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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁

@frank.computer
5.3K followers 1.9K following 2.1K posts

Assistant Professor of Data Science @ Cal Poly SLO Accessibility, tool-making, visualization 📊 PhD from @hcii.cmu.edu. Prev: Adobe, Highsoft, Apple, Visa. Move slo and repair things. Disabled & making a ttrpg. www.frank.computer

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Reposted by Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁
Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 17/09/2026
Hah! Such a great question. I am being obtuse here, really. The reason "sociotechnical" as a term is helpful is typically because it opens the eyes of optimistic technology-builders to see and realize that their technologies (all technologies) are socially and culturally situated. (continued...)
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
via lethargic.talkative.fish/@suricrasia/...
The IBM slide but it's edited to say management can never be held accountable, therefore management must never make a management decision.
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𝕮 @chrisshank.com · 15/09/2026
This is great, thanks for sharing your reflections! Worth noting that this is a growing community and literature about aligning HCI against reinforcing hegemonic power.
arxiv.org
Human-Computer Insurrection: Notes on an Anarchist HCI
The HCI community has worked to expand and improve our consideration of the societal implications of our work and our corresponding responsibilities. Despite this increased engagement, HCI continues t...
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𝕮 @chrisshank.com · 15/09/2026
@bmitra.bsky.social is also doing some wonderful organizing on the Information Retrieval side that is quite intersectional to HCI.
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 15/09/2026
I am yet again navel-gazing about HCI research www.frank.computer/blog/2026/09...
frank.computer
Does human-computer interaction research enable anti-social practices? Does AI make this worse?
Thanks to AI’s role in work, I’ve been stewing yet again on what it means to do human studies and accessibility research and why society seems to value this kind of specialization.
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Helen Czerski @helenczerski.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
As both an academic and a writer, I am repelled by the "this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?" that seems to appear at the top of every pdf viewer now. NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 09/09/2026
huge
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Celia @gusreads.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
"And I honestly wouldn’t like ideation, as this quintessentially human act, if I only ever did it alone or with a machine that simply confirms my biases and listens to my instructions." I recommend this text by @frank.computer to any creator, not only prototypers: www.frank.computer/blog/2026/03...
frank.computer
On genAI: Was prototyping really a bottleneck?
I keep hearing folks claim that the fact we can ‘prototype’ so quickly now is a good thing (thanks to modern genAI). But what if the slow parts about prototyping are actually what make it worth doing?
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 28/08/2026
Lol. Lmao, even.
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Repair Day is coming up in Oct; I was asked to review my various Places articles on the subject over the past decade. It's nice when an accidental series emerges over time, when a single thread slowly braids itself with others — and you can continually reflect and revise your thinking.
Over the past decade I’ve written an accidental series of pieces for Places about repair: my “Maintenance and Care” (2018), which has been republished and translated widely, examined repair thinking across scales: from software and gadgets to interiors, architectures, and regional infrastructures. My “Step by Step” (2024) then explored the history of the repair manual, and asked if its utility might extend to social and ecological realms. Yet as I’ve grappled the fragility and irreparability of the human body through “Purity and Security” (2020), which addressed pandemic-era plexiglass as security theater, and “Concealment and Compassion” (2021), on the design of spaces for memory care — and as we’ve faced the inevitability of climate collapse and witnessed the cowardice of institutional leadership in the face of fascism — I’ve embraced the insufficiency of “repair” in addressing the profundity of dysfunction across sites and systems. I return to the article that initiated the whole series: “Community Plumbing” (2018) commemorated the sale of my family’s hardware store and explored the history of the site as a vital social infrastructure. It reminds me that we have the tools to reimagine and build anew; we have to teach one another how to use them.
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Rob Whiting 📓 @whitingx.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
“New 🇪🇺 #EU rules have come into force designed to encourage consumers to #Repair rather than replace products to tackle the estimated 35 million tonnes of waste the premature disposal of consumer goods generates across the bloc.” www.rte.ie/news/busines... #RightToRepair
rte.ie
New EU-wide product repair rules come into force
New EU rules have come into force aiming to tackle the 35 million tonnes of waste the premature disposal of consumer goods generates across the bloc.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 23/08/2026
Strong contender for most Orwellian headline of the year.
foreignpolicy.com
State Department to Partner With Palantir, Anduril on Free Speech Initiative
The Freedom Tech Excellence Program also includes the Bitcoin Policy Institute and the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation.
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Effin' Birds @effinbirds.com · 21/08/2026
Never let a writer help you move
A cardboard moving box with EPHEMERA written on it in Sharpie
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
universities are not run by leftist profs they are run by corporate profiteer board members siphoning public $$ to tech partnerships "An Inside Higher Ed analysis of SEC filings turned up dozens of presidents paid handsomely for sitting on corporate boards." www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...
the 10 presidents in Inside Higher Ed’s analysis who earned the most from outside board service in 2025.
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Grant Stoner @supercrip1994.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Fortnite's Audio Visualizer was an accessible mainstay. In April, Epic removed the crucial feature from Competitive, and in June, heavily nerfed the option in standard. Now, disabled players are left struggling to play. Read my latest @mothership.blog story here: www.mothership.blog/fortnites-au...
mothership.blog
Fortnite's audio visualizer is gone, leaving disabled gamers in the lurch
The visual wheel became popular with disabled and non-disabled players
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Rob Whiting 📓 @whitingx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
↳ There is a whole range of #Dataviz #Accessibility Resources here; github.com/dataviza11y/...
github.com
GitHub - dataviza11y/resources: A non-exhaustive and in-progress list of people and resources in Accessibility and Data Visualization
A non-exhaustive and in-progress list of people and resources in Accessibility and Data Visualization - dataviza11y/resources
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Rob Whiting 📓 @whitingx.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I’ve bookmarked a lot of really interesting and useful resources relating to making 📊 Data Visualisations more #Accessible and #Inclusive. A round-up a few of these resources that might be of interest and use to others. ⤵️
An illustration showing various data visualisation techniques including a pie chart, a bar chart and a line graph.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 19/08/2026
As the Trump administration ordered agencies to eradicate “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, we identified more than 1,000 nonprofits that removed such language from the mission statements in their tax filings. (Published Dec. 2025)
propublica.org
Under Trump, More Than 1,000 Nonprofits Strip DEI Language From Tax Forms
As the Trump administration ordered agencies to eradicate “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, we identified more than 1,000 nonprofits that removed such language from the mission statem...
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 18/08/2026
In this sense a lot of accessibility tech is actually conservative, in the sense described here by Joseph Weizenbaum
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Accessibility Awareness @a11yawareness.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
If you have an election results chart, the alt text needs to communicate the results. "Election results" is not enough. The same rules apply for alt text for images of weather charts. "Weather chart" doesn't cut it and doesn't convey what the chart is actually saying to users.
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Nate O @nateo.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
You'd have to read to the thirteenth paragraph to discover the pull quote for the title was from Marcus Siding, a 23-year-old Swedish man living in Sweden that wanted to become a cop, but his ADHD diagnosis at the age of 12 barred him by law from becoming a Swedish cop Seems relevant
'“When my ADHD diagnosis was removed, it was a relief’
Rates of conditions such as ADHD and autism seem to be ever growing, but some adults diagnosed in childhood are happy to be free of their labels”

Excerpt From
“‘When my ADHD diagnosis was removed, it was a relief’”
The Times and The Sunday Times
https://apple.news/AdYlGGpX0SrG-Joy7OuhgMg
This material may be protected by copyright.
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 03/08/2026
Yet another reminder why inaccessibility impacts everyone. If ads followed standards, then close buttons would be obvious to perceive, clear how to operate, and easy to press.
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worm @rfksbrainworm.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
2027 will be the year of the linux desktop
xda-developers.com
Linux's market share in North America has breached 10% for the first time, says StatCounter
The start of something big, or is something else affecting the numbers?
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Frankie Huang 黄碧赤 @ourobororoboruo.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
I am making it a habit to always look for the labor story behind these nasty scandals. The consumers are almost never the only ones being harmed.
futurism.com
The Diarrhea Lettuce Company Has Been Linked to Forced Labor
The lettuce-producing Taylor Farms was linked to the widespread use of prison labor before its involvement in a cyclospora outbreak.
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 01/08/2026
This is incredible.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 31/07/2026
Nature did a short piece on our preprint about how LLMs will affect the practice of science; my more detailed thread is below.
nature.com
Scientists using LLMs will ‘do more, less well’, modelling study predicts
Research suggests that the combination of incentives to publish and the use of large language models will lead to more papers, but they will be less refined.
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 31/07/2026
This problem extends to "artificial" as well. Yes, many things are made up. But there isn't always a "real" thing (in a platonic or structuralist sense) elsewhere. "Intelligence," as we use it, is also it's own model. So much misunderstanding comes from this false real vs not dichotomy.
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Carly Goodman @carlygoodman.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Social constructs are just something big academia invented to sell more social constructs
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 31/07/2026
My car went rogue after I turned on cruise control and jumped out
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Hagen Blix @hagenblix.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
AI is about bringing the logic of fast fashion to new economic realms, so hey - caring about AI *is* a form of caring about fast fashion. We've got a whole book making that argument - here's a short form essay on that point:
hagenblix.github.io
Does AI Work? Some Thoughts on Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs, AI, and Deskilling
Does AI actually work? Is it fake? Let’s talk about Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs, and see if that can help us figure out what the question actually means.
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 30/07/2026
@mosermostly.bsky.social had what is likely the correct read: that they will use this to train a bot to seem less botlike
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Grant Stoner @supercrip1994.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
ICYMI – For Disability Pride Month, I reflected on the current state of accessibility and disability reporting in gaming. In summary, it's almost extinct. And unless the industry supports us, we risk losing this beat altogether. Read more here:
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Following someone should be a slider rather than binary. Maybe if they sin, I want to see fewer of their posts but not none.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 27/07/2026
A question: does anyone know about communities or groups for scientists who are committed to writing without the use of LLMs / genAI?
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 27/07/2026
This tweet is how I found out that people think it is mean!! I'm not online enough these days to really see how people have responded to it. But it seems fine to me.
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Sharon 🪳🌹 @sharonk.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
in the replies to a BLS chart on grocery inflation 😭
"Yeah, so i crunched some numbers and it definitely costs more to live than it used to"

Economists: "It's all in your head"
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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
7. The film centers Odysseus's guilt over his war crimes, but never shows us the POV of his victims, and instead glorifies the perpetrator for feeling bad about himself. I found this unsatisfying ethically and worse, imaginatively, because Damon's character is given only one mood (Troubled).
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Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
If you're at #DH2026 go see Mary Chester-Kadwell and Tiffany Ong's poster 'Human-centred Design in Digital Humanities: Rethinking Timeline Data Visualisation through Software Engineer-Designer Collaboration' re. the timeline they created for our project. thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/timeline/
thornton.kdl.kcl.ac.uk
The Eventful Life of Alice Thornton
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Grant Stoner @supercrip1994.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Happy 36th anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. To this day, disabled people still can't get married, and our rights are actively being challenged over and over. True disability inclusion happens when we're equals to our able-bodied peers.
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Grant Stoner @supercrip1994.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
ICYMI - The layoffs at Microsoft didn't just affect developers. It also gutted layers of accessibility that Xbox spent years cultivating. These layoffs aren't going to impact just accessibility in games, but even legal requirements like website accessibility. Read my first @aftermath.site report:
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 22/07/2026
Incredible report at a devastating time.
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Aftermath @aftermath.site · 22/07/2026
Layoffs leave the future of Xbox's award-winning accessibility efforts in doubt aftermath.site/xbox-layoffs-a...
An Xbox controller
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 22/07/2026
Most click-baity outcome (always worth at least one post to over-summarize a project): Is accessibility work itself inaccessible? Yes! Also: seeing things helps sighted people design more meaningfully (wow, shocker!)
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Jonatan Hildén @jhilden.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
This: screen reader tools are surprisingly high-barrier to non-frequent users, that have to author accessible documents like yours truly. When you move outside of the web design space many of the tools for things like PDF authoring are downright terrible & things don't work as they should.
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 22/07/2026
In case anyone missed the announcement, here's my latest major work: Some takeaways: 1. Sighted people experience modality barriers too (so they need accessibility!) 2. Making non-visual stuff interactive and visual addresses #1 but also helps sighted people treat accessibility as a design space
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Zack Furness @punkademic.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Any journalists still referring to Flock as a ‘license plate reader’ company are doing free PR for one of the truly ascending evil corporations of our time
appenmedia.com
Letter to the Editor: The creepiest ‘sales demo’ of all time
In a letter to the editor, Dunwoody resident Jason Hunyar writes about a recent incident involving a Flock camera feed in a community center in Dunwoody. He questions the partnership agreement the cit...
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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁ @frank.computer · 21/07/2026
Oh, I keep forgetting that hashtags are great here! I'm subbed to the dataviz channel, so here's hoping this gets on it: #dataviz 📊
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Alberto Cairo @albertocairo.com · 21/07/2026
Don’t miss this, #dataviz #datavisualization #infographics crowd
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