr.bsky.social · 15d

Come join us in Ghent next year for #Bantu11! The first cfp is out, with workshop proposals due October 15th (the next deadline will be December 1st for abstract submissions, which can be to a workshop or the general session)

www.bantugent.ugent.be/bantu11/

Bantu 11 Conference – BantUGent – UGent Centre for Bantu Studies

www.bantugent.ugent.be

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Zoe Drayson @zoedrayson.bsky.social · 16d

When a typo in your Google search leads to new and exciting philosophical positions

AI Overview: "Dental realism"refers to the philosophical debate about whether teeth exist independently of human perception, a concept rooted in metaphysical realism. While realism asserts an objective reality for teeth, idealist philosophies contend that teeth's existence is tied to our consciousness and perception. Philosophers use this idea, for example, to discuss the ethics of tooth extraction, examining whether a procedure impacts a real entity or merely a subjective experience.

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 19d

hashtag #linguistics

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 19d

obviously the internet has become awful etc etc but I've just really enjoyed this gaming streamer I watch excusing himself briefly so he could stretch and walk for a bit, explaining that he needed to "unshrimp", something I'd never heard before but got immediately, isn't language great

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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.bsky.social · 21d

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose???

This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent for Academia.edu to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness, city, institutional affiliations, citations, mentions, publications, and areas of interest) in any manner, including for the purpose of advertising, selling, or soliciting the use or purchase of Academia.edu's Services.

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Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 22d

I'd like to commend the lawyers who wrote this complaint on behalf of the professors and employees of the University of California against the Trump administration.

It's a sober legal document with strong claims, but also, this is a fight for public opinion, and this reads like the writers know it.

AAUP-UC-Trump Lawsuit -- Uploaded by Jaweed Kaleem of the Los Angeles Times

www.documentcloud.org

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 23d

it is completely bizarre that no one has trained an OCR model on the character set of the IPA. (please, someone feel free to prove me wrong here!)

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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 25d

Feel like I’m going insane with the revisionist history that Charlie Kirk fostered open debate. He chilled speech and his targeting of professors for wrongthink led to threats, harassment, and being forced out of their jobs. His legacy is chilling speech right now, about him

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · 27d

here's hoping this prompts them to increase funding in future years instead of rejecting more and more people.

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 29d

Today's normalized authoritarianism: Email confirmation that year 4 of our Title VI European Studies grant (& all other NRC/FLAS $ @ @uwmadison.bsky.social) is being held up to ensure "resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities & the Department’s statutory responsibilities"

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · Jul 11

Yes, we’re literally about to zero out funding for every Title VI area studies center at every university in the country, along with FLAS fellowship funding. A generation of human capital that feeds into our diplomatic & intelligence corps that will simply not exist. National security madness.

Yee @thisisyee.bsky.social · Jul 11

Another angle to this. They've defunded the university language programs their diplomatic corps come from or go to to upskill. They can't even build back this expertise in the future even if they want to.

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ɯ @tamyak.bsky.social · Sep 8

Come join us in Buffalo in 2026! Co-located with ACAL, to take place just before it.

Linguist List @linguistlist.bsky.social · Sep 8

Confs: 3rd Conference on Bantoid Languages

The Third Conference on Bantoid Languages (Banto3d) will be held at the University at Buffalo, May 19–21, 2026. Banto3d welcomes papers on Bantoid languages of Cameroon and Nigeria relevant to any aspect of linguistics. While the label Bantoid conventionally refers to a specific set of non-Bantu subgroups of Benue-Congo, such as Dakoid, Mambiloid, Tivoid, Beboid, Grassfields and Ekoid, we welcome papers on other understudied Niger-Congo language groups of the Cameroon-Nigeria border area, such a

dlvr.it

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Association for Laboratory Phonology @labphon.bsky.social · Sep 6

CALL FOR PAPERS, #LabPhon20:
Deadline to submit abstracts is Dec 1, 2025. Abstract guidelines and submission link available in Oct 2025.

CALL FOR SATELLITE WORKSHOP PROPOSALS: Deadline for satellite workshop proposals is Nov 1, 2025. Events' date is June 25, 2026.

labphon.org/labphon20/ca...

Call for Papers & Satellite Workshops | Labphon

labphon.org

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · Sep 6

JD Vance said he doesn’t care if the US commits war crimes. Did it make the news?

Donald Trump said he’s declaring war on Chicago. Did it make the news?

Executive agencies keep posting Nazi blood-and-soil propaganda. Did it make the news?

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