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Vena

@venaj.bsky.social
67 followers 146 following 17 posts

PhD candidate in global health, artist, and piano enthusiast 📍Tiohtià:ke (Montréal)

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Reposted by Vena
Quinn Daedal @quinnanya.me · 06/10/2026
"If AI had existed in the early aughts, we could not have accelerated Zotero’s conception, b/c we did not know exactly what we wanted...As programming increasingly becomes a caffeinated bender with magical bots, this measured pace & emphasis on communal thinking likely holds an important lesson." ❤️‍🔥
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Matt Binder @mattbinder.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
the tech industry is about to invent books
Andrew Yeung 
@andruyeung
X.com
We created gyms because modern day work no
longer required physical activity. Without exercise,
our muscles atrophy.
I predict we'll need gyms for our brains too, once Al
starts doing our knowledge work.
10:53 PM • 10/4/26 • 1.3M Views
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Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
“As of May 2026, the C.D.C. had 30 percent fewer employees than it did before the layoffs…Interviews with more than 30 current & former employees reveal the agency is now tightly controlled by Mr. Kennedy and his associates, and its scientists are finding it increasingly difficult to do their jobs”
nytimes.com
‘Zombified’ C.D.C., Hobbled by Cuts, Struggles to Fulfill Scientific Mission
The agency has lost its independence and nearly a third of its staff, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and associates have tightened control.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 24/09/2026
over the past few weeks several AI evaluation/cybersecurity experts have explained how what's happening is a result of human incompetence rather than "AI going rogue". I'm begging the media to show a shred of journalistic integrity and stop parroting what altman or amodei say
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Celeste Headlee @celesteheadlee.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
So, Banksy bought a used yacht, repaired it and retrofitted it to serve as a rescue boat to save migrants in the central Mediterranean. The whole project cost the artist $860,000. Since 2020, the boat has saved more than 3,800 people. londondaily.com/banksy-funds...
londondaily.com
Banksy funds refugee rescue boat operating in Mediterranean - London Daily
Exclusive: UK artist finances bright pink motor yacht that set sail in secrecy to avoid being intercepted by authorities
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Mike Boylan-Kolchin @mbkplus.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Tyler Cowen, the 'if you wish to see a virgin on screen' guy? Agnes Callard, the 'I divorced my husband and married my grad student' woman? These are your thought leaders?!?
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AP Stylebook @apstylebook.com · 23/09/2026
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics.
apnews.com
https://apnews.com/article/openai-safety-ai-framework-089e75b95bc935af092da7b79d92706d
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Jeremy Yoder says no war @jbyoder.org · 20/09/2026
There is no market for a paper-reading chatbot embedded with every scholarly article, much less a paper-reading chatbot that needs a disclaimer about how it does not in fact always read the paper correctly
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
all of this is exactly correct, and what i would add is: no person has ever spent 100 hours writing a scientific paper hoping, hoping with all their heart, that potential readers will skip that step to go straight to some mangled summary you didn't even write
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 19/09/2026
We’re Google. Don’t crawl us, we’ll crawl you.
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Soren Spicknall @sorenspicknall.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
And so, I think that part of what draws some tech workers into doom-coded strains of GenAI hype is an unacknowledged desire to recapture the sense that they're special people working on world-changing things. Doom narratives make their work seem important, puts their bosses in front of microphones.
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
if you are reviewing an unpublished manuscript and you have the sheer unmitigated audacity, cheek, gall and laziness to upload it into an LLM to generate a review, let me tell you, you should be shunned and tarred and feathered
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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Surveying the AI ‘moment,’ Nathalie Maréchal says "the kooks are now in power, and they are using that power to dismantle the institutions designed to keep the rest of us safe, healthy, and free."
techpolicy.press
What Policymakers and the Public Need to Know About the Cult of AI
Nathalie Maréchal asks, why are we betting the economy and the future of democracy on cult-like beliefs?
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ArtReview @artreview.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Bad, regurgitated and even plagiarised information is pouring out of the internet and backwashing into institutional spaces
artreview.com
The End of Research
Bad, regurgitated and even plagiarised information is pouring out of the internet and backwashing into institutional spaces
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Aurelien Mondon @aurelmondon.com · 17/09/2026
It was confirmed yesterday that the centre left coalition won the election in Sweden As predicted, with the far right performing poorly, coverage has almost entirely vanished from international media
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"Hid mistakes and made up data" used to be called by the cozy term "hallucination" up until it became vitally important for the IPO that AI is now evil
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"Moved files onto the open internet without permission" is also literally just hallucination. We've known since 2022 that these things do shit you ask them not to do, and that this is a fundamental flaw of the architecture that can never be fixed So they're correcting it with marketing instead
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SE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
There has been a great effort over many years to distance AI Safety discussion and policy from its origins and intellectual center, because its center is a sex cult started by a fan fiction author. If you want to be taken seriously you have to hide that.
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Bruno Dias @brunodias.dev · 17/09/2026
it's literally a fucking brand pivot!
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 16/09/2026
If you are willing to drop $47 million on AI services but unwilling to invest in research support & infrastructure for humanities faculty & students, you show that austerity is a choice. It’s not “too expensive” to give people the resources they need; you just don’t want to. bsky.app/profile/ashe...
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sarah jeong @sarahjeong.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
a lot freaks me out about AI but 0% of my anxiety is about AGI. i think this is the part that freaks me out the most right now -- the many many indications that no one is at the wheel and no adults are present
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Violet Blue® @violetblue.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Zuck said Meta is in a "partnership" with White House; Google is following suit. They are all that stand between you and Trump admin data grabs. Here's a resource collection of non-US services to replace email, search, docs, music, video, backups, and more: www.wired.com/story/trump-...
wired.com
How to Avoid US-Based Digital Services—and Why You Might Want To
Amid growing concerns over Big Tech firms aligning with Trump administration policies, people are starting to move their digital lives to services based overseas. Here's what you need to know.
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 22/01/2025
Devastating for scientists and their research, and everyone who benefits from that research. I’m not sure if everyone outside academia is aware that a delay or “pause” in grant funding often means the researchers themselves are lost from the field, along with their expertise.
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Mare Pan @paarsec.com · 16/01/2025
One of my favourite things anyone has ever said about art. You'll be missed, David. 🌹
 “Right here people might bring up Vincent van Gogh as an example of a painter who did great work in spite of—or because of—his suffering. I like to think that van Gogh would have been even more prolific and even greater if he wasn’t so restricted by the things tormenting him. I don’t think it was pain that made him so great—I think his painting brought him whatever happiness he had.” ― David Lynch
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Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
"PhD enrollments decline in Australia as economic pressures discourage prospective students." Nearly three-quarters of University of Melbourne graduate students said food security was their top concern.
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Vena @venaj.bsky.social · 18/03/2024
I can't wait for this to be out.
hollywoodreporter.com
Assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise Getting Doc From ‘I Am Not Your Negro’ Filmmaker Raoul Peck
Alex Gibney is among the producers of the feature, which is currently in production.
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Vena @venaj.bsky.social · 18/03/2024
"According to the Swiss university, rankings often focus on measurable output, creating an incentive to increase the number of publications rather than prioritise the quality of content." would absolutely love to see more of this energy in academia
swissinfo.ch
University of Zurich withdraws from international university ranking   - SWI swissinfo.ch
The University of Zurich is withdrawing from the university ranking published by the Times Higher Education magazine stating it creates "false incentives."
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Vena @venaj.bsky.social · 08/02/2024
the bird page is complete
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Vena @venaj.bsky.social · 01/02/2024
Your photo inspired me to pick up a pencil for the first time in months
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Alejandro Arbona 🇵🇷 @alejandrobot.com · 26/12/2023
Naomi Klein's "Doppelganger" came out just 4 weeks before the war in Gaza started
"The flip side of the post-World War II cries of 'Never again' was an unspoken 'Never before.' The insistence on lifting the Holocaust out of history, the failure to recognize these patterns, and the refusal to see where the Nazis fit inside the arc of colonial genocides have all come at a high cost. The countries that defeated Hitler did not have to confront the uncomfortable fact that Hitler had taken pointers and inspiration on race-making and on human containment from them, leaving their innocence not only undisturbed but also significantly strengthened by what was indeed a righteous victory."
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Byrdi @byrdi.bsky.social · 15/12/2023
"There’s a valid business reason the company is working with OpenAI: Dropbox doesn’t have its own chatbot" I'm sorry, this is a problem how? Not everything needs to have a chatbot, and not everything needs to be "pOwErEd By AI" You're storage, just store things, jfc Protect yo shit
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 12/12/2023
I fixed the headline. And I honestly don't understand how any journalist could write this story without mentioning the study author's own "extreme productivity".
Surge in number of ‘extremely productive’ authors concerns extremely productive scientist who published 324 papers during the three year study period.

Some researchers publish a new paper every five days, on average, claims study author who published a new paper every 3.4 days, on average.
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Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores @insurgentthought.bsky.social · 10/12/2023
Palestine has taught “us that Western academe was completely unprepared for the material demands of decolonization despite its popularity as a professional brand.” It has taught us that “weapons will always be more important than a conference panel.” stevesalaita.com/scrolling-th...
stevesalaita.com
Scrolling Through Genocide - Steve Salaita
Zionist massacres are livestreamed to the masses in high definition and still nobody can stop them.
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Books of Duchesses @booksofduchesses.bsky.social · 05/12/2023
Academic authors should also complete this survey
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 10/10/2023
Exactly. I grew up on military bases and between the subsidized housing, subsidized food, state-provided health care, subsidized childcare, public recreation facilities and public schools, they are basically little socialist paradises.
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Jeremy Appel 🍉 @readtheorchard.org · 08/10/2023
Some people are killed while others just die
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🌙Evil Sonny Ross🌞 @sonnyross.bsky.social · 05/10/2023
if this makes AI people mad it's not because of the message it's because I had an idea and drew it
An illustration of a handshake between a human and a fucked up AI monstrosity with the caption " you want us to respect art that wasn't worth the effort to draw?"
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RJ Palmer 🔜 LBX 637 @rj-palmer.com · 05/10/2023
AI slop slingers, I am begging you to understand that having an idea does not make you an artist. Execution of the idea makes you an artist.
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Vena @venaj.bsky.social · 01/10/2023
I'm a big fan of getting unexpectedly inspiring/radicalizing lines from a book you needed for practical purposes.
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The Ken In Yellow @kenlowery.bsky.social · 26/09/2023
Why should I care enough to read or behold something no one cared enough to actually make?
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