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Strandsofpearl

@strandsofpearl.bsky.social
761 followers 3.1K following 94 posts

linguist. social science researcher. sf/f nerd. intersectional feminist. experience designer. skeets on education, language endangerment, disability, native plants, religious left. she/her

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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
With everything else going on, I didn't notice that The Mary Sue was disassembled for parts last year. RIP bsky.app/profile/kirc...
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Jack the giant killer
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 07/06/2026
I bought a black veil and wore it places. I felt better having an outward expression of my grief. I also wrote his biography and put it and a variety of his belongings and mementoes in a nice reliquary box. He died too young and it felt sudden and unfair, and my level of grief was unexpected.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Curious if they controlled for masked neurodivergence in the parents
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
I'm picturing Stephen Merchant as Wheatley from Portal 2
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 20/11/2025
If you're ABD, NU just created this program for PhD degree completion. As far as I know, the first of its kind. So cool! www.nu.edu/dissertation...
nu.edu
Dissertation Completion Pathway | National University
MILLIONS IN SCHOLARSHIPS Explore NU’s scholarship opportunities. Year-roundenrollment Our admissions team reviews applications year-round. + Alumni Worldwide Become a member of NU’s global community. ...
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 20/09/2025
Robin McKinley, Rose Daughter
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
This is really really funny
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
It would be so much easier if we pronounced it that way
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
I called this number and the caller ID on my phone said it was the number for "Georgian Chiropractic Health"
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 04/07/2025
He has refused his Assent to Laws… For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world… For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury… For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences… A Tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 19/06/2025
Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
I would guess the first one is from Melanesia
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
Another post in this vein: www.understandingai.org/p/i-got-fool...
understandingai.org
I got fooled by AI-for-science hype—here's what it taught me
I used AI in my plasma physics research and it didn’t go the way I expected.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
www.gofundme.com/f/stand-with...
gofundme.com
Donate to Stand With Kseniia: A Harvard Scientist in Need, organized by Cora Anderson
Hello! We are friends of Kseniia and are hoping to find others who will … Cora Anderson needs your support for Stand With Kseniia: A Harvard Scientist in Need
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Got forcibly "upgraded" to Google Gemini, had to turn off all Google's useful features to get rid of it. Wish Google was on here so I could complain to someone. They don't even have a support center. My emails have been getting lost for months.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Interesting. For the media I am familiar with, I can guess which is which for most of them, but there are a few that could go either way
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Heard this ad twice on the radio during a short Uber ride in New York City. It felt like hearing Hitler speak
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Shana V. White (she/her) @shanavwhite.blacksky.app · 10/05/2025
Let's add: Dr Brandeis Marshall, Aerica Shimizu Banks, Dr Emily Bender, Dr Sasha Luccioni, Dr Ruha Benjamin, Dr Sasha Costanza-Chock, Adrienne Williams, Tawana Petty
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Joshua J. Friedman @joshuajfriedman.com · 09/05/2025
Rümeysa Öztürk has been freed!!
nbcboston.com
Tufts student detained by ICE in viral video is released, thanks supporters
Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk was released from ICE detention on Friday, offering brief words of thanks to supporters gathered outside the Louisiana facility.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Does every young cleric have his pope name secretly picked out, just in case?
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Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
"So let's go, shall we? [voice drops to husky whisper] Let's go." I had no idea how much I needed this.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
Jaran, Kate Elliott The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell Babel, RF Kuang Embassytown, China Mieville A Memory Called Empire (2nd book especially), Arkady Martine
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
🌿 Can any naturalist help me identify this tree in my yard and whether it is native? Montgomery County, MD
Close up of my hand holding a green leafSprig of green leaves against a beige blanket Tree with a straight trunk and spreading canopy
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
#nativeplants How do I definitively identify a tree in my yard to see if it is native or non-native? The arborist and my naturalist friend couldn't ID it
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Gretchen McCulloch @gretchenmcculloch.com · 29/03/2025
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.bsky.social? And if you think your followers might like to, could you give this a repost?
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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...
What’s a technology that you think is overhyped?

I’m going to give a sideways answer to this, which is that the venture capital business model needs to be understood as requiring hype. You can go back to the Netscape IPO, and that was the proof point that made venture capital the financial lifeblood of the tech industry.

Venture capital looks at valuations and growth, not necessarily at profit or revenue. So you don’t actually have to invest in technology that works, or that even makes a profit, you simply have to have a narrative that is compelling enough to float those valuations. So you see this repetitive and exhausting hype cycle as a feature in this industry. A couple of years ago, you would have been asking me about the metaverse, then last year, you would have asked me about Web3 and crypto, and for each of these inflection points there’s an Andreessen Horowitz manifesto.

It’s not simply that one piece of technology is overhyped, it’s that hype is a necessary ingredient of the current business ecosystem of the tech industry. We should examine how often the financial incentive for hype is rewarded without any real social returns, without any meaningful progress in technology, without these tools and services and worlds ever actually manifesting. That’s key to understanding the growing chasm between the narrative of techno-optimists and the reality of our tech-encumbered world.
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Defector @defector.com · 15/02/2025
The theme of this year's Super Bowl ads was the soft acceptance of a comfortable death.
defector.com
For Sale: The End, And The Means To Wait For It | Defector
In one Super Bowl commercial, an octogenarian actor waxes lacrimal about freedom, a privilege bought for you with the blood of troops 80 years ago, a privilege whose outer bound and cleanest…
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
This is amazing. Via @nytimes.com
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
a friend of mine whose IES contract was just terminated is asking whether there are efforts to download the education data--specifically the data at sites/ed.gov/idea/... does anyone know?
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
Organizing shifts with vuvuzelas outside certain people's houses, indefinitely. Is that anything?
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
2fa is out of control. Maybe part of the reason for increasing screen time is because we literally have to have our phones right next to us at all times for 2fa
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Tried to get Novavax today but was turned away because I had an mRNA vaccine 6 months ago. Was told I need a doctor's order to go against the CDC recommendation. #covid
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
📌
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
My former colleague Mark Jeffreys passed away recently. Mark was a great man and a poet, and he leaves behind a middle-school age daughter. If you're interested in supporting an orphaned kiddo you can buy some of Mark's poetry here: markjeffreysmemorial.com/index.php/fo...
markjeffreysmemorial.com
For Sequoia – Mark Jeffreys
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Rusty Foster @rusty.todayintabs.com · 02/02/2025
Any Dem congressperson could round up a few friendly and alarmed FBI agents right now and go arrest Musk’s gang of children. “Just fucking do it and see what happens” is a stronger move for the side that is upholding the law.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
I want to create a feed of just the people I was following before the flood, but I think the tech to do so is still too complicated for me
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Jay Rocheleau 🇺🇸🇨🇦 @jrocheleau.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
I want an apology, restitution and a paid lifetime subscription to a credit monitoring service.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
📌
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a declassified World War II-era CIA guide to sabotaging fascism in the workplace has become one of the most popular free ebooks on the internet: www.404media.co/declassified...
404media.co
Declassified CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism Is Suddenly Viral
The World War II-era "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" is full of steps that office workers can take to resist leadership.
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Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
Destruction of science and academia is central to the fascist and neoliberal right's assault on democracy. Just so we are clear as to what is happening. jksteinberger.medium.com/what-we-are-...
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IYKYK 🌮 @nisslbody.blacksky.app · 26/01/2025
The thing about ChatGPT answers is that if you are already enough of an expert to know if they are correct, you don't need it, and if you aren't enough of an expert to know if they are correct, you shouldn't use it.
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Sandy Leaton Gray @drleatongray.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
iandunt.substack.com/p/how-to-res... Love it.
iandunt.substack.com
How to resist the tech overlords
Big tech has now made its position clear. It is on the far-right. Here's what happens next.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
📌
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
Every AI article: "While AI is clearly excellent at [discipline I know nothing about], it turns out to be catastrophically bad at [discipline I am an expert in]." I need a database of these statements for every discipline.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 24/01/2025
📌
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
www.unpopularfront.news/p/welcome-to...
unpopularfront.news
Welcome to Vichy America
After the Fall
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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
Let’s talk about resistance after a conqueror takes power. Specifically let’s talk about this bendy yellow building, and what it shows us about the moment the Florentine Republic finally fell to its kleptocratic/proto-capitalist banking-fortune Medici conquerors 1/?
Photograph of a building in Florence. A tall thin stone section rises up, from street level several stories. About the level of the second story, a yellow section sticks out from the outside of it, awkwardly wrapping around the outside of the stone part, supported by elegant sticky-outy triangular struts. The yellow section has several small circular windows, much too small for a human to climb through, barely large enough for a chubby cat.
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Strandsofpearl @strandsofpearl.bsky.social · 19/01/2025
CRHE is working on this issue! responsiblehomeschooling.org/parental-rig...
responsiblehomeschooling.org
Parental-Rights Extremism - Coalition for Responsible Home Education
We know that children benefit when they have the chance to explore different ideas, make their own decisions, and be their own people. But there’s a movement sweeping through the U.S. that’s trying to...
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