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c t

@whatulysses.bsky.social
838 followers 1.1K following 1.2K posts

grad student, bike goblin. prev: talky science words. current: thinky science words, log measuring, fire starting.

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taylr @taylordahlin.com · 11m
great turnout on monday for a rally in support of ilhan omar at powderhorn park in minneapolis announced that morning after the politically motivated DHS raid on her home. state sen zaynab mohamed & jaylani hussein of CAIR spoke. good to see zack filipovich there. minnesota stands by ilhan
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Moira Donegan @moiradonegan.bsky.social · 2h
It’s easy to do the right thing when it doesn’t cost you anything. It’s harder to do the right thing in cases like this, where it will cost Sally Rooney quite a lot. A really uncommon display of principle. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...
theguardian.com
Sally Rooney says she can no longer sell books in UK due to Palestine Action support
Irish writer of Normal People says she can no longer receive royalties from British sales and she cancelled UK trip due to fear of arrest
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 19h
I'm getting so much better at putting in only the necessary/appropriate level of effort for a project,,,unless passenger pigeons are involved.
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Sarah Weinman @sarahweinman.com · 13/10/2026
We've lost one of the very best to ever do it, a towering figure in science journalism.
statnews.com
Helen Branswell, whose reporting on infectious diseases and public health drew acclaim, dies at 69
Helen Branswell, STAT's infectious disease reporter who earned the respect of experts and public health officials with her accessible, prescient dispatches, has died at age 69.
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sakura christmas @prof-christmas.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
An incredible essay on how the Indigenous knowledge of controlled burns transformed the pre-contact landscapes of Native North America and how it will change forest management in the years to come, evidence from fire scars in tree rings #envhist Archived link: archive.is/202610121154...
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
This story is about the exact kind of research I'm doing and the exact reason I'm doing it! Feels weird to be jealous that someone is doing journalism I wish I did back when I did that, but it also feels hella cool to be dating fire scars on trees that "shouldn't" have burned as much as they did.
newyorker.com
How Tree Rings Challenged the Myth of American Wilderness
By studying fire scars in ancient wood, many scientists have become convinced that Indigenous people transformed North America long before Christopher Columbus arrived.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
you are not terrible at friendship! that said, I haven't tumbld in a decade so can't speak to anything else.
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Todd Woody @toddwoody.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
New: AI data centers’ indirect water use - water consumed by power plants to generate electricity for power-hungry server farms - is magnitudes larger than the facilities’ onsite water consumption and is largely undisclosed. Free link. With @mchediak.bsky.social www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
bloomberg.com
AI's Water Strain Includes Surging Demand From Electricity Use
It takes a lot of water to generate the power consumed by server farms.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
back on my bullshit (watching a pigeon flock swirl over the Mississippi River, pretending they're passenger pigeons)
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Preeti Chhibber @runwithskizzers.bsky.social · 09/10/2023
oh is it monday
A two panel screenshot from The Good Place where Janet is speaking to Chidi while Michael stands behind her. 

In the first panel she's holding up a finger, grinning, and saying, "Fun fact: Columbus in the Bad Place" 

In the second panel she's saying, "Because of all the raping, slave trade, and genocide."
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Overheard in tech support: "It's like 9am and it's been a DAY," and unfortunately I have to concur.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 12/10/2026
ProPublica designed a reporting experiment to demonstrate how easy it can be to open private schools that might then access public money. We succeeded in opening two schools. No credentials or background checks required.
propublica.org
How ProPublica Reporters Became Private School Owners in 24 Hours
The reporting experiment demonstrates how easy it can be to open private schools that might then access public money. No credentials or background checks required.
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Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫 @lookitup.baby · 11/10/2026
Hi, I’m a sighted alt text user! Here are some reasons I use it: - Slow Internet on an airplane - I’m over 40, I have no idea who that celebrity is - Bluesky broke images again - My vision sucks and that text is too small to read otherwise - Conveys further context and authorial intent
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
accidentally rawdogged a search for an Anne Carson quote and got the AI overview. and if this isn't a perfect demonstration of the inherent paper maché of genAI.
Anne Carson's original quote, the epigraph to her translation of Euripedes: "Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief."The AI overview of a search for the prior quote. "Tragedy exists because you are full of rage, and you are full of range because you are full of grief. This insight is attributed to Anne Carson in her work on Euripedes."
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
february? in this economy?
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Just submitted an abstract to present my (preliminary) master's thesis at a conference / deep wells of professional satisfaction punctuated by oh no it's so soon
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Rine Vieth @rinewithoutacat.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Not to take away from celebrating Carson, but she's a "former professor" here in large part because the university shut down her department and cancelled its classes. What pride does the institution claim now—years later—when austerity is forcing other scholars out? What does that 'pride' do?
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
man plans, cat laughs.
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StoriesbySammi🦋 @storiesbysammi.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Bureau of Land Management just approved blasting through 100-foot canyon walls at the entrance to Nine Mile Canyon, UT, home to 10,000+ rock art images spanning 8,000 years. 47 historic sites sit in the blast zone. It's for oil tankers. Here's what's actually happening 🧵
The Bureau of Land Management approved blasting through 100-foot canyon walls at the entrance to the world's longest art gallery. So oil tankers can drive through it.

Nine Mile Canyon, Utah holds more than 10,000 cultural, historical and archaeological resources, including over 1,000 known rock art sites containing more than 10,000 individual images. People have used this canyon for at least 8,000 years.

The blasting happens in Gate Canyon, the entrance corridor into that gallery. Federal surveys have already found 47 historic sites along this one stretch of road alone. And it's not only the rock art. Threatened Mexican spotted owls use cliff habitat in the canyon, including areas near the proposed blasting. BLM did the minimum environmental review required and barreled ahead anyway, to move oil out of the Uinta Basin faster. Up to 1,000 vehicles a day, roughly half of them heavy tankers.

This isn't BLM's first swing at this road. Duchesne County tried the same realignment in 2015 and again in 2022. Both times, public opposition killed it. This time, BLM posted it quietly in March with no public notice, denied conservation groups' request to even weigh in, and approved it in April anyway.

It's the same playbook that just got this administration stopped at Big Bend National Park, except "stopped" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. There, a judge halted construction October 2nd, but only after bulldozers had already torn through ground Park Service archaeologists hadn't finished studying. They found pottery and artifacts underneath that equipment they never got the chance to protect first. A win in court doesn't un-crush what's already crushed.

Three groups sued over Gate Canyon this week. But a lawsuit takes months. A blasting crew takes days.THE HISTORY OF THIS ROCK ART

This canyon isn't one culture's story. It's layers of different peoples writing onto the same walls and the same ground across thousands of years.

Its rock art spans the Archaic, Fremont, and Ute periods. The Fremont lived here roughly 950 to 1250 AD, farming corn, beans and squash using small irrigation systems off Nine Mile Creek. Their panels show daily life and belief, abstract designs, hunting scenes, animals, people. Later, Ute people added their own rock art to the canyon, layered right alongside the Fremont record, in a style archaeologists describe as more dynamic.

The road through this canyon has its own history too. It was built in 1886 by Buffalo Soldiers, Black cavalrymen of the U.S. 9th Cavalry, to supply Fort Duchesne on the frontier. For 25 years it carried stagecoaches, mail and freight into the Uintah Basin.Nine Mile Canyon rock art in Utah
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Alex Burness @burness.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
If nothing else, just read the opening paragraphs of the new @vevalenz.bsky.social piece. This sort of casual cruelty, and worse, is so common in U.S. jails/prisons that to most it barely registers as scandalous—but it is, and this reporting really matters: boltsmag.org/california-p...
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
There have been 6 executions in the U.S. by firing squad since 1976. They just weren't live-streamed. In Idaho, firing squad will be the primary method eff. July 2026. deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/m...
deathpenaltyinfo.org
Methods of Execution | Death Penalty Information Center
Lethal injection is the most widely-used method of execution, but many states authorize other methods including electrocution, lethal gas, and firing…
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
It’s notable to me that TWO of the most recent women who have won a NoBel Prize were denied tenure from their institutions: Anne Carson and Katalin Karikó
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Cloth mother, just a regular cloth mother it’s fine. @gay-goth-mom.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Ian has been showing up for vulnerable people for years.
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Lauren Underwood @laurenunderwood.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
After more than 200 years, the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation is coming home! I am proud to have worked with Chairman Rupnick to secure $1M to build a Tribal Government headquarters here, on Illinois soil. Honored to have played a small role in this long-overdue homecoming.
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Katherine Alejandra Cross @quinnae.com · 08/10/2026
This is a moral atrocity and it needs to be loudly condemned as such. There is a reason that democracies *don't* do publicly televised executions (and why many don't execute people at all): it inculcates and rewards bloodthirst, which corrupts the spirit and corrodes the foundation of the polity.
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Just going to drink my water...
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
We could cover this with a fraction of what we spend on police overtime.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
this month was already expensive but I guess I'm also doing the mother of all costco runs this weekend before it's a bike-or-bus only trip. every time public services get worse because of the sudden pivot in federal investment, I get just a bit more determined to thrive out of spite.
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Anu Li @panikadoc.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
So many people I know who don’t own a car are able to live that way because of HourCar. This is a huge loss
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Micayla @mithsp.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Please note the call to reach out to any and all elected officials on their website- we saw how that can change minds with the Daytons Bluff library in STP.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
flagging also for my rep, @robin4mpls.bsky.social
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I literally probably could not get a car loan on my grad student salary (even if I could afford to have a car loan in the first place) so this makes my life harder in every possible way!
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Laura G Mitchell @lauragmitchell.com · 08/10/2026
Having Evie and HourCar available helped us feel more confident in our decision to go down from 2 to 1 car in 2021. Losing HourCar and Evie will likely negatively impact other households looking to do the same. We need *more* public investment in resources like this, transit and bike share.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
terrible news: the nonprofit carshare service in the twin cities is shuttering abruptly, one factor being the loss of federal support. hourcar.org/news/sunset for $8/month I had an affordable option for an as-needed $10/hour EV parked right outside my apartment. vet trips, bulk groceries, etc.
hourcar.org
HOURCAR Announces Sunset — HOURCAR & Evie
After completing due diligence and consulting with legal counsel, HOURCAR’s Board of Directors have voted to sunset operations with a final service date of Thursday, October 15, 2026.
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Abby Sliva @abbysliva.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
What’s bringing you joy in the Twin Cities area rn? For work. I’m looking for fun stuff going on that makes people happy
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Sahan Journal @sahanjournal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The Owámniyomni project along the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis aims to return 5.2 acres and the falls itself to a more natural state. Written by @ncsscibelli.bsky.social
sahanjournal.com
Crews are restoring native habitat at Owámniyomni
The Owámniyomni project along the Mississippi in downtown Minneapolis aims to return 5.2 acres and the falls itself to a more natural state.
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Alexander Chee @alexanderchee.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The perfection of this.
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Karen K. Ho @karenho.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I have already said a lot about this proposal, but I am especially sad for current international students, many in multi-year programs, who will have professional opportunities rescinded, or made entirely out of reach, as a result.
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Kasey Gifford @kaseygifford.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
To put this in perspective chestnut trees used to be dominant species in the United States. Billions of trees were killed by fungal blight and now fully grown America chestnuts are functionally extinct. There is no getting them back. Ever. All for a data center. www.gadgetreview.com/one-of-ameri...
gadgetreview.com
One of America’s Last Chestnut Groves Is About to Be Destroyed for a Data Center
A rare 200-tree American chestnut grove in West Virginia may be cleared for data-center development, but the project denies the site is on its land.
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Dr. Sarah Parcak @indyfromspace.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I'm thinking a lot today about Chronicle Heritage and what Private Equity did to fire 600 of our talented colleagues. Private Equity is *evil*. www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
Exclusive: Archaeology megafirm abruptly shuts down
Chronicle Heritage was largest U.S. cultural resources management company
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
The AI-era CVS/Walgreens/etc pharmacy line is the hell the DMV used to be. The stakes are enormous, the staff are trying / but it's just one person, they know the chatbot sucks, sorry can you call your insurance company about this error? / oops it was the system / o no the line got longer.
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David Brauer @dbrauer.net · 07/10/2026
Strib biting super-fucking-hard on linking everything, even an isolated alleged mass attack plan, to ”Somali gangs.” Played like a violin.
The terrorism charges come amid renewed concerns over gang violence in the Twin Cities between rival factions in the Somali community. Two recent shootings involving Somali teens as victims or suspects have left some in law enforcement calling for a regional task force to address gang activity while cautioning that the violence is stemming from a small number of people in the community.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
weird how this survey found no examples of parents refusing to be accountable for the harms their behavior might have inflicted? mysterious even?
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
being a computer princess pays off sometimes.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
thankfully while you studied the blade I was strategically placing external monitors all over this city, so this could be a worse/more immediate crisis than it actually is.
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c t @whatulysses.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
my macbook screen chose today to die (maybe I closed it on something but maybe nothing happened at all) so we're eating the apple pie straight from the tin tonight.
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Maryn McKenna @marynmck.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
As a journalist and a prof teaching journalism: What @nbedera.bsky.social describes (sharing interview recordings with other journalists who write fresh pieces without ever speaking to the interviewee) is absolutely NOT industry standard, and a big paper doing it doesn't suddenly make it so.
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sami 🔵 @hellosami.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I catalogued over 500 hours of Youtube footage for a website that lets you stare out the window of a train, and also control the weather somehow train.samismith.com
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 05/10/2026
Holy shit.
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K. Thor Jensen @kthorjensen.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
chat is this good
best_of_web 1d
A customer just tried to use an employee discount code that ChatGPT gave her. I work at a high-end clothing store and clocked in to my manager telling me about the most unhinged interaction from yesterday. A woman walked in asking if she could use a 40% off code she got online. We don't have any sales running, so my manager looks at the screen and realizes ChatGPT straight up handed this woman a real employee's internal ID number.
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