Garett Foster
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wordsofgarett.bsky.social
Garett Foster
@wordsofgarett.bsky.social
240 followers 200 following 92 posts
Former professor turned data scientist
Psych PhD studying comp sci

He/They
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Garett Foster
chanda.blacksky.app
People may not realize that this is the birth place of Ethnic Studies and the first Black Studies program. SFSU is a school of historic significance.
December 23, 2025 at 12:55 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
phillewis.bsky.social
A graduate teaching assistant who gave a University of Oklahoma student a failing grade on a psychology essay will no longer be teaching at the university
Graduate instructor who gave failing grade to Samantha Fulnecky no longer teaching at OU
A graduate teaching assistant who gave a University of Oklahoma student a failing grade on a psychology essay will no longer be teaching at the university.
www.koco.com
December 23, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
jamellebouie.net
bari weiss saw this and decided that she had to hide it from the american public
akivamcohen.bsky.social AkivaMCohen @akivamcohen.bsky.social · 1d
Guards began beating him. Beat him until he bled. Knocked his face into the wall, broke all his teeth. No access to outdoors, no contact with relatives.

Now describing US knowledge of CECOT's torture practices, followed by footage of Trump praising those practices.
December 22, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
pbsnews.org
Instacart said Monday that it’s ending a program where some customers saw different prices for the same product ordered at the same time from the same store when using the delivery company’s service. https://to.pbs.org/3YH5cws
Instacart ends program where users see different prices for the same item at same store
Instacart is ending a program where customers saw different prices for the same product ordered at the same time from the same store.
www.pbs.org
December 23, 2025 at 12:31 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
whetmoser.com
my 12yo had to do her first “research paper” this year so i was explaining how if the article/book you have isn’t quite what you need, you can often find what you do in the citations, and that’s, like, the foundation of knowledge. this sucks
benpatrickwill.bsky.social Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 4d
Closing out my year with a journal editor shocker 🧵

Checking new manuscripts today I reviewed a paper attributing 2 papers to me I did not write. A daft thing for an author to do of course. But intrigued I web searched up one of the titles and that's when it got real weird...
December 20, 2025 at 7:18 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
libbyheeren.bsky.social
Data Humans! 🎉 I made a quick end-of-year survey with Qs our #DSHangout community chose: tools you use, how you use AI, what’s changing in DS, how you get unstuck, & even cat vs dog 🐕 ❤️ 🐈‍⬛

If you’re a #databs #rstats #pydata person, join in: pos.it/hang25bsky Haven't attended the DSH? NA as needed!
Screenshot of a survey question asking, “On which activity do you spend the most time at work?” with radio-button options including Meetings (which is selected), Admin (emails, Slack, etc.), Coding, Reviewing code, Reading, Writing/Reporting, Dashboard creation (point and click), Non-coding analysis (point and click), and Other (please specify). A large crying-face emoji appears on the right side of the screen, emphasizing frustration with spending most time in meetings.
December 19, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
sifill.bsky.social
Get ready.
jonathancohn.bsky.social Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 5d
“They’re denying that any of her birth certificates, which are from Laurel, Maryland, her records of immunization, medical records — they’re denying the authenticity of them. It is something I’ve never encountered.” www.huffpost.com/entry/us-cit...
Trump Administration Says Maryland Woman's Birth Certificate Is Fake In Dystopian Move
Dulce Consuelo Diaz Morales was arrested on Sunday. ICE won’t release her despite extensive documentation of her citizenship, her attorneys told HuffPost.
www.huffpost.com
December 19, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
iansociologo.bsky.social
"Changes to centers and institutes were initially projected to save $4.8 million."

Bill Belichick's annual salary is $10 million.
December 18, 2025 at 12:51 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
abeba.bsky.social
I wrote this brief talk on why “augmenting diversity” with LLMs is empirically unsubstantiable, conceptually flawed, and epistemically harmful and a nice surprise to see the organisers have made it public

synthetic-data-workshop.github.io/papers/13.pdf
title: Cheap science, real harm: the cost of replacing human participation with synthetic data author: Abeba Birhane abstract: Driven by the goals of augmenting diversity, increasing speed, reducing cost, the use of synthetic data as a replacement for human participants is gaining traction in AI research and product development. This talk critically examines the claim that synthetic data can “augment diversity,” arguing that this notion is empirically unsubstantiated, conceptually flawed, and epistemically harmful. While speed and cost-efficiency may be achievable, they often come at the expense of rigour, insight, and robust science. Drawing on research from dataset audits, model evaluations, Black feminist scholarship, and complexity science, I argue that replacing human participants with synthetic data risks producing both real-world and epistemic harms at worst and superficial knowledge and cheap science at best
December 16, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
ceaubin.com
It really can be this easy btw.
On the day following the shooting, the National Cabinet unanimously agreed to strengthen gun laws. Proposals brought forward during the meeting included restricting firearm ownership to Australian citizens only, accelerating the launch of a national firearms register, limiting the number of firearms a single person can own, and further restricting the types of weapons that are legal.
December 15, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
anjalienjeti.bsky.social
Today is the 13th anniversary of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, which resulted in 26 deaths, 20 of them 6 and 7-year-olds.

That we did not limit access to guns after Sandy Hook, once and for all, makes the deaths at Brown University all the more heartbreaking. We must end this now.
December 14, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
npr.org
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco track how abortion comes up on television. They say the trends from 2025 are concerning. n.pr/4oQlr52
Fewer characters on TV had abortions this year — and more stories reinforced shame
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco track how abortion comes up on television. They say the trends from 2025 are concerning.
n.pr
December 13, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
thorbenson.bsky.social
I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork
Time person of the year cover for 2025
December 12, 2025 at 4:00 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
superbreeze.bsky.social
The worst charts I've ever seen at work
A 3d bar chart for one single data point ("yes") showing 10 people would "cook this recipe at home" A 3d line chart that is almost impossible to read showing (I think) numbers of people who would use coconut oil, olive oil, or vegetable oil when eating starchy foods? A totally illegible bat chart (2d this time, phew) showing numbers of people leaving different free text comments to a survey. The axis includes half person points on the scale. 2 people appear to have left the same illegible comment. Why does this exist?
December 10, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
donmoyn.bsky.social
"We can't allow fact checkers into the country" is late-stage USSR shit, real end-of-empire stuff
klonick.bsky.social Kate Klonick @klonick.bsky.social · 19d
Holy shit.

Reuters reporting that new admin instructions on visas are if you worked at a platform in trust & safety or content moderation or on fact checking or online safety at an platform you *and your loved ones* are ineligible for H-1B visa.

www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
The cable, sent to all U.S. missions on December 2, orders U.S. consular officers to review resumes or LinkedIn profiles of H-1B applicants - and family members who would be traveling with them - to see if they have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking, compliance and online safety, among others.
December 8, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
laraffington.bsky.social
💼 💔 Academia’s toxic love language is playing “hard to get”
🧪 💓 Science is the beautiful pursuit of building knowledge

I wrote an essay for Nature Human Behaviour on treating academia as “just a job” www.nature.com/articles/s41...

What ideas would you add? 💡

#HigherEd #PhDLife #DiversityInSTEM
www.nature.com
December 5, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
nicolecrust.bsky.social
There's been much talk about the "Just a Job" piece in Nature Human Behavior — absent an ability of many to read it. The author is here, @laraffington.bsky.social. In the post below, she shares a link available to all.
December 9, 2025 at 12:58 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
2house2fly.bsky.social
The USPS posting a NINE BILLION DOLLAR LOSS!!! sounds terrible. Certainly worse than if you said "USPS costs thirty dollars per person per year" even though that means the same thing and more accurately describes a government service
December 5, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
drewbrayshaw.bsky.social
Is my mirror conscious? The being reflected in it is able to duplicate everything I do, even very hard things.
abeba.bsky.social Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 28d
can’t fucking catch a breath

make it stop
Is ChatGPT Conscious? Many users feel they’re talking to a real person. Scientists say it’s time to consider whether they’re onto something. By Jeff Wise, a science journalist and private pilot.
December 4, 2025 at 8:39 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
simongerman600.bsky.social
Here is a godawful joke in chart form to ruin your Christmas season 🤪🎄
December 2, 2025 at 8:42 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
nkalamb.bsky.social
This year, universities are giving $228 million to football coaches who failed at coaching football so that they won't coach football anymore.
Total buyouts for 15 fired coaches in 2025: $228 million. That's a record by nearly $100M. Kelly $54M Stoops $38M Smith $33.5M Napier $21M Freeze $15.8M Gundy $15M Wilcox $10.9M Pittman $9.8M Franklin $9M Pry $6M Foster $5M Bray $4M Dilfer $2.4M Beck $1.7M Norvell $1.5M
December 2, 2025 at 7:23 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
jamellebouie.net
i'm actually struck by how pete hegseth isn't just a cowardly man but a capital-c Coward. a guy who gets off on abusing and hurting people he thinks are weaker than him and then tries to run and hide when there might be consequences
December 2, 2025 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Garett Foster
thedaybooks.bsky.social
With Alt Text
Saved by Stoppard Sir, In 1993 my wife and I went to see the first production of Arcadia by Tom Stoppard (obituary, Dec 1), and in the interval I experienced a Damascene conversion. As a clinical scientist I was trying to understand the enigma of the behaviour of breast cancer, the assumption being that it grew in a linear trajectory spitting off metastases on its way. In the first act Sepiati There i aneks her tutor. a curve like a bell, there must be an equation for one like a bluebell, and if a bluebell, why not a rose?" With that Stoppard explains chaos theory, which better explains the behaviour of breast cancer. At the point of diagnosis, the cancer must have already scattered cancer cells into the circulation that nest latent in distant organs. The consequence of that hypothesis was the birth of "adjuvant systemic chemotherapy", , and rapidly we saw a striking fall of the curve that illustrated patients' survival. Stoppard never learnt how many lives he saved by writing Arcadia. Michael Baum Professor emeritus of surgery; visiting professor of medical humanities, UCL
December 2, 2025 at 9:24 AM
Reposted by Garett Foster
peark.es
He's going to kill so many people and we're powerless to stop it. One of the most vile humans currently wandering around this watery rock.
lukesteuber.com Luke Snowbrr ☃️ @lukesteuber.com · 23d
presented without comment
Offit told me that Kennedy is a "liar" and a "terrible human being." I asked him to explain. "It doesn't matter what I say," Offit said. "He thinks the medical journals are in the pocket of the industry, he thinks that the government is in the pocket of the industry, he thinks I'm in the pocket of industry, and he's wrong." Offit continued: "If he has data showing he's right, then fucking publish it. He can't, because he doesn't have those data." I asked Offit if he saw a way to reverse the public's rising distrust in science. "I don't think there is any way to regain that trust other than have the viruses do the education, and the bacteria do the education, and then people will realize they paid way too high a cost," he said.
December 1, 2025 at 2:48 AM