Dean Eckles

@eckles.bsky.social

9.5K followers 1.3K following 330 posts

networks, contagion, causality
faculty at MIT

Videos

Mathematics 19%

Physics 19%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome.bsky.social · 20h

"Betty Boop enters the public domain, but only as a dog" 😬 reason.com/2026/01/01/b...

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Robert (Bob) Kubinec @rmkubinec.bsky.social · 20h

This New Year you could resolve to never use two-way fixed effects again 🫡

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Internet Archive @archive.org · 1d

Welcome to the Public Domain, THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD (1930) 🚂

💪 Choo Choo Choo! We all learned about perseverance & trying from this iconic train. She thought she could, and she did 🥹

Learn more ➡️ blog.archive.org/public-domai...

#PublicDomainDay #CopyrightFree

Dean Eckles @eckles.bsky.social · 1d

Those Turkish Airlines credits working out nicely

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

eric adams just went on tv and when he was asked what he’s going to do tomorrow he said “travel to some countries”

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 1d

eric adams just went on tv and when he was asked what he’s going to do tomorrow he said “travel to some countries”

Reposted by Dean Eckles, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Neil Lewis, Jr. @neillewisjr.bsky.social · 1d

As you make your New Year's resolutions, remember to be kind to your future self, who will likely have less time to work on those resolutions than your current self thinks.

@stephanietepper.bsky.social and I wrote about this longstanding time (mis)perception problem a few years ago.

Since time scarcity is felt in the present, people may neglect to see that their time may remain scarce in the future as well. People tend to expect that they will have more time available in the future to work toward goals than they do now, leading them to overcommit their future selves and underestimate how long it will take to complete tasks (Kahneman, Slovic, Slovic, & Tversky, 1982; Zauberman & Lynch, 2005). This biased expectation may lead people to believe that difficult goals are achievable, since they anticipate having more time to work toward those goals in the future. However, this may create issues down the road when people discover that they actually have less time available to complete their goals than they anticipated.

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Internet Archive @archive.org · 1d

⏰ 12 HOURS TO GO 👀

When the new year begins, so does #PublicDomainDay2026.

At 12:00 a.m. ET, iconic books, films, and music move into the public domain—and we’ll be sharing highlights #here all night long.

🔔 Set your reminder ➡️ blog.archive.org/public-domai...

Original 1930 illustrated cover of The Little Engine That Could: a small blue steam engine pulls a curved train uphill through snowy mountains, hauling brightly colored red and yellow cars filled with toys and animals—including a giraffe, elephant, and teddy bear—under the bold title text “THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD” at the top.

Reposted by Scott A. Imberman, Dean Eckles, Alessandro Rigolon

Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome.bsky.social · 1d

"America’s Housing Crunch Has the Wrong Villain" www.aei.org/economics/am...
"Institutional investors aren’t the cause of housing distortions but a response to them."

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Fernando Diaz @841io.bsky.social · 1d

as AI increasingly supports shopping and ads, it’s worth remembering that retrieval often shapes who gets exposure in final generated output. in a recent paper, @teknology.bsky.social uses methods from fair ranking to assess and address exposure bias in downstream generation.

841.io/doc/fairrag....

Reposted by Dean Eckles, Simon Lester

Elizabeth Nolan Brown @enbrown.bsky.social · 3d

The TRUMP AMERICA AI Act is every bit as bad as you might expect. Maybe worse. reason.com/2025/12/29/t...

The TRUMP AMERICA AI Act is every bit as bad as you would expect. Maybe worse.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s latest is an anti-tech omnibus, combining years' worth of dangerous policy ideas into one big, bad bill.

reason.com

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 3d

See also: social media. In both cases, lots of people promising quick fixes with no tradeoffs.

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 3d

The problem with stories like this is that "regulations" can mean very, very different things to different people. It's easy to say "regulate AI." It's extremely difficult to come up with actual regulations that won't kick off another partisan shitshow fight once it gets distorted.

Jake Cole @jakecole.bsky.social · 3d

There’s a funny Politico story showing that the latest polling on AI shows 80-20 in favor of heavy regulations, an absolute slam dunk platform, but Dems are worried about not winning back mask-off tech CEO donors
www.politico.com/news/magazin...

Reposted by Ken Caldeira, Steve Peers, Rosemary A. Joyce , and 2 more Ken Caldeira, Steve Peers, Rosemary A. Joyce, Robert C. Richards, Dean Eckles

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 10d

Ok. Now had a chance to check and, well, at least some docs do appear to be straight up classic redaction fail. And there are some *interesting* bits here.

www.justice.gov/multimedia/C...

Showing highlights of paragraphs 202 through 206 in a doc with 203-205 blacked out. Text in next image

202. Defendants also actively obstructed law enforcement by denying investigators
access to Little St. James beyond its boat dock.

203. Defendants also attempted to conceal their criminal sex trafficking and abuse
conduct by paying large sums of money to participant-witnesses, including by paying for their
attorneys’ fees and case costs in litigation related to this conduct.

204. Epstein also threatened harm to victims and helped release damaging stories
about them to damage their credibility when they tried to go public with their stories of being
trafficked and sexually abused.

205. Epstein also instructed one or more Epstein Enterprise participant-witnesses to
destroy evidence relevant to ongoing court proceedings involving Defendants’ criminal sex
trafficking and abuse conduct.

206. Defendants also concealed their fraud on the Government in obtaining unearned
tax benefits by providing false testimony and submitting false and inaccurate reporting to the
Economic Development Commission to prevent detection of Defendant Southern Trust
Company’s non-compliance with requirements concerning the nature of its business and the
residency of the persons it employed.

Reposted by Brendan Nyhan, Dean Eckles

Paul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 10d

2025 Headline of the Year nominee (July)

Bitter fight over 2020 Microsoft quantum paper both resolved and unresolved
--The Register, 31 Jul 2025

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Dan Williams @danwphilosophy.bsky.social · 11d

A very interesting data-rich analysis of persuasion on digital media by @benmtappin.bsky.social. Recommend!

open.substack.com/pub/benmtapp...

For Digital Mass Persuasion, Exposure Matters More Than Persuasiveness

If you are interested in understanding the mass persuasive impact of digital media content you should generally pay more attention to content exposure than to its persuasiveness.

open.substack.com

Reposted by Dean Eckles, Patrick Präg

Marc Keuschnigg @marckeuschnigg.bsky.social · 11d

How can analytical sociology harness the computational social science revolution? 🔆
👉Observe behavior in actual social environments, capture interdependent dynamics, follow up cumulative effects
🔗Access chapter 5 on strengthening mechanism-based explanations of macro phenomena osf.io/preprints/so...

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Brendan Nyhan, Robert C. Richards , and 1 more Lisa W. Fazio, Brendan Nyhan, Robert C. Richards, Dean Eckles

@NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze) @newsjennifer.bsky.social · 11d

Sharyn Alfonsi is an award-winning journalist who has worked for 60 Minutes for 20 years. Before that she reported for ABC, CBS & local news outlets. If Alfonsi says her story was spiked by Bari Weiss political reasons, that’s exactly what happened. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/21/b...

"Our story was screened five times and cleared by both
CBS attorneys and
Standards and Practices," Ms. Alfonsi wrote in the note, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times. "It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one."

In her note, Ms. Alfonsi said that her team had requested comment from the White House, the state Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. "If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a 'kill switch' for any reporting they find inconvenient," Ms. Alfonsi wrote.

"We have been promoting this story on social media for days," Ms. Alfonsi added.
"Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship.
We are trading 50 years of
'gold standard' reputation for a single week of political quiet."
"I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight," she wrote.

Tim Carvell @timcarvell.bsky.social · 11d

Now seems like a swell time to point out that Frontline just released this excellent 11-minute mini-documentary about what happened inside CECOT.

Surviving CECOT (full documentary) | Deported to a Maximum-Security Prison | FRONTLINE + ProPublica

YouTube video by FRONTLINE PBS | Official

m.youtube.com

Reposted by Nancy Kanwisher, Robert C. Richards, David R. Miller , and 5 more Nancy Kanwisher, Robert C. Richards, David R. Miller, Aaron Sojourner, Dean Eckles, Christina Ho, Timothy D. McBride, David Darmofal

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 11d

Skilled-worker visa holders who traveled back to India this month to renew their US work permits are now stranded far from home after their appointments were abruptly canceled by U.S. consular offices and rescheduled for months later.

H-1B workers flew to India to renew U.S. visas. Now they’re stuck.

H-1B holders who returned to India this month to renew their visas had consular appointments canceled, stranding them far from their homes and jobs, lawyers said.

www.washingtonpost.com

Reposted by Arthur Charpentier, Dean Eckles

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 14d

Kids who are stars in sports and music don’t usually grow up to be stars as adults, a new study found. 🔗 on.wsj.com/3KPddMF

Reposted by David R. Miller, Dean Eckles, Nathan P. Kalmoe

Mike Masnick @mmasnick.bsky.social · 14d

Hi Senator, excuse me for jumping in, but... while I agree with you that this is really damaging, I couldn't help but notice YOU VOTED FOR THE FREAKING BILL THAT GAVE TRUMP THIS POWER (which some of us warned you not to do).

www.senate.gov/legislative/...

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Noah Barkin @noahbarkin.bsky.social · 14d

These two stories on inflation from the FT and NYT underscore why I read the former for news on the US these days. The FT tells it straight. The NYT gives us endless paragraphs of Trump team propaganda high up

www.ft.com/content/c90d...

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/18/b...

Flawed inflation data dashes Donald Trump’s hopes of a quick affordability victory

White House hails figures showing cooling price growth but Wall Street says report was ‘a mess’

www.ft.com

Reposted by Marina Costa Lobo, Dean Eckles, Richard M. Carpiano

Kate Starbird @katestarbird.bsky.social · 14d

Researchers find that influencers influence. New experimental evidence for old theories around opinion leaders, parasocial relationships, and persuasion, with implications for political messaging in our digitally connected era.

www.wired.com/story/the-mo...

The Most Powerful Politics Influencers Barely Post About Politics

New research shows that social media creators have enormous influence over their audiences' politics—especially those who don't normally share political content.

www.wired.com

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Manoel Horta Ribeiro @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social · 15d

In a new blog post, I argue that CS is already an empirical discipline, even though we often act as if it is not (mostly to our students).

doomscrollingbabel.manoel.xyz/p/the-empiri...

The Empiricization of Computer Science

Scientific disciplines, like nations, have their own founding myths.

doomscrollingbabel.manoel.xyz

Reposted by Dean Eckles

Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 16d

Competitive authoritarianism tilts the playing field

Joe Adalian @tvmojoe.bsky.social · 16d

Also, I get why the networks caved and agreed to air a clearly political speech not related to breaking news: They're scared, it's his first year back, and it's not worth the blowback. But the same networks refused to run Biden's Democracy speech and Obama speeches on health care + immigration.

Joe Adalian @tvmojoe.bsky.social · 16d

In case you missed it, Trump's speech tomorrow will interrupt the finales of SURVIVOR and THE FLOOR for people in the Eastern and Central time zones. He could've easily started the speech at 8, and I'm sure the networks suggested that to the WH. The WH didn't care; viewers of both shows will suffer.

Reposted by Kim L. Scheppele, Nicholas A. Christakis, Tom Clark , and 5 more Kim L. Scheppele, Nicholas A. Christakis, Tom Clark, Steve Peers, Rebecca Tushnet, Dean Eckles, Andrew Rudalevige, Dan Immergluck

David Bier @davidjbier.bsky.social · 17d

On Dec. 4, DOJ labeled people who impede or "dox" ICE agents "domestic terrorists." I document how DHS believes following, recording, and protesting agents is "impeding," and has a policy of threatening & arresting ICE observers. That's unconstitutional. www.cato.org/blog/dhs-pol...

Reposted by Dean Eckles

404 Media @404media.co · 17d

“You just grabbing, like, random people, dude,” Gutiérrez said he told the agents after they scanned his face. The officials eventually dropped off Gutiérrez after driving for around an hour.

“This is a flagrant violation of rights and incompatible with a free society."

How a US Citizen Was Scanned With ICE's Facial Recognition Tech

Jesus Gutiérrez told immigration agents he was a U.S. citizen. Only after they scanned his face, did the agents let him go.

www.404media.co

Reposted by Lisa W. Fazio, Dean Eckles, Kristina McElheran

Zoë Plakias @zoeconomy.bsky.social · 19d

"Friedberg visited Rhode Island Hospital on Saturday night, where she said she spoke with her teaching assistant, who had traveled there to support several of their injured students." Wow, the TA was present at the shooting and then went with students in the class to hospital to support.

Reposted by Jacob T. Levy, Dean Eckles

Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 20d

“In fact, it would not have occurred to any liberal before the 1950s that one could settle these issues by rejecting the desirability of human flourishing; and that without some conception of the good, even the public good, one could decide what policy is ‘best’ (and how to rank its kinds).”