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Garett Foster

@wordsofgarett.bsky.social
346 followers 229 following 145 posts

Former professor turned data scientist Psych PhD studying comp sci He/They

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Reposted by Garett Foster
Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 12h
Oh my: LibreOffice just made "no AI" one of their official features: blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2026/09...
blog.documentfoundation.org
Yes, no AI is now a feature - TDF Community Blog
One of the comments on the announcement of LibreOffice 26.8 was a simple question: “So, no AI is now a feature?” LibreOffice does not reject artificial intelligence out of hand, but an office suite us...
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Phil Plait @philplait.bsky.social · 6h
Goddammit. The contempt these people have for everything wondrous and good and *human* is so grotesque.
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Carly Anne York, PhD @biologycarly.bsky.social · 8h
Dear Stores- I love fall. I want to buy fall things. I want to spend money on cute, cozy crap I don't need to celebrate my favorite season. But it's Oct. 4 and Christmas shit is everywhere. Seems like a missed opportunity to take my money. Just saying.
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Mark Histed @markhisted.org · 03/10/2026
Killed. NSF’s SBE was killed, in violation of law. The President does not have the power to choose to kill programs at a whim by defunding them. The imperial presidency was a mistake and we are in a separation of powers constitutional crisis.
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Paul Kingsley @paulkingsley7.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
🧪 “The National Science Foundation, one of the biggest sources of federal research funding, withheld $1.4 billion that Congress had intended for research over the course of the past year, according to internal data reviewed by The New York Times.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/u...
nytimes.com
National Science Foundation Diverted $1.4 Billion in Science Funds Mandated by Congress (Gift Article)
The move, affecting about one-fifth of the National Science Foundation’s primary research budget, is the latest sign of how the White House is asserting more control over grants.
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Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is the funniest thing I've seen today, possibly ever
A tweet by SarahStarberry that says "oh god read the vertical axis" on top of a chart measuring AI models' release dates and model numbers rather than any real capabilities
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St. Louis Public Radio @stlpublicradio.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If you feel like summer has been extraordinarily long this year, you’re right. This week, St. Louis broke a record for having the longest stretch between 90-degree days in a year. www.stlpr.org/news-briefs/...
stlpr.org
It’s official: St. Louis had the longest 90-degree season on record
The region has seen the longest period between 90-degree days, with the first one in March and the most recent one at the end of September.
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Emily M. Bender @emilymbender.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
New from @timnitgebru.blacksky.app and me: "It is high time for us to regulate usage of systems sold as “AI”, not because they are magical machines, but because they are error-prone products that shouldn’t be used in high stakes scenarios." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Forget ‘superintelligence’: error-prone AI nearly sparked world war three this month | Timnit Gebru and Emily M Bender
The risks of AI aren’t what we think they are, as a recent security incident between China and the United States reveals
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Nicole Bedera @nbedera.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I've gotten a lot of requests from faculty about how to talk to their students about the Cornell 7. I'll post a few resources I've built over the years that I've heard are the most helpful:
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ArtButMakeItSports @artbutmakeitsports.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Circus Performers, by Walt Kuhn, 1978, 📸 via @marisakabas.bsky.social
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Time for this classic again.
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Garett Foster @wordsofgarett.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
As someone with a stats/social science background, I will give the machine learning folks credit when it comes to naming things. "One Hot Encoding" is WAY cooler than "dummy coding".
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Garett Foster @wordsofgarett.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I am so tired of emails asking for things that were clearly written by AI. If you couldn't be bothered to articulate your own request and why it is important/helpful/valid, why on Earth would I say yes to it?
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Phil Lewis @phillewis.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia — the oldest natural history museum in the U.S. — has closed its doors after nearly 200 years 6abc.com/post/philade...
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ElieNYC @elienyc.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Jesus fucking Christ
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Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Oh my goodness, it CAN be done!
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Garett Foster @wordsofgarett.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Wild that they didn't catch autocorrect changing "reality" into "resistance".
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Your taxpayer dollars are being illegally spent to air a literal Trump 2024 campaign ad.
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In Otter News @in-otter-news.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
After a long day at the aquarium, the otters help tidy their toys away. Payment is made promptly and entirely in ice cubes.
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
This is like accusing someone of robbing a bank because they deposited money and never withdrew it
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Sarah May @sarahmay1.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A longish post which goes beyond the description of the heroic pause. This message is my takeaway
Screen shot from the post linked below. Text reads: 
So here's how I would urge you all to celebrate Stanislav Petrov Day this year. Remember the example of the man who disobeyed orders to ignore what the cutting-edge computer system was telling him to do, and saved untold millions of lives in the process. Whatever an Al is telling you, whether it's a warning of a national security threat or a business efficiency" recommendation or healthcare "cost-saving" or personal "communication tips," do not trust it unreservedly. Do not let yourself become a meat-puppet for unthinking software because it's easier in the short run. Do not take irreversible actions, especially actions putting life at risk, due to AI guidance.

Disobey, always, rather than do something barbarous.
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A rich person can never be held accountable. Therefore, a rich person must never make a societal decision
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PBS News @pbsnews.org · 26/09/2026
The Supreme Court on Friday turned away an attempt to use a new Missouri congressional map backed by President Donald Trump, putting an end to a long-running legal dispute as absentee voting is underway in the midterm elections. to.pbs.org/4AAerjP
pbs.org
Supreme Court rejects Trump-backed Missouri congressional map for third time
The justices halted a federal appeals court ruling that would have revived the Republican-friendly map for the November elections, which will determine control of Congress. There were no noted dissent...
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Garett Foster @wordsofgarett.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Bringing a beverage to every job interview I do from now on as a new litmus test for whether my potential manager will be a smarmy prick.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 25/09/2026
an ai system doesn't have a will, intention or feelings. nor the capacity to want or care. a neural network does not go rogue, escape, or rebel. just tech bros' narratives projected onto machines. and pls, don't mansplain my post to me
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St. Louis Public Radio @stlpublicradio.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
A St. Louis scientist has spent her career studying sound and is now speaking out about the noise pollution that data centers could bring to the region.
stlpr.org
How data center noise is different from regular noise pollution, according to a St. Louis scientist
A St. Louis scientist has spent her career studying sound and is now speaking out about the noise pollution that data centers could bring to the region.
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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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John Timmer @jtimmer.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Ok, this "there are two separate brains" thing appears to be making the rounds, and I want to be absolutely clear: this is a press office overhyping some perfectly reasonable science that won't come as a surprise to most developmental biologists.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 22/09/2026
this is a genuinely crazy story
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Substack @substack.com · 21/09/2026
“GLP-1s aren’t a moral failing; they are a health tool. For many of us, they are the catalyst that make diet and exercise more likely to succeed.” Governor of Illinois JB Pritzker shares his story of how he lost 80 pounds with the help of weight-loss drugs jbpritzker.substack.com/p/yes-im-on...
jbpritzker.substack.com
Yes, I’m on it. GLP-1s Are Making People Healthier — Including Me.
It may surprise some people, but I have always paid attention to my health despite being overweight for most of my life.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 20/09/2026
"AI responses are for educational purposes only and may not always be accurate"... surely it doesn't matter if it is misleading/inaccurate if the purpose is education @wileyonlinelibrary.bsky.social, do you see the absurdity of your logic
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Danielle Navarro @djnavarro.net · 20/09/2026
Please, I am begging you. Do not use dplyr::ntile() in any serious statistical analysis in which you want to group continuous observation into quantile-based bins. Despite the name it doesn't actually do that, and the thing it actually does is very dangerous when accuracy matter. #rstats
blog.djnavarro.net
The trouble with ‘ntile()’ – Notes from a data witch
Please, please, please do not use ‘dplyr::ntile()’ in an analysis that will be submitted to a regulatory agency. It’s secretly an ill-conceived SQL tool that doesn’t do what you probably want it to, a...
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Fared Al Mahlool | فريد المحلول @faredalmahlool.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
This video was filmed in Palestine. My heart struggles to comprehend such cruelty and the heartbreaking disregard for human life. No human being should have to endure this.
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Ambassador Ken Fairfax (ret) @portlandken.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The accounting is in: In Oregon there are 111 data centers. The TOTAL number of people employed at data centers is just 2,630, or 0.1% of the labor force. Those 100 data centers consumer 23% of all electricity used in Oregon. Meanwhile, electricity rates skyrocket as more centers are built.
opb.org
Oregon data centers by the numbers: 111 facilities consume nearly one-quarter of state’s power, according to new report
A first-of-its-kind report details the footprint of the controversial facilities.
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Tressie McMillan Cottom @tressiemcphd.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
When the powerful playact powerlessness it is always a ploy to avoid accountability.
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Danny Page @danny.page · 17/09/2026
God bless @atherton.bsky.social for this succinct wisdom
Kelsey D. Atherton - tweet from 2019

Oh, you're experiencing a structural problem? Have you ever considered trying different personal choices instead?
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Annette Mullaney @ho-grammer.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Tech dudes think AI killing humanity is an alignment problem. Having endured their company, I can promise you it’s a sampling problem.
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Foucault's Pudendum @kaitave.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
The same cover, but with the "say 'i am alive'" AI meme pasted on top of it after 10000 hours in MSPaint
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Ars Technica @arstechnica.com · 16/09/2026
arstechnica.com
California may gut state net neutrality law to comply with Trump admin. demand
Trump admin. broadband grants forbid states from enforcing net neutrality laws.
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Garett Foster @wordsofgarett.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
There are no words in the English language that sufficiently describe how ghoulish and horrendous this is.
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Annette Mullaney @ho-grammer.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
It’s rough cause I don’t want AI to take my job but I also don’t want to do my job.
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Dr. SkySkull @drskyskull.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
This is just a spectacular unintentional self-own
Dude on Threads: If you hate on ai, you better be pretty damn good at whatever you're doing
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Dr. Damien P. Williams, dread portent down from a mountain cave @wolven.blacksky.app · 12/09/2026
This is a tax guy. His advice could be the difference between someone having their assets seized & maybe going to jail, or not. Now imagine having to worry about racist shit in every interaction you have with any person in authority. Every doctor & nurse, every cop, every lawyer & judge, every boss
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Brian Nosek @briannosek.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
The cover-up is always worse than the crime? Harvard's latest filing says that Gino manipulated a file to cover-up fabrication, hid the laptop used to do it during the discovery process, and did more [redacted] destruction of evidence after being compelled by the court to share the laptop.
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Alaina Wood @thegarbagequeen.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
It’s not inevitable so keep fighting 👏
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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 12/09/2026
“these solutions are announced in a rush, leaving no time for a proper writeup, the isolation of new methods & ideas, & citing relevant previous work of others. … We are witnessing a general threat to intellectual work, with misalignment between the outcome of the use of AI and its initial purpose.”
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Paris Marx @parismarx.com · 10/09/2026
the media’s reaction to this anthropic guy’s tweets are a great demonstration of how they don’t want to inform the public, they’re just happy to go along with a sensationalist narrative handed to them by deluded and self-interested tech people
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