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Zach A.

@awtzach.bsky.social
157 followers 441 following 46 posts

Dinosauria devotee. Failed paleoartist. Data science BSc. Armchair naturalist philosopher. Sondheim stan. 🌿🦕🦜🏳️‍🌈🐊🎨

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Reposted by Zach A.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
raise revenue and undercut right-populism with One Weird Trick (capitalists HATE this)
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matty @mattio.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
This is wild - somebody did a deep dive into the real stories behind this famous XKCD: sheets.works/data-viz/hol...
an XKCD comic showing a precariously assembled tower of blocks. much is labelled "all modern digital infrastructure." a thin leg down at the bottom is labelled "A project some random person in Nebraska has been thanklessly maintaining since 2003."
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ddɐ˙ʎʞsʞɔɐlq˙uǝʌs@ @sven.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026
Kevin actually called it!
screenshot from twitter. 

Nathan @NathanpmYoung asks "Does it actually work?"

and Kevin Roose replies "not really, but the power!"
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Spooky Back From The Dead Lazarus @jlazarus.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
This has been on my feed all day so I'm going to give it as fair as treatment as I can. Prof. Wolfers is well meaning & I get the intuition, but he's speaking outside his area of expertise and he's just wrong. Having lunch with someone you disagree with isn't going to "cure ideological bias." 🧵
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roterote @roterote.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Since someone is advocating to get lunch with your political opponents to check your biases, I will tell you to not do that. 1) it is stupid, 2) you can learn everything about your political opponents by listening to them, their media and their internal discourses, 3) lunch with Nazis is not fun.
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Gabe Ortíz @tusk81.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Abolish ICE.
Haitian Bridge Alliance President Guerline Jozef said that Pierre Damas Bel had complained of heat emanating from the ankle monitor and needing to wear a sock between the device and his leg to protect his skin. She said when Pierre Damas Bel brought those concerns to ICE at an appointment asking for it to be removed, they instead tightened the monitor, saying it should not be lose enough for a sock to fit underneath it.

This revelation was met with horrified gasps among those in the sanctuary.
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Paige McGlauflin @paigemcglauflin.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
!!! this reminded me of posts from (now ex) staff on Reddit after being laid off from USA Today last month www.reddit.com/r/Journalism...
reddit.com
From the Journalism community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the Journalism community
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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I'm back, I missed you all. Since this is an important subject I know too much about, here's a 🧵 explaining that AI Safety Is Mostly A Sex Cult. I don't think these people should make policy. (1/?) (alternative title: Time For Some Cult Theory)
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ffrf.org @ffrf.org · 02/10/2026
Four children in one Idaho family died after their parents chose prayer over medical care. The state’s religious exemption helped shield that neglect from intervention. Religious freedom should never mean children get fewer protections under the law. www.propublica.org/article/idah...
propublica.org
Four Kids in One Faith-Healing Family Died. Authorities Could Do Nothing.
An exemption in Idaho law shields faith-healing parents from criminal prosecution for conduct that otherwise would be charged as neglect. It also keeps police and social workers from stepping in to pr...
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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com · 28/09/2026
The important thing to know about the Starship launch today is that Elon Musk is directly responsible for an unfathomable number of people dying preventable deaths and has never faced a single consequence for it.
cnn.com
One year on from dismantling of USAID, study projects that global aid cuts could lead to 9.4 million deaths by 2030 | CNN
It’s been one year since the Trump administration dismantled the US Agency for International Development (USAID), with aid cuts leading to the closure of HIV clinics in South Africa, the termination o...
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Circ @tinyicecat.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
This news is important because all the fucks out there actively attempting to wreck the world want you to think that the work is hopeless and just mitigating the worst case scenario. It's not. Fucking keep going.
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
As of today, the CDC has changed (reverted) their Covid guidance to make the vaccine recommended for all people over 18. In addition to being a smart public health move, this recommendation also means insurance must cover it. Read more here: www.cdc.gov/covid/hcp/va... Listen to a breakdown here:
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Zach A. @awtzach.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Overton's responses remind me of something out of Stepford Wives. As someone who was raised in a "cult" (Jehovah's Witnesses) and then left, I find her deflections chilling.
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Yes, because it helps you avoid being a mark and to place accountability in people making these tools. Hope that helps.
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Andrea Lathrop @cabernet.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
See also: medium.com/@emilymenonb...
medium.com
Stochastic Parrots 🦜: Frequently Unasked Questions
It’s been a bit over five years since the Stochastic Parrots paper (Bender, Gebru et al 2021) was published (and somewhat longer since…
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
My op-ed is out in USA Today www.usatoday.com/story/opinio...
usatoday.com
DEI initiatives didn't cost companies. Just the opposite. | Opinion
Firms that kept DEI, whether due to executive decisions or shareholder pressure, performed as well in the stock market as those that rolled it back.
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Zach A. @awtzach.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This 100%. Unfortunately Not surprised by Talarico going in the opposite direction 😒
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Ezra Levin ❌👑 @ezralevin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Fun fact: in our polling of battleground states, about 60% of voters said it is a “top” or “high” priority for Congress to investigate and hold Musk accountable. Lean into it Dems. He’s a cartoon villain - treat him like one.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 09/09/2026
"Oh, you're criticising data centres? But you USED A DATA CENTRE to publish your post??? Hypocritical much????" Time to put this fossil fuel PR inspired talking point to bed forever. Why the 'Mr Gotcha' gambit is wrong in two very important ways:
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Jon Collins @jcollins.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Yumna Rizvi of the Center for Victims of Torture: “This administration wants to conflate this threat of immigration with terrorism, so wants to create this idea that the individuals at Camp 6 are so terrible and so horrific." Story via @msepic.bsky.social www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
mprnews.org
St. Paul man arrested in ICE surge sent to Guantanamo Bay
Adam Abdullah has no criminal record, but the government is holding him at a military prison set up for terrorism suspects after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 02/09/2026
Welcome to the Gulf/Lake of Digital Imperialism. Last year, the Gulf of America was a wake-up call showing us clearly that we need digital sovereignty. If you value freedom, encourage your government to support data and cloud sovereignty initiatives.
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Trans News Network @transnews.network · 01/09/2026
Underneath the "progressive" papacy of Pope Leo remains a deeply reactionary institution, one of the biggest enemies of trans rights worldwide. @sjklapecki.itch.io, who survived the Catholic Church's bigotry firsthand, goes in-depth on why it's time to see through the propaganda and face reality.
transnews.network
The Pope is Not Our Friend
Underneath the supposedly progressive papacy of Pope Leo remains a deeply reactionary institution that is one of the biggest enemies of trans rights worldwide. A trans survivor’s view: it’s well past ...
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Barred and Boujee aka Madiba Dennie @audrelawdamercy.blacksky.app · 02/09/2026
'using our music to train AI is like when the Borg assimilated Picard' IM OBSESSED
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 01/09/2026
I would like ask JD Vance about Pierre Damas Bel.
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Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
IMO @stevesalaita.bsky.social does *really* well in a Chronicle interview that feels very gotcha ("Confessions of a Campus Radical"). Below, facing a question designed to make him 'endorse' violence, he carefully indexes who is allowed to commit violence (Israel) and who isn't ("Hamas").
Goldstein: Let’s zero in on October 7. Are you saying you wish that more pro-Palestinian voices would not disavow the kinds of violence we saw on that day? That to disavow such violence reflects a failure to understand what decolonization requires?

Salaita: Yes, and no. I want to choose my words carefully. What I object to most is how the demand to disavow violence does not exist for those on the pro-Israel side. They can discuss Israeli politics and policies and Palestinian society without having to disavow Israeli violence. The constant demand for disavowal speaks to a particular marginalization of Palestinian realities. It suggests a moral hierarchy in which Palestinians have to account for themselves in ways that the more powerful party does not.

Gutkin: Much of what became very controversial in campus politics was protests by students and faculty that seemed to endorse Hamas violence, to celebrate it with things like the Students for Justice in Palestine fliers featuring stylized images of hang gliders. That stuff incited a strong condemnatory response from critics who saw not just a failure to disavow violence but a kind of embrace of violence. Is that an example of the dynamic you’re talking about, in which the failure to disavow triggered a repressive response?

Salaita: What I want to focus on is how the pro-Palestine protesters are always being asked to account for themselves in ways that completely ignore their relationship with Israeli violence. Some of these students have seen the worst forms of violence. Some have experienced it firsthand. I don’t think it’s fair to saddle those students with a moral responsibility to distance themselves from violence that doesn’t exist for anybody else on campus.
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Anu @nofirstorder.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
You can feel the sheer exhaustion and heartbreak in their voices. No family should have to beg for justice after losing their child.😌
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Bill Lindeke @blindeke.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Glorious!
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Ron Marz @ronmarz.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Jake Lang getting his Nazi ass beaten by Spider-Man in Minneapolis today is the ray of sunshine I needed.
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ᴢᴇɴ sɪᴍᴍᴏɴs @killlthehype.blacksky.app · 23/08/2026
16 months ago: Never forget how it started.
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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 23/08/2026
I love Minneapolis
Jake Lang, a Nazi asshole, getting his ass picturesquely whooped in downtown Minneapolis by a person dressed as Spider-Man

I cannot overstate how much this photo looks like a comic book cover

Photo credit Chris Juhn Photography
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Peter Jukes @peterjukes.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I’ve had some media attacks in the past, and thank goodness I’ve managed to contain suicidal thoughts since my late 30s. But this - including Novara, Guardian and Channel 4 News by the end — would have probably finished me off
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Alex Wenzel @alexwenzel.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
On the scale of actions I've become used to through academic union contract enforcement, Arday's actions barely register in terms of harm caused. Rarely, our cases receive one (1) national news story. I can think of one case that received more than 3-5 articles*. None received 200+ articles.
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
We need to show rightwing newspapers that actions have consequences. Add your name: goodlawproject.org/s/abb8a1
goodlawproject.org
Jason Arday: Demand a public inquiry now | Good Law Project
Commission an immediate public inquiry into how to ensure a responsible press given its contribution to Dr Arday’s tragic death.
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Zach A. @awtzach.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Musk's entire ethos really seems to be dedicated to the worst outcomes for humanity
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Zach A. @awtzach.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Utterly shameful. How far we've fallen.
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Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD @elizabethjacobs.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I’ve seen a few people commenting today that the idea of separating the MMR vaccine into three separate shots might be a good strategy to get anti-vax parents to vaccinate. Absolutely not. Here’s why. First, countering anti-vax misinformation is like playing whack a mole. You bat down one lie…
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Jay Kuo @nycjayjay.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
In case it needs to be explained again..
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 09/08/2026
Thank you! It's funny because I wrote it before LLMs were widespread bsky.app/profile/oliv...
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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Frederick Douglass, 1857: Those who profess to favor freedom yet deprecate agitation want crops without plowing the ground; they want rain without thunder + lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
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Dan Silverman @dmsilverman.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
New study shows that — contra widely accepted narratives — there is NO EVIDENCE that professors change their students’ politics and make them more liberal through their teaching
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Bryce Covert @brycecovert.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Yikes. Women accounted for all of the job losses and all of the labor force decline in July, according to @nwlc.org
WASHINGTON — Women accounted for 100 percent of the decline in the labor force in July, according to a National Women’s Law Center jobs analysis of monthly data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That brings the total net number of women who have left the labor force since January this year to 845,000. In comparison, there are 406,000 fewer men in the labor force now than in January. 

A total of 165,000 women, aged 20 and over, left the labor force last month — meaning they are neither working nor looking for work — while men's labor force participation was unchanged. Overall, the economy lost 23,000 jobs in July. Women accounted for all of these losses, losing 32,000 jobs, while men gained 9,000 jobs. Women make up 50.1% of the workforce.
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Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · 08/08/2026
exactly 💯 on LLMs: they simulate the output we call language, not the cognitive capacity we call language!
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Social Media Lab @socialmedialab.ca · 21/07/2026
"Taylor Farms Spent Big on MAGA and Anti-Regulatory Lobbying Before Diarrhea Outbreak. The company donated more than $3.6 million to conservative groups between 2020 and 2025, including $1 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC." www.wired.com/story/diarrh...
wired.com
Taylor Farms Spent Big on MAGA and Anti-Regulatory Lobbying Before Diarrhea Outbreak
The company donated more than $3.6 million to conservative groups between 2020 and 2025, including $1 million to the MAGA Inc. super PAC.
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Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 19/07/2026
The average global temperature so far this year for the January-June period is the 3rd warmest on record (since at least 1850)... This data is using NOAAGlobalTempv6.1.0: www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/lan...
Line graph time series of global land mean surface temperature anomalies for each January-June period from 1850 through 2026. There is a long-term increasing trend and large year-to-year variability. The mean surface temperature anomaly averaged for January-June 2026 was 1.14°C for global land areas. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1901-2000 climate baseline. Data from NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI NOAAGlobalTemp v6.1.0.
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Assigned Media @assignedmedia.org · 14/07/2026
Magdalene Visaggio was once in seminary, training to become a Catholic priest. Now she's a snarky online trans girl like the rest of us. In a challenging new essay for Assigned, she writes about the toll being hated for who she is has taken on her psyche. assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...
assignedmedia.org
I Am Not Sorry Lindsey Graham is Dead - Assigned Media
How a decade of hate made me a worse person
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sasha @2damntrans.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
It’s very late Roman Republic, this.
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Erin Maye Quade @erinmayequade.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
It’s a straight line from Republicans top priority being “we want immigrants to die rather than have them keep paying for their own health insurance” to ICE murdering brown people in the streets. Republican elected officials regular dehumanization of immigrants isn’t just rhetoric, it’s deadly.
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Jason Chavez @jchavezmpls.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Justice for Joan Sebastian Guerrero.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 14/07/2026
This morning in Biddeford, Maine, a 26-year-old man said goodbye to his wife and daughter and left for work. Moments later he was dead, shot in the head by ICE agents, the second man ICE has killed in six days. ICE is killing our neighbors. ICE cannot be reformed. Abolish ICE.
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