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beccadownes

@beccadownes.bsky.social
757 followers 1K following 160 posts

Nerdy management academic with a tech background (she/her/Dr). ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3278-5749

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by beccadownes
Simon Lee @simonleewx.com · 10/09/2026
8 years ago, I tweeted side-by-side maps from NASA GISS showing global temperatures in 1976 and 2018 – both hot summers in the UK. It subsequently went viral and was printed in the Daily Mail! The 2026 version is stark. Two locally extreme summers separated by 50 years of global climate change.
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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Resistance to AI is usually put down to fear or ignorance: fear of change or job losses, or not understanding the tech & being unable to see the benefits. This frames resisting AI as irrational, not a choice to be taken seriously, just something to be overcome. #AIresistance
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LAL @lindli.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
the most a chekhov’s gun has ever chekhov’s gunned is when they introduced these years ago and swore they wouldn’t be used for policing
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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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Hayley @writagal.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
“We simply cannot accept the harm being done to a generation of ​New Zealand children.”* *Except the harm to 1 in 7 NZ kids living in material hardship, the 1 in 4 girls / 1 in 9 boys abused before 15, or kids unable to access public health, or have clean air in schools, or be taught art history or
theguardian.com
New Zealand to consider banning children under 16 from social media
Prime minister Christopher Luxon’s party to introduce bill seeking the ban, citing harm to a generation of children
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Eddie Clark @dreddieclark.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
An u16 social media ban on selected platforms a) won't significantly stop u16s being those platforms; Australian evidence shows this. b) will institute mass identity surveillance of all users of any age on those platforms; and c) Won't affect key sources of online safety risk (roblox, chatbots).
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CEO Johnny Cans @oldmatecans.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
It is possible to build infrastructure and make it look good and spend money on that because it belongs to all of us and we deserve nice public spaces and places.
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Dr Dean Knight @drdeanknight.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Sigh. Another legislative mistake comes to light in amendments passed under urgency without select committee scrutiny. And the minister throws officials under the bus, while trying to wriggle out of responsibility for her stewardship of legislation etc. www.thepost.co.nz/politics/361...
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Dylan Reeve @dylanreeve.com · 12/08/2026
It's a secondary thing, but can we talk about how ridiculous "Fix the basics" is as an election slogan for an incumbent government? Especially one that ran on that same slogan last time.
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Michael Plank @michaelplanknz.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
The bargain price of $138 million per km. Or one postdoc per metre.
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Richard Easther @rjme.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Here's the opening, but read the whole thing...
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Eddie Clark @dreddieclark.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Absolutely not.
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BlueShiftNZ @blueshiftnz.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Journo: Mr Prime Minister you still think New Zealand can achieve net zero by 2050? PM: Yes, maybe even a few years earlier J: Yet you are doing nothing to reduce NZ's emissions? PM: No, we expect a science-based solution to emerge soon J: So you're funding NZ scientists to do this? PM: Oh, God no
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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Really? Cook? 🙄 www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...
Yo dawg meme: We heard you like Cook. Would you like some Cook boat to sail across your Cook Strait?
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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Every ad now
[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.]

JANET:
Ugh...

LIZ:
What's up?

JANET:
I am so bored of cooking peas!

LIZ:
Have you tried...

AI peas?

JANET:
AI peas?

LIZ:
They're peas with AI!

[Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI].

LIZ:
Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas

JANET:
What

LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines]

Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas?

[Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it]

LIZ:

Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine

[Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas]

LIZ:
With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas!

JANET:
What

LIZ:
Shut up

LIZ:
Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow

From opening the bag of peas

to boiling the peas

to eating the peas

To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means.

JANET:
Is it really necessary to-

LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]:
THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET

[Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan:

AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas.

[Ends]
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Connor Sharp @connorsharp.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
If they sign one of the RoNS which might actually happen, Warkworth to Te Hana, as a Public Private Partnership, the annual payments for that could be over $300m per year, for 25 years+ So yeahhhhh enough money for the Marsden fund for 100 years on one road...
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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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Sacha @sachadylan.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
State funeral
stuff.co.nz
Actor Sam Neill has died
Sam Neill has died in hospital, his family said in a statement on Monday.
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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
I have couple of questions: What constitutes "better"? Whose definition? Who's doing the watching? Is everyone being watched, including the tech executives, or are they just doing the watching? techcrunch.com/2026/06/26/x...
techcrunch.com
Xprize founder says 'humans behave better when they’re being watched' | TechCrunch
Peter Diamandis is the latest tech executive to argue that global surveillance will make the world a better place, following Larry Ellison's comments in 2024.
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Russell Brown @publicaddress.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
This is good policy, and a very strong contrast with how the government chose to allocate new transport spending in the Budget. I hope they have a good plan for selling it, eg ...
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Mallory Moore @sexabolition.blog · 08/06/2026
By far the biggest problem with delegating judgement to machines is the people who own the machines can tune them towards outcomes they prefer but those who don't own anything can't. It's not the technology. It's a transfer of decision making power from rational accountable systems to capital.
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Francis Sealey @globalnet21.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
Paris air pollution is down 50% after its radical bike-friendly transformation Cars have been banned from more than 100 streets. Tens of thousands of parking spots have been eliminated. Hundreds of miles of bike lanes have been added. And air pollution is plummeting
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Daniel Vernon @yeehawtheboys.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Time to court the women's vote, once we define what one actually is. I chat more about this over at my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/yeehawth...
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Julie Blommaert @drjulieb.bsky.social · 17/05/2026
“Vote for us and we’ll do something we know is really popular and that we could do now” says the party that’s passed more things under urgency, against expert advice, and against public submissions in the last three years than anyone else
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
This is beautiful on so many levels. It names clearly and directly one of the insidious tactics that tech uses to evade effective regulation. It exemplifies a way in which humanistic scholarship provides critically important insight. >> link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Waiting for AGI - AI & SOCIETY
AI & SOCIETY -
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Jordan S. Carroll 🌹 @jordanscarroll.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
They stole over 3 TB of data from Canvas but 2 TB is just required syllabus language copied from a university website.
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Eddie Clark @dreddieclark.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Turns out the people going on about data sovereignty and the risk of chucking everything on the servers of massive overseas companies were entirely onto something and our institutions probably should have listened to them. Who could have imagined? (quite a few people, in fact)
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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Interesting thread on “AI”. I don’t agree 100% but I do think the current model doesn’t scale economically & maybe technically, which means what we’ll have in the future will be very different. Likely just small embedded fragments of “AI”, not a huge world changing systems.
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Me and a small nugget of love. 🇸🇪♥️🇺🇦 @mnotme.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
The human circulatory system, before and after proper cable management.
two images of the human body's circulatory system. One of them with good cable management
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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Laughing out loud at this. They say hard times make for good art.
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Lotographia 🍹 @lotographia.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
The Flight of the Conchords.

The one who plays an elf in the Middle Earth movies says "I'm all for fixing the pipes but only if we do it without rates increases"

The one who played an alien in the third Men in Black movie says "So... by magic?"
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Char Of AotearoaNZ @kiwichar.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Why Pākeha are so resistant to embracing Tikanga is a real mystery to me. Even right now, on the cusp of yet another catastrophic climate event, Marae across the motu are ready with open arms to CARE for our communities…ALL of us, not just Maori. The knowledge is rich, the integrity is priceless.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
Spoiler alert: nothing trickled down.
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Kate Watson @loreandordure.com · 06/04/2026
This is surprisingly reassuring!
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 02/04/2026
"The real threat is a slow, comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing. Not a dramatic collapse. Not Skynet. Just a generation of researchers who can produce results but can't produce understanding."
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Dr Sanjana Hattotuwa @sanjanah.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
This table brings out points in a bit more detail. Hope this helps NZ'ers understand where they sit in relation to what the UK, and Australia have been informed by their leaders around what the coming weeks, and months will bring. He waka eke noa, but those already vulnerable will be hit hardest.
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Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
"We are going for all humanity." "Artemis crew is go for launch. Full send." Publicly funded science to explore our universe and our own precious world is a beautiful thing.
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Paolo Bacigalupi @paolobacigalupi.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Using AI would defeat the entire purpose and pleasure of writing. I have no more interest in using AI to write than I have interest in letting another person run a marathon for me. The arrival isn't the point, nor the beauty of it.
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Keith Ng @keithng.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
The obvious risk to business is not "being left behind" by AI, it's over-commitment to AI when the offering changes (price, availability, feature) dramatically and it turns out you reshaped your business on a bad set of assumptions.
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Blake E. Reid @chup.blakereid.org · 29/03/2026
This is an essential read, and the closing on credentialing versus engagement and "centering the people for whom the stakes are highest" in particular. (H/T @peachfleurr.bsky.social @robin.berjon.com)
tarakiyee.com
On The Enshittification of Audre Lorde: "The Master's Tools" in Tech Discourse
🖼️Cover Photo: Train at the Nairobi terminus of the Mombasa–Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway. It runs parallel to the Uganda Railway that was completed in 1901. The first fare-paying passengers boarded ...
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CEO Johnny Cans @oldmatecans.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
Go to internetnz.nz/membership/ to sign up before March 31 2026. Then make sure you vote for the board elections, and turn up to the online AGM and ensure the right wing don't capture INZ and implement their anti diversity agenda.
internetnz.nz
Membership
There are plenty of perks to being a member of InternetNZ, from regulars newsletters, invites to events and much more. Find out how to join and get involved.
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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Really? That's what the government is prioritising? Never mind the cost of living crisis, let's make it easier to get a drink. If that's the only solution they have for [waves hands at everything], they should just go all-in and legalise cannabis. #nzpol www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3609...
stuff.co.nz
Government proposes sweeping changes to alcohol laws
The Government says proposed reforms will ease licensing rules and support hospitality sector growth
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Sardonicus @sardonicus.eu · 21/02/2026
'An Inuit man warms his wife’s feet. Greenland, 1880—1890s. Photographer Robert E. Peary / National Geographic'
woman sat in a snowy waste, her feet are bare and she has them under the clothes of a man stood opposite
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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
'to treat peer review as a throughput problem is to misunderstand what is at stake. Review is not simply a production stage in the research pipeline; it is one of the few remaining spaces where the scientific community talks to itself.' 1/3
timeshighereducation.com
AI is not a peer, so it can’t do peer review
If we still believe that science is a vocation grounded in argument, curiosity and care, we can’t delegate judgement to machines, says Akhil Bhardwaj
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beccadownes @beccadownes.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
Peer review science relies, more than we care to admit, on what @zey.bsky.social calls "load bearing frictions" that make it difficult to fake good science, and on trust that most ppl also value science itself & won't cheat just for personal gain. This creates the wrong environment for that to hold.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 27/01/2026
1. The thing about science that these jokers don't understand is that science cannot be vibe-coded. Whatever its flaws, the point with vibe coding is that you're trying to quickly make something that sorta works, where you can immediately sorta see if it sorta works and then sorta use it.
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Craig Renney @clrenney.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Budget is on 28 May. If things get a tiny bit better, then it's only because in 2 short years, they got so much worse. Cuts to essential public services. Record out-migration of Kiwis. Failing child poverty. New Zealand can't afford more of this failed plan. Let's make this a one-term government.
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
!!!!!
After 48 hours of torture, Dr. Christie wrote a forced confession — “the best thing I ever wrote,” he later told the BBC, noting that he had made sure the confession included “all my recommendations to the African National Congress” about the best way to sabotage Koeberg and other facilities.

“And, gloriously, the judge read it out in court,” Dr. Christie added. “So my recommendations went from the judge’s mouth” straight to the A.N.C.
Two years later, in December 1982, Koeberg was bombed by white A.N.C. operatives who had gotten jobs at the facility. They followed Dr. Christie’s instructions to the letter.
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