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Anna Phillips

@annaphillips.bsky.social
193 followers 1.3K following 215 posts

Physics education researcher Once a high school student accidentally called me Ms. Physics. 🇺🇸 in 🇦🇺

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Reposted by Anna Phillips
Butlerian Jihadist of House Dornick @shimminykricket.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026
Basically AI allows software engineers to produce shitty code *faster* and in higher volumes which increases the amount time spent on code reviews and revisions nullifying the productivity gained from producing the code in the first place.
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Reposted by Anna Phillips
Butlerian Jihadist of House Dornick @shimminykricket.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026
Harvard just dropped a study AI productivity in software engineering and it found the average increase in productivity from using Claude code is.....zero and for exactly the reasons you'd think fion.ac/jellyfish.pdf
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I appreciated the academic's sense of defeat about anyone ever actually reading his work. Unfortunately, I came across it after he had already died. So option to write to him....
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I once encountered an baffling piece of text that included the footnote of "I had no idea how to translate this so I have provided word for word translation that results in this unintelligible sentence. Please write to me if you are reading this. Perhaps I have figured it out by now, perhaps not."
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
'In some respects, what we are seeing resembles a form of collective grief. Not only grief for colleagues who have left, but grief for ways of working, professional identities and communities that once gave meaning to academic life. This creates an important challenge for university leaders.'
wonkhe.com
The loss of staff belonging in higher education
Nick Hulbert-Williams argues that what looks like low morale and change fatigue in HE may really be a crisis of belonging
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Reposted by Anna Phillips
Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Millennium math problem solved by OpenAI may have "regurgitated" competitors unpublished work... also they spent more than $22 million in computing power in one week to scoop them. techcrunch.com/2026/09/08/o...
techcrunch.com
OpenAI fought dirty on career-making math problem, says NYU mathematician | TechCrunch
There is a $1 million bounty for the first person providing a solution to the Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness problem.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Yes, I was just pointing out weight is not the only measure. Shape matters to, and that's where bikes have a surprising amount of utility. The 800lbs is ridiculous. That's roughly the same as my Corolla (350kg).
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Floppy cargo is another story though. I once moved a bunch of bean bag chairs on my bike. 1 star, do not recommend unless the goal is to get people to laugh at you.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
"2 cargo ebikes carry as much cargo as a SUV" Depends on the shape of the cargo and size of SUV. Oddly shaped or long things, cargo bike wins even over one mid-sized SUV. Furniture in particular is cargo-bike friendly even when it wouldn't fit on in an SUV.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Well that's 34 more cases than I would have expected.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Has it ever *not* been fatal???
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
The parent on a GSD hovering next to a child on a Woom is a certain type of parent. I am also that type of parent. Once they are on larger bikes, I highly recommend the Tern Tow Hitch for the hop on hop off service.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Though I have learned you can turn a $5000 bike into a $6000 bike!
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Find people who use their bike the way you intend to use yours, ask the advice. A torque sensor mid-drive motor will provide the most natural, best riding experience. If that is in budget, do that. From there, what do you want to do with it? There is an e-bike for everything.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I am so, so sorry, and so, so angry for you. One of the horrifying parts of being in this much too large club is knowing exactly how the horrible people experiencing miscarriages are treated. It's so dehumanizing. The way they say things like "in there." The way they get frustrated at your grief.
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Reposted by Anna Phillips
rael gost pictuers @jackfeerick.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
What Dolly taught us is that it is in fact possible to be wealthy beyond your wildest dreams of avarice but still be a fundamentally good person with a strong moral compass, and the only reason more rich people aren't like that is because they don't want to be.
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Luke O'Neil @lukeoneil47.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
By almost any measure Dolly embodied "the American Dream." Some people will come from nothing and make it big and consider the problem now solved. Others will remember that there are still others with nothing and use what they have to help.
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Reposted by Anna Phillips
Bo Thompson @gaudipern.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
(3/3) Dolly called and asked if there was any way to help with this tragedy. Abumrad replied she was on a vaccine research team but it was expensive and they were still seeking grants. When Dolly heard this she replied "Well I have money" and donated $1m. Abumrad's team produced the Moderna vaccine.
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Preeti Chhibber @runwithskizzers.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
When we hate on these disgusting immoral evil billionaires it’s bc just look at everything Dolly did. They could be doing that. They could just be helping people and every day they choose not to help people. They choose to harm. And when they die, we’ll dance and laugh and be thankful they’re gone.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
"The report only captures PhDs who had left the US six months after graduation." I'm curious on the 5-10 year data. I know they collect it. They know where I am because they ask me where I am every few years (and I do respond).
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I know exactly one person who got bit by a shark. He kicked it in the the face. And then it bit him on the foot. Seemed fair.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Swarthmore trained me in being careful with my statements. I knew 21 based on my years there. Therefore, >20 was a safe statement to make!
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
For >20 years, Swarthmore College has done this. It's a good thing. Blunts the impact of everyone being in the top 10% (mostly top 5%) of their high school cohorts to some of those people having to be average/below average.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
At least the 500kg of gold is pretty compact. One of my favorite science teaching things I ever had access to was a lead brick. A real good lesson in density. 500kg of gold is just like 50 normal sized bricks.
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Reposted by Anna Phillips
Jennifer N. Victor @jenvictor.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Hypothesis: One of the reasons universities are struggling to adapt pedagogical policies and curricula to an AI world is that the vast majority of university administrators do not teach classes. It’s much harder to solve a problem you haven’t encountered yourself.
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Reposted by Anna Phillips
ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔬𝔰 ☽|☾ 𝔓𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔰𝔰 @chaospriestess.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
My favorite Sam Neil fact will always be that he designed a future Australian flag that replaces the union jack with the aboriginal flag for Event Horizon and insisted the film use it.
Screencap of Sam Neil in Event Horizon, his flight suit features an Australian flag with the union jack replaced by a yellow circle on black and red, the Australian aboriginal flag
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Richard Easther @rjme.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
The New Zealand Institute of Physics has its AGM today. I have to write a president's report. This is part of it.
Fourthly, the recent changes to the science system and our science funding are going to have  a generational impact on research in New Zealand. From one perspective our discipline stands to do well; “space”, “quantum” and “AI” are all favoured areas in the new scheme, and all of these have a big component of “physics” – it is worth remembering that key AI technologies were awarded the physics Nobel, and it is a reminder that the impact of our discipline is often felt far beyond its immediate domain. On top of that, our Prime Minister said on Thursday (25 June) that he wanted to see professors become millionaires. So as both a professor and a physicist you might expect that I would be happy. 

In reality, though, I am deeply concerned that the government does not have the competence or vision needed to make good decisions – the idea that public support for science leads to better outcomes for the community (both economically and more broadly) is one that I, and the Institute, fully embraces – delivering these benefits is one of our core objects as an organisation. However, it is not clear to me that the current government policy settings will achieve their stated goals and in many ways they appear to work against them. 

We will continue to speak on this but we are being buffeted by forces that are much larger than us.  And it is striking that while funding systems in the United States are similarly in turmoil the total change  until now in the United States is less dramatic than it has been in New Zealand – but there it is the focus of heated debate, whereas many of the changes here have been poorly signalled and are receiving little attention in the media.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
She'd be careful to use the steps in some back hallway, where no one would find the bodies.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Yes, but also, where is @graphcrimes.bsky.social to comment on that zero on the axis that does not belong there?
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
The other day, I watched a the driver of a Prado drive into the back of a Tesla as soon as the light turned green. I think they didn't even see the Tesla in front of them, which had been waiting for a pedestrian to finish crossing. Prado driver saw the green light and went for it.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Or began before one of your collaborators moved abroad!
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
And this is why the obituaries for Elizabeth II had like 20 credited reporters, some of whom had been dead for a while.
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Reposted by Anna Phillips
David Slack @slack2thefuture.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Hilarious and deeply insightful writing by @brianphillips.lol.
Because the truth is, tech doesn't have an image problem. It doesn't have a message problem. It has an intention problem. What's wrong with the axe murderer who broke into my house is not that he hasn't successfully persuaded me to buy into his narrative. What's wrong is that he's trying to kill me with an axe. Similarly, when you launch a product that's designed to put millions of people out of work, block access to sources of verifiable truth, replace human creativity with slop, and lower the barriers to every sort of atrocity, the problem isn't that you haven't told the public a good story about those things. The problem is that you are trying to do them.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
My mother was a lawyer. *Her* mother was a lawyer (in the 1940s). And I was a good student with a good relationship with the head of the school. I was well prepared for that war. That teacher had *no idea* who he was up against.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
if he picked this fight with me, he would lose. He yelled some more. I documented every sexist remark, made a list of witnesses, and went the head of school every. single. time. Provided the list of examples to the most helicopter-y and Karen-y moms of freshman girls. He did not last long.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Choir teacher new to the school. Week 1, makes a joke about a freshman girl being on her period because she was having a bad day and cried. I, senior, tried after class to have a polite "That will not fly at this school" conversation. He yelled at me for being disrespectful. I warned him
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 29/05/2026
Of all the harm this administration has done to US science, today's proposed changes to the way federal grants are awarded and administered is the most damaging yet. The text of the federal register document is impenetrably tedious by design, so here's an excellent summary of what it says.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
We spent not nearly enough time marveling at the fact that a team of NASA engineers sent a firmware update to a robot *outside of our solar system* and fixed it. We need joy in space exploration. Here's hoping next year the Voyagers get a big 50th birthday party. www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-v...
jpl.nasa.gov
NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth
After some inventive sleuthing, the mission team can — for the first time in five months — check the health and status of the most distant human-made object in existence.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
The first is Very Catholic but the second is just Very Good.
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Reposted by Anna Phillips
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 25/05/2026
"Please provide a justification for the foreign collaboration." Science.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Even just regular people. I was a teen who was like "This is right out of Orwell"
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
I don't think I've ever made another professional as happy as when I sent a message to an area specialist librarian with "Here is this abbreviated citation form 1968 that clearly has at least one typo in it and I want find the whole article."
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
What grade? At the university level, I've been pretty shocked at how many students truly don't have the reading comprehension to read more than a page at a time. But in sitting down with students, it's much more a "can't" situation than "won't" for most. And that scares me.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Which is better: no water or no power? fortune.com/2026/05/12/l...
fortune.com
'It's like we don't exist': Nearly 50,000 Lake Tahoe residents face power loss as utility redirects lines to data centers | Fortune
Roughly 49,000 Lake Tahoe residents could lose 75% of their power after their energy provider said it's directing energy to neighboring data centers.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
But also the "pleasure to have in class" crowd can also be kind of annoying and smart asses outside of class. (Said as a former "pleasure to have in class" child)
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Berna Devezer @devezer.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
gotta love when a whole education system makes itself vulnerable by making a large number of institutions dependent on a proprietary lms whose continuity or reliability they have no control over *chef's kiss* now let's do it again, but bigger, with ai
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
In Australia, our speed camera tickets add demerit points and if you get 12 points, you lose your license for at least 3 months. Mild speeding (<10kmh over limit) - 1 point, significant speeding (10-25kmh) - 3 points. >25kmh gets an immediate suspension.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
I agree with this, but I also have seen another very effective method, deployed in a jurisdiction where speed cameras for ticketing were not legal: If the a speeding car was detected, the lights ahead were triggered to turn red. People learned and slowed down.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
It has to be Mercury. All we have to do is declare anything tidally locked to not be a planet.
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Anna Phillips @annaphillips.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
The real question I have about that time zone is Western Sahara.
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