Colby

Reporting on the way conservatives planned to promote Prager U while they were defunding PBS would have been useful context for readers and the general public.

Yes, it’s the replicability that makes it so useful for science you know.

Steve Moore shows Trump a chart of "medium income"

That is, after all, what law ultimately is: Just people acting like it matters.

New level of dystopia achieved: A state Supreme Court has announced a death sentence ruling via an AI spokesman

This is what frustrates me about the perennial "how do we reach the public" conversations. Are students--and by extension their parents/families/caregivers--not "the public?" Are classrooms, museums, parks, and historic sites not venues where we can reach the public at scale?

Email from the "PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE" to Kate Starbird asking for all emails from Jan 1 2021 through July 30 2025 with any of the following keywords: "diversity and inclusion" "DEIA" "DEI" "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging" "DEIB" "gender identity" "racial preference" "ESG" "organizational equity" "intersectionality" "anti-racism" "critical race theory" "LGBTQ+" "transgender" "cisgender" "gender ideology" "white privilege" "privilege walk" "cultural humility" "equity audit" "restorative justice" "racial equity" "implicit bias" "microaggressions" "inclusive pedagogy" "identity-based oppression" "systems of oppression" "queer" "non-binary" "sexuality" “Trump” “fascist”

If anyone is curious about the current list of search terms being used by right wing activist organizations to harass university professors, here's a public records request I received today from Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation. Not intimidating or meant to curtail by my speech at all, right?

do you think they’re enjoying the main course yet at the Epstein Strategy Dinner or still sort of milling around

Are you referring to the run for something folks, or something else?

r/ChatGPTPro u/vurto • 28d If ChatGPT is not consistently dependable, how are we suppose to use it for actual work? Discussion It's behavior and results can randomly change due to some OpenAl tweaking that's opaque. On some days it can't even keep track of a fresh chat, it can't do calculations, it can't sort through a chat to extract relevant information, and when it's suppose to refer to source material in a PDF, it doesn't. All because OpenAl trained it for fluency and basically to simulate whatever it can for user satisfaction. I can use it for general chats, philosophical stuff, therapy, but nothing serious. I'm pro Al, but I approach it with skepticism knowing it's undependable (as I do with anything I read). And prompts can be interpreted/executed differently across users' own interaction with their Als so it's not truly scalable. How does the business world / leaders expect staff to adopt Al if it's not consistently dependable? It doesn't even calculate like a calculator. If the internet start claiming 2+2=5, that's what it'll answer with. I'd use it for hobbies and pet projects but I can't imagine using it for anything "mission critical".

You're so close

Proper thread after the summer break– but if you were looking for a beach read about political reasoning in today's working class, look no further: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

From a director at the … American Enterprise Institute

I think the use of chatbots for stuff like this is intended to train people to use it to avoid everything that’s painful or hard. It can write the obituary, the breakup text, the complaint letter. It’s meant to separate humans from their difficult feelings. Seems bad.

August 1, 2025 AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION Committee on Economic Statistics and Committee on Government Relations Statement from the American Economic Association on the Dismissal of the BLS Commissioner Leaders of the American Economic Association express their grave concern over the dismissal of the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) earlier today. The independence of the federal statistical agencies is essential to the proper functioning of a modern economy. Accurate, timely, and impartial statistics are the foundation upon which households, businesses, and policymakers make critical decisions. Undermining the independence or credibility of these agencies threatens the integrity of the information that markets, institutions, and the public rely on every day. Measuring the vast and dynamic U.S. economy in real time is inherently challenging. It is standard practice for statistical estimates to be revised as more complete and higher-quality data become available. These revisions reflect the commitment of statistical agencies to accuracy, transparency, and methodological rigor-not failure or bias. The BLS has long had a well-deserved reputation for professional excellence and nonpartisan integrity. Safeguarding this tradition is vital for the continued health of the U.S. economy and public trust in our institutions. We call upon elected officials to respect and preserve the independence of the nation's statistical infrastructure. Lawrence Katz President, American Economic Association Katharine Abraham President-Elect, American Economic Association Karen Dynan Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Economic Statistics Kenneth Troske Chair, American Economic Association Committee on Government Relations

Statement from the largest economics association about the BLS firing

As context: AEA approximately never makes such public statements

This is a big deal

University sidelines scientist who exposed toxic metals in Lake Maurepas The SELU scientist who discovered alarming levels of toxic chemicals in Lake Maurepas was abruptly removed from her research position without explanation.

A university scientist who discovered alarming levels of toxic chemicals in a lake in southeastern Louisiana was abruptly removed from her research position this week without explanation

The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?

New: A few weeks ago, when my father-in-law died, the funeral home asked if we wanted to use AI to write his obituary. So I dug into it and found that it's the biggest new trend in "death care." Tens of thousands of AI obits have been made already. Often the families don't even know wapo.st/4okuxIg

Album cover for Neve's 1998 album.

This one is maybe obscure for some folks but I always felt it captured the late 90s aesthetic well.

City of Angels soundtrack album cover.

Album cover for The Bodyguard original soundtrack album.

ICP's Great Milenko album cover.

Firing the BLS Commissioner — the wonk in charge of the statisticians who track economic reality — is an authoritarian four alarm fire.

It will also backfire: You can't bend economic reality, but you can break the trust of markets. And biased data yields worse policy.

Maybe it's time for the Fed -- which already runs a number of surveys through its regional banks -- to start running its own surveys to monitor unemployment and prices, the two components of its dual mandate.

"WASHINGTON, D.C. (August 1, 2025) – The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today that it will begin an orderly wind-down of its operations"

cpb.org/pressroom/Co...

Readers, if you don't know, course evals are often a nightmare for women & faculty of color. I've had friends & colleagues report students commenting on their appearance, using racial slurs, & making all sorts of misogynistic comments.
white male = genius, non-white/female = pushing an agenda.

I just got an email informing me that my Annual Review on structural racism with @tyson-brown.bsky.social and @pahoman.bsky.social is open access. So, download away.

The Politics of Race and Public Space - Kevin M. Kruse, 2005 Focusing on the city of Atlanta in the late 1950s and early 1960s, this article examines the ways in which the desegregation of public spaces, such as golf cour...

This is a running theme of the book, but if you want a short version on public spaces alone, I did that for an article in the Journal of Urban History:

One of my deeply held beliefs is that if we could condition people to accept how chance affects their lives, they’d be much better equipped to recognize how systemic things impact them.

The Invention of “Sesame Street” Renata Adler’s 1972 review of the program that revolutionized children’s television.

“Small children from poor or middle-class families who watch ‘Sesame Street’ do better on cognitive tests and in first grade than children who do not watch it,” Renata Adler wrote, in 1972.

cc charlottesville. like seriously folks, more housing will make our little college town more livable in every sense of the word!

stranger: say, you're pretty good at that. me, 12 years old: thanks! i draw a lot of anime. stranger: you should draw for a living. me: really???? stranger: yeah. stranger: i'm satan, by the way. from hell

was reminded of an old "hit tweet" i wrote when i was burning out