It may be 39 degrees, but it is a beautiful 39 degrees.

MJT on CNN: "There's a new Democrat that's been elected that does deserve to be sworn in..." Crazy times it is when I keep going "I agree with MJT."

www.newsweek.com/russia-respo... Go, Moldova! The EU will welcome you with open arms. Let's hope Putin and his gang of thugs don't bomb them back to the Stone Age for daring to turn their back on the Russian Empire (maybe using Transnistria as an excuse).

Thank God for Jimmy Kimmel! What a comeback! Makes me almost want to watch network TV. Wait...couldn't watch him in Seattle because KOMO, the local ABC affiliate, is part of Sinclair, and Sinclair decided to censor Kimmel. Pretty easy for me to boycott KOMO since I never watch them anyway.

www.msn.com/en-us/news/n... "This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules. We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote. Checks and balances are regrettably a thing of the past.

Opened for 110 years Kogetsu-Do is one of the last Japanese confectionaries in the West. I always stop by when in Fresno or close by (or not so close). Even when there are years between visits, Lynn still greets me by name when I enter the store. Such a special place. www.sfgate.com/centralcalif...

I've had a picture of the Hubble Deep Field over my desk for years. Other than the sheer wonder of it, it is also a constant reminder of just how miniscule even my biggest problems are. www.msn.com/en-us/news/n...

And now for a waterfall. (Teneriffe Falls near North Bend.)

This.

Unbelievable. And utterly frightening.

The cherry blossoms were peaking at University of Washington today. And so were the crowds!

This is shameful. And it makes me so, so sad. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/w...

This is absurd.

I have a Maasai name! At our latest camp, I guess the mere fact that I could produce even a little Maasai opened eyes, so much so, that I was given the name Oloshipa. I'm told it means "Happy One". I hope it doesn't mean Fuck Face or Man with Booger on His Face. All the Maasai here are using it now.

Mama lion with adolescent male son. I think she's scouting for the next meal.

Of course, big cats claw, just like our friendly domestic variety does, but I was completely stunned when I saw it in the wild.

An exceptional talk by Kate Starbird at UW. She has worked on disinformation in social media for many years, and she fits this talk well into current events. I have never attended an academic talk before where the audience erupted into a spontaneous ovation at the end. Well worth the watch.

You know, Trump strong arming our erstwhile allies and trade partners with heavy tariffs, while at the same time demanding Ukraine fork over its rare earths without offering anything in return, feels a lot like Tony Soprano demanding his money. Or else. Welcome to the land of gangster politics.

Another great paper by Steven Bird. Well worth the read for anyone working on translation technology, especially for languages that are not written. We tend to (over)concentrate on the technology, e.g., building big multilingual models, LLMs, etc., and forget the human side of things.

Hike up Ventana Canyon in Tucson. Been years since I hiked this trail! Didn't make it to la ventana, but did stop where I had a view (the only spot on the trail where you can see it before the top). Beautiful, sunny day, albeit cool, including some not-yet-melted snow. Blue sky everywhere!!! 😉😂

Counting the days...

Calling bullshit on their lies isn't censorship. Failed insurrectionists aren't heroes. Fighting racism and helping underserved communities isn't discrimination. Showing empathy isn't evil. Supporting trans kids isn't abuse. Don't accept their twisted frames as reality.

Post the amazing science things you have done with federal funding.

www.usatoday.com/story/news/2... Happy New Year!!

www.usnews.com/news/world/a... Doubtless temporary. Sigh.

You know, this sent chills down my spine. And I agree. But I find it hard to reckon with the fact that I do. It makes me so sad.

www.huffpost.com/entry/donald... Yup, includes National Science Foundation. NSF suspended all panels. I wonder if our students will get paid. I wonder if I'll get paid.

A quote for our time: "What is the cost of lies? It's not that we'll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all." Attributed to Valery Legasov, Chernobyl Miniseries.

Roughly 6,000 readers answered our poll, with many declaring that Bluesky was nicer, kinder and less antagonistic to science than X https://go.nature.com/42tH8Ai

WTF! What happens to scientists on soft money appts? Their terms abruptly end (just like every NIH meeting, incl. panel reviews, yesterday)? Completely unprecedented. Likely already having long term consequences for science in this country. So insanely stupid. www.science.org/content/arti...

I really thought this was a late night joke. But, it's true: the US Constitution, which used to be on the whitehouse.gov site, has been deleted. No, really.

TikTok's back up again today because Trump signaled he'd do something about it. Definitely going to be bought up all or part by the broligarchy. Even more concentration of our social media into the hands of the few.

Why can't people just accept that Trump tried to ban TikTok in 2020 but failed and then was against the ban when Sleepy Joe was in favor of it and now is going to save TikTok and China is bad and therefore tariffs, but also the CEO of TikTok is going to the inauguration. Why is that so difficult?

Message with an intended audience of one. Very similar message/strategy to a video that TikTok served me, from their official account, featuring their CEO, last night. Isn’t this what Harris explained on the debate stage? Flattery as foreign policy.

Had great chats with my Uber drivers this trip to Costa Rica. One driver and I talked at length about the benefits of bilinguality and cognition. The one this morning, we talked about his experiences elsewhere, in particular, skiing and his first exposure to snow. Love how language opens doors.

Funny thing grief. In the back pocket of jeans I hadn't worn in a while I found a tattered receipt. It was for a movie my friend Ileana and I had seen. It struck me that that was the last movie we'll ever see together. Attending her mass and wake were touching, but that receipt brought me to tears.

Happy New Year everyone! Jim and I just put up our January 2025 release of Speech and Language Processing! Check it out here: web.stanford.edu/~jurafsky/sl...

Look what came up as I settled in for my flight. I already liked President Carter for saving American Beer. But, dude! Now I like him even more! What an amazing man! What an amazing life!

Just flew into LAX. After dark, the "clouds" gave a reddish hue to everything. Then the cabin smelled like a campfire. Then, looking to the north as we were coming in, there were the towering flames of the Palisades fire. Where am I really? This isn't LA. At least not the LA of the present.

As everyone should know by now, the anti-trans rhetoric isn’t about “protecting women” in bathrooms or sports … but about removing trans people from public life. And it’s working. This is a big company, making a big change that isn’t about protecting anyone (except men from having to see tampons).

So, I wonder if Trump actively asks himself "What would Putin do?" when he comes up with these hair brained schemes. Better watch out Trump, Denmark's countering the threat with 12 elite dog-sled teams and two new boats! www.politico.eu/article/dona...

I have to admit what I've enjoyed most about Bluesky is the growth of academic discourse on Bluesky, especially in fields that matter most to me. And without all the ads and foaming at the mouth BS. I choose what I want to see. www.science.org/content/arti...

Así fueron las últimas 24 horas de posts en Bluesky en cuanto a idiomas. He añadido las cantidades en la leyenda de la gráfica para entenderla mejor. Español y portugués peleando intensamente por el tercer lugar. Pero que se anden con cuidado los japoneses!

Por cierto, que sea Bluesky la app más descargada en España se está notando. Ya es el español el tercer idioma más usado! 🥉

Happy Tryptophan Day to those who celebrate! -RJD

Yes! What worries the Chinese most isn't just the flight of users from Twitter, but that Bluesky allows less ability to manipulate users algorithmically. I'm sure this concerns not just the Chinese govt, but other (wanna-be) totalitarian actors. It's a good thing. www.semafor.com/article/11/2...

A Funny Thing Happened on The Way To Your Phone: Thinking About Bluesky talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-fun... via @TPM

I've enjoyed Bluesky a lot so far. It feels a lot like the old Twitter, which, although I was never very active on the platform, I did tend to lurk and review others' posts regularly. That was years ago, however. Enter Bluesky... www.cnet.com/news/social-...

Bluesky's firehose is a treasure trove of public data for researchers and developers, and it's completely free. Check out our developer docs: docs.bsky.app