"Hope is essential to any political struggle for radical change when the overall social climate promotes disillusionment and despair." – bell hooks, from Talking about a Revolution This quote and so many more from linked @guante.info zine 💜. Some folks need to remember to imagine a better future!

I'm not going to repost screenshots from Grok for the same reasons I don't use any LLMs even when they're outputting silly/ amusing synthetic text. (This image is great for so many purposes. I first saw it posted by @redeyedjedi.bsky.social so I am hoping that's the right credit for its source!)

Current generative AI products are *BAD* ...and ALSO they will not be able to be made better for the reason Sanders brings up here. But there's no nuance: the popular AI examples causing this discussion are definitely not good.

#BREAKING: Former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers will immediately leave his role as an instructor at Harvard while the University investigates his ties to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Dhruv T. Patel and Cam N. Srivastava report.

I saw the video where he asks half-empty lecture hall of students for their permission to keep teaching them, but without actual student input. Student/faculty power dynamic already makes that permission impossible in normal circumstances. This is just a way for him to feel like he's "okay" to stay.

Out with friends last Friday, one asked why everyone (not just our group) seemed to be so run down. I half joked, do you think maybe it could be the steady unraveling of democracy? This paragraph hit hard this morning. From Aaron Goggans' letter in the collection "Read This When Things Fall Apart"

I looked up to see if my old therapist was around (we wrapped up regular sessions a few years ago), and I learned she moved out of state this past summer. I'm feeling heavier now. She was one of the coolest people I've met and helped me build skills and find smooth waters after a stormy phase.

I am feeling incredibly run down today. A whole weekend trying to connect with beloveds and not do work wasn't enough to reset to engaged/motivated with my work. Interacting with students always reminds me of my purpose, but today is a grading only day and I just couldn't bring myself to the task.

We finally get to see @adambecker.bsky.social nerd out about astrophysics! He neatly covers light travel time back to the CMB and time itself forward to the heat death of the universe and discussion of entropy (p177-182). "The impermanence of the universe does not make existence meaningless."

Great choice by Kirkus! For those that missed it three months ago, I did a long thread read of this book, too! Here's the start: bsky.app/profile/cgsu...

So saddened by the news that we have lost Alice Wong. It was an honor to know her and learn from her. May the lessons she shared continue to guide us for years to come.

"The predator is the idea that we can somehow live our lives without being in relationship to the Earth [...]used by a predatory idea, the spiritual weight of that is unbearable. We think the whole societal crisis is the result of falling out of a relational way of seeing the world" (amb, Ancestors)

Here's the full thread in a scroll-able format, can click back into any post to interact with it! tbsky.app/profile/cgsu...

People are basically good, and if we as a society provided everyone with a baseline level of comfortable housing, good food, and good healthcare, without fear for the future, life would be chill

It’s an exercise in infantilization to do everything you can to prevent a student from taking a shortcut. Let them develop their own agency if they want to. Use your time as an educator to come up with assignments that are good on their own merits & not bc they flummox a probability machine.

It is literally not your job to mount defensive maneuvers against LLM vomited essays. Give those papers the grades the words deserve (generally it's a 'C'). Take a deep breath and decompress after the sense of disappointment. Move on.

I'm still not convinced that any these so-called benefits of using LLMs in teaching coding outweighs the terrible environmental costs among other costs/risks genAI has exacted. I think you can teach critical thinking in computer science without burning down the earth and killing depressed children

A few more photos from tonight’s incredible #aurora. I’m fascinated by the amount of red light tonight. This is generated by oxygen molecules being excited by light plasma at least 600 km above the Earth. The green is also oxygen molecules, but much lower (100-250km). Definitely a great night.

Y'all my notifications are a mess right now. Sorry if I miss legitimate replies! I've not had one of my book threads explode quite this much. But also, I connected on Bluesky with a good friend from **middle school** because of this thread?! So that's fun :)

Bay Area friends! Where do we find the hope that fuels our resistance and protests? In stories! On Dec. 2, come out to @booksmith.bsky.social for an unforgettable evening with speculative fiction authors and activists, celebrating our new anthology "We Will Rise Again"! booksmith.com/event/WWRA1125

This will be my thread for thoughts while reading Disabling Intelligences by @fractalecho.bsky.social this week. I'm all wrapped up in a fleece blanket, I have my highlighter and page flags, and on page 2 I'm already love their writing style. 🧵

No matter how hard people try to convince us having empathy is wrong, it is right. No matter how hard people try to convince us that diversity is a weakness, it is a strength. No matter how hard people try to convince us that love is limited, it is unlimited.

This is all infuriating but we did still win all those elections, the *PEOPLE* are still furious and ready to act, and nothing the senate dems do can change that.

You cannot run the basic infrastructures of a functioning society- healthcare to education-on systems that cut out human empathy & negotiation. So we have to reassert over and over again that the problems aren’t glitches or errors—even big ones. The problems are fundamental, systematic, endemic.

Good morning! AI is being force-fed to you by a handful of billionaires who will lose a bunch of money if they fail to convince you that you need it. You do not need it 🫶

All 3 of these books arrived to me in the past 24 hours 😍📚🥰 1. Disabling Intelligences by @fractalecho.bsky.social (via publisher) 2. Ancestors by @adriennemareebrown.bsky.social (via Cellar Bird Books) 3. Read This When Things Fall Apart by @mskellymhayes.bsky.social (via Pilsen Community Books)

Here's another bit of conventional wisdom Zohran completely blew away: His speech was at well above a 10th-grade level. It was complex, erudite, punctuated by deep and fluent references. You don't have to condescend to voters with baby talk! Part of re-establishing norms is speaking like an adult.

"hope over tyranny "hope over big money and small ideas "hope over despair "no longer would politics would be something that is done to us. now it would be something that WE DO"

"I never more fully comprehended than now the great struggle between the powers of greed on the one hand and upon the other the rising hosts of freedom. I can see the dawn of a better day of humanity. The people are awakening. In due course of time they will come into their own." (Debs)

They aren't afraid of Mamdani, they are worried about what he would unleash among VOTERS. That those voters would say: "actually, we're not buying this centrist bullshit you've been shoveling for decades, we want something else." That's what's being litigated in these Dem elites are worried essays.

I gave $100 to the GoFundMe this afternoon for the Teen Vogue staffers like Lex who were laid off suddenly this week because they've all been doing great work for a long time and didn't deserve that bullshit move. www.gofundme.com/f/help-laido...

Sorry, went outside again. Still reeling. #pdx

thank you for the outpouring of support! those of us laid off from Teen Vogue yesterday are now sharing our GoFundMe to help us cover our emergency expenses now that we've lost our incomes, as we get back on our feet.

hire all the fired political teen vogue writers and make a new magazine call teen rogue. we’ll all subscribe en masse

GUYS WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE ARE ACTUALLY TECHNICALLY 5 SUBS OVER OUR GOAL!!!! OH MY GOD!!!

Look folks gen AI videos are out in the wild so if you weren't already being careful about sharing rage bait videos then now is a great time to start If you can't trace a video back to a trusted source then I recommend leaving it where it is, like a slice of bologna you found on the street

Learned about the Library of Babel group via @olivia.science and her highlighted quote from @melaniedusseau.bsky.social from the essay "A Psalm for the Analog" - definitely worth reading the whole thing, and this table of contents is so solid. Zine is linked: www.law.georgetown.edu/privacy-tech...

To anyone who uses TIDAL for music: any tips for a new user? For context: I'm shifting from Pandora (and I gave up on getting any info transferred) and my husband will be switching from Spotify (TuneMyMusic hopefully will work).

Am I going to wear cute purple starched-lace cat ears I bought from an artist at a convention last year all day tomorrow including to an art museum and a work meeting? Yes, yes I am. Happy Halloween 😻

I keep coming back to @nsousanis.bsky.social's way of talking through the value of learning. I love this thread where we get to see some of the student response! Also, it reminds me of a recent paper that talks through that lack of friction leading to less learning: academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

I heard about this from reading group chat for "The AI Con" led by @ali-alkhatib.com and was immediately interested! The author quotes Hayes, Kaba, Benjamin in this thread about it, plus it mentions TESCREAL in index, so I absolutely bought a physical copy. Link: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

It's @theflytrapmedia.com's FIRST BIRTHDAY and we're offering a 15% discount to new subscribers! Join us as a Friend of the Flytrap for two delightful pieces of feminist criticism every week!

Change one letter, ruin a candy. Feese's

At #OpenEd25, the keynote with adrienne maree brown was so refilling. She ended with the poem Ask Questions (before the Q&A) and I felt so connected to everyone else attending but also connected to my value system and my moral compass. I needed that moment today (and everyday).

"grieve like the trees in october. but don’t forget you are nature, and spring is certain." adrienne maree brown (from Fables and Spells, also originally a blog post: adriennemareebrown.net/2020/03/25/a...)

"You don't choose the times you live in, but you do choose who you want to be, and you do choose how you want to think." – Grace Lee Boggs

Ugh, who is still listening to Avi?

I would absolutely buy a poster print of this page for my astronomy classroom and also one for my house. Incredible ongoing project!

This is such a great poem, please take time to read it! "we carry (today) & (tomorrow) in twin holsters. we / plant (today) & (tomorrow) in our gardens. every day / there are more sprouts."