iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lololol. I didn't even LOOK at the flyer content with any attention. I went straight to the funding disclosure ("why did we get two Santos mailers in one day??") and then got distracted looking up things in PDC (and posting). bsky.app/profile/r343...

010

Reposted by Rachael

Lingthusiasm @lingthusiasm.com · 13h

Vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, zombies, imposters, and frankenstein have something in common: they're all possessed by the spirit of linguistics! In this episode we get enthusiastic about various kinds of linguistic monsters 🧟‍♀️🧛🏻‍♀️👻🐺🦇

soundcloud.com

121: Vampires, ghosts, imposters and more linguistic monsters

Vampires, werewolves, witches, ghosts, zombies, imposters, and frankenstein have something in common: they're all possessed by the spirit of linguistics! In this silly spooky episode, your hosts Lau

5217

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 13h

Top donors to the Jackson Legacy Fund. The PDC is great. www.pdc.wa.gov/political-di...

Screenshot of contributors page in the linked page sorted by Amount column. Top contributors ($165k twice!) is the Washington Association of Realtors. Then $75k from Google, then $50k from Hospitals for a Healthy Future PAC, etc.

010

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 13h

They have given $80k to the Jackson Legacy Fund this year. Washington Hospital Services is the top donor to this Healthy Future PAC. Top donors that aren't other organizations are ... CEOs of hospitals.

110

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 13h

Oh, and if you're curious about who is funding whom, the PDC website can be a bit overwhelming but it's really quite good! Hospitals for a Healthy Future PAC (www.pdc.wa.gov/political-di...) $676k so far this year. Lots of it to other PACs (a way to obscure sources!) www.pdc.wa.gov

pdc.wa.gov

Home | Washington State Public Disclosure Commission (PDC)

110

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 13h

I mostly followed the Lefty Cheat Sheet except: - Wrote in Paula Stein instead of voting for Adam Smith - Voted for Tatiana Brown over Chipalo Street Useful way to make your own choices! Filter by LD, see which orgs endorsed who and see who is spending money! leftycheatsheet.org #WAelex

leftycheatsheet.org

Lefty Cheat Sheet

A quick guide on how to vote lefty using sources YOU trust!

140

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 13h

Anyway ballots came today. Already filled out and will be put in a ballot dropbox today or tomorrow.

150

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 13h

We got a pro-Santos mailer from the "Jackson Legacy Fund" PAC. Major funders appear to be realtors, google, housing construction labor union, and the major hospital association. 🤔 #waleg #WAelex

Picture of the state required disclosure of funding source for a political mailer in favor of incumbent Sharon Tomiko Santos. The PAC sending this is NOT part of the campaign. Text reads:

No candidate authorized this ad. It is paid for by Jackson Legacy Fund, inspired by the legacy of "Scoop" Jackson. PO Box 21961 Seattle, WA 98111. Top 5 contributors: WA Realtors PAC, Hospitals for a Healthy Future PAC, Google Client Services LLC, WA & Northern ID District Council of Laborers, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades Political Action Together Legislative Education Committee. Top 3РАС Contributors: Washington Hospital Services, Washington Realtors, Washington State Hospital Association.

172

Reposted by Rachael

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 20h

I’ve seen a lot of claims of AI consciousness that center more around “ability to coherently express ideas” than “ability to feel” which is telling I think

2276

Reposted by Rachael

Ryan Enos @ryanenos.bsky.social · 20h

Seizing the passport, phones, and computer of an opposition lawmaker is straight-up authoritarianism. There is no other way to describe it. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

9720185

Reposted by Rachael

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

Thinking still more about the AI booster discourse that tries to undermine critical work on the topic by saying "They don't even use it, how can they possibly know what they're talking about." >>

1532992

Reposted by Rachael

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

The second problem with "usefulness" as a primary concern is that it pushes all of the harms (to self, to others, to society, to the planet) outside the frame. In other words, given all of the harms, even if the software weren't janky, there would still be plenty of reasons to oppose it. >>

118231

Reposted by Rachael

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

4. Unfathomably large datasets precludes careful curation, documentation, & other mitigation strategies Also known at the time but not covered were harms of labor exploitation and normalizing surveillance. >>

115818

Reposted by Rachael

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 15/10/2026

But in fact the bulk of the paper was about other harms: 1. Environmental harms 2. Barriers to entry into a research field hyper-focused on expensive methodology 3. Encoding & reproducing bias/systems of oppression >>

117719

Reposted by Rachael

Lefty Cheat Sheet @electioncheatsheet.org · 14/10/2026

Ballots will be dropping in your mailboxes this week! We’ve completed incorporating and hand-checking the endorsements of all but a handful of our endorsing organizations, and we’ve improved our site for you.

44528

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

So almost 2% of the city population IS the elected leadership. Amazing.

160

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

I am really liking taking this graduate linguistic phonetics course! I did my first attempt at looking at (Pratt processed) oscillogram/spectrogram tonight and I am going to learn so much once I know more about how to do this!

060

Reposted by Rachael

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

"It's already here, what do you mean you think you can refuse?" is just another variation of the agency-stealing inevitability narrative. The future is not yet written, and we can shape it, starting with rejecting inevitability and claiming our agency. /fin

337689

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

My rep @adamsmith.house.gov finally said he supports impeachment in July. There are many executive branch officials (president on down) who have done impeachable offenses. If we don't systematically hold them accountable then we are nation run by a gang of men not the rule of law.

040

Reposted by Rachael

jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 12/10/2026

wrote on saturday that trump was not going to let democrats avoid the question of impeachment and here we are with an offense that would have had a president impeached, removed and *at least* exiled if it had happened at any point prior to now.

8961851101

Reposted by Rachael

Ilhan Omar @ilhanmn.bsky.social · 12/10/2026

I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.

14864996611735

Reposted by Rachael

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 08/10/2026

"The gas power buildout for AI could cost over $5.6 billion every year in health impacts Texas and Pennsylvania alone would make up almost a third of the health costs from gas burning plants" (this is the LOWER end estimate) earthjustice.org/feature/data...

12417

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

I try not to swear or scream at my not-"AI" tools because it's not good for me-the-human-being to do that, even to a non-living thing as it encourages me to not emotionally self-regulate more constructively!

000

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

"with no discernible purpose" doing a lot of work. So there are valid and acceptable reasons to be "abusive" to their models? I guess generating tediously boring react code isn't abuse. Also it being framed as abuse to the model vs that "abuse" being a sign the human is self-harming.

100

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

The first podcast I listened to more than one episode of was Lingthusiasm way near the start and I have been ever since. Almost always a new episode pops to the front of the queue!

0113

Reposted by Rachael

Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 06/10/2026

Hey. The fragmentation of the social media landscape has been hard on indie #scicomm 🧪 projects So if you'd like to follow a podcast that's enthusiastic about #linguistics, could you check out @lingthusiasm.com? And if you think your followers might like to, could you give this a repost?

2188152

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Matches the diagonal one that was on the SW side of Rainer and the signalized I-90 off ramp so you could get from the I-90 trail spur path to the crosswalk directly.

050

Reposted by Rachael

Robert Cruickshank @robertcruickshank.com · 08/10/2026

Send this to Seattle Public Schools superintendent Ben Shuldiner and all seven members of the school board

25112

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It's really weird how different schools are in SPS because kiddo's 7th grade is most definitely not restricting them from full books. In fact, several full books (not graphic novels) were immediately part of curriculum this year (for their so many minutes a day "homework").

020

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I wonder how "should democrats impeach the president" would poll? Or "should democrats push for accountability for constitutional and law violations by the executive branch during the first two years of Trump's term?" more generally?

010

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Currently reading a history of the Black Death period and being continually reminded of the benefits we have with modern sanitation standards: people in cities literally dumped their bodily waste out the window! Seems like ubiquitous public toilet facilities is a charter responsibility!

050

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

A go-to in our house: www.seriouseats.com/30-minute-tu... Also just recently made a buckwhear & mushroom soup from an eastern european cookbook (topped eith sour cream) that was magically greater than sum of parts (can message recipe).

Bowl of soup. It's mostly light to darker brown chunks from small (toasted buckwheat), to sticks (potato) and bigger chunjs (mushroom). Sine bits of orange carrot and big dollop of sour cream are main other colors.

100

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This story is pretty wild. I've been much more concerned about "private" cameras being used by police and behold. The police quietly has gotten cameras on private property (in theory facing "public" spaces) to feed into their real time system without informing city council or the public.

0197

Reposted by Rachael

A. Zivarts @nondriver.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

What would your life be like if you couldn't drive? This week is #WeekWithoutDriving which is all about understanding what it's like to be a nondriver. @devinsilvernail.bsky.social & I launched @nondriverpodcast.bsky.social to share these stories. Search for 'nondriver' wherever you watch/listen

youtube.com

nondriver

30% of people in the US & Canada can't or don't drive. nondriver is a podcast about the lives and stories of those people, hosted by Anna Zivarts and Devin Silvernail. Every episode, we talk to peopl...

68942

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

A lot of these automation ideas in addition to not understanding what people's real life needs are do not consider how hard to test even deterministic code is. A human can adapt a routine easily. An "AI agent" might go do something horribly wrong to "correct" itself.

151

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I am someone who loves lists, calendars, planning and I am professionally a developer. I frequently do things "manually" (either direct human communication or manual command-line tools where I type out exactly what I want done) not because I can't use software but because TESTING IS HARD.

140

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Also of course that the people who run these campaigns or convince candidates to run (party and consultant) don't do the most basic of vetting by checking all possible sources of information about the candidate and making sure they isn't anything obviously embarassing.

010

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I hadn't, no, but I kind of feel that Sound Transit's official station page should be showing the best maps by default.

010

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

116 people, even at a very conservative $75,000 a year is $8.7 million. Yes they do sometimes help folks get connected to services, but mostly they are policing, monitoring and removing unhoused people and assisting in trashing their belongings. Just utterly absurd and unconscionable.

063

Reposted by Rachael

Erica C. Barnett @ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

At this morning's Seattle council budget meeting, Maritza Rivera is complaining that the city's 116-member encampment sweeps team isn't GROWING in the mayor's proposed budget, inaccurately claiming the city is "taking money away from that to put that toward homelessness shelter."

711812

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Yeah I suppose it makes sense with all the internal building routes for accessible routes to get up hills but it must be baffling to a lot of users when it's just an out of context sign, especially when this is the online map. My kingdom for an accessible route maps for the stations too.

Screenshot of the online Symphony Station map. One part of the map is a street level map which shows where the station "center" is at University St & 3rd Ave, with icons for various bus stops on an otherwise pretty normal map oriented for people using the roads. The right image shows a more narrow map that shows the lettered exits (A1, A2, B and C) and notes some building names, but not Cobb.

110

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Probably not what you were asking but seems weird to have a street name and a building name like that?? I think someone unfamiliar with Seattle would assume Cobb is a street name.

130

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

This year is already better (we got an email the first week of school!)

010

Reposted by Rachael

A. Zivarts @nondriver.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Week Without Driving brings our community together around public transportation." Kent, WA Mayor Dana Ralph on why #WeekWithoutDriving matters.

0197

Reposted by Rachael

Our Streets @ourstreetsmn.org · 24/09/2026

Do you think you can go a week without driving? People without a car and those unable to drive often face barriers getting around reliably in our communities. From October 1-8, we invite you to make the pledge and challenge yourself to not drive for a week.

42915

Reposted by Rachael

Metro @wmata.com · 25/09/2026

National #WeekWithoutDriving is coming up! This is an opportunity to rethink how you get around the region and better understand the experiences of those who depend on public transit every day. 🚇🚍🚲🚶 We'll be sharing one simple step each day leading up to Oct. 1 so be sure to follow along!

Infographic. Man walking to a bus. Text: October 1 to 8. National week without driving.

0184

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Last school year was kiddo's first in middle school. We had no contact with her SPED teacher or info about it till months into the school year. She had an IEP from elementary school that her teachers & SPED person (who was great) worked really hard to make sure was setup for middle school. :/

110

Reposted by Rachael

Shirley Leung, PhD @shirleyswirley.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Instead I have to go 2 miles out of my way to the light rail station every time. And for the privilege, I have to run across a highway with no crosswalks or walk 3.5 blocks to the light and back every time, to wait for a bus w/ no shelter or seating on a sidewalk that’s not even wheelchair width lol

1102

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Same thing on all of the I-90 trail segments too. :/

020

Rachael @r343l.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I do wish we could figure out a way to include a pedestrian route. It's a loooong walk/ride to have to go to the next south or north crossing of the train tracks if your destination is near Holgate though. :/

040