Ellen Spertus

Ellen Spertus

@ellenspertus.bsky.social

Computer science professor at #Khoury College of Computer Science at #NortheasternUniversity, formerly Mills College #Google #AppInventor #Mozilla #Code.org #MIT #Microsoft. #CSed #feminist #SanFrancisco #Oakland

240 Followers 692 Following 36 Posts Joined Oct 2024
5 months ago
A group of 14 protesters in downtown San Francisco holding signs reading "War has no winners", "BREAK THE FAST", "Food to Gaza", "JEWS SAY BREAK THE FAST" and "JEWS AGAINST STARVATION". Bags of packaged food on the sidewalk in front of a metal grid with signs reading "BREAK THE FAST", "Food to Gaza", "JEWS AGAINST STARVATION", "FASTING Should be a CHOICE", and "NEVER AGAIN for anyone". Two additional signs have illustrations. One has the text "CEASEFIRE" and a drawing of a grieving woman in a khimar holding a young child. Another sign says "AID NOW" and has a drawing of a dove carrying a bag of food.

I joined fellow Jewish protesters on #YomKippur outside the offices of @schiff.senate.gov and @padilla.senate.gov, urging them to support the next resolution to ban arm sales to #Israel. We went next to the Israeli consulate, to urge immediate delivery of food and medicine to #Gaza. #BreakTheFast

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7 months ago
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Is there a reason "replace conditional with table" isn't a standard refactoring? I'm preparing a lecture where I will start with a many-branched conditional statement and replace it with a table. For example, I could start with: function getMonthName(monthNumber) { if (monthN...

@martinfowler.com If you have time to weigh in on this, it would be great to get your opinion. softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/45...

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7 months ago

Julia Evans is great, but I need something that starts with pwd and is free.

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7 months ago

Any recommendations of resources for students to learn the basics of the Un*x command line?

@shriram.bsky.social #csed

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8 months ago

AI for "good", indeed. Glad a journalist picked up on this story and interviewed Abeba. Streisand Effect these asses.

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8 months ago
To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. 


–Howard Zinn

Howard Zinn is a historian and author of multiple books including "A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present". Look back through the pages of history. You will find darkness but also light. Let it give you hope.

Goodnight 💚

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8 months ago
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Video: ICE agents drive SUV through protesters at S.F. immigration court Immigration agents clashed with protesters, who were trying to stop an arrest, in San Francisco’s most violent ICE encounter of 2025.

ICE OUT OF SF

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9 months ago

I found it too depressing to read in the current political environment. I loved her book I loved her book on the Great as Migration.

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9 months ago

I found it too depressing to finish in the current political environment. I loved her book about the great migration.

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10 months ago

My favorite part of the article:

[Researcher Jacob] Glanville figured that a person who'd been repeatedly exposed to lots of different venoms might have human antibodies that could target such a site to interfere with the toxins. "I was calling vivariums hoping for a clumsy snake researcher."

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10 months ago

• Al Overview
The idiom "you can't lick a badger twice" means you can't trick or deceive someone a second time after they've been tricked once. It's a warning that if someone has already been deceived, they are unlikely to fall for the same trick again.
Here's a more detailed explanation:
• Licking: "Licking" in this context means to trick or deceive someone.
• Badger: The badger is a wild animal, and the phrase likely originates from the historical sport of badger baiting where dogs were used to harass

Someone on Threads noticed you can type any random sentence into Google, then add “meaning” afterwards, and you’ll get an AI explanation of a famous idiom or phrase you just made up. Here is mine

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10 months ago
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SF activists demand release of gay man jailed in El Salvador: ‘He is not a member of a gang’ SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Several members of the group Gays without Borders protested in San Francisco on Saturday. They’re demanding the release of a Venezuelan man seeking U.S. asylum wh…

Story by @kron4-news.bsky.social about recent @harveymilkclub.bsky.social rally to free Andry Hernandez Romero from CECOT. www.kron4.com/news/bay-are... #AndryRomero

After the rally, I visited the nearby Pink Triangle memorial.

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10 months ago

Where you at today's protest in the Castro? I didn't see you but maybe that's just because you didn't speak.

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10 months ago

@actioninhighered.bsky.social is there a more accessible way to find events near me than the interactive map on your website?

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11 months ago
Code In Place A free, human-centered, intro-to-coding course from Stanford University

Applications close soon for Code In Place @codeinplace.bsky.social, an online intro programming MOOC with human section leaders that was created in the early days of the pandemic. I plan to be a section leader for the 3rd time. Applications are also open for learners. #CSEd codeinplace.stanford.edu

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11 months ago
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Canada places 200% tariff on little Canadian flags Americans wear while travelling OTTAWA – As US President Trump’s unilaterally-launched trade war continues, Canadians have struck back with counter-tariffs on a valued American item: the little Canadian flag patches Americans put on...

@ianmmacintyre.bsky.social Thanks for including your Bluesky handle, although the link in the article goes to a nonexistent Twitter account. www.thebeaverton.com/2025/03/cana...

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11 months ago

To be clear, this is satire, which means it won't be true for several months.

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11 months ago

Colleague: Last dev survey said an astonishing 70% preferred TypeScript over JS.

Me: 80% of developers prefer being poked in the eye over JS.

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1 year ago

I would add defunding universities to abuses of power that should not be done in our name.

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1 year ago
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Not In Our Name Sign the Statement March 11, 2025 Not in our name. We are Jewish professors, staff members, and students from universities across the United States. We hold various views about Israel and Palestine...

Join me and other Jewish academics in "denouncing, without equivocation, anyone who invokes our name – and cynical claims of antisemitism – to harass, expel, arrest, or deport members of our campus communities." docs.google.com/document/u/0...

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1 year ago
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1 year ago
A tiny handwritten sign at the Tesla dealership as a big crowd protests Musk reads “We hate him too” yup 👍

Big crowd at the SF Tesla dealership protesting our unelected overlord. A tiny sign hangs from an upstairs window

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1 year ago
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GitHub - shevek/jarjar: Jar Jar Links is a utility that makes it easy to repackage Java libraries and embed them into your own distribution. Jar Jar Links is a utility that makes it easy to repackage Java libraries and embed them into your own distribution. - shevek/jarjar

I need to repackage a third-party Java library and found out the utility for doing so is named Jar Jar Links. github.com/shevek/jarjar

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1 year ago
Setting: Man (M) and woman (W) talking at a cocktail party.
M: What do you research?
W: Worm holes.
M: I've always wondered, what lies at the other end?
W: Usually a worm
W: I'm a zoologist
@Twisteddoodles

www.newscientist.com/article/2457...

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1 year ago

My least favorite part of teaching is when the students I've grown to care about are replaced by strangers.

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1 year ago

BREAKING: In a surprising turn of events, businesses that said their Cyber Monday sale was limited have extended the sale

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1 year ago

Your post reminds me of the rhetorical question: If Rush Limbaugh hated gender-neutral bathrooms so much, why did he ensure his grave would be used as one? pbs.twimg.com/card_img/186...

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1 year ago

Yes, I typed BASIC programs in from Creative Computing.

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1 year ago

It blows my mind that when I tell my students about something I remember from the '70s and '80s (like the creation of exceptions and the rise of object-oriented programming), it's as though one of my professors told me about the '30s and '40s. #CSEd

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1 year ago

Interesting, but the students I'm thinking of are looking for accredited residential colleges.

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