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Vance Ricks

@ricksva.bsky.social
526 followers 1.4K following 505 posts

Philosophy/Comp. Sci. at Northeastern University in Boston No relation to Frozone, Gervase Peterson, or Kevin Garnett

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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Oh no "Trump Says a Smart President Is All That’s Needed to Rein In A.I."
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Diversify Microbiology @diversifymicro.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
UNC Greensboro Department of Biology is hiring for three positions this year including one in microbiology! spartantalent.uncg.edu/postings/35918
spartantalent.uncg.edu
Assistant Professor Microbiology
The Department of Biology at UNC Greensboro (UNCG) seeks an individual with a strong record of accomplishment in microbiology broadly defined for a tenure-track faculty position at the rank of Assista...
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
It's time to send in an abstract for WeRobot 2027! The deadline is 05 October. More details are here: www.oxford-aiethics.ox.ac.uk/we-robot-2027
oxford-aiethics.ox.ac.uk
We Robot 2027 | Ethics in AI
We Robot 2027 is an international platform to discuss current and future robotics and AI policy. We bring together academics, policymakers, business leaders and the broader expert community to discuss...
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bianca wylie @biancawylie.com · 08/09/2026
…perhaps making a decision to turn the recording off for discussion, or for other parts of the agenda. Create a consensual approach for the use of these tools on a meeting-by-meeting basis to get away from defaulting to constant surveillance. time-and-space-studios.ghost.io/agendas-are-...
time-and-space-studios.ghost.io
Agendas are a Power Tool
Making consent an agenda item One of the chapters of my career was working as a professional facilitator, running public engagement processes for governments and government agencies. In doing this wo...
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ACLU of Massachusetts @aclum.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Flock's dragnet surveillance technology and nationwide data sharing model put our civil liberties and privacy at risk. And Massachusetts residents across the state are fighting back. Find out if your community is included: www.aclum.org/campaigns-in...
Green graphic reads, "Massachusetts communities are saying: Get the Flock Out!" by ACLU of Massachusetts.
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Jeff Chang @zentronix.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
For Labor Day, listen to Notes from the Edge of Work and Care! ➡ Ai-Jen Poo ➡ Jenny Odell ➡ Valerie June Tonight at 7pm on KALW 91.7 San Francisco Bay Area Or anytime at KALW.org or wherever you get your podcasts! Go deeper with the Notes From The Edge newsletter: zentronix.substack.com
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The Boston LOL 💜 🚲 ⚡ @thebostonlol.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
The @streets.boston.gov has decided to repave the high crash corridor of Hyde Park Av without any safety improvements. Boston Better Streets Coalition is asking for letters from the community to go to the mayor to call for FIXING the streets not paving over the problem foresthills.boston#write
foresthills.boston
Hyde Park Avenue: No repaving without safety improvements
Compare Boston’s current resurfacing plan with safer alternatives and tell Mayor Wu’s Streets Team to do better.
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
"Apple relies on data work for its AI technologies and voice assistants....Data workers in Spain face systematic wage discrimination and violations of the principle of equal treatment depending on the language region.
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S.T.O.P.—Surveillance Technology Oversight Project @stopspyingny.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Learn the basics of how to protect your rights against surveillance at S.T.O.P.'s next Power Down webinar, September 16 from 3 to 4 p.m. Register here: us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Counterpoint: "Flock's annual revenue run rate increased to $500 million in June from $300 million in January,he said. More than half of the increase came from newer and lesser-known products such as surveillance drones,mobile trailers and audio detection systems" finance.yahoo.com/technology/a...
finance.yahoo.com
'We're Not Big Brother': Flock CEO Unveils New Privacy Guardrails After Backlash
Flock Safety plans to establish new guardrails for its technology following backlash over allegations that its automated license plate readers are being misused and enabling mass surveillance.
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
"[T]he new Chinese rules require companies to send warnings to users showing signs of excessive dependence [?], and remind them every two hours that they are speaking with AI." restofworld.org/2026/china-a...
restofworld.org
Beijing is forcing a mass breakup with AI lovers
Beijing is pioneering regulations that could shape how governments around the world govern emotionally intelligent chatbots.
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City of Boston Streets Cabinet @streets.boston.gov · 10/08/2026
♻️ Join us this Saturday, August 15, at 315 Gardner St. in West Roxbury to safely drop off unwanted household items, including: 🔌 Electronics 💡 Light bulbs 🛢️ Paint & motor oil 🛞 Tires 👕 Clothing & textiles 📄 Old documents/paper for shredding For more information: boston.gov/zero-waste-day
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Iran War Enters 6th Justification — theonion.com/iran-war-ent...
theonion.com
Iran War Enters 6th Justification
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
@lollardfish.bsky.social From a student: "back in the day books were extremely expensive because they where hand written and took years to make, but once the printing press dropped, it was probably like AI getting invented, I imagine people where [sic] having debates like this back then as well".
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Peter Cheung @bostonaruban.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Join Boston Cyclists Union for a first hand tour of the new “cast in place” concrete bike lane buffers on Congress Street. Meet on Sunday July 19th at 11:30am at Better Bagels, 211 Congress Street, Boston. @bikeboston.bsky.social
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
theonion.com/maha-voter-f...
theonion.com
MAHA Voter Feels Betrayed   By Continued Survival Of Own Children
DAYTON, OH—Expressing disappointment with what she described as unfulfilled campaign promises, local Make America Healthy Again voter Sandra Murrow told reporters Tuesday that she felt betrayed by the...
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Rachel Hands @rachelhands.com · 29/06/2026
hey Medford/Somerville pals, reminder that if you have an AC lying around that you’re not using, especially one that can cool a bigger space like a kitchen, @mutualaidmamas.bsky.social can redistribute it to a neighbor who needs one
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The War on Cars @thewaroncars.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
NEW EPISODE: Is the way we think about criminal consequences for drivers who harm pedestrians and cyclists another form of motonormativity? A study from Professor Ian Loader of the University of Oxford challenges how the law sees driving and offers solutions. podcasts.apple.com/lu/podcast/r...
Crashed black SUV behind yellow police tape in crosswalk on city street. A NYPD officer stands in the left side of the picture.
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Rahul Bhargava @rahulbot.bsky.social · 23/06/2026
Remember that every Big Data / AI revolution is powered by an army of under paid global workers with strong domain specific expertise… the World Cup is no exception!
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alice e marwick @alicetiara.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
I am hiring a qualitative postdoc to start this fall for the @datasociety.bsky.social project AI-Enabled Scams as a Systemic Security Challenge. Fully remote but must be US-based. Interested in youth, scams, hustle/financial/consumer culture? More here: job-boards.greenhouse.io/datasocietyr...
job-boards.greenhouse.io
Post-Doctoral Fellow, AI-Enabled Scams as a Systemic Security Challenge
Remote
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Admirable Women @admirablewomen.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Science-fiction writer Octavia E. Butler was born #OTD in 1947. A multiple recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, she became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship (1995). #booksky #litsky #scifi #SpeculativeFiction
A color portrait of Octavia Estelle Butler (1947–2006), the visionary Black science fiction author and pioneer of Afrofuturism. She looks directly at the camera with a calm, deeply thoughtful, and serene expression. Resting her chin on her right hand, her fingers curl gently beneath her jaw. She wears thin, metal-framed glasses and a colorful, multi-patterned blazer featuring bold geometric blocks of red, yellow, purple, blue, and black. The foreground features a neatly arranged horizontal line of books facing forward. Prominently displayed are four teal spine copies of her acclaimed trilogy compilation, Lilith's Brood. To their left are other sci-fi and speculative titles, including Bitten and Catch the Lightning. The background is softly out of focus, revealing tall library bookshelves tightly packed with vibrant book spines. The vertical composition, rich colors, and academic setting create a warm, intellectual mood. This emphasizes her historical significance as a ground-breaking, award-winning literary figure.
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
"Work is one of 17 interwoven concepts that are the pillars of the course’s curriculum. Others include freedom, justice, truth, language and happiness. Teachers can design their courses as they see fit, dipping into a huge list of philosophers along the way." www.nytimes.com/2026/06/19/w...
nytimes.com
What Does It All Mean? Once a Year, French Students Try to Explain.
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Migration and Technology Monitor @migrationtechmonitor.com · 16/06/2026
The AI Resist List is LIVE 🎉 Co-built w/ @weandai.bsky.social, @dairinstitute.bsky.social, @karenhao.bsky.social, & @refugeelab.ca, this database highlights global efforts to challenge AI, showing how we can resist, refuse, reimagine, and reclaim from Big Tech's dominance. airesistlist.org
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Grace Lindsay @neurograce.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
I've seen a lot of info for specialized audiences (e.g. scientists, non-profits) on how to comment on the proposed OMB rule change for grants, but less for the general public. So I made this one-pager that can be shared more widely. docs.google.com/document/d/e...
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
?? the-decoder.com/landmark-ger...
the-decoder.com
Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers
A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previous limited liability protections for search engine operators ...
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
"every lawyer involved in the case is implicated, leading Aycock to pause the proceedings, cancel the trial, and disqualify all four lawyers involved. Two of the lawyers were barred from appearing before the court for two years"
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Nurturing Minds podcast @nurturingminds.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Season 2, Episode 3 is out! Michael Yarbrough (@mwyarbrough.bsky.social) — associate professor of Law & Society at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center — joins @rachelriskind.bsky.social and @ricksva.bsky.social to talk about what it means to be +
This is a thumbnail image of the Nurturing Minds Season 2 episode 3 interview with Dr Michael Yarbrough, entitled, "Kinship, child freedom, and who can take your fries".
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
"Engagement-Optimized Care: When LLMs become Mental Health Infrastructure" "[D]ocumenting users’ self-developed prompt workarounds and adaptive strategies carries a risk of being read as justification that the burden of navigating these sys- tems can reasonably remain with users. +
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Tell Your State Rep: Pass a Strong Data Privacy Bill . Write one here: actionnetwork.org/letters/hous...
actionnetwork.org
Tell Your State Rep: Pass a Strong Data Privacy Bill
The Massachusetts House of Representatives will be voting on Thursday, June 4, on a data privacy bill. The bill contains some major wins, but also some clear areas for improvement. The good in the...
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
"If using AI to write is, at its worst, an industrialization of the mind, then AI detection, at its worst, becomes a surveillance system for thought."
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
www.frontiersin.org/journals/dev...
frontiersin.org
Frontiers | We don't know how social media bans will affect youth but we're doing it anyway!
Around the world, governments are banning youth from social media. Proponents of bans claim that banning or restricting social media access is necessary to c...
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
:-\ www.nytimes.com/2026/05/28/n...
nytimes.com
Happy, Bronx Zoo Elephant at Center of Animal Rights Case, Is Dead at 55
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
mila.quebec/en/news/mila...
mila.quebec
Mila and CIFAR Launch the Indigenous AI Advisory Circle | Mila
Montreal, May 26, 2026 — Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) are proud to announce the creation of the Indigenous AI Advisory Circl...
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Scene on Radio @sceneonradio.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
After 18 months of work, we dropped eps 1 and 2 of our new season, The News. We think this project is making some real interventions, as @chenjerai.bsky.social likes to say, into the scattered and confused debates about "the media." Check it! @dannagal.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
podcasts.apple.com
S8 E1: The Myth of the Echo Chamber
Podcast Episode · Scene on Radio · S8 E1 · 40m
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
A link to the paper is in the article. news.northeastern.edu/2026/05/21/e...
news.northeastern.edu
Worker data is ending up with third parties, Northeastern study finds
Companies are sharing the data of their workers to third parties using monitoring software, Northeastern research finds.
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Nurturing Minds podcast @nurturingminds.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Season 2 Episode 2 is out! We asked Rita Gehrenbeck-Shim, a teacher at Boston Day and Evening Academy, about what Boston Public Schools' new bell-to-bell smartphone restriction looks like at her school. (She spoke on her own behalf and not as a BDEA or BPS representative.)
The Nurturing Minds thumbnail image for this episode features photos of the cohosts in the upper left corner and a captioned photo of the guest, with the words, "Featuring Rita Gehrenbeck-Shim". On the left side is the episode title, "After the ban: Building sustainable smartphone policies that support students".
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Peter Cheung @bostonaruban.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Bikes Not Bombs needs volunteers to load used bikes to a container to Rwanda.
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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
This is a perfect summary of my opinion on helmets. Keeping the focus on personal responsibility, whether helmets or high-viz, distracts from the systemic changes needed to protect people outside cars.
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Nurturing Minds podcast @nurturingminds.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
Season 2, Episode 1 is out! We talked with Profs. Nancy Deutsch and Bethany Teachman, co-directors of TYDE (tyde.virginia.edu), about what their research says–and doesn’t say–about social media and teen mental health. nurturingminds.podbean.com/e/what-resea...
nurturingminds.podbean.com
What Researchers Actually Know About Smartphones and Teen Mental Health | Nurturing Minds
Nancy Deutsch and Bethany Teachman — co-directors of the Thriving Youth in a Digital Environment Initiative (TYDE) at the University of Virginia — join Vance and Rachel to talk about what the research...
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
It's talkie talkie-lm.com/chat
talkie-lm.com
talkie: an LM from 1930
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 05/05/2026
While the world’s eyes are on fashion’s biggest night, we’re turning ours to the garment, retail, and warehouse workers who keep the industry running. From true love found on the picket line to a free tailoring school out of a Brooklyn basement — meet the New Yorkers who make it all possible.
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
"The object of suspicion therefore shifts from the submitted product to the student’s embodied presence. It is no longer the em-dash, the hallucinated citation, or the uncharacteristic fluency that invites scrutiny. +
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StreetsblogMASS @mass.streetsblog.org · 01/05/2026
Bike Month Begins: Here's how to find group rides and events near you, plus a code to redeem free rides on @ridebluebikes.bsky.social: mass.streetsblog.org/2026/05/01/b...
mass.streetsblog.org
Bike Month Begins: Find Group Rides, Events Near You - Streetsblog Massachusetts
Today marks the beginning of National Bike Month, which includes dozens of rides and social events all across the Commonwealth.
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
An email from the Provost confirms what several of us suspected. "...We have a new vendor for [teacher rating and course evaluations]....We also learned that some [course evaluation] comments were being tagged with evaluative comments via the use of an AI tool.
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Vance Ricks @ricksva.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
"As is plainly visible in our score chart, neither of the three companies have been publicly transparent in standardised ways that would enable us to track progress towards a fossil-free internet in any region." internet.exchangepoint.tech/what-do-clou...
internet.exchangepoint.tech
What do cloud service companies disclose about their use of fossil fuels?
Green Web Foundation thinks not enough.
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AI Now Institute @ainowinstitute.bsky.social · 30/04/2026
Join our training on May 6 at 1 ET: Protecting Our Water Resources, Air Quality, and Public Health from the Data Center Buildout. You’ll learn the strongest possible policy interventions to protect water, air, and public health from the data center buildout. bit.ly/policy-in-practice-training-series
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Peter Cheung @bostonaruban.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
Bike Month Kick-off Party! Saturday May 2, 2026 at RoundHouse Brewing Co. Hyde Park. Join a group Ride Convoy! @massbike.bsky.social @bikeboston.bsky.social @mass.streetsblog.org
Bike Month Kick-off Party! Saturday May 2, 2026 at RoundHouse Brewing Co. Hyde Park. Join a group Ride Convoy!
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Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan on X) @markanthonyneal.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
The History of Jazz Has Instantly Expanded Newly released archival live performances by Ahmad Jamal, Joe Henderson, and Cecil Taylor illuminate their legacies and the art form at large. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
newyorker.com
The History of Jazz Has Instantly Expanded
Newly released archival live performances by Ahmad Jamal, Joe Henderson, and Cecil Taylor illuminate their legacies and the art form at large.
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Burn It All Down, the podcast @burnitalldownpod.com · 19/04/2026
New BIAD interview🔥 @lindsaygibbs.bsky.social and @classicjpow.bsky.social w dive into the WNBA’s game changing offseason, from CBA talks to the 2026 draft and the era of million dollar deals. Watch here: youtube.com/watch?v=98ap...
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