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I am so looking forward to spending time with the next generations of STS scholars in South Korea next summer (I'll be keynote instructor)! It's a great opportunity especially for those who are STS-curious, and may not have strong training in the field. Join us! Applications close on December 10th.

It's a tiny amount of money ($25K, $12K when I was a student), but the consequences are huge. e.g., Years ago, this funding enabled me to conduct my PhD research, which ultimately informed the Supreme Court litigation that prohibited patents on human genes. Talk about undone science.

Check out the call for applications for the 2026 STHV STS School in Seoul!! Wish this existed when I was a graduate student/early career researcher!! #STS www.sthvschool.org

Applications due December 10!

Hate to be posting this on a holiday, but there's been renewed interest in the CIA-backed Zero Units in Afghanistan. Here's a good summary of @propublica.org's 2022 reporting on the units and just some of the civilian casualties they were responsible for:

Curious about the relationship between these building materials and codes and the UK Grenfell Tower fire in 2017.

You’ve been kidnapped. The characters from the last TV show you watched are trying to rescue you. Who’s coming to save you?

Tragic. This funded my dissertation research and many of the students in our program.

It's a tiny amount of money ($25K, $12K when I was a student), but the consequences are huge. e.g., Years ago, this funding enabled me to conduct my PhD research, which ultimately informed the Supreme Court litigation that prohibited patents on human genes. Talk about undone science.

We should start calling these babies the Kennedy generation.

A Michigan appeals court ruled that the city of Detroit failed to follow *its own laws* about public oversight of surveillance tech. These laws are crucial bc "Automated license plate readers, facial recognition, body-worn cameras, drones, and the Real Time Crime Center are all active in the city."

Iranian professor at University of Oklahoma, on an H1B visa, kidnapped by the US government. www.oudaily.com/news/ou-prof...

Wow, this is amazing!! We CAN have nice things!!!

A sign that we are in desperate times? Delta is playing a slow instrumental/Muzak version of Despacito.

Marco Rubio's silence on the Sunday shows is deafening.

You can learn more about the findings, approach, and policy recommendations from the report at our webinar on December 11th from 12-1pm Eastern. Join us!! (And even if you can't make it, registering will alert you to when the recording is available!) myumi.ch/2rp9w

🚨New report!🚨 Small modular reactors are seen as neat, carbon-free solutions to the problems of energy-hungry tech like AI. But our analysis @stpp-um.bsky.social argues it will have serious environmental, social, and justice impacts and offers 12 policy recommendations across the nuclear fuel cycle.

I deeply resent the time I spend turning off all of these features and making sure they don't magically get turned back on.

evergreen

Don't forget that John Oliver's auction on behalf of public media ends on November 24th!! www.youtube.com/watch?v=yknM...

"Another reason to turn off Voice to Text is for privacy concerns. Some users may not want their conversations to be recorded and transcribed by Apple’s servers. Additionally, turning off Voice to Text can also help conserve battery life...." 🤔

For those of you also horrified when your iPhone starts automatically transcribing your conversations when you are speaking (and have Notes, WhatsApp, or other apps open), here's how to turn it off. And yes, it's too hard and should be opt-out.

Poets strike back.

This is just to say I have prompted your LLM with poetry and broken it Forgive me it was so funny I couldn’t not

Can anyone point me to literature on the environmental/social/equity/etc impacts of large solar farms?

MTG, now that you have advocated successfully for the release of the Epstein files, you need to get back to your advocacy for state AI regulations!! thehill.com/policy/techn...

So I asked it for an "accurate" map rather than a "fantasy" one. I'm now planning a grand tour from Madogla to Romanio.

MTG, now that you have advocated successfully for the release of the Epstein files, you need to get back to your advocacy for state AI regulations!! thehill.com/policy/techn...

Also, when you see a post about Tom Holland's Lip Sync Battle, you repost (and rewatch) it. I don't make the rules either. www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPCJ...

This is wonderful!

There's a video!!! 🥲

Yesterday, Trump defended the Saudi Crown Prince in the Oval Office. He said he had “nothing” to do with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. But I reviewed a call while serving on Trump’s NSC that I believe would be of interest to the Khashoggi family and the American people. Release the transcript.

I like the idea of replacing "innovation" with "expropriation".

Where were the parents? The teachers? The practicing therapists? The younger users? The social scientists who think about technology and society? The idea that AI startups and researchers are the primary "experts" (and lack conflicts) to develop these guidelines is laughable.

🚨New report!🚨 Small modular reactors are seen as neat, carbon-free solutions to the problems of energy-hungry tech like AI. But our analysis @stpp-um.bsky.social argues it will have serious environmental, social, and justice impacts and offers 12 policy recommendations across the nuclear fuel cycle.

I am so proud of this 🚨new report🚨, and its analysis of the environmental, social, economic, and justice impacts of advanced nuclear reactors, frequently touted as simple solutions to the problems of climate change, energy needs, and data centers. Learn more at our Dec 11th webinar! myumi.ch/2rp9w

To learn more about The Reactor Around the Corner: Understanding Advanced Nuclear Energy Futures and social, political, and ethical implications of SMRs, join us for a webinar with the authors on Thursday, December 11, 2025 at 12pm ET / 9am PT / 6pm CET. Register at myumi.ch/2rp9w.

We are thrilled to announce the publication of The Reactor Around the Corner: Understanding Advanced Nuclear Energy Futures, STPP's latest Technology Assessment Project report, in partnership with the University of Michigan's Fastest Path to Zero Initiative. myumi.ch/AdvancedNucl...

And as a result it demonstrates the ridiculousness of using LLMs to analyze and monitor public opinion...

new paper by Sean Westwood: With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research

I learned so much about nuclear energy and the history of an incredible assortment of technologies (dynamite! cook stoves! sewers!) working on this project, and I am so glad that it is finally out in the world.

I am so proud of this 🚨new report🚨, and its analysis of the environmental, social, economic, and justice impacts of advanced nuclear reactors, frequently touted as simple solutions to the problems of climate change, energy needs, and data centers. Learn more at our Dec 11th webinar! myumi.ch/2rp9w

Universities are paying social scientists and humanists to produce the scholarship that feeds AI, and then purchasing this AI to train students. Not unlike what is happening to computer scientists, except that faculty were already experiencing a long decline in opportunities.

How dystopian. Apparently the Charlotte ICE operation is called Charlotte's Web.

There are about 1000 Epstein survivors. One thousand.

Job in feminist/queer STS at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo: #STS @4sweb.bsky.social @aussts.bsky.social

This is all so tragic and disgusting, but what jumped out to me was this paragraph. The adversarial legal process does not serve victims (here, and I'm also thinking about Title IX complaints). Gift link to NYT article on Gaetz and his victim: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/u...