iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Agree 100%. This industry has its roots in the eugenics of William Shockley & the racism of Fairchild Semiconductor. Sure, there were some who believed "information should be free" but that wasn't enough to stem the forces that took a slash and burn approach to tech development.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

There's perverse irony in seeing many stories about the emotional and psychological toll of 9/11 on Americans while at the same time our military is blowing up Iranians and our government is supporting many other violent conflicts around the world.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

In New Mexico there are TV ads, paid for by Oracle, about all the jobs that will be created by the big data center project. Very duplicitous.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

You know all those picture recaptchas with the endless pictures of cars, buses, hydrants etc? You have become a data worker, providing the data used to train driverless cars. Now try to get through your electronic life without using any of those sites. Almost impossible! How do we make it stop?

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

She’s too quick to sell out teachers to the tech bros.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

The email subject line said "A faster way to shop" and told me I could "shop smarter with ChatGPT". Here's a rewrite: "A kill the planet faster, make yourself stupid way to shop". No thank you, I'm still able to find and evaluate products on my own, and sometimes in a real store!

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

Just an excursion. Like you do on a lazy Sunday afternoon, except with bombers.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

You know you’re getting on in years when an airline lets you know you’ve been part of their frequent flier program for 42 years!!!!

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

I turned off all Gemini for Chrome, and use Thunderbird for email. Highly recommend, feels quite liberating. Trying to make my life as AI-free as possible 🤪

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

I used to tell students the high cost of ed. was driven by health insurance, technology replacement, increased number of administrators, cuts in Fed funding. Now I'll add "dumb contracts with LLM companies". Why are schools throwing $$ at tools that are antithetical to actual learning?

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 18/12/2025

If you've resisted iOS 26 until now, keep resisting. I made the mistake of upgrading and there is absolutely no reason to recommend it. They managed to take a perfectly reasonable user interface and really muck it up.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

And when you submit a recommendation letter and have to say how big the comparison group of former students is....another moment of reckoning!!

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

In case you need more proof that the genAI race is all about a bunch of boys endlessly competing to see who's bigger, now Sam Altman has decided he needs to have a rocket company in order to compete against SpaceX. Where are the real grown ups???

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Ya know how T. overreacts to everything? Why isn't he responding to sexual predation by multiple men over many years the same way he responds to a lone shooter in DC? Oh, right, I forgot, he was one of.....

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Let's see -- if they haven't managed to learn anything since the late 1800s & early 1900s, maybe the tech bros are the dumb ones.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Great night for the Dems. Now let's chat about wealth gap. If the 400 wealthiest people are worth $6 trillion and the next 50% of the country are worth $4 trillion then...<checks math> that means 400 people are worth 50% more than 200 million people. We need more like Mamdani! Rein in the rich.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 26/10/2025

Clearly they don’t watch enough police procedurals!! 🤣🤣🤣

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 18/10/2025

If necessary in NYC, I will definitely be doing this. Have bike, will take a stand.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Time to rewrite the headline. "Microsoft and Nvidia have ... plans to invest up to $45 billion dollars into the UK economy" should be "Major tech bros promise to ruin the environment and economy of yet another country, & nobody wants to stop them".

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

Her interview on Marketplace last week was fabulous, chock full of key info.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 27/08/2025

Projection: by 2030 advanced LLMs will complete in hours or days with 50% reliability software-based tasks that take humans a full month. Question: how much longer will it take human programmers to fix the LLM produced software than it would take for them to code it in the first place?

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

Stand with FEMA employees! I did, and you can too. Takes but a moment. @standupforscience.bsky.social

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

I live for the day when a gate agent calls up teachers to pre-board a flight!!!!

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

I've tried to sum up my concerns about the rush to all-AI all the time. open.substack.com/pub/valerieb...

open.substack.com

Feeling cranky about AI & CS Education

I’ve been around for a while.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

The Republicans are sex-obsessed. The Dems never bring that up. No, the Dems jump on the sex-obsessed bandwagon, making it all about Epstein, when they could instead keep fighting any of the hundreds of issues T serves up every day.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Given the planetary problems inherent in genAI & the political problems inherent in the T gov't approach to genAI, the only correct position right now seems to be to not use genAI at all (or at least avoid it as much as possible since it's being forced on us in browsers etc.).

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 24/07/2025

Just another way that the tech sector makes itself completely inhospitable for anyone planning to raise children. Work 6 days/week, 9:00am to 9:00pm. It's a shame that tech sector employees are so willing to ignore the bloody history of worker organizing. www.wired.com/story/silico...

wired.com

Silicon Valley AI Startups Are Embracing China’s Controversial ‘996’ Work Schedule

In an industry once known for cushy perks, some founders are now asking staff to commit to a 72-hour weekly schedule. You’re either in or you’re out.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

We have to stand with NSF and all of the science agencies as they try to retain a semblance of rigorous pursuit of scientific research. @standupforscience.bsky.social

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 21/07/2025

If you haven't used this training yet for your TAs, what are you waiting for? You can get it all set up for fall term!

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 17/07/2025

When I "finished" in 2005 with the PT who saw me through a disc issue I was very sad. Funny how it works, I just saw her a few weeks ago, and not for the first time since 2005! Your PT is part of your village, so this isn't the end at all, because we all know it takes a village!

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Subject line on today's email from Anthropic: "Give Claude the context you have". Let me correct that for them: "We need more training data, please give us access to everything on your computer". Sadly, there are people who will buy the hype & jump at the chance.

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Reposted by @vbarr4.bsky.social

Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

A strong statement of resistance to the relentless marketing of "AI" in education spaces. I encourage all educators to have a look and consider signing on: openletter.earth/an-open-lett...

openletter.earth

An open letter from educators who refuse the call to adopt GenAI in education

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

If you care about NSF, get ready to show your support when this letter comes out! @standupforscience.bsky.social

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

"According to the researchers, LLMs should be able to perform software-based tasks that take humans one month of 40-hour workweeks with 50% reliability in days, possibly hours, by 2030." The issue here is that humans need better training so they get closer to 100% reliability. Support teachers!

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Reposted by @vbarr4.bsky.social

Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 04/07/2025

This Fourth of July, I am thinking about the 139 civil servants who took an oath to uphold the constitution and the EPA’s mission, and were placed on leave for raising concerns about issues such as deregulating asbestos and lead exposure. This is un-American. The 1st amendment exists for a reason.

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Reposted by @vbarr4.bsky.social

Stand Up for Science! @standupforscience.net · 03/07/2025

📣 OFFICIAL STATEMENT from our Founder & Executive Director @cdelawalla.bsky.social on the unfolding situation at the #EPA. Stand with the brave EPAers here➡️ act.standupforscience.net/forms/epa-ad... #DeclarationofDissent

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

Made worse by the fact that everything he does has to be the biggest: biggest bad foreign policy decisions, biggest bombs, biggest bad budget bill, biggest flag poles even. He's so obvious, and yet has the biggest sycophants right behind him. Makes him our biggest problem. Biggest sigh...

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 13/06/2025

Anybody remember how bad Teen Talk Barbie was? Do we think that adding AI to toys will magically make them a positive and affirming experience for all children? Just when it's more important than ever that children have unplugged time... www.businesswire.com/news/home/20...

businesswire.com

Mattel and OpenAI Announce Strategic Collaboration

Mattel, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAT), a leading global toy and family entertainment company and owner of one of the most iconic brand portfolios in the world, and Open...

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

If I can’t opt out, I won’t buy the product. But how do we convince other folks of that?

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Tech bros sending the clearest message that only certain people belong in tech. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/t...

nytimes.com

The Tech Guys Are Fighting. Literally.

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Reposted by @vbarr4.bsky.social

Momento Vivere @behindthefrequency.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

NSF research discoveries? The science creating: • MRI • 3D Printing • American Sign Language • Doppler radar • GIS • INTERNET • Kidney matching • LASIK eye surgery • Semiconductors • Supercomputers • Cybersecurity • Children's education through TV programming, movies, museum exhibits, and apps.

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Let’s write a counter argument!

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vbarr4.bsky.social @vbarr4.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

In my program I think we satisfy the Trump demand for intellectual diversity. Some of us are old school fans of symbolic AI, others are big into ML. Students learn some of both. 😀 Oh, and we have a roboticist too! Are we missing anything?

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