Sign in

Heather Coates

@iandpangurban.bsky.social
192 followers 179 following 19 posts

academic data professional (undercover librarian); lover of absurd humor & mystery stories; walking is magic; in search of more quiet #knitting #nature #LoveDataWeek View are my own & not that of my employer

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Heather Coates
Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 08/10/2026
It's telling that men would rather try to invent tech to replace humans' role in caregiving than step up as equal partners in parenting. Telling, that is, in that it shows how financial capitalism and patriarchy work together to dissuade men from doing "unprofitable" labor, like the work of care.
X post from AI industry insider Alvin Sng :

My wife: Can you read our baby a book?
Me: I can just play an audiobook from my phone.
My wife: But then it won't be in your voice.
Me: I can train a voice model.
Parenting hits different when you work in Al.
35649861236
Reposted by Heather Coates
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
I like this notetaking example. it is a good case of how gender works. Notetaking has never been about producing a transcript. It is a bureaucratic skill in the 20th c. organixarion because it is SENSEMAKING. Those women socialized to take notes? They have been doing men’s metacognition for them
232987737
Reposted by Heather Coates
Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Shouldn't the Democrats have something like an Elon Donations Tracker posted on all of their websites and social media? Make this SALIENT? Might it make sense to point out repeatedly that he is a white supremacist and ask the public why he would be backing the GOP?
211135364
Reposted by Heather Coates
Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Voter registration deadlines are SUNDAY in Alaska, Rhode Island, South Carolina. And MONDAY in: Arizona, Arkansas Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee, and *Texas*. If you live in these states, verify your registration now, literally.
2921551958
Reposted by Heather Coates
Erin J. Wamsley 🧠📈😴 @wamsleylab.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
The fiscal year is over. The dying Social, Behavioral, and Economic division of NSF ended up awarding 90 total grants this year, as opposed to ~700-800 in recent past years. Source: grantwitness.org/nsf/analyses...
The graph shows the cumulative number of awards made by month across this fiscal year, as compared to the last 6 fiscal years. The line for this year is total flat until June, but then finally gets up to 91 by October. In prior years the increase starts building earlier and ends on average in the 700-800 range (with variability, last year was only between 400-500).
9491305
Reposted by Heather Coates
4fuxake @blueheartedly1.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Count on it 👇
25195953402
Reposted by Heather Coates
Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The Privacy Center at Georgetown Law and Tech Policy Press are launching "The Edge Dialogues" on Oct. 22, featuring special guest Dr. Alondra Nelson. No "AI governance" buzzwords. Just urgent conversations about power, labor, war, justice, privacy, art, community and human consciousness. Join us!
luma.com
Save the Date: The Edge Dialogues · Zoom · Luma
This is not your normal tech policy conversation. The Privacy Center at Georgetown Law and Tech Policy Press are launching "The Edge Dialogues" on October…
11111
Reposted by Heather Coates
Anna Gifty @itsafronomics.blacksky.app · 01/10/2026
"There are economists who study numbers, and then there are economists who ask what the numbers are hiding. Opoku-Agyeman has built her work around that distinction." WOW. 🥹 Grateful to The IMPACT Magazine for the kindest profile of #TheDoubleTax and me. Black-owned media FTW. #blacksky
theimpactmagazine.com
The Cost of Being a Black Woman in America Is More Than a Pay Gap: Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman Is Measuring the Double Tax
There are economists who study numbers, and then there are economists who ask what the numbers are hiding. Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman has built her work around that distinction. A doctoral candidate …
7693186
Reposted by Heather Coates
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.)
9853482190
Reposted by Heather Coates
Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Time for this classic again.
156165075564
Reposted by Heather Coates
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The midterms are being flooded with dark money & Trump is doing everything he can to suppress the vote. But remember — WE THE PEOPLE outnumber Trump and his billionaire backers. Keep phoning. Keep canvassing. Keep getting out the vote for candidates on the side of working people. It is essential.
702608956
Reposted by Heather Coates
Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 26/09/2026
Staggering staff losses at the CDC have left the agency "zombified'—and unable to address a series of escalating health crises
motherjones.com
Union: CDC Lost a Third of Its Workforce In One Year
Under Trump 2.0, the country's premier public health agency has been "zombified."
28411254
Heather Coates @iandpangurban.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it would replace, according to a new preprint study led by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health. ysph.yale.edu/news-article...
ysph.yale.edu
Universal Health Coverage Could Save $1 Trillion and 114,000 Lives Every Year, Yale Study Projects
A single-payer universal health care system could cover every American, save more than 100,000 lives a year, and still cost $1 trillion less than the system it
000
Reposted by Heather Coates
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
The Walton family (who own Walmart) are worth over $400 billion, yet many of their employees are on SNAP. Bezos is worth over $400 billion, many Amazon employees require SNAP. The people who need help are not the problem. It’s corporate greed. It’s an unwillingness to pay a living wage.
10213560913526
Reposted by Heather Coates
Roxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · 28/10/2025
The depth of the shame of a country this wealthy and abundant allowing its people to go hungry is impossible to measure. The fact that a handful of people could fix this by paying their fair share of taxes while still remaining obscenely wealthy makes it even worse.
457182795765
Reposted by Heather Coates
Amy Westervelt @amywestervelt.bsky.social · 27/10/2025
A stat we don't talk about enough: Newspapers have lost 77% of their jobs over the last 20 year, more than any of the 532 other industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
8428431013
Reposted by Heather Coates
Darkrose @darkrose.bsky.social · 03/08/2025
Excellent read on navigating OB/GYN care as a Black woman 🧵:
12811
Reposted by Heather Coates
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 04/08/2025
“We are going to create a machine that solves all our problems” is a preposterous assertion and should be treated as such. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
In other words, we are in the final few years of pre-AGI civilisation, after which nothing may ever be the same again. To some the prospect is apocalyptic, to others, like Hassabis, it’s utopian.

“Assuming we steward it safely and responsibly into the world, and obviously we’re trying to play our part in that, then we should be in a world of what I sometimes call radical abundance,” says Hassabis. He paints a picture of medical advances, room-temperature superconductors, nuclear fusion, advances in materials, mathematics. “It should lead to incredible productivity and therefore prosperity for society. Of course, we’ve got to make sure it gets distributed fairly, but that’s more of a political question. And if it is, we should be in an amazing world of abundance for maybe the first time in human history, where things don’t have to be zero sum. And if that works, we should be travelling to the stars, really.”

Is he getting too close to his own technology? There are so many issues around AI, it’s difficult to know where to even begin: deepfakes and misinformation; replacement of human jobs; vast energy consumption; use of copyright material, or simply AI deciding that we humans are expendable and taking matters into its own hands.
1918648
Reposted by Heather Coates
Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 01/08/2025
I feel it's no coincidence that a mammogram machine is exceptionally uncomfortable among medical devices, and is a test that's hardly ever experienced by men. So many small changes could make it more comfortable (rounded platform corners, gel padded edges, heater, something to lean on) but no...😩
3034943
Reposted by Heather Coates
Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 23/07/2025
Oh man sounds like a really dangerous tool maybe we should regulate it
301148187
Reposted by Heather Coates
David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
I talked to a NOAA colleague yesterday who told me that 75% of the federal employees of his division have left and he’s worried about their ability to get work done even if Congress funds NOAA at some level. The devastation to science will be felt for generations.
11052991802
Reposted by Heather Coates
ACLU @aclu.org · 16/07/2025
Since 2021, Mastercard has been imposing strict regulations on platforms that use the company's financial services — and Steam appears to be their latest target. Tell Mastercard to reverse this harmful policy at action.aclu.org/petition/mas....
3832212124
Reposted by Heather Coates
Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
I want to be clear: this is what American prisons are like. I spent years posting about the humanitarian crisis in U.S. prisons. The criminal legal system consigns Americans who are incarcerated to live like this FOR YEARS. DECADES.
6952772025
Reposted by Heather Coates
Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 16/07/2025
My soror shared this note from a university hiring manager. The market isn’t just wrecked. I don’t think this is just a recessionary pullback. 2,000 applications for one higherEd job is 100% a sign of a structural failure. It’s so horrible. I’m sorry.
181352310
Reposted by Heather Coates
Linda K Sienkiewicz @lindaksienkiewicz.com · 16/07/2025
Support the arts. Support literature, poetry and the humanities. If you can, donate to NPR or the National Endowment for the Arts. Read books. Think. Create. Share.
213941
Heather Coates @iandpangurban.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Just no nationaltoday.com/artificial-i...
nationaltoday.com
Artificial Intelligence Appreciation Day
Artificial Intelligence Appreciation Day is a celebration of the positive contributions of A.I. technology to modern society. Join the dialogue.
010
Reposted by Heather Coates
Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 14/07/2025
"Universities have become increasingly dependent on a proliferation of outsourced services, database providers + info mgmt systems, w/ spiraling costs... Understanding [the uni as an infrastructure stresses] that the tech it chooses to adopt follow a colonial + extractivist model...
culturemachine.net
CM Vol 25 CfP University as Infrastructure
Culture Machine Vol. 25 Call for Papers: University as Infrastructure  Guest-edited by: Alexandra Anikina, Johannes Bruder, Megen de Bruin-Molé, Stephen Cornford, Kwame Phillips & Geoff Cox  …
48437
Reposted by Heather Coates
Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
It’s always “Ladies, if you are alienated by overwork, drop out of the public sphere and become a tradwife” and never “Ladies, if you are alienated by overwork, form a union.”
10182471854
Reposted by Heather Coates
Danielle Terrazas Williams @drdanielletw.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Job Opportunity! City University of New York - Hunter College - Assistant or Associate Professor (full-time, tenure-track/tenured) position in Indigenous History of the Americas networks.h-net.org/jobs/68860/c...
networks.h-net.org
City University of New York - Hunter College - Assistant or Associate Professor (full-time, tenure-track/tenured) position in Indigenous History of the Americas | H-Net
033
Reposted by Heather Coates
Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
media.tenor.com
a mascot is holding a bunch of hamburgers in his hands
ALT: a mascot is holding a bunch of hamburgers in his hands
36810
Reposted by Heather Coates
Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Disabled people aren’t expendable. Disability isn’t a moral failing. It’s not something we can “try harder” our way out of. We don’t consent to being left by the wayside. To being stripped of our healthcare and social supports. To being forced to “prove we matter” Worth isn’t based on health.
171179411
Reposted by Heather Coates
Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Your Prime Day reminder that half of Amazon warehouse workers struggle with food & housing costs. A third have had to rely on government assistance like SNAP — which is about to get cut. If Bezos can spend $50M on a wedding, Amazon can afford to treat its workers with dignity.
10053307910394
Reposted by Heather Coates
Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
“Public Indiana colleges and universities will eliminate 19 percent of their degree programs to meet requirements added to the state’s budget, according to the Commission for Higher Education. The institutions volunteered to cut, suspend or merge more than 400 programs”
ipm.org
Indiana public colleges cut almost 20% of degrees
Public Indiana colleges and universities have eliminated 19 percent of their degree programs to meet requirements added to the state’s budget, according to the Commission for Higher Education.
098
Reposted by Heather Coates
Tina Smith @smith.senate.gov · 30/06/2025
I worked at Planned Parenthood. They diagnose cancers while still treatable. They help women decide what birth control works for them. They help those working through mental health challenges.   Defunding them just harms people who already struggle to find places to get care.
552211245559
Reposted by Heather Coates
George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
They’re planning on building a detention center for migrants in the middle of the fetid swamps of Florida. If you think this is something new, the first internment camp they sent me and my family to in 1942 was a barbed wire prison called Rohwer. It was located in the swamps of Arkansas.
15954022914756
Reposted by Heather Coates
Hiddenherstory @hiddenherstory.bsky.social · 24/06/2025
Dr. June Almeida was the first to visualize human coronaviruses using her groundbreaking electron microscopy techniques in 1966, she identified the virus's crown-like structure! 🦠🔬 What would global pandemic preparedness look like without her vision? #WomenInSTEM tinyurl.com/4346amf3
tinyurl.com
June Almeida & The Discovery of the First Human Coronavirus
Almeida’s contributions to the field of virology are immeasurable. Besides her discovery of the coronavirus family, she pioneered and perfected multiple techniques that have resulted in huge strides i...
110835
Reposted by Heather Coates
ProPublica @propublica.org · 25/06/2025
In 2021, ProPublica obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.
propublica.org
The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax
ProPublica has obtained a vast cache of IRS information showing how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes,…
331232502
Reposted by Heather Coates
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 24/06/2025
Schrier to RFK Jr: You gave Cassidy the answer he needed to hear in order to get his confirmation vote, then as soon as you were secretary you turned around & fired all 17 members. You lied. I also want to be clear that I will lay all responsibility for every vaccine-preventable death at your feet.
1036336489776
Reposted by Heather Coates
Jess Piper @piperformissouri.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
They were supposed to be deporting “gang members” and “criminals.” So far, they have kidnapped people working their day jobs and folks lawfully showing up for their immigration court appearances… It was always a lie.
905250577387
Reposted by Heather Coates
Library of Congress @librarycongress.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
70+ years after the Civil War, the WPA Federal Writers' Project began interviewing elderly Americans who remembered being enslaved. This collection is at the Library & contains moving narratives & photos. #Juneteenth Narratives: www.loc.gov/collections/... Photos: www.loc.gov/pictures/ite...
A portrait of an elderly Black woman, Sarah Gudger, who was reportedly 121 years old at the time the photo was taken to accompany the narrative she shared with the Federal Writers' Project. Her hair is short and white, her hands are in her lap with her fingers laced together and she is looking into the distance, to the left of the camera (her right). Her tattered shawl is safety-pinned together under her neck.
8582311
Reposted by Heather Coates
ACLU @aclu.org · 18/06/2025
The court got it wrong. Denying transgender youth the health care they need solely because they’re trans is discriminatory, and we will keep fighting.
251212291
Reposted by Heather Coates
Aaron Sofaer ✍️🏳️‍⚧️ @aaronsofaer.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? Almost all of the bugs and problems and breakage in the software you use is known to the engineers, we just aren't allowed to fix it. Gotta ship new features.
381272197
Reposted by Heather Coates
Richard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders? Food systems are the #2 contributor to climate change, the #1 driver of deforestation, the #1 driver of biodiversity loss on land, and the #1 user of freshwater. (It follows that food systems contain many solutions to these problems.)
15699173
Reposted by Heather Coates
Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 18/06/2025
The Trump admin has launched another assault on science, targeting over $30B of funding. This is a wide-sweeping crisis - a direct assault on Congress, the law, AND public science. This fight for science is just as much a fight for democracy. #StandUpForScience zurl.co/NA6BY
zurl.co
White House Launches Another Assault on Science Funding, Targeting NSF, EPA
The Trump administration is targeting still more federal science funding, this time more than $30 billion at the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Science Foundation and other agencies
713363
Reposted by Heather Coates
Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Our digital repositories team spends a great deal of their time now simply protecting our commoned public digital resources from bots. This insatiable, aimless, destructive desire to excrete novel slop is impeding our access to — and even damaging — our cultural heritage + vetted public knowledge.
6691377
Reposted by Heather Coates
James Elder @jameselder.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
“A long-lost original print of 1977’s Star Wars was recovered from an archive and screened for a group of cinema aficionados and die-hard fans.” What does the Hollywood Reporter think the BFI Film Archive is? What do they think the archivists there do? If it’s in an archive, it’s not ‘long-lost”
hollywoodreporter.com
‘Star Wars’ “Looks Terrible” in Screening of Long Lost Original 1977 Version
The years have not been kind to the oft-romanticized original print of the sci-fi classic, which lacks all of George Lucas' post-release tweaks and polishes and looks "like a completely different film...
25212
Reposted by Heather Coates
J. Offir, PhD @joffirphd.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
Sen. Tammy Duckworth just said on Colbert, "We should all live long enough to develop a disability," & the audience laughed uncomfortably. I can tell you what they were thinking. It was "Not me. That would never happen to me." & the underlying, unacknowlged premise was "b/c I'm better than that."
702893550
Reposted by Heather Coates
Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Last February, I led a proposal submission that encompassed six months, hundreds of hours, four institutions, a massive team, and and 256 pages. NSF just informed us that the entire Biology Integration Institute program was archived and our proposal would not even be reviewed. With a form email.
A screen shot of an email reading: 

Dear Dr. Gill, Jacquelyn,
 
I am writing to let you know that given the current budgetary projections and recent adjustment of NSF’s over-arching priorities, NSF/BIO will not be making any new awards through the Biology Integration Institutes Program. Therefore, the solicitation has been archived, and NSF has returned your proposal without review so you can re-submit it, or portions of it, to appropriate BIO programs that currently are receiving new proposals, if you wish.
 
Sincerely,
 
Jim Deshler
Division Director (Acting)
Division of Biological Infrastructure
961253456
Reposted by Heather Coates
ACLU @aclu.org · 16/06/2025
BREAKING: A federal judge reversed National Institutes of Health's terminations of hundreds of critical research grants that were canceled because of their alleged connection to disfavored topics, including diversity, equity, inclusion, and gender identity. This is a major win for public health.
365324918262
Reposted by Heather Coates
AFL-CIO @aflcio.org · 18/06/2025
Over 16 million people across the country would lose their health insurance if the budget bill the Senate is considering passes. Working people should not lose their health care so billionaires and giant corporations can get another tax break.
36021