🧵 On social media, we feel trapped in “filter bubbles” and “echo chambers.” Often, we see this as a problem with the algorithm. Our new essay argues the problem is the feed interface itself: it constrains our movement—all we can do is scroll. We lay out an alternative vision:
Old man saying: When I was growing up, things were better! You didn't have to work hard just to pay bills! You could poop wherever you liked and people would clean it up! And whenever you screamed, someone put boobs in your face, and *food* came out of them. Bottom text: All false nostalgia is essentially the same.
Of course, an @smbccomics.bsky.social for this. smbc-comics.com/index.php?db...
I have 100s of the same bad photo of Mount Rainier. I take a new one every time the mountain is out. All just to delight me.
I have also been futzing with Gemma 4 in an OpenCode harness. Do you have a strategy or proposed set of tweaks for resolving the tool-calling woes?
You made me go looking for it. I think this is the joke: www.criticatac.ro/slavoj-zizek... Less colorfully, in the LARB: lareviewofbooks.org/article/utop...
It's definitely a wicked problem! It would be interesting if Google Translate provided multiple translations, refused to translate in cases without sufficient context, flagged when an idiomatic expression is being used, or *somehow* represented that ambiguity to users.
Meaning of “sage” in French But let’s take a step back. In France, you will hear a lot of discussion around the word “sage“. It approximately translates into well-behaved, good, and wise, all rolled up into one. “As-tu été sage?” Have you been good? Even very young French children will have heard the word so often, that they will be able to nod yes or no to that question. “Sois sage“. Be good. For my own little Frenchies, I usually translate it into English as “smart”. From https://snippetsofparis.com/french-children-sage-or-sauvage/
“sage (sah-je)—wise and calm. This describes a child who is in control of himself or absorbed in an activity. Instead of saying “be good,” French parents say “be sage.” From Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting.
This is a fascinating example. My French is terrible, so I was unaware of the dual meaning of "sage" for adults vs kids. A native speaker can hopefully clarify, but I assume this is classic French misogyny toward girls? i.e., I wonder if the translations reflect a "true" societal bias?
We do garam masala latkes, pretty good!
Societal problem Researchers construct models of social media users to understand human behavior and deliver improved digital services. Such models use conceptual categories arranged in a taxonomy to classify unstructured user text data. Technical problem In many contexts, useful taxonomies can be defined via the incorporation of qualitative findings, a mixed-methods approach that offers the ability to create qualitatively-informed user models. But operationalizing taxonomies from the themes described in qualitative work is non-trivial and has received little explicit focus. Technical solution We propose a process and explore challenges bridging qualitative themes to user models, for both operationalization of themes to taxonomies and the use of these taxonomies in constructing classification models. Method detailsFor classification of new data, we compare common keyword-based approaches to machine learning models. We demonstrate our process through an example in the health domain, constructing two user models tracing cancer patient experience over time in an online health community. How the solution helps society We identify patterns in the model outputs for describing the longitudinal experience of cancer patients and reflect on the use of this process in future research.
I also used this post as an excuse to annotate and critique the first abstract I ever wrote.
Text: With breakthroughs in AI and other emerging technologies, every young learner has the potential to receive high-quality, personalized literacy interventions at the right time. Through its program focused on early literacy outcomes, the Learning Engineering Virtual Institute (LEVI) will spur the development, scaling, and implementation of AI-driven tools designed to reduce the number of struggling readers by half in the early grades.
Renaissance Philanthropy has announced an "AI in early literacy" initiative with the north star goal of halving the number of struggling readers through personalized literacy interventions. www.renaissancephilanthropy.org/insights/ren...
I've lost my natural immunity to ads. My wife can tune them out effortlessly, but they're such a rare occurrence for me that I listen attentively.
We're already seeing problems; some articles created in 2010 can't be easily updated because all of the newer reporting is in independent journo blogs. An exception for "established subject-matter experts" works okay for now, but this problem will only get worse. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
This is something I really worry about. Wikipedia relies on the "network of trust" established by institutional publishers and the editorial oversight they provide. With trust in media publishers plummeting and the rise in independent journalists, how can we establish new trust networks?
Even if there weren't good culture reasons to avoid targeting research questions better answered by trainees, "restrict progress at large" is an exaggeration (because the questions are not central to progress in the field).
This is too negatively framed imo. In most fields, every paper raises side problems that could be investigated, most of which are broadly unimportant (but still interesting). As a senior researcher, answering less-important side problems is viewed as a bad trade-off for everyone involved.
Sounds like a great line of research!
What kind of professionalization? You might consider Bowker & Star's "Sorting Things Out" (1999), although it's more interested in *standardization*
Good post on how to think about honing your skills as an (academic) researcher by Carlini
nicholas.carlini.com/writing/2026...
Wikipedia celebrating its 25th anniversary with their "Knowledge is human" campaign. I like the narrative framing they chose.
I've published the first two chapters of a new guide to Agentic Engineering Patterns - coding practices and patterns to help get the best results out of coding agents like Claude Code and OpenAI Codex simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/23/...
AI makes continuous reproducibility and robustness testing trivial. What happens to science under new levels of scrutiny and stress-testing by default?
Some thoughts on how this could play out, informed by watching open science play out over the last decade.
Now immortalized on "List of hoaxes on Wikipedia" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
Pinning everything on the results of a single study was always going to be a volatile way to use evidence, but now it could be very costly indeed.
Rely on rigorous areas with deep commitments to clear methodologies, diverse data, and real-world tests of interventions.
Screenshot of Wikipedia article: Jacob Isaacson (May 5, 1911 – September 8, 1980) was an American composer and musician. Isaacson was most noted for his own Colortone musical notation and his early works within this system. His association with the Fluxus movement was played down by Isaacson, who held European classical tradition in high regard, although his experimental and minimalist compositions drew inevitable comparison.
Got to do something cool on Wikipedia yesterday: I uncovered a hoax article that was undiscovered for 17 years! levon003.github.io/2026/02/19/s...
What’s the specific topic?
This is a great eval idea, and I share your surprise. Now I want to try this on some of my most borderline reviews…
Excellent write-up!
