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Joanna Nelius-Free

@joannafreewrites.bsky.social
455 followers 396 following 858 posts

AuDHD. Creative writing teacher. Tarot reader. Gardener. Still-recovering tech journalist formerly of The Verge, Gizmodo, PC Gamer, & elsewhere. "Dumb" tech fan. joannanelius.com

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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
static.klipy.com
Drinks I Give Up
ALT: Drinks I Give Up
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
LMAO
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Well hey there, pumpkin
A growing, green pumpkin the size of a golf ball rests on top of a piece of cardboard.
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Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · 16/09/2026
Oh. That's a heck of a subsidy.
At MIT, Harvard, or any other school, supervising an undergraduate researcher is a lot of work, costs a lot of money, involves a lot of meetings, and the results are not reliably excellent. Asking Claude is easier, faster, and may produce better results. It’s also cheaper, which is no accident: Harvard allows every Harvard student and faculty member to request a Claude token budget of $2,500 per month, even as research funding is continuously threatened and the University lays off staff.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
"Monday, September 14, at 7 p.m. ET, the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom will be hosting “Accreditation and You,” a webinar to learn about the far right’s attempt to capture higher ed accreditation, what is changing and why it matters, and how you can join in the fight and take action."
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Pause AI in BC Schools @aicaution.ca · 11/09/2026
Every single time there's an article saying that AI bans are not the answer, check who it's written by. @science.org published this article from someone who works at an AI company. Maybe they might have a vested interest in AI? The article should be listed as an advertisement.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
“We’ll never solve the feminization of power until we solve the masculinity of wealth.” - Gloria Steinem
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Catherine Prendergast @badtoss.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Reading the ARC of it now and Sherlock Holmes fans--you are going to love it.
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Alex Hanna @alexhanna.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
"There's an ineffable aspect to my favorite pieces of software where I don't think of it is as feature matrix but rather as an interface made by a human for humans that's a joy to use. And when you build software with AI, it leads to worse software." brettcodes.com/im-done-usin...
brettcodes.com
I'm done using AI
Why I'm stopping using AI for coding (and anything else) after using it earnestly for a year and coming to understand the harms it causes on personal, societal, and environmental levels.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 31/08/2026
“Optimisation is so seductive because it’s framed as a rare opportunity to exercise freedom – the freedom to make your own choices and control your own outcomes – but it’s a suspicious freedom that enriches companies through the collection of your sensitive information.” #LuxurySurveillance
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
In honor of Tim Curry, drop your favorite scene or moment.
static.klipy.com
Tim Curry's Iconic 'Frankly, Scarlet' Moment
ALT: Tim Curry's Iconic 'Frankly, Scarlet' Moment
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Something new from me that isn't a laptop review or a deep dive into hardware architecture; it's incredibly human. This is for you, dad. You were punk against the machine before everyone else realized there was a machine.
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Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com · 25/08/2026
Dolly Parton's family asked that, in lieu of flowers, fans make a donation to the singer's Imagination Library. Here's what the charity does ⬇️ www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
rollingstone.com
Turning Pages: Inside Dolly Parton's Imagination Library
Core team of 15 staff and thousands of volunteers and partners help the country-music philanthropist deliver books to kids around the world.
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Sonja Drimmer @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
This is what I’m talking about! Our institutions should be doing the work for us and not leaving us to jury rig together the collapsing infrastructure around us. More of this. chicagomaroon.com/53262/news/s...
chicagomaroon.com
Sosc Core to Institute AI Ban, Technology-Free Classrooms This Fall
All social science Core classes will transition to an “analog” approach for the upcoming academic year, restricting in-classroom technology use and banning AI-assisted writing and grading for students...
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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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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
While I wholeheartly believe that knowledge work is not, nor will ever be, pointless, my newfound passion for gardening (an old-timey hobby) was born from a deep, personal existential crisis. But an "indescribable melancholy" is something I've felt for most of my life.
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lincoln carpenter, skeleton @lincolnhello.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
As part of our experimentation with new post formats at PC Gamer, I'm pleased to present this Causality Chain, which chronicles how Stephen King's childhood trauma led to Kiefer Sutherland ordering a fake horse to perform tactical shitting 64 years later:
pcgamer.com
How Stephen King watching a train hit a kid led to Kiefer Sutherland making his videogame horse crap on command: A PC Gamer Causality Chain™
Many of our greatest works are downstream of terrible woe.
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Mitch Dyer @mitchyd.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
this CEO comment is how you know with 1000% certainty Stella is right
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Joy Brennan @joybrennan.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
In the future I want an academic discipline, and maybe also a religion, devoted to understanding and correcting whatever delusion we've sustained that allows so many to believe that because a computer program can churn out some complex prose, it must have cognition, subjectivity, & agency.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
So... does the Tdap I'm required to get as a teacher make me more autistic or does it just refresh my autism every 10 years? 🙃
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
One week later...
A large watermelon surrounded by vines.
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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
not to be confused with quesadilla
Ķ
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Quesadilla.
Ķ (k-cedilla) is the 17th letter of the Latvian alphabet.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Re GTA 6 trailer news: just when ya think Capitalism can't Capitalism any harder...
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Chuck Wendig @chuckwendig.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Professional writer organizations should not send out pro-AI propaganda in the form of tantrum-having "essays" to their members, and I don't think that's controversial.
terribleminds.com
Regarding The Pro-AI Tantrum In The HWA Newsletter
Today I, and every other HWA member, received the HWA newsletter in our inboxes. In that newsletter was an essay (“essay”) of pro-AI propaganda that made a number of specious points in …
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
Us teachers don't need another reason to be anti-AI in the classroom, and yet...
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
MELONS! 😮
A close up of a watermelon growing on a vine outdoors.Another close up of a watermelon growing on a vine outdoors.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
What in the actual fuck
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
19th century VR
A woman looks at a photograph through an antique viewfinder.A woman looks at a photograph through an antique viewfinder.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Good.
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Etch @etchfilm.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Some stories stay with you. Others follow you home. @stephengrahamjones.com shares a real midnight encounter that feels like it wandered out of one of his novels...except it actually happened.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
Just another LA car chase 🤣
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Yes. Once again thinking about Kate Losse’s work: modelviewculture.com/pieces/the-m...
modelviewculture.com
The Male Gazed
Surveillance, Power, and Gender
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
I don't post enough cat pics
A black and white tuxedo cat sleeping peacefully on top of a blanket.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Gardening level unlocked: Watermelon.
A side close-up of an open, yellow flower on top of a unfertilized watermelon ovary.
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404 Media @404media.co · 24/07/2026
This is how cops are using Flock to track actual people, not just cars, with searches like “male with tattoos.” @josephcox.bsky.social breaks it down. Watch the full episode here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xSe...
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Patrick Pittman @patrickpittman.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
When my brain broke, I set about trying to fix it the same way I do with anything — by pulling it apart to figure out what's jammed. This started as a cultural history of writer's block, and ended up in the neuroscience of how creativity itself works (or doesn't): thestory.au/articles/wri...
thestory.au
Grief Breaks the Brain: A Writer's Long Journey Back to the Page
When tragedy destroyed his ability to write, Patrick Pittman went looking for a way back to the page. But is the cure for writer’s block in your heart, or in your head?
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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
This page on the AI bubble -- the bursting of which is a "when," not "whether," -- is key reading. I'm including Erin Brokovitch's data center map under it. Looks like this is a project of @thefarce.org !
stopthetrillionaires.com
How Big Is the AI Bubble, Actually?
$2.53 trillion in global AI spending this year. Live math on what's riding on it, and what's actually inside it.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Moving into a 100-year-old house is great until it's the middle of summer and you realize it doesn't have any insulation and that's why your power bill is so high 🫠
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Dorothy Berry @dorothyjberry.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
This is a great student-authored short piece about, in my read, how the allure of innovation/problem solving/bragging rights has led a lot of smart people to ignore the work of archivists and historians when developing historical, archive driven tools.
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sky @iamspacegirl.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Finally dug up my favorite Odyssey tweet ever
@Owl_Meat on Twitter

Cyclops (crying): omg I'm so ugly

Odysseus:*puts hand on shoulder* Nobody cares

12:22PM 2/3/16
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Electronic Frontier Foundation @eff.org · 22/07/2026
The Right to Repair movement is bigger than fixing your phone. It's a community of everyday people pushing back against corporate control. Join EFF, Adam Savage, and iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens TOMORROW, July 23, to learn how to get involved. Live Q&A included! eff.org/livestream-r2r
EFFecting Change: If You Own It, Why Can't You Fix It on Thursday, July 23 at 9 AM PT. Featuring EFF's Corynne McSherry and Hayley Tsukayama, as well as Adam Savage and iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens.
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
A couple years ago I wrote about the history of surveillance on campus:
wordsinspace.net
Surveillance Space
Words in Space is the work of Shannon Mattern.
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
When people ask me why I haven't gone on my honeymoon yet, I'm going to show them this:
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
"Emerging guidance on the use of ChatGPT and other large language models reflects the growing need for instructors to consider thoughtfully integrating artificial intelligence into English and writing classrooms." Absolutly not, @ncte.org. I won't be reading your latest College English issue.
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the beggars out of here getter @milesklee.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Calling on parents as well as librarians and other book-world people who have encountered the new trend of personalized AI slop children's books that insert your kid as the main character. Has your child gotten one of these as a gift? What did they think? DM or hit me at miles_klee@wired.com
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Sam Learner @samlearner.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
wrote for the magazine about the open source software that underpins our digital lives, how it is being upended by AI code tools, and about maintainers as.ft.com/r/b7f62212-9...
ft.com
Who cleans up after the vibe-coding party?
Our obsession with AI code-writing tools is overwhelming the web’s unsung human caretakers
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
🤣👏
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Joanna Nelius-Free @joannafreewrites.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Would love to live in a world where we don't use the word "consume" in place of "read," listened," "watched," or "played." We are purveyors of art," not "consumers of media." The former implies deliberate interaction. The latter implies passivity.
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Doug Mack @douglasmack.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
This is genuinely moving
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David J. Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
The most anti-legal immigrant administration ever just made it illegal for international students to transfer schools or change majors or shift any "educational objective" in their 1st year and for graduate students **at any point** ever, at all. There is no legal basis for this
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