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Colin

@celsmooth.bsky.social
494 followers 814 following 385 posts

Assistant clinical professor of STEM Ed. Parent to two young children. Walker in woods. Usually in Philly these days (he/his)

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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 20h
Their mission is the pursuit of human rights for their technology designed to deprive you of human rights.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 15h
Your nerd-ass freshman roommate after three beers, repeating random shit he heard on TikTok.
Elon Musk: Unless they figure how to make places actually invisible, "stealth" just means low radar cross section in the 2 to 18 GHz range. Against and advanced enemy, current stealth technology is not worth the design constraints IMO.
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Max Kennerly @maxkennerly.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Palantir shifting from hiring only "Ivy or Ivy-equivalent" degrees to hiring only out of high school is an admission that "training" and "talent" were never factors at all. They were looking for packaging & prestige, and now they're looking for ignorance & impressionability.
Tech companies launching their own programs to train grads because they ‘can’t rely’ on Ivy Leagues
By Lydia Moynihan
Published Oct. 1, 2026, 6:00 a.m. ETAs the university system increasingly becomes a wildly expensive bastion of anti-Western sentiment, key figures in Silicon Valley are betting on alternatives to higher education. They argue that even the Ivy League is no longer producing the best candidates — nor are they even accepting some of the most qualified students.

“It used to be the case that you could rely on somebody who went to an Ivy or Ivy-equivalent to be top notch,” said Jordan Hirsch, who runs Palantir’s semester-long intensive Meritocracy Fellowship, which accepts high school graduates.“But that’s not the case anymore… we suspected that there was a lot of talent being missed.”
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Luke Ontario @coolhand.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Every time I see a serial killer tv show advertised I think of this
My dad used to work with Ted Bundy at the University of Utah and every Friday my dad would say, "See ya Monday-Bundy" and I can't imagine how much Ted actually thought about murdering him for
it.
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Miaganga @miaganga.bsky.social · 17h
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Xela Hart @xelahart.bsky.social · 21h
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 15h
Unless Congress reclaims its power, this will just become the new normal. A good first step would be to impeach Vought. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/u...
nytimes.com
National Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress
The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
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Truthout @truthout.org · 14h
Trump was reportedly encouraged by Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, to carry out his illegal invasion of Venezuela during an hourslong session with the chatbot just weeks before the attack this January.
buff.ly
Report: Trump Used Grok to Help Talk Him Into Illegal Invasion of Venezuela
The president reportedly used the AI chatbot for hours when Elon Musk visited the White House last December.
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Bryce Covert @brycecovert.bsky.social · 17h
Fascinating new study of New Mexico's universal childcare program, first of its kind, finds the program dramatically increased work for lower-income moms www.the74million.org/zero2eight/n...
the74million.org
Nearly a Year In, Universal Childcare Is Reshaping Work for Moms in New Mexico
A new study highlights some early impacts of universal childcare on labor supply for mothers in New Mexico.
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 02/10/2026
meanwhile people have been telling us since 2025 that we have to vote for him in 2028
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Mina Kimes @minakimes.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Straight up: As a woman in football, this sucks to listen to. This week in particular.
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Kevin Collins @kwcollins.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Legal folks, how is this "defying Democrats" and not "illegally misappropriating funds"?
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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Somehow not everyone is aware of fact alluded to below. So one more time: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett were all on GWBush 2000 'Florida Recount' team. (Which made GWB first prez in 112 yrs to 'win' after losing popular vote. Now they 'impartially' rule on our future.)
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Jimmy Thomson @jameswsthomson.com · 01/10/2026
Self-driving US military by 2027. Wait 2028. Definitely by 2029-30. 2045.
newrepublic.com
Hegseth Announces Elon Musk and Newt Gingrich Will Help Lead Military
Pete Hegseth revealed that the men will help direct a project to determine the future of the military.
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Timothy Snyder @timothysnyder.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
We are ruining our own institutions, which is sad for us and great for our enemies.
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Wow, they really ARE running the government like a software company
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Reported Pentagon data breach
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Hegseth to cut 20% generals
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Pretty clear to me there’s a very good case against this man for mass murder, and I’m saying that in as measured a fashion as I can. He’s order the killing of 234 people under no plausible war or legal justification. I am skeptical he will ever face legal accountability for til his but he should.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I am going to say what I've been saying for some time. If they succeed in restricting and criminalizing abortion pills, more people are going to die. ALSO, I think that the public is overly complacent right now.
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Prem Thakker ツ @premthakker.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Hegseth announces new effort to study "future of warfare" led by Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey, Newt Gingrich. Luckey: — Trump donor — Self-proclaimed "radical Zionist" — Secretly visited Israel to meet with Netanyahu — Trump Jr & Jared Kushner's brother have major stakes in his weapons company, Anduril
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 30/09/2026
Eugenics 🤝 ai www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/h...
One of the things that is going to change is that we’re never ever again going to be able to be dominated by public officials who tell us, ‘Trust the experts,’” Mr. Kennedy said during the Tuesday session.

“If somebody tells you, ‘Masks work, trust the experts,’ A.I. may tell you otherwise,” he added. “If somebody tells you, ‘Social distancing works, trust the experts,’ A.I. may correct that. And if somebody tells you that a vaccine will prevent transmission and infection, or you need to take it to protect your grandmother, A.I. may say it actually doesn’t do that.”
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StrictlyChristo 🇺🇦🌻 @strictlychristo.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Billionaires should not exist. Somewhere a Bastille needs storming. ⚒️
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Matthew R. Deroo @deroomat.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Until they are punished- they will continue to act with impunity
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Matthew R. Deroo @deroomat.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How debased - these guys would take off all their clothes to be naked with their emperor king
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Hunter Walker @hunterw.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
One of the biggest AI companies is paying to "present" Politico's flagship newsletter as it touts "AI's big day in Washington." Good stuff.
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 29/09/2026
Tangentially, the military has made a service-wide push into using personal phones as work devices, meaning Meta is no doubt ingesting sensitive if not classified/secret data. And I’d be curious what this might mean for Signal.
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LarryLegend @bwtrainer.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
if someone tells you you don't need a union, you 100% need a union
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Dr. Blair Stein @blairstein.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Counterpoint: no they don’t. University administrators, academic advisors, faculty in STEM departments, boards of trustees, state funding bodies, employers, etc. are the ones who “need to do more.” “The Humanities” (whatever that means) is already doing the absolute most.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
The techbros don't want you to see this trailer. Pass it on.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 27/09/2026
Ignore for a moment the question about whether Anthropic trains on user sessions. I am I right in reading this as saying that Anthropic's "never-before-discovered" reverse transcriptase was *patented* three years ago?
Dr. Mestre first encountered the enzymes in jumbo phages in 2022 while searching for new reverse transcriptases. He worked briefly as a consultant for ReNegade Therapeutics, which filed a patent in 2023 on a number of reverse transcriptases, including the ones Dr. Mestre found. He is listed as a co-inventor on the patent filing.
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Danya Glabau @allergyphd.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
So fucking goddamn funny, I have never felt schadenfreude this hard in my LIFE
Dr. Mestre and his colleagues have yet to publish their findings. But for the past three years, they have regularly used Anthropic’s A.I. models as they have written code, drafted manuscripts and performed other tasks.

In doing so, Dr. Mestre said he and colleagues shared key findings about the enzymes with Anthropic.
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Noel Healy @drnoelhealy.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
The assault on US universities didn't start in 2025. Our new paper traces the decades of corporate capture that made it possible, and why climate research is a primary target. Open access: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
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Danya Glabau @allergyphd.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Want to add that a CUNY branch is one of my neighborhood's many treasures. Do you know how cool it is to walk by on the way home from school with my kindergartner, admiring the book stacks through the window, talking about all the things she can learn and grow up to be???
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
They are playing in our faces
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Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 26/09/2026
Peter Thiel praises evil. Peter Thiel hates democracy. Peter Thiel founded Palantir. Peter Thiel owns JD Vance. Peter Thiel is the most powerful billionaire in the United States. Peter Thiel can’t stop talking about the “Antichrist.” Find out why. Read “The Nerd Reich”
Perfect with photos of teal and Judy Vance. Quote from Peter Teal if you’re evil, you’re actually kind of good because at least you’re getting something done.
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Ryan Boyd @ryanboyd.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
We've stolen a lot of young people's lives by telling them they have to be planning A Great Career when they're like 19
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Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"RKF took money earmarked to provide health care for Black infants and spent it on his personal security detail" is a ludicrous headline. Comic book villainy.
wsj.com
Exclusive | RFK Jr.’s Enhanced Security Was Funded With Money From Minority Health Office
The cost of the health secretary’s security grew from roughly $10 million in fiscal year 2025 to $17 million in fiscal year 2026.
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
today in Stop Romanticizing Canada: Quebec’s Bill 9 has just taken effect, barring women in veils from receiving public services. Public employees include university faculty, so professors have been instructed to require veiled women to uncover their faces or be removed from the classroom.
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Colin @celsmooth.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
@213mfs.bsky.social
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Christopher DiPiazza @chrisdipiazza.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Drexel University is choosing to shut down the country’s oldest natural history museum, The Academy of Natural Sciences, for “funding” reasons (even though it costs .6% of their annual budget and they spent WAY more on ai nobody wants this year!) Go to save-the-academy.org to help.
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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 24/09/2026
Look, we know for fucking sure that my dog is sapient and also unpredictable and it turns out of he mauls someone I’m liable and he can be put down.
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Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
No one would be able to say this stuff if the fossil fuel industry didn't own both the people saying it *and* the media ecosystem reporting it. But here we are.
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Patrick Bresnihan @pbresnihan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Ireland has highest domestic electricity bills in Europe, directly linked to runaway growth in data centres since 2015. Ireland could be a world leader in clean energy, which would insulate us from energy price volatility. These are policy decisions. www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026...
irishtimes.com
Households ‘put on the hook’ for cost of data centre expansion to electricity grid
Irish consumers pay disproportionately more for electricity than large data centres, report suggests
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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 21/09/2026
The government moving or hiding jailed people to avoid review by courts isn't some loophole in our habeas corpus rights. This government behavior has been considered a violation of the people's habeas corpus rights since at least the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_...
Jailors were forbidden to move prisoners from one prison to another or out of the country to evade the writ. In case of disobedience jailers would be punished with severe fines which had to be paid to the prisoner.[5][6]
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Jonathan Ladd @jonathanmladd.com · 21/09/2026
Habeas corpus rights are guaranteed by Article I of our Constitution, which lists Congress's powers. Only Congress can determine that an invasion or rebellion is underway and suspend the writ. Hiding prisoners from the courts is unconstitutional. constitution.congress.gov/constitution/
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Adam McKay @ghostpanther.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Wrote it with Rob Smigel. And yes, it was pulled from reruns.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 21/09/2026
The Army awarded an artillery shell project to General Dynamics in a rushed process without the typical vetting. The result: a fiasco in a Texas factory with robots in flames and half a billion dollars in taxpayer funds that yielded no usable shells.
propublica.org
The Costly Blunders in the Army’s $533 Million Fiasco
ProPublica revealed how a rushed effort to arm Ukraine with artillery shells wasted half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding. Here are the biggest takeaways from that reporting.
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Dan Hon @danhon.com · 22/09/2026
Can't believe I'm so jaded that I look at that number and think: "huh, I thought it would be more than that"
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
heck yeah my Luddite print and sticker from @wolfproofpress.com arrived today (and will soon be up in my new office!)
A photograph of a glittery sticker next to a printed sheet. On the sticker is a picture of the mythical figure Ned Ludd and the text, "Breaking machines that enshittify livelihoods since 1811". On the printed sheet is the same image of Ned Ludd plus the text, "luddites didn't 'fear technology' they refused immiseration as justified by profit" and "Heck yes, I'm 'AI Ready'" and "I'm sticking with the union: I'm sticking with the Human".
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