@lauriewinkless.bsky.social
Physicist & science storyteller. 📚#1: SCIENCE AND THE CITY 📚#2: STICKY. Irish in Aotearoa New Zealand. She/her. Massive science nerd, biz owner / self-employed, enthusiastic, outspoken, equity-minded, multi-crafter #ToitūTeTiriti #FreePalestine
An election is coming. I'll be watching policy commitments carefully: not through a party lens, but through a public interest one. This is a thread on the things I'll be looking for over the coming months 🧵#nzpol #nzvotes #nzvotes2026
Sorting thru my "memory box" today and found some of my collection of science-themed stamps / first day covers (in case you didn't already view me as a nerd 🤓)
Almost everyone needs to do a much better job of distinguishing generative AIs vs any other AI. I've seen many stories where people assume AI means a generative model.
As you use AI to simplify easy yet mundane tasks, like writing emails, you get increasingly dependent on it.
You get lazy, less skilled, use your brain less, and (you may not want to hear this) get stupider as a result.
Don’t let them take away your ability to think. Stop using it. Now.
Very cool to see a Māori artist - Dr Fiona Pardington - featured in @thisiscolossal.com #nz www.thisiscolossal.com/2026/03/fion...
I'm not "anti-car." I own a car. I drive (more than I'd like). I'm opposed to car culture and car dependecy. And I'm supportive of safe and efficient transit options for *everyone.*
Utter perfection 🥌 para-curling involves an astonishing degree of precision and accuracy because there's no sweeping. This shot is one for the books (ht @nicgaston.bsky.social for tagging me!)
I spied it on the World Curling instagram. Isn't it magnificent?! I hadn't seen it on here til now, so thank you very much for sharing ❤️
I'm convinced AI is our generation's radium - a discovery with genuinely useful applications in specific, controlled circumstances that we stupidly put in everything from kid's toys to toothpaste until we realised the harm far too late where future generations will ask if we were out of our minds.
Interested in working at DAIR? We're hiring a communications lead, who we needed yesterday. Is that you? Please apply. Is that people you know? Please share the job ad with them so that they apply.
It's looking increasingly like these guys thought that if they could wreak more death and destruction than the other side then they would be respected as strong powerful men and they would "win" and that would make them big important heroes. Very possibly they had no rationale deeper than that.
Strong economies don’t close factories.
www.patreon.com/ddwardiswrit...
We call AI output slop not because it's incapable of regurgitating something beautiful, but because vomiting up chunks of mixed restaurant meals is not the same as being a chef. That some of the upchuck can still be parsed as it was on the plate is not thanks to digestion or emesis, but to cooking.
Genuine kudos for this from my region's civic leaders.
Speaking with one voice against this immoral law change.
(I much prefer the whimsy of peaknuckle. I shall adopt it forthwith)
Sorry to say that in Ireland (and I think the UK too), it is called a thumb war. We also do the "1,2,3,4..." chant before it.
Despite having lived in AoNZ for close to a decade, I'd never read or heard the phrase "peaknuckle war" until this very article. Clearly, I do not keep the right company!
Optionality. I didn’t know a word could actually make my skin crawl.
If you see me today and I seem dopey, it's because I have a migraine hangover. A perfect day to be interviewing engineers and geologists for an article 😬
Every time a woman runs for president I hear that she’s too emotional and unstable to make wartime decisions, unlike the men in charge who make really reasonable decisions like bombing kids to death, starting water wars, and poisoning the entire planet
international women’s day
Every gay person you know, they were a child once. At some point in that childhood, they found out what homosexuality was.
You can't stop either of these things happening and I don't know what you hope to achieve by intentionally making these things difficult, confusing and lonely.
“…disabled people are actually less likely to drive than nondisabled people and more likely to get around by walking and rolling and taking transit. Car-heavy cities are also disproportionately dangerous for disabled folks…”— @nondriver.bsky.social
Don’t use accessibility “as a political football.”
That's super interesting to hear - thanks for sharing that
Yeah, (if you haven't already) it's worth reading the array of excuses the author gave / their direct interactions with Retraction Watch. Tied themselves up in so, so many knots 😖
It's genuinely shocking how quickly (some) scientists have flipped to using ai to do their literature reviews. We KNOW it's a disaster - this fairly extreme example is one of many. I'm not shocked that the journals let this stuff slip thru tho - they care only about💲
share.google/Bu60732PsiW4...
Less than 2% of older pedestrians with #mobility limitations can cross the street within the time many crossings allow!🚶♀️
A small design assumption with big consequences for safety and accessibility.
Great read by @lauriewinkless.bsky.social for @forbes.com
www.forbes.com/sites/laurie...
Behold: the first-ever list of news outlets that have banned generative AI in their reporting. As of today, this is literally information that you cannot find on Google.
My goal is to fill the starter pack, so please send over suggestions with supporting evidence!
go.bsky.app/8cn1XfT
If you're doomscrolling, guess what? So far there are 51 kākāpō chicks hatched and thriving this season, the same number of birds as we had in TOTAL in the 90s! Only one chick has died and there are still fertile eggs waiting to hatch!
My March story for @forbes.com has just gone live. It's all about pedestrian crossings and how the timings they're based on no longer match the demographics of our cities ⚛️🧪👩🔬
www.forbes.com/sites/laurie...