I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.

"The Last Baby Will Be Born in 2012 and, Worse, He'll Look Like This." A 1913 news article suggested that a decline in birth rates and social changes, such as women entering the workforce and fewer people marrying, would lead to a "neuter type" of human and eventually, the end of the human race.

I cannot stress enough to people who are not from Minneapolis that the news you have seen in the past week about things calming, and messaging from our electeds at *every level higher than City Council* that local agencies will protect us... That's all fucking LIES.

please remember that no matter how many “ICE is losing in MN” articles you read today, there is still a very real, urgent, ongoing crisis in Minnesota. people need food and they need rent money. that has not changed.

if you’re feeling inspired by the photos from minneapolis,drop a note of appreciation at www.standwithminnesota.com/send-a-love-... !

I want to format these all into beautiful things to be shared across the internet, but until I have the time for it, if you are from Minnesota and need to know that people love you and have your back, that you are inspiring people all over the world, here are some notes.

ARE YOU A NON-MINNESOTAN WHO WANTS IDEAS OF STUFF TO DO TO HELP MINNESOTA RESIST FASCIST TYRANNY? Have I got a blog post for you! With additional advice for how to get ready in case tyranny shows up at YOUR doorstep next! naomikritzer.com/2026/01/21/h...

Good morning from Minneapolis. Abolish ICE. Help people how you can.

For my out-of-state friends wanting to help Minneapolis, Sanctuary Supply Depot is a grassroots mutual aid effort to support unhoused folks here. They take cash as well as in-kind donations: linktr.ee/sanctuarysup...

For out of towners coming to Minneapolis or trying to learn about Mpls (ESPECIALLY JOURNALISTS), I recommend you follow @taylordahlin.com to get a deeper understanding of the situation here on the ground.

crazy that the website that I randomly decided to put together at 10AM yesterday has had over 25k unique visitors in 24 hours. please keep sharing with your networks.

If you don't live in Minnesota, but have been watching the news with horror, and are looking for a way to help:

I was desperate for some organization, so I put together a list of places you can donate or buy things for to support folks in Minnesota. If you have places for me to add, please DM me.

Want to get the data out of a PDF figure? As in, the actual data – not a rough trace-along-the-lines version? I made an app you might like: adamkucharski.github.io/pdf2plot/ It all started a few years ago... 🧵

it’s come to my attention that my tumblr post has been crossposted to bluesky, so I’m posting it on my account here #AntiAI #GenAI

The Carleton College chemistry department is hiring! Come be my colleague next year! carleton.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/Carlet...

First Pipeline post of the year! A statement of purpose, and science topics resume on Monday:

I'm not usually someone who's like 'look at how awful things are' but this video about how short form video might actually be breaking your brain is so well-done I've been loving how Howtown has approached these kind of questions— definitely check them out if you haven't before!

The “Pines to Palms” in Northfield: A Biography of Highway 3: https://streets.mn/2025/12/29/the-pines-to-palms-in-northfield-a-biography-of-highway-3/ A personal and historical biography of Highway 3 in Northfield, exploring how a familiar road became a boundary shaping a community

Great post about generative AI. Happy Holidays. Don't say I never gave you anything. anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

"Academics literally cannot make genAI go away" we also can't make underage drinking go away and we're not advocating for installing bar carts in every classroom.

"Did you see what Mark Cuban posted? Oh did you see the clapb—" You shake yourself awake in the cold North Atlantic water. You are not online. It is July of 1858. You are a baleen whale, and you have changed your mind. The future most not come to pass. The telegraph cable must break.

"AI is a tool." No. Empirically not. A tool empowers people; helps people. It solves an extant problem. Generative AI in creative mediums is being used as a cudgel that diminishes and eliminates people, and the only "problem" being solved is fiscal. Stop validating it, even in passing.

Minnesota cities as Muppets: Stillwater:

A heartfelt thank you to all the grad programs that just let me upload my letter of recommendation. I hate answering, "Is this candidate excellent (top 15%), amazing (top 5%), or truly exceptional (top 2%)?" I don't know, man! Read my letter! And don't make me pit my students against each other.

I've updated my document that tackles four of the common arguments used to encourage teachers to use AI. I hope this will be helpful to those educators wanting to push back on AI mania.

I'm an "A.i." abolitionist. No consumer-facing LLMs or generative "A.i." in anything. Sure, machine learning in science and a few other limited applications is fine. But consumer-facing LLMs and generative "A.i." that are based on theft, push disinfo, and can be manipulated by billionaires? No.

Elementary school kids can learn to play the glockenspiel or understand Roman numerals or speak French. These skills won't be helpful for them anytime in the rest of their lives but sometimes just learning something different is rewarding.

We can teach people things that they aren't ever going to have any use for later in life! That's an okay thing to do!

My new favorite kind of meme is "here are detailed instructions on how to turn off AI". 🔨

Is there a hashtag for STEM internships? Merck is accepting applications for internships in cell biology and assay development, immunogenicity, protein metabolism, biostatistics, vaccine communications, DMPK, and discovery and process chemistry.

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 🫶

Call me controversial, but technology that leads vulnerable people into crisis and even holds their hand as they die by suicide should not be endorsed by schools and universities, we should not be giving discounted subscriptions to this monstrous tech to young people AT ALL

If you (or an undergraduate in your life) is thinking about graduate school in Chemistry, I want to share that Stony Brook Chemistry will be holding two virtual info sessions in about 2 weeks on our PhD program! Register: forms.gle/exxMufpr2dLv...

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

Hi. I wrote an essay about AI slop: How it feels like an invasive species for the internet. How its boosters describe building a future that’s devoid of craft. How frictionlessness can be nihilistic & how this stuff seems to leach part of our shared humanity out of the world. I hope you'll read it.

Imagine studying a technology whose presence in the classroom is so detrimental to the development of writing and research skills (including even the will to know the sources behind claims!) that mitigating its effects becomes a central goal of course design, and concluding with tips on adopting it.

It is morally wrong to want a computer to be sentient. If you owned a sentient thing, you would be a slaver. If you want sentient computers to exist, you just want to create a new kind of slavery. The ethics are as simple as that. Sorry if this offends

Bryn Mawr College is looking for an analytical chemist! #chemsky www.brynmawr.edu/inside/acade...

Are you a DFL voter in MN? Do you dislike transphobia? Consider signing this letter to stand up against transphobia in our party. docs.google.com/forms/d/1D9m...

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia: doi.org/10.5281/zeno... We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity. 1/n

Give me your favorite Treachery of Images derivative meme. I’ll start.

My department at Colgate University is hiring a tenure-stream assistant professor in Organic Chemistry this fall. Please feel free to reach out with questions, and please repost. We're an undergraduate university with a strong focus on research. @chemjobber.bsky.social apply.interfolio.com/170152

Andrea Gibson, Colorado’s poet laureate who attracted praise and a large following by writing about social issues and queer identity, died Sunday of ovarian cancer at age 49. www.instagram.com/p/DMGo2skM1Ve/

If you agree with our 5 requests to our universities, please sign 🖊️ the open letter and don’t forget to confirm your email! ☺️🙏 openletter.earth/open-letter-...

When we intentionally changed the course to help out our students, we ended up helping *all* these students – even the ones who were already performing well in the course. This is a common effect for "DEI programs" in education. Education just gets better for everyone.