iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Aaron van Dorn @aaronvandorn.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

I think we need to put a little more respect on snake oil salesmen. Do you think it's easy to squeeze the oil out of all those snakes?

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

What brave hero will create presentation software that allows me to embed webpages - not links to webpages that make me exit the presentation and go into the browser, but just a handy little iframe in the presentation itself

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

RM @dorsalstream.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

The horse op-ed is an instant classic. I can't tell you how much joy this piece gives me. It should be taught in every introductory writing class in no small part because the horse arguments are so compelling. "I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children."

I Work Very Hard, And I Would Like To Try Cake

By A Horse

Hello. I am a horse. I work very hard at my job of being a horse. When humans say move the heavy thing, I move the heavy thing. When humans sit on top of me and pull on my head, I carry them where they want to go. The main food the humans give me is hay and oats. But I am thinking it would be nice to have a different food.

I am thinking I would like to try cake.

Yes, yes. Cake. I know all about it. When humans eat cake, it is in glad times. It is the food for a celebration, such as when a woman becomes 47. I have seen cake on the Fourth of July. When humans have a cake, they stand around it and clap hands and smile and say happy birthday at each other. Sometimes there are beautiful markings on a cake, such as balloons or a pink shape.

Sometimes the top of a cake is on fire and a boy must blow on the fire with mouth wind. This is the scariest cake. I do not want this kind. But I will eat any other cake. Any cake that is not the fire cake that tries to kill the boy.

Please understand: I do not get money for doing work. I do not get to go inside the house. All I am either doing my horse job or standing in my pen or eating food off the floor. I always do these things. But I have never once gotten cake and I would like it very much.

I have noticed that human children get to eat cake. But I am bigger than the children. I am more helpful to the farm. Children do not move the heavy things like me or let anyone ride on them. And yet they get cake. Maybe the humans will realize this. Maybe they will say, "You know who deserves cake? That horse. That horse whose back we are always on."

Every day I dream about what it will be like if I get to eat cake. Here is what will happen. First, I will walk to the cake and putt my nose at it like hrrfff to make and stomping my hooves to make sure it is not a snake. Then I will trot in a circle to show that I am a horse and I am large. After that, I will nuzzle the cake to …

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

I think the irrational confidence in the capabilities of AI here is a secondary infuriation. It's the idea that we could somehow direct anything else to do X in a useful way without ever learning to do X ourselves. How would anyone apart from a PhD level physicist know what it made sense to ask for?

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Solidarity with Emily Tucker and her open letter to students. Tucker writes, "But the great thing is, you don’t have to go along with this, and I urge you not to. You can refuse to use the chatbot. You can tell your professors that you don’t want them to use it or to require you to use it."

medium.com

An Open Letter to Georgetown Students, In Response to Recent Announcements about "Generative AI"

Image source: Bibliothèque nationale de France An Open Letter to Georgetown Students, In Response to Recent Announcements by the University about “Generative AI” Dear students, As you know, in …

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Streaming services that have introduced ads forgot the lost art of making sure someone isn't mid sentence when you cut to one. Watch older TV and you can see they built it kn. Between that and the fact that most ad spots are incoherent AI slop it makes for rough viewing

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Nathaniel Comfort @nccomfort.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

WE ALL HAVE THE EXACT SAME GENETIC CODE THATS WHY SEX ACTUALLY WORKS

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Some excellent new follows from this list, this snowflake is a skilled curator

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

oh cool we’re doing the Wire Mother experiment again, but on all of society

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Mark Dingemanse @markdingemanse.net · 10/03/2026

New! For robust research, center values, not technology, w/ @nerdpro.bsky.social zenodo.org/records/1894... Our commentary on Futrell/Mahowald "How linguistics stopped worrying and learned to love the LMs”, forthcoming in BBS

zenodo.org

For robust research, center values, not technology

Large language models are interesting, but linguistics and cognitive science should be cautious about centering any new technology as a magic bullet. Doing so reinforces the historically “narrow focus...

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Amy @lolennui.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

don’t forget to destroy your clocks tonight, walk away from your mortgage, just start driving, you’re free

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

I have learned in my travels that it is currently basically impossible to get a VM of any kind on Azure anywhere in Europe. Ironically, I had to learn this through a tortured interaction with an actual person in customer service. Copilot seemed not to be aware it was eating the world

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Simon Fisher @profsimonfisher.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

I like how social media enables scientists to actively dispel popular myths & misconceptions about our research. As an illustration, here’s my thread on why there’s no such thing as a “gene for language”... 🧪 1/9

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Rebecca Wynter @rebeccawynter.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Incandescent. One of the best pieces I've read about what university means to people and their communities - and what will happen to a city and people after one closes. The *Labour* government and Jaqui Smith in particular should be ashamed of themselves and shamed into doing something. Deplorable.

theguardian.com

‘If I think about what this means, I want to cry’: what happens when a city loses its university?

When Essex University’s Southend campus opened, it was a message of hope for a ‘left behind’ UK seaside town. Its closure will be felt far beyond its 800 students, some of whom will not get their degr...

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

I found the key to be referencing activities and examples we actually covered in class or seminars (the latter were not recorded). A lot of "well written" drivel immediately revealed itself

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 01/02/2026

Person: say, i am alive.

Computer: I am alive.

Person: oh my god.

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Well now I know what's on for movie night

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

There's a lot of bad shit going on right now, but god help me, this automatically generated pie chart from google forms might be the proverbial straw for me

A pie chart from a survey where the possible responses are red, green, turquoise, blue, pink, and yellow - and google has made red responses blue, green responses red, turquoise responses orange, blue responses, green, pink responses purlple, and yellow responses ALSO blue.

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Andrew Cherry @kolektiv.xyncro.com · 28/01/2026

I think I might take one of these "under 20 minutes" AI skills courses the UK Govt. seems very keen on everyone doing and live-post it here... Maybe we can all learn something together! The press release sends me to aiskillshub.org.uk/aiskillsboost/ - let's go and see!

aiskillshub.org.uk

AI Skills Boost - AI Skills Hub

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Fabio Chiusi @fabiochiusi.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Qui i veri criminali stanno in divisa

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French New Wave Memes @fnwave.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

📽️

Agnes Varda saying

the world's in bad shape and I'm overwhelmed.

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Bantshire University @bantshireuni.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

It’s a tremendous honour, really tremendous - to be presented with a ‘World No.1 University’ ranking from Oxford. Very smart people. The best. Everyone knows it. Nobody thought it could happen, but here we are. Absolutely incredible.

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 15/01/2026

are you displeased with today’s AI safety evaluation landscape and curious about what greater conceptual clarity, methodological soundness, and rigour in AI evaluation could look like? if so, consider coming to Dublin to pursue a PhD with me apply here: aial.ie/hiring/phd-a... pls repost

$About the PhD: Audits and evaluation of AI systems — and the broader context that AI systems operate in — have become central to conceptualising, quantifying, measuring and understanding the operations, failures, limitations, underlying assumptions, and downstream societal implications of AI systems. Existing AI audit and evaluation efforts are fractured, done in a siloed and ad-hoc manner, and with little deliberation and reflection around conceptual rigour and methodological validity. This PhD is for a candidate that is passionate about exploring what a conceptually cogent, methodologically sound, and well-founded AI evaluation and safety research might look like. This requires grappling with questions such as: What does it mean to represent “ground truth” in proxies, synthetic data, or computational simulation? How do we reliably measure abstract and complex phenomena? What are the epistemological or methodological implications of quantification and measurement approaches we choose to employ? Particularly, what underlying presuppositions, values, or perspectives do they entail? How do we ensure the lived experiences of impacted communities play a critical role in the development and justification of measurement metrics and proxies? Through exploration of these questions, the candidate is expected to engage with core concepts in the philosophy of science, history of science, Black feminist epistemologies, and similar schools of thought to develop an in-depth understanding of existing practices with the aim of applying it to advance shared standards and best practice in AI evaluation. The candidate is expected to integrate empirical (for example, through analysis or evaluation of existing benchmarks) or practical (for example, by executing evaluation of AI systems) components into the overall work.$

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

This was a cowardly subtweet of this mess, dissected at length here: bsky.app/profile/mehr...

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been dissolved, ending its 58 years as the primary funder for PBS, NPR and local TV and radio stations

huffpost.com

Corporation For Public Broadcasting Is Dissolved After 58 Years Of Service

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

I keep coming across this idea that AI can be used to generate research ideas..where did this come from? I know a lot of people who are burnt out and have trouble moving forward with or engaging with new ideas, but I have never met anyone who's like "welp I got to the end of ideas I guess"

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Kevin Veale 😷 (Toitū Te Tiriti) @krveale.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Let's talk about generative AI, contaminated information, and rhubarb. Once upon a time, Europe was at war. Food was scarce, and the government of the quote-unquote United Kingdom looked for alternatives. 1/

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Why is Trump always doing interviews on Air Force one looking like he just got caught by reporters wiggling out of the bathroom on an easyJet flight

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

The Onion @theonion.com · 05/01/2026

New Leather-Bound Notebook To Really Unleash Area Woman's Creativity theonion.com/new-leather-bound-note…

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Michael Kagan @michaelgkagan.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

I feel like I haven’t even been properly lied to about the purposes of this war

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 30/12/2025

I hate these charts so much because they imply chatgpt is comparable to the internet or phones You could create the same graphic for full screen pop-up advertising on websites and make them look like ultra-rapid technology adoption when really they were just baked unavoidably into the internet

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

I think it’s really important we do *not* attribute this failure to “fossilized thinking” on the part of academics, but on the part of business studies-led management teams who value “internal markets” over education.

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Colin D. Wren @cdwren.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

A student's paper just described the interaction between Homo sapiens and Neandertals as "a situationship rather than a relationship" and I'm still laughing ten minutes later 💀🏺

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Aliette de Bodard @aliettedebodard.com · 21/12/2025

Deep breath Ok I'm going to try and stay calm But I'll point out that AI translation is literally causing translators to be fired (see the whole Harlequin line in France) (1/?)

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

All research is exploratory if you’re confused enough

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Chris Jackson @chriscjackson.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

This entire weekend

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Roope Kaaronen @roopekaaronen.net · 04/12/2024

I am delighted to share our latest piece of research: ‘A global cross-cultural analysis of string figures reveals evidence of deep transmission and innovation’. This was long in the works and is by far the largest project I’ve led to date. A thread: royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/...

A huge phenetic tree visualising our global string figure dataset.

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Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley

Linguistic Discovery @linguisticdiscovery.com · 04/12/2025

“ragebait” is Oxford’s 2025 Word of the Year @academic.oup.com I wonder if this makes “ragebait” autological… www.nytimes.com/2025/11/30/a...

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Jes Battis @jesbattis.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

An issue we're seeing at all levels of university is that many students are simply refusing to do *anything*. They aren't reading the syllabus, aren't following assignment guidelines, aren't engaging with material, ignoring deadlines. And this might seem like old news, but it truly has ramped up.

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Debjit Dutta @debjitduttaart.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

What a great headline

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KJ Charles @kjcharleswriter.com · 28/10/2025

I have Issues with the concept of writers block, such that I wrote a post on it. kjcharleswriter.com/2019/11/13/w... There are a ton of things you can do if you're struggling to write, and none of them require using the theft-based environment-ruining plagiarism machine.

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Maria Farrell @mariafarrell.eurosky.social · 24/10/2025

“That single point isn’t just AWS – they’re the biggest cloud provider with 30% or so of the market – but rather the cloud as a whole, which is basically just three companies”.

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Dr Christine Cuskley @nerdpro.bsky.social · 23/10/2025

The future is finally here. Either they harvest your attention and sell it to someone else, or they harvest it and sell it back to you

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Ryan Quinn @ryanequinn.bsky.social · 13/10/2025

Hey, I'm an @insidehighered.com reporter writing today about how the ongoing shutdown may be affecting, or about to affect, university research. If you have a story to share, please DM me or email ryan.quinn@insidehighered.com today. Thank you.

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manurocchi.bsky.social @manurocchi.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

@chasbooth.bsky.social @edinburghcouncil.bsky.social @spokes.org.uk months and months of erratic construction of the bike lane only for it to be blocked by planters on Sandport Bridge? Is this for real?

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Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important

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