Ross Weistroffer

After all the meeting videos of the LA Charter Reform Commission I've made for @fairrepla.bsky.social, I'm *way* too excited to tune in to this 😝

Screenshot of Gurman Bhatia's course

In the Open Visualization Academy:

NEW COURSE: The Craft of Building Stories with Data, by @chartwaali.bsky.social: openvisualizationacademy.org/courses/the-...

Newsletter: Open Source Fuels the Future of Visualization (P.4 4) by Melissa Strong: openvisualizationacademy.beehiiv.com/p/how-open-s...

THURSDAY (3/5), 4 PM, City Hall Room 350: will the LA Charter Reform Commission take accountability for LAPD accountability -- or leave it up to another commission instead?

🚨Giving public comment? Be prepared and ARRIVE EARLY!

More meeting & Zoom info: bit.ly/FRLA26

Visualization Bluesky, do your thing... #dataViz #dataVisualization #infographics #dataJournalism

An important through-line is that AI “intelligence” in military applications is used to justify horrors that humans already decided to do (bombing schools), after the fact or as a parallel construction; and the same thing is going to apply to how AI is used for juicing mass surveillance of Americans

Such an intriguing excerpt, thank you for sharing! :)

I guess being an anime anon doesn't work anymore.

"Large-scale online deanonymization with LLMs"

They show that large language models can be used to perform at-scale deanonymization. With full Internet access, our agent can re-identify Hacker News users and

15 Councilmembers for almost 4 million Angelenos is...a choice. 😬 Let’s choose a future with fair representation!

THURSDAY (2/26), 4 PM @ City Hall: City Council expansion, ranked choice voting, an elected Public Advocate & more are on the table. Show up in support!

Meeting info at: bit.ly/FRLA26

🫖 Want the tea on what’s on the agenda at TODAY’S Feb. 24th Charter Reform Commission meeting?

🍵 Check out our memo with the League of Women Voters of Greater Los Angeles to find out what we think of what’s about to go before the Commission!

Link to memo and meeting info: bit.ly/FRLA26

TUESDAY (2/24), 4 PM, City Hall, Room 350: the LA Charter Reform Commission discusses improving gov integrity, transparency & ethics.

Will they deliver real reform...or continue the scandal cycle?

Your input matters: give comment via Zoom!

More meeting info: bit.ly/FRLA26

love this talk topic! 😁💡hope we get to see slides/core idea content publicly someday 😎

Do please add me, just added everyone! 🤩

Ru hated her snatch game so much she suzie tooted her right out of the competition 😭

1/ Sorry for double-posting from X. Sharing a new working paper for the Year of the Horce 🐎:

"An AI-assisted workflow that scales reproducibility in empirical research" (bit.ly/repro-ai) w/ Leo Yang Yang

The latest thought-provoking piece out of the League's Center for Democracy Innovation argues that if we want mass deliberation to succeed, we can’t just design better forums, we have to build an economy and culture that supports participation.

Food for thought: 👀📰: https://ow.ly/jCNU50YhMkp

The LA Charter Reform Commission (CRC) locked in its first set of recommendations Wednesday night, beginning with the unanimous 12-0 approval of all planning & infrastructure reforms below (for more information, see links here: t.co/LnhV1rIQTn )

Same

Can feed algorithms shape what people think about politics? Our paper "The Political Effects of X's Feed Algorithm" is out today in Nature and answers "Yes."

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We’re recruiting participants for a paid research study on AI for inclusive virtual collaboration.

Interested? Scan the QR code or visit: bit.ly/allyshipteam

[1/n] Just wrapped up 7 months interning with @pcastr.bsky.social at Google DeepMind and I'm so excited to share our work: arxiv.org/abs/2602.10324.

TLDR: We used LLM-powered program synthesis to automatically model and discover differences between human and LLM strategic behavior

LA Charter Reform (STILL) At a Crossroads: The LA Charter Reform Commission is preparing to vote on: Planning & infrastructure Reforms, like: creating a Capital Infrastructure Plan; empowering a Director of Public works; and replacing Area Planning Commissions with a Board of Neighborhood Appeals. This includes Government Structure Reforms, like splitting the City Attorney's office, lowering the voting age to 16 for LAUSD and city elections, and changing ballot access requirements to run for office. Voice your support for the direction you want LA to take! Meeting at LA City Hall, 200 N Spring St, Room 350; Feb 18th, 4 PM. You can call/Zoom in to participate! Talking points & meeting info at: bit.ly/FRLA26 We're Fair Rep LA, at FairRepLA.com

WEDNESDAY (2/18), 4 PM, LA City Hall, Room 350: the Charter Reform Commission meets to vote on whether to advance key reforms.

Also on the agenda: a motion for Commission STAFF to disclose their communications w/elected officials.

More meeting info at: bit.ly/FRLA26

I keep coming back to @cdsamii.bsky.social essay on the “problem-centered” over “puzzle-centered” research paradigm and I can’t help but feel like so many problems with social science methods boil down to this cyrussamii.com?p=3682

It was such a fantastic experience to get to facilitate at LA’s first civic assembly! Much thanks to all participants and @publicdemocracyla.bsky.social for making this happen.

Our full video of this meeting of the LA Charter Reform Commission is now up at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMg5...

📢New co-authored article in @polbehavior.bsky.social about PARTICIPATION and REPRESENTATION!
✨We ask "Are the Politically Active Better Represented?" Our answer, using the most comprehensive data to date: A clear "YES" for nonelectoral participation like protest.
⬇️See Jesper's 🧵for more ✨

I decided to start an open @semble.so collection to curate more examples/inspiration for "extreme citizen science": semble.so/profile/joel...

cc @ronentk.me

existential cookie message from the olympics website

WEDNESDAY (2/11) @ 4 PM - LA City Hall, Room 350: the full Commission meets to (hopefully) finally vote on the Charter reforms the Ad Hoc Committee purged.

Stand up and be counted to restore the Charter reforms LA's future needs!

Zoom & meeting info: bit.ly/FRLA26

Repair as Translation: Thinking AI Ethics from Salvage Worlds Webinar Recap: How can African repair practices reshape AI ethics? Moving beyond upstream design concerns towards downstream sites where ethical judgement occurs amid constraint, toxicity and unequal ...

Much AI ethics work focuses on preventing future harm through better design or regulation. Ntapanta’s work draws attention to ethical judgement that takes place when prevention has already failed health.uct.ac.za/ethics-lab/a...