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eckles.bsky.social
Dean Eckles
@eckles.bsky.social
9.6K followers 1.3K following 360 posts

networks, contagion, causality
faculty at MIT

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Mathematics 19%
Physics 19%
Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Dean Eckles

rensec.bsky.social
Rense Corten 🟥 @rensec.bsky.social · 1d
Fascinating new working paper by @bokanyie.bsky.social and colleagues showing a gradual decrease in social closure in the Netherlands over 10 years, based on population networks arxiv.org/abs/2602.002...
Fragmentation of a longitudinal population-scale social network: Decreasing structural social cohesion in the Netherlands
Population-level dynamics of social cohesion and its underlying mechanisms remain difficult to study. In this paper, we propose a network approach to measure the evolution of social cohesion at the po...
arxiv.org

Reposted by Erol Akçay, Anne Norton, Dean Eckles , and 6 more

whstancil.bsky.social
Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 2d
Here’s the situation in the Twin Cities:

Random Bovino-style tear-gassing: Way down

Relentless persecution of immigrants: Unchanged

Thuggish violence against observers: Way up

Reposted by Dean Eckles

jugander.bsky.social
Johan Ugander @jugander.bsky.social · 2d
Ten math problems with proofs known the authors. Proofs are encrypted until Feb 13. For all problems, authors claim both AI-based literature searches and zero-shot attempts at proofs failed. If you want to take a crack, you have until next Friday (2/13)!
First Proof
To assess the ability of current AI systems to correctly answer research-level mathematics questions, we share a set of ten math questions which have arisen naturally in the research process of the au...
arxiv.org

eckles.bsky.social
Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · 3d
Yeah don't seem to be any credible outlets saying this

Reposted by Joshua Goodman, Dean Eckles

annastansbury.bsky.social
Anna Stansbury @annastansbury.bsky.social · 3d
One of the worst outcomes of grade inflation is that it discourages students pushing themselves. College should be about taking a class that's a bit too hard for you, or in a field you don't know much about... but the risk of a B when so many get straight As is real. Safer to stick to what you know.
jasonfurman.bsky.social Jason Furman @jasonfurman.bsky.social · 4d
One place the current system fails--and it's not the only place--is honors. I'm on the Committee to recommend honors in the economics department. It's increasingly hard to distinguish excellence with so many A's. I believe that now even two A-'s makes you ineligible for Summa.

Reposted by Joshua S. Weitz, Dean Eckles, Aviel Roshwald

donmoyn.bsky.social
Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 3d
ICE officials said he ran into a wall, which doctors immediately rejected as inconsistent with the wounds. The immigrant's account - that he was beaten in the head by steel batons, contrary to DHS guidelines - is more plausible. But no accountability exists for him, or us.
apnews.com/article/immi...
Immigrant whose skull was broken in eight places during ICE arrest says beating was unprovoked
A Mexican immigrant whose skull was broken during his arrest by immigration officers last month in Minnesota says the beating was unprovoked.
apnews.com

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Tom Clark, John Horgan , and 20 more

eoinhiggins.bsky.social
Eoin Higgins @eoinhiggins.bsky.social · 3d
Concentration camps: stories of as many as 50 people to a cell — men and women in some cases — with no windows and limited airflow, a single camera-monitored toilet, aluminum blankets, no showers and poor quality food.
ICE detainees from Maine being held under ‘inhumane’ conditions in Mass. facility, attorneys say
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson said the allegations of overcrowding and lack of access to lawyers are false.
www.pressherald.com

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet, Stacy D. VanDeveer, Dean Eckles , and 1 more

nateraymond.bsky.social
Nate Raymond @nateraymond.bsky.social · 3d
New: Trump's administration tonight told a Boston judge that his proposal that it issue a student visa to a Babson College student it deported to Honduras in violation of a court order is "unfeasible" and said ICE declines to facilitate her return. www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...
Trump administration won't let student deported to Honduras return
President Donald Trump's administration on Friday called a judge's proposal that the government issue a student visa to a college student it deported to Honduras in violation of a court order "unfeasi...
www.reuters.com

eckles.bsky.social
Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · 4d
One shortcoming of Claude Code it that it can't render math nicely in the terminal, and of course Latex math quickly gets very hard to read. Any tips for dealing with this? Are alternatives better?

Reposted by Dean Eckles

cameron.stream
Cameron @cameron.stream · 5d
Okay well the OpenAI CMO is hopping on now and it is obvious that Anthropic hurt them and they were deeply unprepared

Reposted by Rebecca Solnit, Alistair Munro, Jean Burgess , and 16 more

simonwillison.net
Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 5d
The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!

This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...
Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell
Somewhat devastating news today from the CIA: One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. There's not even a hint as to why they …
simonwillison.net

eckles.bsky.social
Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · 6d
Theory of mind and variations on the "false belief task" as benchmarks for LLMs... Benchmarks they seem to do poorly on

eckles.bsky.social
Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · 6d
Talk to me lil buddy
:)

Reposted by Gianmarco De Francisci Morales, Dean Eckles

markriedl.bsky.social
Mark Riedl @markriedl.bsky.social · 6d
New work by my former PhD student, Boyang Li

His team produced 500 stories of less than 100 words. LLMs were basically chance-level at answering binary questions about the stories

arxiv.org/abs/2601.12410
Are LLMs Smarter Than Chimpanzees? An Evaluation on Perspective Taking and Knowledge State Estimation
Cognitive anthropology suggests that the distinction of human intelligence lies in the ability to infer other individuals' knowledge states and understand their intentions. In comparison, our closest ...
arxiv.org

Reposted by Kim L. Scheppele, Steve Peers, Jonathan M. Gilligan , and 5 more

radleybalko.bsky.social
Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 6d
Remember the incident where DHS claimed officers shot a guy because he attacked them with a snow shovel?

Yeah. It didn't happen. They shot him through the door of his own home. And then arrested him. And then lied about it. Again.

And they almost shot some kids in the process.
paleofuture.bsky.social Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 6d
They just blindly shot through the fucking door.

"Additional photographs show damage consistent with a bullet fragment lodged in a bedroom wall down the hallway — suggesting it traveled between a mattress and a portable crib in a room where several small children sleep."
froomkin.bsky.social Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 6d
"Photographic evidence from the shooting scene of a Venezuelan man by federal agents last month in Minneapolis supports the account of witnesses there – and appears to undercut the narrative provided by federal officials." www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...

Reposted by Kim L. Scheppele, Caroline Krafft, Jonathan M. Gilligan , and 9 more

paleofuture.bsky.social
Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 6d
They just blindly shot through the fucking door.

"Additional photographs show damage consistent with a bullet fragment lodged in a bedroom wall down the hallway — suggesting it traveled between a mattress and a portable crib in a room where several small children sleep."
froomkin.bsky.social Dan Froomkin/Press Watch/Heads Up News @froomkin.bsky.social · 6d
"Photographic evidence from the shooting scene of a Venezuelan man by federal agents last month in Minneapolis supports the account of witnesses there – and appears to undercut the narrative provided by federal officials." www.startribune.com/ice-raids-mi...
Live: Judge orders release of suspects in alleged shovel attack on agent
Department of Homeland Security says agent fired in self-defense after being attacked with a snow shovel and broom.
www.startribune.com

Reposted by Michael Barnett, Brian A. Nosek, Steven Van de Walle , and 11 more

fhollenbach.org
Florian Hollenbach @fhollenbach.org · 7d
🧵 New version of our paper (@bcegerod.bsky.social) is finally online: "How Many is Enough? Sample Size in Staggered Difference-in-Differences Designs"
We show that even well-identified DiD studies are often underpowered; sample sizes needed are surprisingly large
Paper: osf.io/preprints/os... 1/6

Reposted by Dean Eckles

depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social
depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 8d
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Please_...

Reposted by Dean Eckles

adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com
Adam Gurri @adamgurri.liberalcurrents.com · 8d
We’ve got another @sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com banger on our hands folks
In 1853, agents of the federal government arrested Anthony Burns in Boston. They grabbed him under false pretenses. Armed soldiers prevented locals from attending his trial. He was convicted under the authority of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Masses of angry citizens organized to prevent it—but under military guard, Burns was transported south to slavery in Virginia. From the perspective of 1853, the slave power looked unbeatable. But Amos Adams Lawrence said afterwards: "We went to bed one night old-fashioned, conservative, compromise Union Whigs & waked up stark mad Abolitionists," (Battle Cry of Freedom p. 120).

Reposted by Michael E. Mann, Tom Clark, Steve Peers , and 13 more

atrupar.com
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 11d
the White House's official X account gloats over the arrest of Don Lemon with a chains emoji
screencap of WH tweet

Reposted by Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Dean Eckles, Solon Barocas

hannawallach.bsky.social
Hanna Wallach @hannawallach.bsky.social · 11d
Microsoft Research NYC is hiring a researcher in the space of AI and society!

Reposted by Joanna Bryson, Dean Eckles

philipmai.com
Philip Mai @philipmai.com · 13d
"Patrick Eddington, of the libertarian Cato Institute, said the FBI had no business investigating. “The use of encryption is as American as apple pie. The founders used it before, during, and after the revolution,” he said." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
FBI to investigate Minneapolis activists after far-right claim about Signal chats
The FBI director, Kash Patel, said the inquiry followed a far-right influencer’s post about anti-ICE Signal chats
www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Scott L. Greer, Rosemary A. Joyce, Leigh Sparks , and 7 more

caitlingilbert.bsky.social
Caitlin Gilbert @caitlingilbert.bsky.social · 13d
In response to announcement that he will be a new CBS contributor, Andrew Huberman tweeted “I’ve always gone issue-by-issue on health & science, spoken to experts w/a range of takes & presented where I see the center of (data) mass pointed. I’ll do the same with @CBSNews”. In Sept he posted this:
Screenshot of tweet from Huberman that reads: “The other is that dog breeds w/different shaped heads are predictive of their demeanor and intelligence. And while I don’t! believe in Phrenology I now do pay some attention to how the shapes of peoples heads relates to their intellect and steadiness, or lack thereof.”

Reposted by Dean Eckles

angelamczhou.bsky.social
angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 13d
hivemind, i'm curious how you are dealing with llm/vibecoding in recruiting undergraduate research and masters RAs ..... so far the range has been pretty wide in terms of way overconfident use vs. being able to leverage tools to move along at a fairly effective pace

Reposted by Simon Roux, Steve Peers, Dean Eckles , and 4 more

matthighton.bsky.social
Matthew Highton @matthighton.bsky.social · 14d
If Bilbo had Chat GPT

Reposted by James Grimmelmann, Rebecca Tushnet, Dean Eckles , and 1 more

evelyndouek.bsky.social
Evelyn Douek @evelyndouek.bsky.social · 15d
Apropos of the TikTok news last week, I have a piece coming out abt how the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the ban-or-sale law belongs in the First Amendment anticanon. It's not just wrong, but so wrong we should hold it up as an exceptional symbol of wrongness.

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....
TikTok v. Garland and the First Amendment Anticanon
<p><span>This essay argues that last term’s decision in <i>TikTok v. Garland</i>, which unanimously upheld the federal law that sought to ban TikTok in the Unit
papers.ssrn.com

Reposted by Dean Eckles, Brooke Harrington, Magda Teter , and 4 more

jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social · 15d
The largest Trump superPAC donor so far this cycle is the president of OpenAI
CONTRIBUTOR GREG BROCKMAN AMOUNT ELECTION TO DAT $25,000,000 $25,000,000

Reposted by Dean Eckles

maxkasy.bsky.social
Maximilian Kasy @maxkasy.bsky.social · 16d
Looking forward to the workshop on “Causal Machine Learning for the Social Sciences” at the Newton Institute/Cambridge:
www.newton.ac.uk/event/cifw05/

I will discuss the big picture of possible research agendas at the intersection of ML, causality, and econ:
maxkasy.github.io/home/files/s...
Causal Machine Learning for the Social Sciences - Isaac Newton Institute
Causal inference and machine learning are profoundly transforming the social sciences by enabling researchers to move beyond mere correlation to identify...
www.newton.ac.uk

Reposted by Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, Dean Eckles

jugander.bsky.social
Johan Ugander @jugander.bsky.social · 16d
The replies to this post surfaced lots of great 3rd party tools (thanks!), but I still think it's interesting that bsky, as a platform, has decided to not prioritize algorithmic triangle closing (or follow recommendations, generally). See this fig from Zignani et al. (2014), when FB introduced PYMK.

Reposted by Timothy Snyder, Will Jennings, David Brady , and 18 more

billkristolbulwark.bsky.social
Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 16d
Also, may I say that I don’t agree with people saying ICE and CBP need “more training.” They’re doing exactly what this administration has trained them to—impose a reign of fear in blue cities. They don’t need more training. They need to be ripped up root and branch.