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Stephanie Crofts

@sbcrofts.bsky.social
418 followers 157 following 42 posts

Biomechanist and Functional Morphologist, currently thinking a lot about stabby-stabby fun times

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Reposted by Stephanie Crofts
McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 03/09/2026
Distraction Frog (𝐿𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑎 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑎). www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-f...
mcsweeneys.net
A Field Guide to the Wildlife of Lake America
From the Redacted Fish (Coregonos epsteinfilens) to the Lamprey Assistant (Petromyzon harpius), this guide has you covered on all the new invasive wildlife l...
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ColeTheBug 🪲✏️ @colethebug.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The ideal beach body is crab 🦀
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 24/07/2026
What distinguishes humans from other species is that we have a chin. That's it; that's all. youtu.be/VkYITGZccMs
youtu.be
We're The Only Ones With Chins - And We Don't Know Why
YouTube video by PBS Eons
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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
RIP Mark Rothko. You would have loved how the hydrogen peroxide bleach is only turning the Reflecting Pool blue around the perimeter
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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 05/11/2025
🎉✨👍🔪🔪🔪
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Phineas @phineas.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
New awareness campaign
A digital poster in the style of a World War II propaganda piece. Isolaed on a yellow background, a normal, squarish, 20-something guy with glasses is sitting working on a laptop. A ghostly figure of Hitler has his arm around the guy and is grinning and shaking a fist triumphantly looking at the laptop screen. On the lid of the laptop where an apple might otherwise be is an openAI logo, bright green, and dripping green ooze down the lid. Text on the poster, in combinations of sans-serif type and brush script reads: 
Using Generative AI?
You’re prompting with Hitler!
GenAI is a Fascist Project!
Try using your brain instead
Don’t surrender your creativity to the tech billionaire’s control
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Gail Simone @gailsimone.bsky.social · 03/11/2025
Very bad news. Teen Vogue was doing work other journalists were not.
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KJ Charles @kjcharleswriter.com · 30/10/2025
Absolutely incredible work here. Just keep clicking back through the quotes.
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 28/10/2025
Regarding "far more common than reported here": Left: the Nature News story above, Sept 18th 2025 Right: Wired directly quoting OpenAI, Oct 28, 2025 www.wired.com/story/chatgp...
Nature News Sept 18

Can AI chatbots trigger psychosis? What the science says
Chatbots can reinforce delusional beliefs, and, in rare cases, users have experienced psychotic episodes.
By

    Rachel FieldhouseBy Louise Matsakis
Business
Oct 27, 2025 1:00 PM
OpenAI Says Hundreds of Thousands of ChatGPT Users May Show Signs of Manic or Psychotic Crisis Every Week
OpenAI released initial estimates about the share of users who may be experiencing symptoms like delusional thinking, mania, or suicidal ideation, and says it has tweaked GPT-5 to respond more effectively.
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 25/10/2025
To the rug— The good rug— NOW. No, Mom— Urrrrrp. I absolutely Hurrrrgh. Cannot wait Mmmmrgh! To get FLURRRRP! Outside.
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I Am a Dog. I Am About to Puke. Where Is the Good Rug?
Oh. Oh no. Something is… wrong. Very wrong. Oh, boy. Yeah. No. Nope. Not okay. Don’t get up, Mom. You’re so Comfy On the couch. I… got this...
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George Takei @georgetakei.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Perfect metaphor.
A tweet from Elizabeth Warren says: “This is Trump’s presidency in a single photo: Illegal, destructive, and not helping you.” The image shows construction and demolition work at the White House, with a Volvo excavator tearing down part of a wing as workers stand nearby behind a fenced-off area.
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 23/10/2025
Shielding Chart xkcd.com/3158/
Comic. Confusion matrix showing renditions of different combinations, colored yellow, tan, or gray. [Air: gamma rays Y, neutrons Y, alpha particles G, light Y, sound Y, heat Y, swords Y, toxic dust Y, radio Y, sharks G] [Lead: gamma rays G, neutrons T, alpha particles G, light G, Sound Y, heat Y, swords G, toxic dust T, radio G, sharks G] [Water: gamma rays T, neutrons G, alpha particles G, light T, sound Y, heat Y, swords Y, toxic dust Y, radio G, sharks Y] [Vacuum: gamma rays Y, neutrons Y, alpha particles Y, light Y, sound G, heat T, swords Y, toxic dust Y, radio Y, sharks G] [Oven mitts: gamma rays Y, neutrons Y, alpha particles G, light G, sound T, heat G, swords Y, toxic dust Y, radio Y, sharks Y] [Armor: gamma rays Y, neutrons Y, alpha particles G, light G, sound Y, heat Y, swords G, toxic dust Y, radio G, sharks T] [Biohazard suit: gamma rays Y, neutrons Y, alpha particles G, light G, sound Y, heat Y, swords Y, toxic dust G, radio Y, sharks Y] [Faraday cage: gamma rays Y, neutrons Y, alpha particles Y, light Y, sound Y, heat Y, swords Y, toxic dust Y, radio G, sharks Y] [Shark cage: gamma rays Y, neutrons Y, alpha particles Y, light Y, sound Y, heat Y, swords Y, toxic dust Y, radio Y, sharks G]
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d.k.l.a. @dkla.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
omg, this is utterly painful and exactly how it feels to be an educator right now, especially in the Humanities. yikes.
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JA Fields | NonCompliantCyborg @noncompliantcyborg.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
Anacortes area folks! We are doing a Bingo/scavenger hunt activity leading up to the pop-up aquarium on August 10th. Here’s a link to a PDF copy for alt text and printing: drive.google.com/file/d/1Ynyc...
Pop up aquarium bingo board Pop-Up Aquarium Bingo 2025
Tips and additional info
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Adam Rifkin 🐼 @ifindkarma.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
1 Do not obey in advance. 2 Defend institutions. … 15 Contribute to good causes. 16 Learn from peers in other countries. 17 Listen for dangerous words. 18 Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. 19 Be a patriot. 20 Be as courageous as you can. @timothysnyder.bsky.social #OnTyranny #DoNotObeyInAdvance
ON TYRANNY
TWENTY LESSONS FROM THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
BY TIMOTHY SNYDER quote
1. Do not obey in advance
2. Defend institutions.
3. Beware the one party state
4. Take responsibility for the face of the world
5. Remember professional ethics.
6. Be wary of paramilitaries.
7. Be reflective if you must be armed.
8. Stand out.
9. Be kind to our language.
10. Believe in truth.
11 . Investigate.
12. Make eye contact and small talk.
13. Practice corporeal politics.
14. Establish a private life,
15. Contribute to good causes.
16. Learn from peers in other countries.
17. Listen for dangerous words.
18. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives.
19. Be a patriot.
20. Be as courageous as you can.
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Adam Summers @fishguy.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
The interactive show that closes this FHL art/sci workshop is amazing. 🐡
People scattered around a room with tables containing art.
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Matt Kuchta @mkuchta.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
For #FossilFriday, my life-size Brachiosaurus forelimb and skull. Because even if they can’t make it to a museum, my students deserve to see and feel how enormous these animals were. Made of expanded polystyrene sheets and painted with acrylics.
A life size painted styrofoam profile of the forelimb and skull of Brachiosaurus. The humerus stretches up to the second floor landing of the nearby stairway.
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Joe Adalian @tvmojoe.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
We should try to find a hero fighting back against fascism in the US every day. Today, I'd nominate the FCC's Anna Gomez and, yes, Jerome Powell. A lot more courage than any elected Democrat this week (and I say that as someone who is very much NOT on the bash-the-Dems train.)
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Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
Headline in a Scottish newspaper today: CONVICTED US FELON TO ARRIVE IN SCOTLAND
Front page of The National, a newspaper in Scotland. Picture of Trump's gurning face above a headline: CONVICTED FELON TO ARRIVE IN SCOTLAND.
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Rosemary Mosco @rosemarymosco.com · 25/07/2025
Bird sounds.
A four panel comic titled Bird Sounds. In panel 1, labeled thrush, a wood thrush sings its beautiful eeohlay song against a forest background. In panel 2, labeled wren, a winter wren delicately sings tweedly tweedly tweedly. In panel 3, labeled warbler, a yellow warbler delicately sings sweet sweet. In panel 4, labeled heron in a death metal font, a heron screams KRAAGH against a background of fire.
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Dag. @3fecta.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
Curious if this is a one off, or did some other school superintendents come in from vacation and caved and gave them the data? We might know a lot less of what is going on in the shadows than we think.
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David Bisset @davidbisset.com · 24/07/2025
Why I 🧡 the web. drawafish.com Just draw the fish. Trust me. 🐟
A group of handdrawn fish.
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Ms. Otoo @sharondoduaotoo.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
Emmett Till would have been 84 years old today. I celebrate your life, sir 🕯️
Black and white photo of the young boy Emmett Till (approx. 14 years old). He is dressed in a shirt, tie, wearing a fedora hat and smiling.
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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
I’m thinking today about all the women doing DEI work in universities, and how all of our canceled grants and shuttered initiatives means that not only are we losing the time we’ve already put in, we’re now even more behind our male peers who stayed focused on their research.
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mixmastermind.bsky.social @mixmastermind.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Turning the kids woke but it's just making sure they're not sleeping in class.
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Jerry Chen @jcsalterego.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
vocal fry implies the existence of vocal onion ring and vocal tater tot
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Iron Spike @ironspike.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
31) Non-Black Americans: you should care about Black Americans. You should listen to what we talk about, and at least maintain a healthy curiosity about what we currently celebrate/are alarmed by. We're often the first to see/experience things you'll both enjoy and be subjected to a few years out.
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Matt Bracken @brackenlab.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
A favorite visualization of pearl formation (🎨: Raven Ramaria, ravenglassrocks.com/featured-art...) #MarineLife #Invertebrate 🐡🦑
An anthropomorphized oyster in its shell holds a pearl, with the message, “I made this from something that pissed me off.”
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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 24/07/2025
South Park is getting canceled after this lmao.
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 24/07/2025
There is no such thing as an "AI" (or any other technology) without biases and values in it, but there very definitely is such a thing as presenting one's own biases and values as "neutral" and then forcing people to build "AI" which conforms to *those.*
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 24/07/2025
Can someone smarter than the New York Times explain to me what exactly the $200M fine that Columbia is paying is *for*? Because in my naiveté and with $400M in grant funding canceled, this is indistinguishable from a protection racket. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/23/n...
nytimes.com
Columbia Agrees to $200 Million Fine to Settle Fight With Trump
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Kendra, spooky version @kendrawcandraw.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
The dumbest most boring and hateful losers stomping their feet and getting whatever they want is getting really really old
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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 24/07/2025
In the last 6 months Republicans have also: -killed a low income broadband program that gave poor people a $30 discount -killed a program providing free Wi-Fi to rural schoolkids -destroyed the FCC's consumer protection authority -killed efforts to police broadband data caps
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Doug Gordon @brooklynspoke.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Brad Lander's "The line in the Democratic Party right now is not between progressives and moderates — it's between fighters and folders" is truly *the* best diagnosis of what's needed right now. It also has the advantage of being backed up by public opinion.
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Cinder & Piper @cinderandpiper.com · 23/07/2025
Here are all 11 little baby sharks ~Lance #pottery #art #clay #ceramics #shark #sharkweek #wildlife #animalart #sculpture #ocean 🦑 🐡
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The Onion @theonion.com · 23/07/2025
Shocking Video Captures Calm Police Officers Handling Situation Nonviolently
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Brian Clevinger @bclev.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
You know how often your autocomplete is completely wrong? Good news, now it's in charge of what's safe to eat!
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Surprised Eel Historian, PhD @greenleejw.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
You all asked, and so I've spent the day figuring out how to make it happen. And now you can buy one or both of my Middle Earth subway maps! They're available digitally, but also in print. With and without watermarks. Enjoy! surprisedeelmaps.etsy.com
surprisedeelmaps.etsy.com
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Jess Nevins @jessnevins.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Holy cats! Did everyone know about this already? digitallibrary.usc.edu The sheer amount of *stuff* you can get here is incredible. I found it because it's where the 222,000+ images from InscriptiFact went. But this database has *everything*! Look, look! digitallibrary.usc.edu/CS.aspx?VP3=...
digitallibrary.usc.edu
University of Southern California
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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
🚨LOBOPODIAN ALERT!1!!!11!🚨 Palaeocampa – a fossil known since 1865 – redescribed & now interpreted as: geologically youngest of its kind (315-307 mya), lived in freshwater environments, & (most badass of all) had venomous spines. Great work by Richard Knect, @prehistorica.art, & colleagues. 🧪
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
NSF staff release their appeal—slightly different format than the declarations of dissent from EPA/NIH/NASA; a more formal petition to Congress to redress attacks on the agency and its employees. 149 signatories (48 named) democrats-science.house.gov/imo/media/do...
Petition for Action
As provided under the Lloyd-La Follette Act (5 U.S.C. 7211), the signatories respectfully petition the
Committee to:
1. Ensure that NSF employees are shielded from politically motivated firings and protected
under merit-based personnel systems.
2. End illegal impoundments of monies appropriated to NSF.
3. Defend the agency from further interference in its peer review process.
4. Demand transparency from OMB, DOGE, and NSF leadership regarding internal employment
policies and future agency relocations.
5. Reaffirm NSF’s scientific independence and support for world-class research that advances
national prosperity and security.
NSF employees are committed to serving the American people through research, education, and
innovation. But they cannot do so under fear, censorship, and institutional sabotage. Without immediate
oversight and corrective action from Congress, one of our nation’s greatest engines for scientific and
technological advancement faces irreversible long-term damage. Put simply, America will forfeit its
scientific leadership position to China and other rival nations.
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FrontRangeWildflowers @frwildflowers.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
Prediction by me: after lighting a trillion dollars on fire for so-called ‘AI’ with negative ROI, our stock market and economy will collapse. It’s only a question of when, not if. www.youtube.com/live/9ELXACQ... CMU paper: arxiv.org/pdf/2412.14161
The AI industry just dropped some numbers that should terrify every executive who's betting their company's future on AI agents. Carnegie Mellon researchers put these systems through real workplace tasks, and the results are brutal. OpenAI's flagship GPT-4o? Failed 91% of the time. Amazon's Nova? A catastrophic 98% failure rate. Even Google's best-performing agent failed 7 out of 10 basic office tasks. While VCs poured $131 billion into AI this year alone, the dirty secret is that these systems can't even handle tasks your intern could complete. Are we witnessing the most expensive tech failure in history, or is there something deeper going on here? The numbers don't lie, folks. While Silicon Valley has been screaming about AI agents replacing all of us, Carnegie Mellon just published the most comprehensive study yet on how these systems actually perform in real workplaces. The results should be a wake-up call for every business leader who's been drinking the AI Kool-Aid.
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Acting the Fulemin @actingthefulemin.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
A big part of social media is the Secondary Hobbies. You need mutuals who have a harmless additional interest that you will otherwise never learn about, but you kind of root for it to work for them. I hope you do enjoy the new issue. Your needlepoint looks great. I'm +1ing for you
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Dane will return at NYCC H-05 @monkeyminion.com · 17/07/2025
I got to see this a couple of years ago and as someone who makes art about science and space, seeing this in person was especially moving.
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Craig Johnson @cajohnson-craig.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
an actual loyalty test to hold a state job
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Margaret L Ruwoldt @emelaarghh.bsky.social · 10/07/2025
#ShareGoodNewsToo
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
It’s ludicrous and immoral to require some of America’s universities to pay a higher effective tax rate than many corporations do.
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Mindy Weisberger @laminda.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
I had a blast writing about #D&D for the neuroscience podcast This Is Your Brain! This episode is about storytelling, & there are some neat studies about D&D's impact on mental health. My segment starts ~13:30 & includes highlights from a @dimension20.bsky.social campaign w/DM @aabria.bsky.social) 🧪
podcasts.apple.com
Stories Make Us Human
Podcast Episode · This Is Your Brain With Dr. Phil Stieg · 07/11/2025 · 27m
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franz @franzanth.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
There's the dishonesty in the marketing of public-facing AI too. Some do as they promised within specific contexts: i.e. identifying animals from thousands of camera trap/drone photos in conservation projects. But many promised to magically answer people's daily problems and that's a blatant lie.
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