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Colin Madland 🇨🇦

@cmad.land
951 followers 2K following 555 posts

studying technology-integrated assessment | rider of bikes | smoker of meats | #RStats | #OpenResearch | #luddite | #ElbowsUp | he/him

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Reposted by Colin Madland 🇨🇦
Andreas Brandmaier @brandmaier.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Ever looked at your graph and thought: this needs a more dramatic exit strategy? Make your R base plots self-destruct with style. If you must, download here: github.com/brandmaier/d... #RStats #DataVisualization #RProgramming #DataScience #OpenSource #AcademicHumor #noAI
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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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Libby Heeren @libbyheeren.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
There are wonderful humans in this world. They come in all sizes, patterns, colors, textures, and shapes. They have experiences that shape them, and those experiences probably don't look like the ones that shaped you. There are a billion+ ways to be a person. Be curious! Listen and see. Think!
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Rohan Patel @gunnerohan.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Me after calling up PSG and Atlético Madrid for target prices and hearing '£120m' and '£150m' respectively.
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 17/09/2026
“A senior executive at Microsoft said A.I. systems built on the work of others will be seen as ‘an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions’ and possibly the greatest robbery of labor in human history, according to court documents unredacted Thursday in an ongoing Manhattan lawsuit.”
orlandosentinel.com
Docs in A.I. copyright suit reveal startling admission by Microsoft exec over ‘astonishing theft’
The admission appeared in a newly unredacted filing in the landmark copyright infringement legal battle playing out between newspapers like the Orlando Sentinel and tech companies Microsoft and OpenAI...
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Why are universities forcing this technology on us again
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C. Kirabo Jackson @kirabojackson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
If spending more on schools raises the earnings of the children who benefit, does it eventually make the whole economy richer? My new NBER paper examines this using school-finance reforms. 🧵 www.nber.org/papers/w35755
nber.org
The Macroeconomic Returns to School Finance Reforms: Micro-Calibrated Predictions Meet Causal Evidence
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
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Carlos Scheidegger @cscheid.net · 10/09/2026
quarto-hub is really coming together, y'all! I'm so excited to share some of this with you at conf next week. Check out our upcoming collaborative wysiwyg editor working on a fully-styled Quarto 2 page:
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 15/09/2026
Got my updated COVID and flu shots today because I prefer not dying and also fuck RFK jr and this whole willfully ignorant and malicious administration.
Two bandaids, one for my COVID shot and one for the flu. I didn't know which is which, I didn't look.
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Sarah Tuttle @niais.cryptoanarchy.network · 13/09/2026
New strategy. We are treating our almost 19yo like a friendly but unpredictable ghost - sometimes helpful, sometimes confusing, dwells in a different realm, fun but unreliable.
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Colin Madland 🇨🇦 @cmad.land · 12/09/2026
🤔
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Colin Madland 🇨🇦 @cmad.land · 10/09/2026
RS with your home river. Clearwater River at the confluence with Spahats Creek, just below Spahats Falls. Flows from Clearwater Lake in Wells Gray Park, BC into the North Thompson on its way to the Fraser and ultimately the Salish Sea.
Clearwater River is a deep green river flowing from the left to right. There is a large rock in the middle causing turbulence. The background is the Spahats Creek gorge with visible layers of volcanic rock.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 10/09/2026
@wolven.blacksky.app @vortexegg.com
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Josh Eyler @josheyler.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Have you ever wanted to hear @cjdenial.bsky.social, @thetattooedprof.bsky.social, @liznorell.bsky.social, and me talk about the need for resisting AI in education? If so, you're in luck! On October 13th, we're doing a reprise of a session on this topic, and we're hosting it on Zoom FREE OF CHARGE.
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Jane Rosenzweig @janerosenzweig.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
In my writing course "To What Problem is AI the Solution?" I always assigned the 2023 pause letter from the Future of Life Institute, signed by most of the people building AI and the rebuttal from the authors of the Stochastic Parrots article. Students wanted to weigh in on "who was right" but /1
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
incredible that wikipedia now has higher ai standards than nearly every school in america
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful
An aircraft passenger oxygen mask: a drop down passenger mask with air bag and yellow plastic mouth and nose cover, oxygen tube has been cut; Demonstration model used by flight attendant crew for passenger instruction. Has text on the side indicating that it's non-functional.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
The person who was marketing chatGPT to colleges was the head of marketing for Coursera and if you're an academic that actually should tell you everything.
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Teaching in Higher Education @teachinginhe.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
New online collection: critical scholarship on educational assessment 🚨 This collection brings together 15 earlier TiHE papers taking a socio-political viewpoint on assessment Guest editors: Juuso Henrik Nieminen, Jan McArthur and Tim Fawns www.tandfonline.com/journals/cth...
tandfonline.com
Critical scholarship on educational assessment
Explore the article collection: Critical scholarship on educational assessment. Published in Teaching in Higher Education.
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Davis Bickford @davis.social · 30/08/2026
Photo of a part of the sticker wall, near the gum wall in Seattle. A large glued poster of a cat holding a sign reads, “A.I. IS DẠTA
& CAN ONLY LOOK AT WHERE WE'VE BEEN.
CREATIVITY IS TRYING TO SEE WHERE WE CAN GO.”
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Nash @radiodeadair.com · 29/08/2026
Nope. There is no animus. You're playing with an automated algorithm that's being assigned too many privileges with outcomes based on probability. That's like "shit I lost control of this giant bolder I was rolling down a crowded street, it must be magic."
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VirginiaM - owlet @virginiam.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
For your enjoyment
popularmechanics.com
43 Years Ago, Scientists Dropped Gophers Onto a Volcano. Today, They’re Tiny Heroes.
It started as a go-for-broke experiment, but it wound up saving an ecosystem.
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Oisín McGann @oisinmcgann.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This is set up for laughs, but it’s actually one of the best demonstrations I’ve seen of how being capable of producing convincing sounding language and understanding meaning are two completely different things. A chatbot does not understand you, it just has automated responses based on your words.
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Josh Eyler @josheyler.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Major kudos to MIT, who just put out a report about AI on their campus that lucidly explains the threat posed by AI to cognition and the student experience, while at the same time prioritizes learning, students, and the value of education. 1/x aiandeducation.mit.edu/report/
aiandeducation.mit.edu
Report – AI and Education
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Dr. Fim @fim.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Ansel Adams on assignment for IBM - one of my favourite shots. Not the usual landscape but the skill of a woman weaving magnetic core memory. The beat up nails captures total “woman in STEM” vibes.
A woman with extremely short painted nails weaving magnetic core memory. A series of rows and columns of wires in a grid.
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conifergirl.bsky.social @conifergirl.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Anybody who’s still advocating putting these tools anywhere near a school is not doing so despite the cognitive collapse they cause, but because of it. dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...
Abstract
Using 30 months of panel data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7-12, we study how generative Al affects homework productivity and learning. The data combine monthly closed-book exams, high-school and college entrance exams, and homework scores and completion time across nine subjects. We exploit staggered Al adoption in a difference-in-differences design. Al adoption raises homework scores by 18% and reduces completion time by 30%, but lowers monthly exam scores by 20% within six months.
High-stakes entrance-exam scores fall by 18 and 24%, with the full penalty emerging only after about two years. The losses are largest in social science subjects, followed by STEM and languages, and are especially large for junior students, high-achieving students, and boys. The learning losses are concentrated among roughly 80% of Al users whose behavior is consistent with homework outsourcing, as indicated by exceptionally short homework completion time coupled with high homework scores. Al users who maintain similar homework completion time as non-Al users experience small learning losses.
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Leah @leah.myatproto.social · 21/08/2026
I've been doing my "Today, in the data centers are not going to make it" bit for about a year. And, what a year.
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Leonore (Lee) Carpenter @leecarpenter.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
In case you are an academic who is currently being gaslit into believing that you're a caveman who wants their students to be jobless if you resist allowing AI in your classrooms... I present to you Berkeley Law's response, which can be summarized as "Fuck off directly into the sun."
law.berkeley.edu
Artificial Intelligence Policy
Effective Summer 2026 Purpose Future lawyers may need to use artificial intelligence (“AI”) fluently. But the current state of the technology requires that AI use be coupled with the cognitive […]
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Maggie Harrison Dupré @mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wants AI smart glasses to replace smartphones. Other tech giants are following suit with more wearables. In a world where anonymity is already a precious resource, what does that mean for privacy? New by me for @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/technology/n...
theguardian.com
Did someone wearing Meta Glasses film you today? Are you sure?
People say they’ve been secretly filmed in their own homes, at concerts and at work. Are the wildly popular smartglasses the final nail in the coffin of personal privacy?
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Maggie Harrison Dupré @mharrisondupre.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
One person I spoke to for this story is a young mom who was covertly filmed in her own home — along with her two young children — by a Meta glasses user who then uploaded a video of their interaction online. She only found out about it after a stranger contacted her using PII revealed in the video:
‘I felt extremely violated’
Nonconsensual recordings can happen to anyone, anywhere. People have been secretly recorded in their workplace; one lawyer said that he was covertly filmed by potential clients during a free consultation. Some Meta Glasses wearers have recorded videos of trips to hospitals and children’s dentist’s offices and shared them online.

You could even be covertly recorded in your own home – as was the case for Brek Mettra, a mother of two in Utah who was secretly filmed in her house during a transaction with a local vintage clothing seller. After the pair connected on Facebook Marketplace (also run by Meta), the seller met Mettra at her home to buy a T-shirt. Unbeknownst to her, he had used Meta Glasses to record their exchange, which he then uploaded to social media as content to promote his business.Mettra said it wasn’t until a “random guy” in Philadelphia contacted her to inquire about a T-shirt he had seen in the clip that she knew the video even existed.

In the video, a copy of which was reviewed by the Guardian, Mettra’s face is visible, as are the faces of her two very young children. Though Mettra wasn’t tagged, the video revealed her identifying information: the vintage seller had paid Mettra using Venmo, and her full name was visible on her Venmo profile, which was how the stranger in Philly found her. “I honestly felt extremely violated,” said Mettra, who added that she does not remember seeing an LED light on the glasses.

After making multiple requests for him to take the video down, the seller deleted the post once Mettra warned him that she had contacted Instagram. “Please, for my children and myself I really hope you delete it,” Mettra pleaded in one message to the seller, which was reviewed by the Guardian. The seller didn’t respond to a request for comment but he has posted several similar recordings across multiple Instagram and TikTok accounts, with a tag included in his Instagram captions noting that the videos have been recorded with “Ray-Ban Meta glasses”.
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Colin Madland 🇨🇦 @cmad.land · 20/08/2026
These surveillance tools are eliminating privacy and enabling perverts to record their unaware victims - Did someone wearing Meta Glasses film you today? Are you sure? www.theguardian.com/technology/n...
theguardian.com
Did someone wearing Meta Glasses film you today? Are you sure?
People say they’ve been secretly filmed in their own homes, at concerts and at work. Are the wildly popular smartglasses the final nail in the coffin of personal privacy?
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Barbara @barbara-nz.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Schrödinger’s cycle lanes, so busy it’s too difficult to cross the road and at the same time a huge waste of money because no one ever uses them
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
“X’s algorithm learns what you hate and shows you more of it, according to a new study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” www.404media.co/xs-algorithm...
404media.co
X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds
X is driving engagement by making users fight in the replies.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
This is a case study in pro-AI propaganda, and annoying enough to inspire a Saturday thread: bsky.app/profile/bren... 🧵>>
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Colin Madland 🇨🇦 @cmad.land · 16/08/2026
110km Ridden. $476 Raised. Can you help? greatcyclechallenge.ca/Riders/Colin...
Description in post.
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Colin Madland 🇨🇦 @cmad.land · 13/08/2026
I know there's a lot going on, especially here in the Okanagan (climate-change fuelled wildfires, etc). If you have capacity, I'd be grateful if you would support my August goal to raise $500 to fight Kids' Cancer. greatcyclechallenge.ca/Riders/Colin... #GreatCycleChallenge
greatcyclechallenge.ca
Support My 200 km Ride to Fight Kids' Cancer!
Colin Madland is riding in the Great Cycle Challenge. Please sponsor Colin now to end childhood cancer and save little lives. View Colin's fundraising page!
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852dude @852dude.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Bro. People are cool as fuck.
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
It's honestly so crazy to me that we're facing a technological revolution that could displace millions of jobs in the middle of a housing affordability crisis and every day we talk about whether a trans woman is playing sports or if someone has a non-Anglo name.
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Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
This story is a bit wild. After Elon Musk's DOGE erased decades of USAID data, it was assumed to be lost. But a Canadian college student had previously downloaded much of it in high school for a project. 4,000 PDFs. Thanks again, Canada. Yet again. www.aiddata.org/blog/before-...
aiddata.org
Before reimagining development data, remember what we’ve learned
Why we’re publishing a free, searchable, and ungated archive featuring a quarter-century of USAID evaluation reports.
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xirclebox @xirclebox.com · 12/08/2026
This has been one reason why I stopped using WP for projects. www.therepository.email/accessibilit...
therepository.email
Accessibility Team Initiative “Permanently Delayed” as Matt Mullenweg Declares Team Has “Overstepped Its Authority”
Three months after the Accessibility Team overhauled its theme guidelines for the first time in 14 years, Mullenweg says the initiative is “permanently delayed.”…
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Seungju Kim (he/him) @follhim.net · 11/08/2026
Did you know: you can anonymize a GitHub repo for peer review? A real alternative for OSF anonymous.4open.science
anonymous.4open.science
Anonymous Github
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Colin Madland 🇨🇦 @cmad.land · 11/08/2026
UMichigan doing the work in assessment that leads to confidence and achievement as opposed to, say, Harvard or Yale, who went full punitive.... margin.at/cmad.land/no...
margin.at
UMichigan doing the work in assessment that leads to confidence and achievement as opposed to, say, — @cmad.land
LSA First-Semester Grade Covering Pilot Program | U-M LSA U-M College of LSA
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School of Cities @uoftcities.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
A recent op-ed by Urbanist-in-Residence Lanrick Bennett Jr. counters the myths swirling around Bloor St.’s bike lanes in reference to congestion, emergency response times, emissions, and retail business. The data is clear, and clearly positive: spacing.ca/toronto/2...
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Dr Katie Twomey @k2mey.eurosky.social · 08/08/2026
Arguing that LLMs are anything more than a load of numbers going into a complicated mathematical function and spitting some more numbers out. Yes they simulate. But they simulate *language*. They do not simulate the cognitive processes underlying communication.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 10/08/2026
If you are wondering why Marky boy does not specify *what type* of 'energy generating' infrastructure here fortune.com/2026/03/27/m...
Unlike the concern about knowledge work displacement, there is a shortage of skilled tradespeople like carpenters, electricians, and construction workers to support the demand for infrastructure buildout. Meta has created America’s Workforce Academy to provide free training for skilled tradespeople and guaranteed high-paying jobs in the areas we’re building data centers.

We help keep electricity prices low by building our own energy-generating infrastructure wherever we invest. This ensures that not only are we not consuming energy that could have gone to the local communities, but in some cases we even supply a surplus of low-cost energy back to the communities. We think this is an important investment principle for sustainability.

Our data centers are also designed to be among the most water-efficient in the world. We are committed to being water-positive, meaning that we’ll restore more water than we use in the watersheds where we operate by 2030. In areas with high water stress, our goal is to restore 200% of the water we use.Meta orders 10 gas-fired power plants for its Hyperion AI campus in rural Louisiana—more than triple the initial plan
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
we did it fam
theguardian.com
‘I’ve definitely lost followers’: influencers face backlash over Meta ‘pervert glasses’ content
Using ‘spy glasses’ made by Facebook owner leads to floods of negative comments, say content creators
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Crystal Lewis @cghlewis.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
docs.google.com/presentation...
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Jennifer Crawford @ournewhomecoach.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
I don’t want to Do mY OwN rEsearCh. I want really clever researchers to do the research because that’s what they are good at and correctly advise politicians and people in power to make the right decisions for the benefit of all of us. I’ll bring snacks.
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Cian O'Donnell @cianodonnell.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
reason 47 why government funding for fundamental research is the only stable route to scientific progress
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