Anyone who feels Bluesky is superior to the other place should take a long, hard look at this post, its replies, and the votes in favor of each.

Over the years I've been asked many times for advice on pedagogy, what to read to learn more, etc. I've finally put together a bunch of materials into one blog post: Key Advice • Readings • Neuromyths • For Computer Scientists • Classroom Tips. Enjoy! parentheticallyspeaking.org/articles/ped...

The perfect confluence of expertise and location: ex-cop and now Brown professor @brandondelpozo.bsky.social in The Atlantic on the Brown shooting. Worth reading as an antidote to the hustlers, influencers, and agenda-pushers on social media. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2025/1...

AI-assisted writing in 1716. #skystorians

Claude Code: I recommend building in Python. Me: Can you confidently generate Racket, which I know much better? CC: No. I reco Py. Me: What other langs? CC: Py and JS. Reco Py. Me: TypeScript? CC: Oh, of course! So much better!!! Result: types I can audit, more robust code. Win.

Trump Announces 5,000% Increase In All Numbers

Reminded of my wife Austrian friend who was visiting the US for the first time (this was in the 80s) who planned to land in NYC, spend the day there, then pop down to Florida for a day trip, etc., as if NYC and Fort Lauderdale were like Linz <=> Graz (= 100miles/160km).

To be really clear: I am *not* asking a chatbot to do my grading! (I *am* actually doing a thing, but it's not asking the GenAI to grade. May post about it later.)

Me this winter break:

Do you use LLMs to generate regular expressions? We do, too! Do you *review* your regexes? Is that frustrating? How can we put humans in the loop better, doing relatively few, meaningful tasks? Please try out our new tool PICK:regex, available for VSCode! blog.brownplt.org/2025/12/11/p...

THREE reviewers? In this economy?

How to fix soccer: 1. The field is too big, shrink it. 2. Too many players on the field. Limit it to two. 3. Paint the field in a black-and-white grid. 4. The ball is replaced by pure positional advantage. 5. Pawns everywhere.

A university is so much more than its bricks and mortar facilities. It is also an eduroam network with intermittent access

It's a cold December so far here in #NewEngland, and you know what that means: high grid power prices. Hasn't been below $100/MWh on the day-ahead market since Dec. 1, and peaked at $308/MWh 8 days ago. But with most of our heating being gas, why does this mean high power prices? Glad you asked. /1

Frog & Toad is out with this shirt in the wake of this weekend’s tragedy at Brown, an homage to the Mad Peck & the spirit of Providence.

this visicalc expansion has its priorities in order

Okay, let's admit it, it's rather fun to be able to tell a machine "Let's rock and roll!" and it is able to infer that I mean, "Yeah, that design document is now in great shape, we should start generating code".

The best description of @brown.edu, from @bessbell.bsky.social. (And to be clear, the heirs and star's kids are invariably also in that carton.) besskalb.substack.com/p/brown-amer...

My "favorite" version of this: when sportswriters and/or fans say "(insert sport here) is special/unique because (insert a thing you can think of at least 5 other sports having)".

This is a great slideshow. My brain isn't in a state to process the math right now, but everything else jives with my experience of using Claude. (I don't use Beads but do a LOT of planning and then getting it to write it down AND frequently *update* it.) posit-carlos.quarto.pub/how-i-use-cl...

The really frustrating thing about this interaction is, if this happened with a human, they would be embarrassed and remember this, and if they did this again in the near future, you would know they were being malicious. With an LLM, these moments are lost in time, like tears in rain.

Sorry for not offering this earlier, but if you're a parent of a Brown student and they need help (a ride, a coffee, whatever), please email me and I'm happy to try to help. cs.brown.edu/~sk/Contact/

From RI State senator Sam Zurier:

The [Brown Daily] Herald sent out 22 photographers for 24 hours to capture the first day of spring on College Hill, from noon on March 19 to noon on March 20 [2025]. A rather nicer way to imagine the Brown campus. projects.browndailyherald.com/2025/03/21/t...

Some top-notch Rhode Island reporters to follow: @tednesi.bsky.social @iandonnis.bsky.social @amandamilkovits.bsky.social @fitzprov.bsky.social @waveelection.bsky.social @antoniafarzan.bsky.social @steveahlquist.bsky.social

We're all at home and doing fine, thanks for asking. (If you don't know what this is in reference to, don't worry.) theonion.com/no-way-to-pr...

"The skyscraper, the apotheosis of form following finance and function" —Jenny Diski, LRB www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v3...

Ah, to have the confidence of Claude Code. Let's see whether this confidence was misplaced.

Thought I had a good sabbatical plan for the spring, but it's been upended by a one-time opportunity: I've ended up on the committee creating India's new national 11th and 12th grade curriculum/textbook in computer science. So much for the best laid schemes, but also exciting!

Look this is all quite straightforward. For political science just add “ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶U̶n̶i̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶S̶t̶a̶t̶e̶s̶ properly identify your estimand”

FIFA ethics committee

My colleague John F. Hughes (of graphics book fame) gave his last class on Monday. A chunk of faculty and staff invaded his class and sang a sea shanty to honor his sailing side, composed primarily by colleague James Tompkin. Check it out! Sing along! www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qx4...

@danmcgowan.bsky.social Rhode Map talks about how McKee is fighting so strongly for "privacy". Wish someone would write a piece about how freely PPSD disregards student privacy, going against established guidelines. If we're going to be such a privacy-protecting state…maybe protect everyone's!

tangentially related: icymi, do check out trustandsafety.fun Its soo good; An informative wild ride of running a worldwide social media startup (I found it here back when age verification region locking started bsky.app/profile/rand...)

Heron and Cranes

What are we even doing here

"the issue isn’t that we need more 'boy-friendly' reforms. It’s that boys are socialized to compete only with boys and to read girls’ success as illegitimate or emasculating. The result is dissonance, resentment, and disengagement for boys—and hostile climates for girls." time.com/7335723/auto...

The Boston Left has finally arrived in self-driving cars! *Without* this there'd be confusion on the streets around heah....

Tom Stoppard has passed away! He could be too clever by half, but at his best he was mind-altering; reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as a youth was a profound experience. And as he wrote in that play: "Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else".

Europe, famous for its quality of life. European Research Council: "The deadline to submit the review [for a 25 page proposal] is: 06 January 2026". Dudes, I don't even live in the EU, I'm doing you a favor. (They even make clear this is not compensated.)

You should see how they all do with making a clock... updates every minute, and somehow most never get any better at it.. and those that do, will not necessarily in the next minute. clocks.brianmoore.com?ICID=ref_fark

Told my husband that working with ChatGPT is like working with a semi-invested intern who’s never going to think about you or your business again when their internship ends.

This is like a hacker who can find gadgets in any binary to turn it into the instruction set that they want. Brilliant.

Good security advice - and anti-advice www.hacklore.org/letter

Seen today in Providence. Excellent license plate.

Accidentally misgendered an Austrian yesterday by asking him if he was German, oops.

WTF Apple. (On Kagi, this is a hapax legomenon: there's only one textual link, to a TikTok.)

tempting