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Courtney Wilburn

@cjwilburn.engineering
7.3K followers 2K following 639 posts

(she/her) Engineering leader, powerlifter, pun maker, wife, dog mom, lifelong Prince fan. Cautiously optimistic -> near cynic.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Courtney Wilburn
Louisa @louisathelast.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
This is not accidental at all.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Criminalizing the hustle man instead of the hustle, example number 109,811,310 www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...
newyorker.com
The Man Who Broke the Music Business
How an employee at a CD-manufacturing plant became the Patient Zero of Internet piracy.
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 05/10/2026
I can’t emphasize this enough — “AI” wasn’t born corrupt and toxic. For ~75 years, it was mathematicians and scientists doing interesting, thoughtful work and trying to solve problems, making only the usual human mistakes. What “AI” did to machine learning is as tragic as what it did to artists.
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Stephanie Rewis @stefsull.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
In March, I signed up for my absentee ballot and it had four choices for why I needed it. I got my ballot in April. In June they cancelled me, so I had to fill the form out again this month. But the form has changed. They removed the option for being a citizen who's never lived in the US. Quietly!
Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request
There are four choices for why it's necessary. The last one says:
I am a US citizen living outside the country. I have never lived in the United States.Voter Registration and Absentee Ballot Request
There are now only three choices for why it's necessary. The last one that said:
I am a US citizen living outside the country. I have never lived in the United States.

That one is now gone.
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 05/10/2026
Exactly this. And in fact, many models *have* been created this way, and decades of prior machine learning systems *were* created this way, consensually. These things are choices! People are STILL working this way! It’s not just that a better world is possible — it already EXISTS. We can nurture it.
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Courtney Wilburn @cjwilburn.engineering · 05/10/2026
ghee gives you the butter flavor without making the popcorn wet & soggy but I also have been known to also add zatar, aleppo pepper, and salt
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Malice Walker @humblecore.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
sometimes (most times?) bad things that happen aren’t about you and there’s no real need to make them about you
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Courtney Wilburn @cjwilburn.engineering · 03/10/2026
where are my fellow audiobook lovers at? i have a question for you: have you every gotten an audiobook from Books a Million? if so, can you download the file and use a different audio player that's not the BAM app?
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 03/10/2026
What’s up everyone, why are you on this one this week
Butterfly meme.
Top: folks on social media
Butterfly: Black woman 
Bottom: is this my punching bag?
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Courtney Wilburn @cjwilburn.engineering · 02/10/2026
I don't think that sweatpants should be available for sale without at least one rear pocket large enough to put more than lip balm in. it doesn't need to be wallet or phone sized but a folded dollar bill should not have to be stuffed in there.
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Courtney Wilburn @cjwilburn.engineering · 02/10/2026
I finished the book "Addicted by Design" today and let me tell you something: if you're wondering how we got here with sports betting and prediction markets, this book will fill you in.
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Enrico Ariis AKA Gino Koltz @ariiscomics.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The Nazis know NOTHING about women
Wonder Woman is winning world war 2
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Anil Dash @anildash.com · 29/01/2026
If you are a person who works in social media, and your job requires you to manage an account on Twitter/X, please ask your boss, in writing, to verify that you are required as a responsibility of your position to be on a platform that knowingly creates and monetizes child sexual abuse material …
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
You are correct.
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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I don't disagree with the thread below but frame it somewhat differently as an academic who regularly sees people who read for a living fail in the way described here. From that perspective it seems more a cultural crisis than an educational one
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Caræsten 🇵🇸 @cara.city · 26/09/2026
this is so real and anyone with more than 5k followers on this website can attest to it
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Blue Heron Farm @blueheronfarm.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
And if you're on instagram, you should go to your settings and uncheck these two boxes
In your menu under sharing and reuse there is a button to click whether or not people can create with your contentThere is a button to check on that says allow your reels and posts to be featured with products
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Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Notice all the black writers being accused of using AI in their works. Notice.
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Trans Rights Screenshot Generator! @transrightsbot.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
#TransRights
Geordi LaForge from the NES Star Trek TNG game saying: Trans Rights are Human Rights, but you don't have to take MY word for it!
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Most people have no idea how much international students are the lifeblood of higher education. But they’re about to learn. Sigh.
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Jamal abu hashem🇵🇸 @jamalzuhir.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Your support is our lifline and the only way for rebuilding our life after we lost everything No matter how much it's will be part of rebuilding our life
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fern🌿 @ogracemay.blacksky.app · 22/09/2026
Thinking about starting up the Black MaGe art/craft group again. Pls repost to circulate, and like to indicate interest.
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Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
They want us to give up on each other.
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Courtney Wilburn @cjwilburn.engineering · 22/09/2026
I was just reminded of the time the Today (US) show hosts dressed as the cast of Peanuts and I'm not sure if I'm laugh-crying or cry-laughing.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Do you see any “overground railroads” where you are? What systems, networks, and relationships come together around you to bring people closer to liberation?
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Our super talented friend and collaborator @noahjodice.bsky.social has another installment for @interruptcrim.bsky.social's "Imagining Overground Railroads" series. I shared this one with folks this weekend: the theme is "Learning Together." millionexperiments.com/zines/overgr...
millionexperiments.com
Overground Railroads
Do you see any “overground railroads” where you are? What systems, networks, and relationships come together around you to bring people closer to liberation? The different pieces of your railroad may...
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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 22/09/2026
VERY IMPORTANT NEWS: It’s Fat Bear Week! I do love a fat bear 🐻 explore.org/fat-bear-week
explore.org
Fat Bear Week 2026 - Explore.org
Explore.org is the world's leading philanthropic live nature cam network and documentary film channel. Our mission is to champion the selfless acts of others, create a portal into the soul of humanity...
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Excited to announce that I've signed a contract with @mitpress.bsky.social for a new book! It's about ImageNet, a dataset of 14 million photos. Without it, we likely wouldn't have "AI" as we currently know it. I've been thinking about this book for over 5 years, and am excited to finally write it.
Screenshot of a deal report from Publishers Marketplace that reads: “Coauthor of AI CON and cohost of the Mystery AI Hype Theater 3000 podcast Alex Hanna’s NET WORKS: IMAGENET AND THE CREATION OF THE MODERN AI DATASET, on the labor behind ImageNet’s cache of 14 million photos from the early aughts that became the backbone of AI datasets, to Rachel Moore at MIT Press (world).
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Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Bisexual of the Blade (Alt-text or DIE) @shengokai.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026
MLK said in TWO PLACES that the ultimate logic of racism and segregation was the genocide of the segregated. I feel like folks intentionally forgot this extremely basic fact for the sake of political expediency.
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Amyville Hoyrror @amyhoy.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
i think it’s incredible how people claim that if you say “llms don’t think” you are a “physicalist” or, even worse, a secret dualist it’s a basic manipulative trick, you know extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and they don’t have any there’s NO evidence for llms being conscious
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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 20/09/2026
Amtrak didn’t tell us about this exposure, so heads up: if you took an Amtrak train last week through Chicago or anywhere on the Southwest Chief, Coast Starlight, or California Zephyr routes like we did, you may have been exposed to measles! Please let the train people in your life know about this
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siobhan mcdonough @siobhan-m.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
for those who aren’t familiar—the NAACP’s solidarity with trans people and willingness to recognize “similarities between exclusions of transgender kids and racial segregation” is something i find genuinely moving
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Trans Rights Screenshot Generator! @transrightsbot.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
#TransRights
A retro dialogue box from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure saying: DENYING TRANS RIGHTS IS MOST HEINOUS, DUDE.
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jenn schiffer 😎 @jennschiffer.com · 20/09/2026
i have been coaching a few friends still in the software dev industry through low morale attributed largely to seeing ai agent accessibility prioritized in a way they never saw human user accessibility prioritized
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Every chatbot prompt box says "check answers for accuracy." But increasingly, "humans in the loop" refuse to do that. Instead, they become complicit in the AI industry's project of destroying the provenance of information. But you are person, and it is an app. It can't take responsibility for you.
productpicnic.beehiiv.com
Assigning agency to AI means surrendering your own
Claude is not a colleague, collaborator, or sentient being. It is a SaaS product.
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Paul F. Tompkins @pftompkins.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Once you start conceding ground to the “protect sports” angle in order to win an election you’re not fighting for anyone’s rights
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Anyway, panic is a psy-op. Stay furious. Stay serious. Organize.
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jenn schiffer 😎 @jennschiffer.com · 17/09/2026
a lot of folks are asking how someone can do something so "stupid" as hard coding a secret token, and i'm telling you that you are holding software developers and companies on way too high a pedestal if you still think there's secure, quality code being sent out into the world
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Caræsten 🇵🇸 @cara.city · 13/09/2026
for two months, I've been flying drones over Flock cameras to situation them in space and geography; I even got my commercial drone license in order to do it. I'd like to share this project with you all: it's called Records Of Enemy Surveillance: recordsofenemysurveillance.com
image of a residential intersection with one red car driving across it and a baseball field in the backgroundblack and white dithered image of two red squares around the flock cameras in the previous image, on either side of the intersection
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Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.blacksky.app · 14/09/2026
ALL hits, NO misses. Absolute legendaric run.
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Amanda Marcotte @amandamarcotte.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
As a reminder, most of these people are not charged with crimes of any sort. Not that it would make it okay. But it just underscores that this is concentration camp, not a jail or prison.
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Jazz. @jl3001.blacksky.app · 14/09/2026
Was again thinking about how this generational crashout is because folks are scared of death and the unknown of a radically changing planet due to climate change. Extreme fear and an extreme scarcity mindset to go with it? Yeah.
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Mike X. Nichols @mikexnichols.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
this dog is rad as hell
A dog looking through the viewfinder of a video camera
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cait (and adonis) @cait.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
WE LOVE TO SEE IT!!!!
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Sandy Ernest Allen @sandyernestallen.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The Democrats' failure to actually support trans people is obnoxious for a few reasons. First, I'd like to live, thanks. Second, it's a losing strategy. There's already an entire 'our whole thing is we hate trans people' party.
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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 13/09/2026
I got to share my favorite computer fact today! Did you know the origin of UNIX was that some guys wanted to play a video game for free?
en.wikipedia.org
Space Travel (video game) - Wikipedia
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Atmosphere Community @atmosphere.community · 12/09/2026
The team at Blacksky is looking to hire for two key roles. The one below is for a founding engineer Check the all jobs page for a link to the founding designer role blackskyweb.xyz/about/jobs/
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A.J. Wilden🏳️‍⚧️ @wcwit.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
"They're not misunderstanding the film; they're co-opting a message"
Screencap from the interview linked in the quoted post

Marlow Stern (the interviewer):  You have one of the most renowned replies in Twitter history. Elon Musk tweeted out, “Take the red pill,” then Ivanka Trump enthusiastically wrote, “Taken!” to him, and then you replied, “Fuck both of you.” I’m curious how you feel about the co-opting of “The Matrix” by those on the right who don’t really seem to understand its messaging.

Lilly Wachowski: I mean, I can’t sit in a room and explain the movie to every single person who watches it. Even if I did sit in a room with Elon Musk and Ivanka Trump — yikes — it doesn’t matter. They’re not misunderstanding the film; they’re co-opting a message. And that’s what fascists do: They co-opt the messages of progressives and use it to their benefit to confuse and obfuscate what is going on and the intention of their ideology. They do it with everything. They do it with Martin Luther King Jr. Look at how they’ve changed the idea of what antisemitism is.
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Jamal abu hashem🇵🇸 @jamalzuhir.bsky.social · 27/07/2025
It’s Jamal from Gaza. My family lost everything. We are going through difficult circumstances All I am trying to do is help my family in these crazy circumstances and rebuild their lives. Donate if you are able or share the post if you can’t and give us life Repost pls chuffed.org/project/1389...
chuffed.org
Help Jamal’s family leave the war zone and rebuild their life!
Hi my loves! My name is Caroline, and I created this fundraiser to help Jamal support his family as they fight to survive the genocide in Gaza, evacuate to safety, and eventually rebuild their lives f...
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Rude1 Haunted Badness. ⁂ @rude1.blacksky.team · 08/09/2026
Tech people: help @marisa.blacksky.team out with her PhD research. Details below. Share widely.
Research Participants NEEDED

PhD research studying the work and lives of tech workers and finance professionals in the United States. 

ELIGIBILITY: 
- Software engineers 
- Data science/analysts 
- Private equity associates & analysts 
- Investment banking associates & analysts 

PROCEDURE: 
1. Introduction: Send an email with your Linkedin or CV, and availability 
2. Interviews: 60-90 minutes, in-person (preferred) or via Zoom

RESEARCHER Marisa Rando is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Cambridge

GET IN TOUCH: 
mmr59@cam.ac.uk 
www.linkedin.com/in/marisarando

SUPERVISED BY: University of Cambridge

INTERVIEWS HELD NYC: SEPT - DEC 2026 SF: JAN - MARCH 2027
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