Truly god-tier acronym game

@proffnes.discuss.systems.ap.brid.gy and Scott Cambo will be presenting our Mobile Network Traffic data at #ACM #SIGCOMM this summer. If you've ever wanted to study what information is flowing in and out of Americans' mobile phones, this is for you.

conferences.sigcomm.org/sigcomm/2026...

Nope no geo-blocking and we were able to access from a vpn in NL. Maybe it's a local firewall?

That's a great question! It shouldn't but let me check with our infra team.

Did you hear the story of the one man $1.8 billion business built by AI as portrayed in the @nytimes.com? Turns out basically every aspect of that story is bullshit and the story should be retracted.

There's a strong argument to be made that it's the best city in the state

Yep! Come one, come all (university-based researchers). We have free data sets on Americans' mobile app usage, browsing history, use of generative AI, and online search.

It's all very sensitive data, so you have to do a proposal, sign a DUA, and use our enclaves. It takes time to get going.

👇 Cool opportunity for mobile data from @jsradford.bsky.social and Northeastern's National Internet Observatory

nationalinternetobservatory.org/researchers....

Of interest to @icamobile.bsky.social 📱

Thanks to @qinli0.bsky.social for sharing! ❤️

Heroes. Quite the effort and dedication on this one. Unfortunately, not an easily repeatable process for most researchers looking for access, but can hopefully inform lawmakers.

Do you think they'll get an injunction to suspend the policy targeting researchers in the short run? Will there be some early relief?

The bigger unanswerable question is redress: whether these researchers will ever feel safe to conduct their work again.

Congrats on getting it out, Bruce! Reminds me a lot of the institutional isomorphism work in sociology in the 90s where we looked at policy adoption among large institutions like universities.

“Kid Rock” is the alternate name for Epstein’s island …. 🤣🖕

Elite level troll right here

Well bless you for doing it. It must bring real joy to people if they actually buy it from you. People swear up and down how good something would be and then not pay for themselves once you try to make it.

Yep, it's a quick way to ruin a passion!

One thing I’ve been thinking about this week:

Improving the flow of information between practitioners/policymakers and researchers, particularly in the public safety space.

Perhaps working with or setting up a peer-reviewed journal just for this work would help young academics invest in this as a legitimate scholarship pathway that is rewarded in their departments? Given the volume of research to be done, capacity and ability to publish might be core design principles.

I've done a lot of work supporting academic research. If you can, you should also look at supports for the analysis, writing, and publishing phases. Starting projects is easy compared to all the backend work of getting the work done and out, especially with how long peer review takes in soc sci.

Paging Cristobal Young

Surprised I haven't seen anyone try to connect the dots between Larry Ellison's new media empire and the eventual need to bail his Cisco out if the AI bubble pops.

I’m trying to post more about what’s top of mind for me, over on LinkedIn. (I know, I can’t believe it either.)

This is such an important undertaking and I'm glad you're doing the work. Building science-based innovation that works and bringing it to market are very different but necessary things. If you need help making the transition, I'd be happy to lend a hand.

I'm sad to say after 40 years of living I only now see the purpose of putting ornaments on a tree. Each year, we take the old ones out to revisit the memories they represent and find new ones to place among our little pantheon.

Okay, my theory is that professional athletes become the continuous engine of growth. New athletes become wealthy, they donate to their alma mater until they're tapped out and the cycle continues with the next generation of alumni who turn professional.

There's no equity. In professional sports, the billionaires own the teams. They get their investment back when they sell. That's not the case in college. Donations get eaten with zero financial return. Eventually the billionaires run out of money they want to donate. There will be a new equilibrium.

Economically, there's definitely an arms race with no real upper limit. The supply of talent is relatively limited, the donor pool (at some places) is practically infinite. Maintaining a Georgia or Alabama is going to get very expensive. College football goes the way of super-teams but...

I'm all for transferring wealth from billionaires to college kids and players should be paid. My moral concern is the sway these newly influential, almost always anonymous donors get on campus. Also not a new problem but the leverage is different - you lose your marque quarterback next year.

Interesting seeing UVA put a $10M/yr team together on alumni donations and go to the ACC championship the next year. Under NIL alumni donations make elite teams possible. (Not that it wasn't that way before, but $10M only went so far when you could buy coaches, staff, and facilities.)

Yes please! And start showing up. Go support parents groups. Go support churches. Go support refugees. The party should be a service organization turning grassroot needs into policies.

Behind the Scenes: How UC Faculty Beat Back Trump's Attacks YouTube video by UC Faculty

You may have heard that Trump’s extortion of University of California was defeated in court. But do you know who won this historic case? Spoiler: not a single UC administrator participated. It was all faculty members of the UC Faculty Associations and @aaup.org! Cc: @veenadubal.bsky.social