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beccadownes.bsky.social
beccadownes
@beccadownes.bsky.social
640 followers 990 following 130 posts
Nerdy management academic with a tech background (she/her/Dr).

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3278-5749
Posts Replies Media Videos
beccadownes.bsky.social
Rebecca's law: As an academic discussion grows longer, the probability of concluding that capitalism is to blame approaches one.

(With apologies to Godwin en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%...)
November 13, 2025 at 5:33 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
delwynm.bsky.social
Tomorrow is the Fifth of November – but let’s forget Guy Fawkes and his actions against an arrogant Protestant king and instead look to our own history: the unlawful attack on Parihaka and, by extension, Māori sovereignty.

🧵

#kikorangi
A black and white aerial photo showing modern-day Parihaka as small white buildings in the foreground, surrounded by garmland and some patches of bush and trees, with Taranaki Maunga in the background. Photo: Puke Ariki.
November 4, 2025 at 5:34 AM
beccadownes.bsky.social
Using AI for research is a trip.

Ex: Gemini gives me 5 sources, the first 3 don't exist. I Google the titles (to double check they don't exist) & the Google AI summary gives me a complete explanation of the articles that don't exist including "their" key arguments & findings.

Crazy-making.
November 4, 2025 at 1:52 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
handle.invalid
what is the point of having Society if we aren't using it as a means to take care of each other
October 27, 2025 at 10:45 PM
Reposted by beccadownes
ninjakitty.bsky.social
Sign this petition about the Regulatory Standards Bill, please

petitions.parliament.nz/212f27b2-98f...
Petition request That the House of Representatives urge the Government to withdraw the Regulatory Standards Bill from the legislative programme. Petition reason I am petitioning the House because nearly every submission on the Regulatory Standards Bill opposed it, yet the Government plans to pass it anyway. I believe this shows disregard for public participation and democratic integrity. I think the Government is ignoring the 98.7 percent of submitters who oppose the bill and cannot be trusted to listen. I feel that Parliament must act to restore public trust by urging the Government to withdraw this Bill.
October 24, 2025 at 9:38 PM
beccadownes.bsky.social
I will die laughing if after investing $500B generative AI's only meaningful market traction turns out to be making porn.
October 15, 2025 at 7:14 AM
beccadownes.bsky.social
"For many people, it feels like the world is burning. The government’s recent changes to benefits feel like this: the house is on fire, and this policy is them turning off the smoke alarm and saying it’s fixed"
clrenney.bsky.social Craig Renney @clrenney.bsky.social · Oct 6
#nzpol Sometimes a policy is so stupid it makes you question the very fabric of reality. Decisions so fabulously, almost wantonly dumb, you wonder if we actually live in a simulation. Welcome to the world of removing Jobseeker Support for 18 & 19-year-olds. craigrenney.substack.com/p/a-small-wr...
A small wrinkle in the Jobseeker policy
The government’s recent changes to benefits feel like this: the house is on fire, and this policy is them turning off the smoke alarm and saying it’s fixed
craigrenney.substack.com
October 12, 2025 at 1:13 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
michae.lv
Does your university have a contract with Grammarly? Write to the decision-maker asking if they think the university should be paying for a tool that is fast integrating features that can only be used for academic misconduct and cognitive offloading and request they drop the contract.
jedbrown.org Jed Brown @jedbrown.org · Aug 18
It is not "attribution and sourcing" to generate post-hoc citations that have not been read and did not inform the student's writing. Those should be regarded as fraudulent: artifacts testifying to human actions and thought that did not occur.
www.theverge.com/news/760508/...
For help with attribution and sourcing, Grammarly is releasing a citation finder agent that automatically generates correctly formatted citations backing up claims in a piece of writing, and an expert review agent that provides personalized, topic-specific feedback. Screenshot from Grammarly's demo of inserting a post-hoc citation. https://www.grammarly.com/ai-agents/citation-finder
October 11, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by beccadownes
marcusluther.bsky.social
Genuine question: for those enthusiastically pushing AI tools into every part of our education system—what checks/guardrails are there around algorithmic biases like this?
hypervisible.blacksky.app Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Oct 11
The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”
OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT
GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.
www.theverge.com
October 11, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Reposted by beccadownes
binkenstein.bsky.social
Selling off productive publicly owned companies/infrastructure to reduce govt debt is like selling off your car to reduce your mortgage, then taking an uber/taxi to work each day.

Sure you have lower debts, but it costs more in the long run.

#nzpol
October 10, 2025 at 1:30 AM
beccadownes.bsky.social
Huh. Who could have predicted that once all the experienced staff were fired, work would slow down and, needing experience, those same staff would be hired back at consulting rates... [Shocked Pikachu face]
newsroom.co.nz Newsroom NZ @newsroom.co.nz · Oct 9
Comment: Minister Judith Collins has relaxed constraints on consultants spend, after the public sector massively over-delivered on promised spending cuts ... and the Govt work-rate slowed accordingly.
Public spend on consultants slashed – but not to those embedded deep in govt
newsroom.co.nz
October 10, 2025 at 5:32 AM
beccadownes.bsky.social
Full credit to @metservice.com, that arrived exactly as predicted
October 7, 2025 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
nzdodo.bsky.social
18 & 19 year olds with no income support should “just go where the jobs are” said the Prime Minister who famously had his limo deliver him across the road.

“Good luck with the train-hopping, you plucky young hobos,” he added, suggesting hedge-&-ditch as an affordable alternative to bed-&-breakfast.
Watch: Christopher Luxon defends cuts to benefits for youth
The prime minister says businesses are 'crying out for young people' as advocates decry the changes as a punishment.
www.rnz.co.nz
October 6, 2025 at 4:17 AM
beccadownes.bsky.social
🤦
patrickmorgan.bsky.social Patrick Morgan @patrickmorgan.bsky.social · Oct 3
Is this the dumbest objection to bike lanes ever?
"Cycling may be considered a “greener” option than using public transport, but cycleways use an awfully high amount of petroleum-based products to create and maintain." - Ray Chung @cyclewgtn.bsky.social www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3608...
Wellington mayoral candidates on bike lanes
Each week we are asking the main mayoral candidates what they will do on key issues. This week: Retain, extend or reduce Wellington's current bike lane network?
www.thepost.co.nz
October 3, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Reposted by beccadownes
cnn.com
Meta will soon use what people tell its artificial intelligence chatbot to get even better at selling them things.

The company said users’ chats and interactions with Meta AI will soon be used to target them with even more personalized ads. https://cnn.it/4nXks2K
October 2, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
anthonymoser.com
in related news i'm excited to announce that i'm selling sam altman's house unless he asks me not to
September 29, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Reposted by beccadownes
bootstheory.bsky.social
Anyone heard from the "one law for all, equal treatment" crowd on this or are they too busy complaining about something important like macrons on road signs
Wealthy NZ family member guilty of child abuse images given sentence discount for donation
He gave $50,400 to charities days before his sentencing was scheduled.
www.nzherald.co.nz
September 28, 2025 at 3:16 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
byroncclark.bsky.social
"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

- Desmond Tutu
September 27, 2025 at 6:03 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
anarchoshanties.bsky.social
This one's maybe a little on the ling side, but trust me, it's worth it. I've cried reading it multiple times.

(1/3)
mylordshesacactus Carpathia received Titanic's distress signal at 12:20am, April 15th, 1912. She was 58 miles away, a distance that absolutely could not be covered in less than four hours. (Californian's exact position at the time is... controversial. She was close enough to have helped. By all accounts she was close enough to see Titanic's distress rockets. It's uncertain to this day why her crew did not respond, or how many might not have been lost if she had been there. This is not the place for what-ifs. This is about what was done.) Carpathia's Captain Rostron had, yes, rolled out of bed instantly when woken by his radio operator, ordered his ship to Titanic's aid and confirmed the signal before he was fully dressed. The man had never in his life responded to an emergency call. His goal tonight was to make sure nobody who heard that fact would ever believe it. All of Carpathia's lifeboats were swung out ready for deployment. Oil was set up to be poured off the side of the ship in case the sea turned choppy; oil would coat and calm the water near Carpathia if that happened, making it safer for lifeboats to draw up alongside her. He ordered lights to be rigged along the side of the ship so survivors could see it better, and had nets and ladders rigged along her sides ready to be dropped when they arrived, in order to let as many survivors as possible climb aboard at once. I don't know if his making provisions for there still being survivors in the water was optimism or not. I think he knew they were never going to get there in time for that. I think he did it anyway because, god, you have to hope. Carpathia had three dining rooms, which were immediately converted into triage and first aid stations. Each had a doctor assigned to it. Hot soup, coffee, and tea were prepared in bulk in each dining room, and blankets and warm clothes were collected to be ready to hand out. By this time, many of the passengers were awake-prepping a ship for disaster relief isn't quiet-and all of them stepped up to help, many donating their own clothes and blankets. And then he did something I tend to refer to as diverting all power from life support. Here's the thing about steamships: They run on steam. Shocking, I know; but that steam powers everything on the ship, and right now, Carpathia needed power. So Rostron turned off hot water and central heating, which bled valuable steam power, to everywhere but the dining rooms-which, of course, were being used to make hot drinks and receive survivors. He woke up all the engineers, all the stokers and firemen, diverted all that steam back into the engines, and asked his ship to go as fast as she possibly could. And when she'd done that, he asked her to go faster. I need you to understand that you simply can't push a ship very far past its top speed. Pushing that much sheer tonnage through the water becomes harder with each extra knot past the speed it was designed for. Pushing a ship past its rated speed is not only reckless-it's difficult to maneuver-but it puts an incredible amount of strain on the engines. Ships are not designed to exceed their top speed by even one knot. They can't do it. It can't be done. Carpathia's absolute do-or-die, the-engines-can't-take-this-forever top speed was fourteen knots. Dodging icebergs, in the dark and the cold, surrounded by mist, she sustained a speed of almost seventeen and a half. No one would have asked this of them. It wasn't expected. They were almost sixty miles away, with icebergs in their path. They had a responsibility to respond; they did not have a responsibility to do the impossible and do it well. No one would have faulted them for taking more time to confirm the severity of the issue. No one would have blamed them for a slow and cautious approach. No one but themselves.
September 11, 2025 at 10:20 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
dieworkwear.bsky.social
I'm often told on here that clothes are meaningless, and to some degree, I agree. However, in this instance, the GOP's aesthetic transformation shows how they use populist style to position themselves as populist outsiders, even as they serve elite interests.
September 11, 2025 at 7:06 PM
beccadownes.bsky.social
Iconic
ani-obsessive.bsky.social Animation Obsessive @ani-obsessive.bsky.social · Sep 8
Pinball No. 4 (1977), dir. Jeff Hale, Imagination Inc.
September 8, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by beccadownes
spavel.bsky.social
Two trials will be repeated endlessly despite always producing the same results:

1) Does UBI work? (yes)
2) Does AI improve productivity? (no)
M365 Copilot fails to up productivity in UK government trial
: AI tech shows promise writing emails or summarizing meetings. Don't bother with anything more complex
www.theregister.com
September 6, 2025 at 1:02 PM
Reposted by beccadownes
gnat.bsky.social
www.rnz.co.nz/news/politic...

"Boost GDP by $11B," you say? I'd love to see the maths behind that.

There's a lot of one-offs in construction. I imagine they'd import as much of the specialist materials as they can.

Annual component is electricity and water (ffs), and a handful? of engineers?
Christopher Luxon hypes re-announcement of $7.5 billion Amazon investment from 2021
The Prime Minister says Amazon is spending $7b on data centres - a move announced by the company four years ago.
www.rnz.co.nz
September 1, 2025 at 9:51 PM
Reposted by beccadownes
joshuatj.digipres.club.ap.brid.gy
Only 7 out of 300+ analysed restructures went back to monitor and document the after-effect and whether it's been successful.

#govis2025
September 1, 2025 at 1:53 AM
Reposted by beccadownes
joshuatj.digipres.club.ap.brid.gy
Applying the concept of technical debt in software development onto public sector restructuring - Organisational debt.

"Organisational debt" articulate the residual cost of decision-making under constraint, that only becomes problematic when ignored.

#govis2025
September 1, 2025 at 1:48 AM