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Eliza Bettinger

@scalywager.bsky.social
271 followers 639 following 118 posts

libraries, privacy, surveillance, new york state, digital humanities, odd datasets, maps, indigenous-settler history of the northeast. member, Library Freedom Project.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Roopika Risam @roopikarisam.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
This is an example of why being granular about “AI” is important. The cited study from 2021 uses machine learning. Problems of training data/bias are real, as is automation bias, but this isn’t “ChatGPT, does my patient have schizophrenia?” Knowing the difference and potential implications matters.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Ugggggh this is awful. Thank you for sharing. I hope someone has suggestions
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Mai El-Sadany @maitelsadany.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
The United States was the only United Nations member state in the world that voted against a United Nations General Assembly resolution promoting map projections that more accurately reflect the true relative size of continents and countries.
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Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
One of those things you were pretty sure was true but now you have causal quantiative evidence in the American Economic Review: business schools trained CEOs to pay workers less in pursuit of maximizing shareholder value www.aeaweb.org/conference/2...
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Yes, and like Dolly's, those opinions frequently ignored by their fan bases (Willie in partic)
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
And I heard it as a baby because my father played The Highwaymen (Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, & Kris Kristofferson) incessantly. www.youtube.com/watch?v=awKL...
youtube.com
Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)
YouTube video by The Highwaymen - Topic
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I guess "Lake New York" would confuse too many people.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I'd say the problem is with commercial all-purpose LLM chatbots, and the institutions that pay for them and encourage their use! But yes, agree that it's not the transformer technology itself.
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Philippe Bocquier @phbocquier.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
I am telling you, academics: just reclaim your journals, don't wait commercial publishers to kick you out, they are just here for 30%+ profit, feeding on public money. (Re-)start your own Diamond Open Access journal.
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Samuel Moore @samuelmoore.org · 17/08/2026
Helpful reminder from Elsevier that they have the "legal power" to do what they want with your journals. You have the collective power to take your editorial work elsewhere.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Would love to her your recs!
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Brunhilde2525 @brunhilde2525.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Colleges etc hire standard lawyers who yes, don’t want their clients to become test cases. When what they really need are movement lawyers, who understand that it’s about the mission.
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Ed Fuller @edfuller.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
when services are centralized, they get worse & increase the amt of time faculty/staff have to deal w/ issues. Saves $ for univ that can be easily documented in budget, but reduces morale and productivity which univ leaders supposedly care about. Someone should do a study on this (cough, cough)
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
If you ask me, and in this case someone did, small c conservative lawyerly risk management, the kind of dominates General Council offices, is leading us right into authoritarian control. See the lawyer’s advice versus mine.
"I don't want my clients to become a test case" for the Trump administration's agenda to crack down on higher ed, Crosby Ferise said. If a president or college board asks whether they should answer McMahon's questions, "I will say, 'It's not a bad "I don't think colleges should ignore the questions.
But I do think that they should be forthright about them,
," he said. "They should say, 'We believe ... that this is an attempt to coerce us, to say that science funding, and other federal resources are contingent upon signing onto the ideological agenda of the administration and breaking the traditions of American higher education, not reinforcing them. And for those reasons, we are taking an informed risk to push back on this and say that this is unacceptable."
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 08/08/2026
Anyone running middle or high school classes where you give kids cheap blank phones & teach them to deconstruct them? I feel like getting people at an early age w/ things like "what do API calls do?" & "what are your phones/apps doing when you're not touching them?" would be good on multiple levels…
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
It’s right there in the name
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Solomon @solomonrmissouri.com · 22/07/2026
Have one better idea
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
No one wants to hear it but tracking everyone in your life is pretty much the gateway drug to the Armageddon you’re so afraid of.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Cool!
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Is “Wilder” a book? I just looked and didn’t find it in a cursory search
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
It’s SO good!
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
GREAT time to read/re-read Prairie Fires, a fascinating biography of the real Laura, written by Caroline Fraser. Laura’s daughter Rose ran in genuinely fascist circles, and she is the one who encouraged her mother to write the books, and helped edit them and get them published.
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sara m. b. simon @sarambsimon.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
funny and in hindsight unsurprising that many are assuming my original skeet was about digital slop, poorly maintained websites, bad search tools, etc. when in fact i'm more worried about the dozens and dozens of local news outlets that simply no longer exist
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
I think about this all the time
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
“New York” can refer to pretty different places! I would give different answers to NYC/Hudon Valley/Catskills vs the rest of the state
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
See also: “Is Buffalo in the Midwest?”
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
April Glick Pulito @aprilglick.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
all the end of night news still officially says too close to call but the vibes inside the campaign are incredibly positive
syracuse.com
Brown leads Magnarelli but race too close to call in Central NY’s 129th Assembly District
Candidates and their supporters spent $600,000 in high-stakes Democratic primary election.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
see also: www.cityandstateny.com/personality/...
cityandstateny.com
Maurice Brown thinks Syracuse is ready for democratic socialism
An interview with the Onondaga County legislator hoping to end Assembly Member Bill Magnarelli’s nearly three-decade tenure.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Mo was a well-loved member of the county legislature. He and Magnarelli have some major differences in their policy opinons (Check out their debate: www.syracuse.com/politics/cny...)
syracuse.com
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
In NY, it matters A LOT in terms of what policies the legislature will take up.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
ah ok, thanks!! Yes, I keep watching @syracuse.com etc. too.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Wait where are you seeing it's been called?
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Mo Brown is DSA-endorsed, so yes, to the left.
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
holy cow holy moly i'm so GLAD
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Are you counting Mo Brown (NY Assembly #129) bc he's currently slightly ahead wth 9% of the vote left to count against an incumbent who has been in office since 1999
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
DSA-endorsed Adam Bojak of Buffalo is going to the Assembly too!
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Holy cow! The early vote looked so bad for Mo, too
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Ryan Estrada @ryanestrada.com · 24/06/2026
A cartoonist named Daniel "Des" Rolando Sanchez Estrada was tried as a terrorist and sentenced to 30 years in prison for having anti-Trump comics in his car. Prosecutors connected him to a 2025 anti-ICE protest he didn't even attend because he was in the same book club as others who were.
A photo of  Daniel "Des" Rolando Sanchez Estrada, who looks like a cuddly and rad dude, smiling while holding a sketchbook full of drawings of baby hippos.
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Paolo Crosetto @paolocrosetto.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
An inevitable development for for-profit Open Access publishers is Fordism: automation & massification. If you earn money piece-rate for each paper you want to increase the flow of papers while minimizing cost. e.g. very low and *uniform* turnaround times at Frontiers and MDPI
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Jamila Michener @povertyscholar.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
You already know about Mamdani, but do you know about the incredible work of the Union of Pinnacle Tenants? And why aren’t we telling that story? Who benefits when we onscure the power of ordinary people organized for change? www.pinnacletenants.org/about-us
pinnacletenants.org
About Us - Union of Pinnacle Tenants
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Michael Okun @michael-okun.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I’ve officially resigned as Associate Editor for Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience. It used to be a reputable journal, but became a case study in how forced automation destroys academic integrity. 👇
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Stay safe out there! I hate that phenomenon so much (know exactly what you’re talking about)
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 06/06/2026
Suuure.
thestar.com
Ban on ‘surveillance pricing’ could threaten discounts, retailers warn
As the Carney government signals a crackdown on surveillance pricing, major retailers are lobbying for weaker guardrails they argue are necessary for data-based personalized discounts.
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Luke Herrine @lookheron.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Who knows if this will get through this round, but it's notable that we're starting to see proposals like this floated. As @amandajean.bsky.social points out, part of the logic here is subsidizing education is bad because it keeps people from having babies: www.heritage.org/education/re...
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Eliza Bettinger @scalywager.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Congrats! What’s your new role? (Sorry if i missed an announcement!)
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Chad Loder @chadloder.dev · 01/06/2026
Public records turned up by The Ellis Collective, a student-led research group, have revealed that the UC system shared data collected by automated license plate readers at multiple campuses with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other federal agencies, in apparent violation of state law.
dailycal.org
Records show UC sharing data with US Customs and Border Protection
Public records turned up by The Ellis Collective, a student-led research group, have revealed that the UC system shared data collected by automated license plate readers at multiple campuses with
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Dan Vergano @danvergano.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
White House proposes new rules giving political appointees final approval of research grants These proposed Office of Management and Budget regulations would render the federal research grant review process opaque www.scientificamerican.com/article/whit...
scientificamerican.com
White House proposes new rules giving political appointees final say on research grants
These proposed Office of Management and Budget regulations would render the federal research grant review process opaque
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Reposted by Eliza Bettinger
Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
tl,dr; Scientists no longer allowed to use federal funding to publish, attend meetings, or talk to the public. They cannot collaborate internationally. Grants can be cancelled for any reason, at any time, political appointees have a final say over what gets funded, and who gets funded.
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 29/05/2026
This is seriously fucked. Like for starters they’re using commercial web analytics that are in no way in line with federal privacy disclosure requirements…
Every webpage you load is making phone calls.
Not to people, but to servers around the internet, dozens per second, all invisible to you.
When I opened TrumpRx, I right-clicked the page, opened the browser's built-in inspector, and started reading the list. Mixed in with the routine traffic was a name I recognized:
PostHog. PostHog is a Silicon Valley analytics company whose entire business model is recording what visitors do on a website and reporting it back to whoever owns the site.
Mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, keystrokes. I had not typed anything. I had not clicked anything. I had just opened the page, and it was already on the phone with PostHog telling them about me.The recordings are not anonymized. IP addresses are not stripped. And the way it is configured, the data looks to your browser like it is going back to TrumpRx, but it is actually being forwarded behind the scenes to PostHog.
That is a technique used to slip past ad blockers by disguising where the data is really going, and it is not something I expected to find on a federal health website. So I went and looked at the other sites the studio had built. Real Food, the federal food policy site. Trump Accounts, the children's savings program. The studio's own homepage, ndstudio. gov. All of them had the same vendor, the same setup, IP addresses not stripped, the same forwarding trick. And onnot stripped, the same forwarding trick. And on ndstudio. gov alone, running alongside PostHog, was something someone had built entirely by hand. Five hundred and forty lines of custom JavaScript with a name embedded directly in the code: AutoMonitor. What it appears to do is rewire the part of the browser that handles how a page talks to the outside world, so that every conversation the page has with any server gets copied and forwarded to a private backend with no public presence. The studio has the structural ability to keep a copy of every recording as it passes through their infrastructure. I cannot prove they are keeping one. The pipe is built that way on purpose, and that is the part that matters.
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