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Laura Kurgan

@laurakurgan.bsky.social
551 followers 192 following 43 posts

@faculty @GSAPP @ Columbia University c4sr.columbia.edu lapsed architect, maps, dataviz, art, design, spatial computation, spatial research.

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Reposted by Laura Kurgan
Data Rescue Project #DataRescue @datarescueproject.org · 04/11/2025
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has generously awarded us funding to secure our own storage. This critical processing space will be instrumental in ensuring that large datasets can be temporarily stored, curated, and described. Thank you, MacArthur Foundation, for your support!
datarescueproject.org
Data Rescue Projects receives support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support data rescue efforts
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Since launching in February 2025, the Data Rescue Project has grown substantially. At this point, the DRP has enabled the rescue of more than 1,000 datasets from US Federal…
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Reposted by Laura Kurgan
Timnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 07/10/2025
Back in the day people used to have a slide at the end of their presentations saying "and that's how the brain works" as an inside joke about Hinton since he was known to talk confidently out of his ass. Now, the Nobel committee brought this upon us like they give the peace prize to genociders.
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Steve Farrugia @fasterandworse.com · 29/04/2025
A problem with LLMs, genAI products, and many SaaS products in general, is that the makers don't publicly assert the actual purpose(s) those products are created to satisfy. They prefer to give vague suggestions or more commonly put them out with a "here, see what you can do with this" thread?
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Rob Kitchin @robkitchin.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
New OA book. Seeing Like a Platform: An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Modernity by Petter Törnberg and Justus Uitermark. www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edi...
taylorfrancis.com
Seeing Like a Platform | An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Mode
Power needs abstraction, to make the unwieldy complexity of the social world legible and manageable. The proposition at the heart of Seeing Like a Platform is
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Jacque Schrag @jacqueschrag.com · 15/12/2024
More than 300 people from around the world & from all corners of the data viz field have signed up 🎉 Couldn’t be more pleased to have helped play a role in bringing so many people together in the last year. Be sure to pin the feed for easy access to all kinds of 📊 goodness bsky.app/profile/did:...
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
"The boxes were filled with hundreds of 35mm slides from the Dept of Defense [that] appear to be from the height of the Cold War... They are the perfect inverse of contemporary Pentagon graphic design in all its sprawling insanity, permanently poisoned by the vernacular of PowerPoint and clip art.”
beautifulpublicdata.com
Cold War Military Slides
A reporter stumbled upon a treasure trove of Department of Defense slides from the 1970s and 1980s depicting data from missile systems, Soviet capabilities and America’s nuclear arsenal.
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Schooley @schooley.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
We mock the egg price discourse but if Harris had won rising prices would have been the crisis cited as killing her presidency before it got started.
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L.D. Burnett @ldburnett.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
for pity’s sake, I am BEGGING university leaders to stop framing this issue in terms of what this will cost the university. people dont care! EXPLAIN WHAT THIS WILL COST THE PUBLIC: closed hospitals and clinics, skipped treatments, loss of access to experimental drugs, unemployment, recession
sreenshot from the new york times reporting that Stanford University’s provost is talking about how the loss of funding from national institutes of health funding will cost the university $160 million. that’s not the way to get this changed — the people think “stanford is rich; no big deal.” leaders need to talk about what this will cost the public
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KSV @ksvesq.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Costco, which has come out saying it supports DEI, will make no changes to its existing programs, AND pays workers a minimum of $30/hour, is up 15% YTD. Target, which announced it is ending all DEI programs and has a minimum wage of $15-$24/hour, is down over 4%. Keep voting with your wallet.
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Kaja Kallas @kajakallas.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia will tomorrow permanently disconnect from Russia’s power grid. Russia can no longer use energy as a tool of blackmail. This is a victory for freedom and European unity.
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Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
The news cycle right now - even just for science & higher ed - is overwhelming. We have to do it, but fortunately, we don’t have to do it alone. My team is focused on tracking what’s happening to research funding, jobs & salaries, shared datasets, university responses & safety of our communities
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Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
Thank you @sifill.bsky.social
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
The amount of stupid on social media right now is depressing. The billionaire Resnicks own a lot of land and a lot of water rights. They do not, contrary to a lot of the stupid, "own all California's water" or have anything to do with the L.A. fires.
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Republicans Against Trumpism @rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
My God. Small fire tornadoes were spotted Friday night at the Palisades Fire. Thank you to all the California firefighters risking their lives to protect others. Heroes. 🫡
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George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 25/12/2024
Well would you look at that.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
As Black Friday purchases begin to arrive at your door, consider their packaging — more than likely in cardboard boxes. These "abject objects," @shannonmattern.bsky.social writes, are touchpoints to a global apparatus of commerce, consumption & waste. They bring the logistics chain to our doorsteps.
placesjournal.org
World in a Box: Cardboard Media and the Geographic Imagination
Cardboard boxes hold a world of meaning — a geography of consumption, disposal, and reuse — that spans from Amazon to the Container Corporation of America.
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Laura Kurgan @laurakurgan.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Nadine Fattaleh is fantastic too:)) wish I could go.
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Reposted by Laura Kurgan
Nick Seaver @nickseaver.website · 02/12/2024
50 Watts is such a good online store for weird, arty books: 50wattsbooks.com (I think shipping is US-only for the near future, though)
50wattsbooks.com
50WattsBooks.com - unusual art books, comics, zines, and picture books
50 Watts Books is a bookstore and indie publisher specializing in art books, Japanese art, underground comics, Surrealism, international picture books.
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Reposted by Laura Kurgan
Sasha Costanza-Chock @schock.cc · 02/12/2024
If you think text and image hallucinations are bad, wait until you see what Geospatial hallucinations can do
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
"In season 3 of Getty’s Recording Artists podcast, [we examine] the groundbreaking art-science organization Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.). Through the stories of E.A.T.’s co-founders, Robt Rauschenberg + Bell Labs engineer Billy Klüver" we explore the org's collaborative, creative rsch
getty.edu
Recording Artists | Getty Podcasts
What can happen when you introduce scientists to art and artists to science? Artists and engineers discover the creative potential of new technologies.
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Laura Kurgan @laurakurgan.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
This might be more important to do than previous years.
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Reposted by Laura Kurgan
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 28/11/2024
This is one of those examples that illustrates a harm of algorithmic systems that is often invisible—system “predicts” who is likely to miss appointments, and recommends double booking those slots, thus punishing poor people by wasting their time. arstechnica.com/health/2024/...
AI guardrails

Last, the administration's proposal also tries to shore up guardrails for the use of AI in health care with edits to existing policy. The goal is to make sure Medicare Advantage insurers don't adopt flawed AI recommendations that deepen bias and discrimination or exacerbate existing inequities.

As an example, the administration pointed to the use of AI to predict which patients would miss medical appointments—and then recommend that providers double-book the appointment slots for those patients. In this case, low-income patients are more likely to miss appointments, because they may struggle with transportation, childcare, and work schedules. "As a result of using this data within the AI tool, providers double-booked lower-income patients, causing longer wait times for lower-income patients and perpetuating the cycle of additional missed appointments for vulnerable patients." As such, it should be barred, the administration says.
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AbdouMaliq Simone @xazaaradjame.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
Although delivered in Fall 2022, it remains a crucial intervention in light of today's conditions. parsejournal.com/article/the-...
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Reposted by Laura Kurgan
Deen Sharp @deensharp.bsky.social · 28/11/2024
I had a great, if not bleak, convo on the urban displacement podcast. We discussed urbicide in different contexts and its differentiated impact from Palestine to Sudan, the significance of materials like concrete as weapons of war and more. Have a listen! open.spotify.com/episode/4YAn...
open.spotify.com
Episode 23: The Urbanisation of Conflict
Displacement Urbanism · Episode
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Reposted by Laura Kurgan
Bellingcat @bellingcat.com · 28/11/2024
Ever lost track of all the satellite imagery you wanted to analyse? The Bellingcat Search Grid Generator simplifies your task, by overlaying a grid that turns your geolocation search into manageable sections. Watch @galen.reich.me.uk explain how: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKNl...
youtube.com
How To... Track Your Satellite Search
YouTube video by Bellingcat
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Reposted by Laura Kurgan
Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 23/11/2024
"92 million low-income people in the U.S. states—everyone whose income is less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line—have some basic aspect of their lives decided by AI" www.techtonicjustice.org/reports/ines... this is a damning report
reads: The Ways AI Decides How Low-Income People Work, Live, Learn, and Survive

The use of artificial intelligence, or AI, by governments, landlords, employers, and other powerful private interests restricts the opportunities of low-income people in every basic aspect of life: at home, at work, in school, at government offices, and within families. AI technologies derive from a lineage of automation and algorithms that have been in use for decades with established patterns of harm to low-income communities. As such, now is a critical moment to take stock and correct course before AI of any level of technical sophistication becomes entrenched as a legitimate way to make key decisions about the people society marginalizes.

Employing a broad definition of AI, this report represents the first known effort to comprehensively explain and quantify the reach of AI-based decision-making among low-income people in the United States. It establishes that essentially all 92 million low-income people in the U.S. states—everyone whose income is less than 200 percent of the federal poverty line—have some basic aspect of their lives decided by AI.
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Laura Kurgan @laurakurgan.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
Follow @alondra.bsky.social to see all her resposts of her initial cup half empty, cup half full post. I'm not adding one - but they are all so funny. I reposted the AI one following my morning theme.
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Laura Kurgan @laurakurgan.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
The recording of the AI Summit I organized is now online. Scroll down for the recordings of the 4 panels: #HumanAI, #LocalAI, #SpatialAI, #UrbanAI and #PlanetaryAI. @katecrawford.bsky.social and I are in conversation on the Planetary part. Many excellent talks. www.arch.columbia.edu/events/3601-...
arch.columbia.edu
ACTIONING SUMMIT 3: AI ACTIONING SUMMIT - Columbia GSAPP
David Benjamin (GSAPP, The Living) Lydia Chilton (Columbia Engineering) Seth Cluett (Columbia Computer Music Center) Nikhil Garg (Cornell Tech) Moderator: Mark Hansen (Brown Institute for Media In...
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Laura Kurgan @laurakurgan.bsky.social · 24/11/2024
So happy so many of my #mapping and #dataviz friends are here now. I was missing you all.
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Jer Thorp @jerthorp.bsky.social · 23/11/2024
Also, if you're not hip to the miracle that is the Sun Noodle ramen kits: sunnoodle.com/products/miso/ These things changed my life.
sunnoodle.com
Miso
[object Object],[object Object],[object Object]
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 20/11/2024
"The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) invites applications from distinguished scholars for the Borough of Bklyn Chair for the Study of History + Culture. This endowed faculty position will advance student and public engagement in the rich history and diverse cultural heritage of Brooklyn..."
bard.edu
Borough of Brooklyn Chair for the Study of History and Culture
Job Opportunities at Bard College
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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 16/11/2024
Finally, someone speaks some sense at @nytimes.com. Thank you Zeynep Tufekci. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Could Do Almost Limitless Harm
Our public health system is imperfect, but it’s also a miracle that can be easily broken.
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Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 12/11/2024
Big news—a rare settlement!— in one of @knightcolumbia.org’s cases. www.nytimes.com/2024/11/12/u...
nytimes.com
U.S. Allows Americans to Hold Foreign Conferences With Speakers Under Sanctions
Reversing itself, the Treasury Department said U.S. sanctions do not prohibit hearing from foreigners deemed to be terrorists or other offenders.
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Places Journal @placesjournal.bsky.social · 11/11/2024
Professor of literature @bardcollege.bsky.social Peter L'Official unearths the ambitious — and unrealized — work of architect/writer W. Joseph Black, who in the 1970s proposed building a sprawling Black cultural center in Harlem. L'Official links Black's work to the novels of Colson Whitehead. /2
placesjournal.org
Black Builders
What do we learn about visions of cities when we consider writing and architecture as mutually defining?
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Philip N Cohen @philipncohen.com · 27/10/2024
It's been 12 hours so maybe everyone has moved on, but I created a graph with the all the missing lines. Visually, you could say White men without college degrees were ahead of 10 groups in 1980 (5th place out of 16), and only 7 groups by 2022 (9th place).
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 22/10/2024
“What were the material, technical, epistemic, cultural, + political conditions that made the built environment computable? And, conversely, what are the implications of emplacing the history of computing in material + spatial settings – in the built environment?” IEEE CFP: abstracts due Dec 1!
computer.org
Call for Papers: Special Issue on Computing and the Built Environment
The Special Issue on Computing and the Built Environment invites historical scholarship that tackles the co-constitution and entanglements of computing and the built environment.
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Laura Kurgan @laurakurgan.bsky.social · 05/10/2024
The job is at DUSP, MIT
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Laura Kurgan @laurakurgan.bsky.social · 05/10/2024
I have never seen a job description like this. Assistant Professor of Urban Planning, Computing and The Health of the Planet. apply.interfolio.com/156251
apply.interfolio.com
Apply - Interfolio {{$ctrl.$state.data.pageTitle}} - Apply - Interfolio
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Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 03/10/2024
"Does Title VI Require Private Universities to Restrict Student Speech?" -- from @dorfonlaw.bsky.social, the latest installment in @knightcolumbia.org's series on Title VI and the First Amendment. knightcolumbia.org/blog/does-ti...
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 03/10/2024
23andMe is teetering on the brink of collapse. It's not clear on what the company plans to do with the DNA data of its 15 million customers
npr.org
23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data?
The once-hot Silicon Valley startup has seen its stock’s value decline 99% and is struggling to survive. That has put the spotlight on the genetic data it has on 15 million people.
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 07/09/2024
“In 1977, Child’s home kitchen… inspired a remarkable piece of early design rsch, ‘Julia’s Kitchen: A Design Anatomy.’ In this 40pppolemic, Bill Stumpf, the industrial dsgnr who co-invented the Aeron chair, [and] Nicholas Polites [claimed] Child’s home kitchen as a model for user-centered design.”
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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 07/09/2024
thin blue line flag but the blue line has been resized to reflect the proportion of your city's municipal budget that goes to police
A photo of a black and white American flag with a blue stripe in the center of its 13 stripes, but the blue strip is widened to take up the space of 7 of the 13 stripes
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 03/09/2024
"This August, Finland is launching a world-first initiative on this scale: every ninth grader will receive ‘The ABC Book of Media Literacy’ designed to combat the rising tide of disinformation."
abcsofmedia.com
ABCs of Media
The ABC’s of media literacy. A new primer for every 9th grader in Finland
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Bonnie Honig @bonniehonig.bsky.social · 29/08/2024
Welcome Brazilians to BlueSky! Here is a useful, detailed explanation of why there is a sudden influx: imagine if Jan 6 had been met with such FAFO measures in the US! (Not quite too late…)
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 26/08/2024
As more families opt for charter and private schools or homeschooling in the wake of the pandemic, cities around the country are shuttering schools. The effects fall hardest on majority-Black schools and special-needs students.
propublica.org
The Unequal Effects of School Closings
As more families opt for charter and private schools or homeschooling in the wake of the pandemic, cities around the country are shuttering schools. The effects fall hardest on majority-Black schools ...
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Martin Wattenberg @wattenberg.bsky.social · 26/08/2024
Using the percent sign for both poll results and probabilities is confusing! We need different glyphs, something like: 47% - proportion of voters for candidate X 47‽ - probability that candidate X wins
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Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 09/08/2024
"New York City runs on algorithms, at least 46 different algorithmic tools to be exact. Behind the rapid expansion of these tools is an example of how America’s biggest city is aiming to be transparent about which departments use these tools and what kind of data is being processed and by whom."
govtech.com
NYC’s Data-Driven Future: 46 Algorithms and Counting
New York City, which tracks the number of algorithms its departments use, has seen adoption of those tools skyrocket in recent years. Officials see them as a way to modernize government and enhance ef...
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Brooke @brooklynmarie.bsky.social · 04/08/2024
Hi all! I'm going to be doing something a little different next month and teaching a six-week course on disinfo and propaganda, its goals and tactics, and all the ways people can properly fight it. This will be fairly structured and geared toward nonprofits and newsrooms:
darktimesacademy.co.nz
Fighting Disinformation: Disinformation, Propaganda and how to reclaim our information system – Dark Times Academy
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