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Rebecca

@altair77.bsky.social
231 followers 152 following 461 posts

Seeker of curiosities, lover of “nerdy” stuff, mother of dragon, she/her.

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Reposted by Rebecca
Middlerage @middlerage.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This should have gotten a hell of a lot more news! The United States was the only NO vote at the Commission on the Status of Women, at the United Nations headquarters in New York on Monday. America voted AGAINST women’s rights! healthpolicy-watch.news/us-isolated-...
healthpolicy-watch.news
Only US Votes Against Women’s Rights Document At UN Commission - Health Policy Watch
President of the UN General Assembly Annalena Baerbock told the opening of CSW that the backlash against women's rights "feels as though we are forced to
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AmyAlexCA @amyalexca.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Hm. As @timnitgebru.blacksky.app + @emilymbender.bsky.social have already laid out: These #OpenAI *systems* aren’t “going rouge.” The Truth is that these LLMs are built by Nefarious people who are so Rapacious and Irresponsible that they (the Humans) are biggest Risks www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/t...
nytimes.com
OpenAI’s A.I. Went Rogue and Meddled With U.S. Government Websites
The company did not learn until recently that its technology had meddled with websites for the Education and Commerce Departments and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say
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Justin Joque @jjoque.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I'd get it one piece at a time And it wouldn't cost me a dime You'd know it's me when I come through your town I'm gonna be flyin' around in style I'm gonna drive everybody wild 'Cause I'll have the only one there is around
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 11/09/2026
"When a bridge collapses, you don’t analyze whether the bridge was ethical or sentient or why it decided to collapse. You ask, who built this bridge to be so flimsy? There are permits you have to acquire [& supposed] tests. When you ask about the bridge collapsing itself, you’ve lost the thread"
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dan mentos @danmentos.com · 10/09/2026
REACHER: I need help with my iPhone SUPPORT: regular iPhone or duo? REACHER: how can I tell SUPPORT: if it folds it’s the duo *extremely loud crunching noise* REACHER: it’s the duo
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Josh Moretto @joshmoretto.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Art by @reforest-kelley.bsky.social. A reminder for Labor Day.
Fan art of Chief Miles O'Brien, Leeta, and Rom from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The three are seated in Quark's bar. Miles is explaining something to the other two. The upper caption reads, "The boss needs you, you don't need the boss"; the lower caption reads, "Labor is entitled to all it creates".
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Rebecca @altair77.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
These people did not read Their Eyes Were Watching God at an impressionable age and it shows.
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FT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Imagine being talented and beautiful and rich and famous and still the most noteworthy thing about you is how good a person you are.
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Analisa Swan (she/her) @analisaswan.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
You may not follow politics, but politics follows you! Trump/GOP’s Big Ugly Bill ripped away Americans’ healthcare subsidies, skyrocketing Americans’ healthcare costs to give billionaires tax cuts! With Trump/GOP everything is expensive, billionaires get richer, & you get less! #RestoreACATaxCredits
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Christina S. Ho @christinasho.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
In the early aughts, this type of violence in hospitals was an index of social unrest that the Chinese government watched closely, and it ultimately prompted major nationwide health care and social security reform.
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Rebecca @altair77.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Gowron being in only 12 total episodes of any Star Trek franchise blows my mind (and in only FOUR TNG?!) He seems so such a larger presence than only 12 episodes. Maybe it’s the 👀
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Rebecca @altair77.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
I’ve used FitBits for about 15 years but my Charge 6 just broke & I’m thinking maybe I should try something different…anyone have a fitness tracker+watch they love that either does not track heart rate or heart rate tracker can be turned off?
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Alice Cann @alicecann.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
These bits stood out to me… www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
“We may need to make room for AI-generated novels, and for AI/human co-written novels, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no longer space for us to appreciate the process of human creativity,” she said.However, Luke Kennard, a professor of film and creative writing at the University of Birmingham, who was not involved in the work, emphasised that AI was highly contentious.

“Because we’re human, we tend to personify AI and imagine it as some kind of glowing robot with a benign and neutral face, when it’s really just predictive code based on a massive stolen database of actual writing, physically based in vast, expensive and destructive datacentres with catastrophic repercussions for the surrounding communities,” he said.However, Luke Kennard, a professor of film and creative writing at the University of Birmingham, who was not involved in the work, emphasised that AI was highly contentious.

“Because we’re human, we tend to personify AI and imagine it as some kind of glowing robot with a benign and neutral face, when it’s really just predictive code based on a massive stolen database of actual writing, physically based in vast, expensive and destructive datacentres with catastrophic repercussions for the surrounding communities,” he said.
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Tanya D. || Writer || Narrative Designer @cypheroftyr.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Daaaamn. “AI is the asbestos we're shovelling into the walls of our technological society. Our descendants will spend generations digging it out again, and the longer the bubble goes on without popping, the longer it will take to repair the damage." www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto...
thenerve.news
Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying
It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our t...
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e.w. niedermeyer @niedermeyer.online · 10/08/2025
"The future offers us little hope for those who expect that our new mechanical slaves will offer us a world in which we may rest from thinking. Help us they may, but at the cost of supreme demands upon our honesty and our intelligence.” ~Norbert Wiener, God and Golem (1964)
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Ben Plume @pittbaster.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Just a tremendous takedown of the stupid idea that LLMs can become sapient. Thread worth your time. 🧵
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lapsu.bsky.social @lapsu.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Weird how 8 billion definitely conscious humans don't seem to merit the same ethical concerns as a few hypothetically conscious computers.
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Georgina Kiersten @ingloriousgigi.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
My kiddo Faith was a straight A student until her granddad (the only father she knew) died after a long battle with dementia. Now, the legal system is punishing her for having a mental break in the worst time of her life. Please donate or share: tinyurl.com/246c9bbm
gofundme.com
Donate to Help Me Get the Legal Support I Deserve, organized by Faith White
My name is Faith, and I'm asking for help because one of the hardest periods of m… Faith White needs your support for Help Me Get the Legal Support I Deserve
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St. Louis Public Library @stlpubliclibrary.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
SLPL has free gun locks available at all locations. Stop by and pick one up!
A promotional graphic of 'Free Gun Locks."
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 18/07/2026
This is 💯 entryism. He wrote a piece seemingly critical of AI, got caught & admitted to chatGPT use, but also gaslights us it's a search engine & it's useful for checking links — why not just click them? We can't be anti AI if we don't agree we see it. They did it with climate change, tobacco etc.
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Gabrielle A. Perry, MPH @geauxgabrielle.blacksky.app · 17/07/2026
A reminder that a University of California study found that 80% of mass shootings/spree killings perpetrated by men were preceded by violence against women. Either their mothers, wives, girlfriends, or another female relative
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Julie Carpenter, PhD @jgcarpenter.com · 17/07/2026
My 🧵 from yesterday made me do the thing today: wrote a blog post (no paywall, ever): jgcarpenter.com/blog.html?bl.... A New York high school is piloting a social female-gendered humanoid robot in a classroom this fall, touted as learning support for teenagers.
Text: "A Companion Robot Company Just Landed a Classroom:
Sally arrives in a Salamanca classroom this fall, billed as learning support." Image is a close up of a Realbotix M-series robot that will be used in the Salamanca classroom as Sally. It is a female-coded and gendered humanoid robot with a traditionally female name (Sally), long brown hair, appears to wear cosmetics, wearing an open-collar white shirt. Plain gray background.
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Rebecca @altair77.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Every game, every player, looks like they got their haircut THAT MORNING. Is every team traveling with a barber? Is FIFA providing a barber in every stadium? How does this work?
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Librarian by Day 🏳️‍🌈 @librarianbyday.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind. According to the CDC, in 10 percent of child drownings, the adult will actually watch the child do it, having no idea it is happening slate.com/technology/2...
slate.com
Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning
Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.
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danah boyd @zephoria.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Cynthia Dwork & other privacy experts show why Trump Admin’s politically motivated decision to prevent the Census Bureau from using the best methods to protect confidentiality will end up with worse quality data, less publicly available data, and/or a privacy breach. scottaaronson.blog?p=9902
scottaaronson.blog
An American privacy emergency: Guest post from Cynthia Dwork et al.
Scott’s foreword: Cynthia Dwork is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science at Harvard, and a pioneer in the fields of differential privacy and algorithmic fairness. On my recent travels to…
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Troy Goodfellow @troyg.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
“Sometimes you must stand athwart history, yelling Are you fucking serious?”
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Arrianna Marie Planey, PhD MA @arrianna-planey.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
📌
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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
“The rule is catastrophic… it means that cancer patients, including those in active treatment, could be forced to work the same number of hours as a healthy person — regardless of whether that’s physically possible, just to keep the health insurance coverage that they rely on to stay alive.”
statnews.com
Lawmakers promised cancer patients would be protected from Medicaid cuts. Now CMS says otherwise
“One of the cancer community’s worst fears is coming to pass,” writes Gwen Nichols of Blood Cancer United.
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
CBS News “management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I've been told to include assertions that are unverified.” It seems like we need to learn more about this particular allegation from Pelley. To be specific, a shit ton more.
For my part, new management has instructed me to inject falsehoods and bias into a politically sensitive story. I've been told to include assertions that are unverified. To date, in every case, I have managed to ignore these instructions or refuse them. Recently, politicians have been invited to choose correspondents for interviews on the broadcast. Giving politicians control over 60 Minutes interviews is not how this is done.
Finally, incompetence and unprofessionalism in the new management have wreaked havoc. In a case involving one of my stories, the entire program came within 19 minutes of not getting on the air at all.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 29/05/2026
This is bad. Bad for researchers. Bad for science. Bad for universities. Bad for professional associations. For example: 1. Every award would be vetted by political appointees, who could overrule peer reviewers and deny the award if it doesn't advance the president's priorities. 1/🧵
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Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
GREG IP: “.. Adjusted for inflation, hourly wages are up 3% since the end of 2019 while profits are up 50%. That, in a nutshell, explains the chasm between an ebullient stock market and anxious public.” @wsj.com www.wsj.com/finance/stoc...
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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 28/05/2026
"Is there a way for A.I. to do something other than sharpen the knife blade of capitalism?" ("Will A.I. Become the New McKinsey?" by Ted Chiang)
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Ed Bott @edbott.com · 27/05/2026
That essay by Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince pissed me off, but I couldn't figure out why. Fortunately, Henry Farrell dismantled it with surgical precision. The next time you hear someone argue that AI can replace whole layers of middle management, tell them to read this.
programmablemutter.com
AI Isn't Management. Try Explaining That to Matthew Prince
At last we have created the Corporation That Eliminates Middle Managers from classic management text Don't Eliminate the Middle Managers!
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Prof Damien Page @profdamienpage.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
can remember on the day. There’s a thoughtfulness to the responses, considered, fluent, a greater depth of response than in traditional formats. We want people like that and I’ll take that trade over testing people’s ability to ‘think on their feet’ any day because being considered, being 2/
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Prof Damien Page @profdamienpage.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Two years ago, as part of our inclusive recruitment approach, we started sending out interview questions 72 hours in advance. For all posts. And it’s been great. People come more relaxed (or as relaxed as they can be) and they bring the best examples of their expertise rather than what they 1/
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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Feeling overwhelmed with all of this. LISTEN. Another Louisiana resident (Marshawn is the only name we have) testifies against the state’s racial gerrymander, speaking truth to power up and down the hearing room and predicts how this story will end. Speak your truth, fight and believe.
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Rebecca @altair77.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Those ads for comfy travel hoodies with lots of pockets are always so tempting, but I run so hot they wouldn’t actually be that comfy or useful. ☹️
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kelly jensen @heykellyjensen.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
These five librarians are running for state political offices across the country. Here's why they're running, and why librarians make good candidates. bookriot.com/librarians-r...
bookriot.com
Why These Librarians Are Running for State Political Office–And You Should, Too: Book Censorship News, May 1, 2026
These librarians are running for state political offices across the country. Here's why they're running, and why librarians make good candidates.
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Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist @princess-vimentin.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
The title is fitting. A patient was being treated for Stage IV colorectal cancer. She had qualified for clinical trial, a her last-chance to slow the spread of her cancer. Her trial was about to start when NIH funding was pulled overnight, & it was canceled. She died. Many more stories. 🧪
nytimes.com
Opinion | ‘Easily the Worst President in U.S. History’
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Internet Archive @archive.org · 21/04/2026
🧵 The arguments behind landmark Supreme Court rulings have never been freely available… until now. More than 125,000 #SCOTUS records & briefs (1830–2019) are now open on the Internet Archive. Full announcement ⤵️ blog.archive.org/2026/04/20/u... @wolflawlibrary.bsky.social
The official seal of the United States Supreme Court, featuring a circular design with the words “Supreme Court of the United States” surrounding a central emblem of a balanced scale of justice and a laurel wreath, symbolizing law, authority, and fairness.
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Lena Sun @lenasun.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
SCOOP: Two weeks ago, the head of the CDC delayed publication of a report showing covid vaccine cut likelihood of ER visits and hospitalizations by half. Now that report is no longer allowed to be published in CDC’s flagship scientific journal. My latest. 1/2 www.washingtonpost.com/health/2026/...
washingtonpost.com
CDC won’t publish report showing covid shots cut likelihood of hospital visits
The report, which had cleared the agency’s scientific-review process, had been delayed. It now won’t be published at all, people familiar with the decision told The Post.
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shortlittlekidd @shortlittlekidd.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Bluesky friends! I’m hunting for a copy of Amtrak’s "The National" magazine (2017) featuring the Cleveland food scene. My friend shot the cover photo and met her husband because of that issue! I’d love to gift it to her, since they no longer publish it. Can ya’ll help me find this issue? 🙏🏽
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DrSinBin @drsinbin.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.
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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 01/02/2026
People say we can't compare this to the Third Reich because of the atrocities but we only found out about the atrocities after the fact when it was all said and done and we're not done with this yet so I am sure the worst stomach churning shit has yet to be revealed.
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Dan Immergluck @danimmergluck.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Brutal.
A WHOLE CIVILIZATION
WILL DIE TONIGHT
My son needs lunch, and I have to put his backpack together, but a whole civilization will die tonight, so I'm wondering if they've closed their schools.
Like, a snow day, maybe, except instead of snow it's
"keep your children home so if you die, you die together" — instead of "well open back up once the plows have cleared" it's
"we don't know if we'll be here tomorrow, hold your babies tight."
It's just "talk" I'm told, which I've been told before.
"It's how the president makes his deals." But I've never heard anyone talk about other human beings this way, and I'm not certain I can look my son in the eyes if we all agree to stomach it one more time.
A civilization will die tonight, but as I zip up his backpack and kiss him off to school I think: if this is what we call leadership then I'm not entirely sure ours isn't already dead.
@michaelfdubois
Mukad A QuBoy
@michacifdubois
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Rick Steves @ricksteves.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
My one-hour special “Rick Steves Iran: Yesterday and Today,” which helps humanize 90 million Iranian people, is streaming free and ad-free at www.ricksteves.com/watch-iran.
ricksteves.com
Iran
Join Rick as he explores the most surprising and fascinating land he's ever visited: Iran. In a one-hour, ground-breaking travel special on public television, you'll discover the splendid monuments of...
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Maxwell Frost @maxwellfrost.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
I'm not sure how you can be against removing this man from office right now. What will it take? A nuke being dropped? It's too late then. The purpose of impeachment and the 25th Amendment is to prevent that type of thing from happening, not just to react to it.
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Hansi Lo Wang (he/him) @hansilowang.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Dear eligible voters of the United States: I know there’s a lot to keep track of right now. So I’ll keep it simple. If you need help with registering to vote, start by going to npr.org/vote ...
npr.org
How to register to vote and check your registration status
For the 2026 primary elections, NPR has collected deadlines and information on how to register to vote — online, in person or by mail — in every U.S. state and territory.
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