Dr Christine Cuskley
@nerdpro.bsky.social
Lead Consultant, https://cogknit.uk Researcher/teacher/learner and person who does internet things. Communication, social cognition, perception and evolution therof. https://ccuskley.github.io
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
I have Issues with the concept of writers block, such that I wrote a post on it. kjcharleswriter.com/2019/11/13/w...
There are a ton of things you can do if you're struggling to write, and none of them require using the theft-based environment-ruining plagiarism machine.
There are a ton of things you can do if you're struggling to write, and none of them require using the theft-based environment-ruining plagiarism machine.
People who aren’t writers think writer’s block is at least as big and real a problem as I thought quicksand would be, as a child.
AI can help authors beat writer’s block, says Bloomsbury chief
Publisher last week reported jump in revenue in academic and professional arm thanks to AI licensing deal
www.theguardian.com
October 28, 2025 at 8:52 AM
I have Issues with the concept of writers block, such that I wrote a post on it. kjcharleswriter.com/2019/11/13/w...
There are a ton of things you can do if you're struggling to write, and none of them require using the theft-based environment-ruining plagiarism machine.
There are a ton of things you can do if you're struggling to write, and none of them require using the theft-based environment-ruining plagiarism machine.
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
“That single point isn’t just AWS – they’re the biggest cloud provider with 30% or so of the market – but rather the cloud as a whole, which is basically just three companies”.
““The internet was designed to be resilient, but we’ve lost some [read: pretty much all] of that resilience by becoming so dependent on a handful of giant tech companies to provide not just data storage but also house data services.”
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Amazon reveals cause of AWS outage that took everything from banks to smart beds offline
AWS explains in a lengthy post how a bug in automation software brought down thousands of sites and applications
www.theguardian.com
October 24, 2025 at 9:08 AM
“That single point isn’t just AWS – they’re the biggest cloud provider with 30% or so of the market – but rather the cloud as a whole, which is basically just three companies”.
The future is finally here. Either they harvest your attention and sell it to someone else, or they harvest it and sell it back to you
October 23, 2025 at 7:11 AM
The future is finally here. Either they harvest your attention and sell it to someone else, or they harvest it and sell it back to you
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
Hey, I'm an @insidehighered.com reporter writing today about how the ongoing shutdown may be affecting, or about to affect, university research. If you have a story to share, please DM me or email ryan.quinn@insidehighered.com today. Thank you.
October 13, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Hey, I'm an @insidehighered.com reporter writing today about how the ongoing shutdown may be affecting, or about to affect, university research. If you have a story to share, please DM me or email ryan.quinn@insidehighered.com today. Thank you.
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
@chasbooth.bsky.social @edinburghcouncil.bsky.social @spokes.org.uk months and months of erratic construction of the bike lane only for it to be blocked by planters on Sandport Bridge? Is this for real?
October 10, 2025 at 7:52 PM
@chasbooth.bsky.social @edinburghcouncil.bsky.social @spokes.org.uk months and months of erratic construction of the bike lane only for it to be blocked by planters on Sandport Bridge? Is this for real?
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important
⚠️ Chinese researchers have invented bone glue that mimics how oysters stick to surfaces underwater.
The adhesive can reportedly repair orthopedic fractures in 2-3 minutes, even in blood-rich environments, and is bioabsorbable.
interestingengineering.com/science/chin...
The adhesive can reportedly repair orthopedic fractures in 2-3 minutes, even in blood-rich environments, and is bioabsorbable.
interestingengineering.com/science/chin...
China's oyster-inspired 'bone glue' bonds fractures in minutes
A new oyster-inspired Bone-02 adhesive can revolutionize bone repair without metal fasteners.
interestingengineering.com
September 30, 2025 at 10:35 PM
This is why we fund scientists to study things like oyster slobber even if you don’t think it sounds important
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
Standing up for science is one way to push back against political attacks on the university sector 👇 Experts in biology and anthropology have put together this statement to counter misinformation about race. Please consider signing and sharing
Trump's very first example of the Smithsonian's "corrosive ideology" was an exhibit that correctly stated "Race is a human invention." How is scientific consensus (that biological races don't exist in humans) corrosive? We are asking scientists to co-sign our statement: forms.gle/kqKQF9CZ3jPB...
September 27, 2025 at 9:13 AM
Standing up for science is one way to push back against political attacks on the university sector 👇 Experts in biology and anthropology have put together this statement to counter misinformation about race. Please consider signing and sharing
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)
September 23, 2025 at 6:58 PM
**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
"After the fall of the Roman Empire, elephants virtually disappeared from Western Europe. Since there was no real knowledge of how the animal looked, illustrators had to rely on oral and written transmissions to morphologically reconstruct the elephant" www.uliwestphal.de/elephas-anth...
September 24, 2025 at 7:00 AM
"After the fall of the Roman Empire, elephants virtually disappeared from Western Europe. Since there was no real knowledge of how the animal looked, illustrators had to rely on oral and written transmissions to morphologically reconstruct the elephant" www.uliwestphal.de/elephas-anth...
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
New in Trends in Ecology & Evolution: 'Earth system engineers' and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time 🔓 #ecoevo #openaccess
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A thread 🧵:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A thread 🧵:
‘Earth system engineers’ and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time
Understanding the role of humans as ‘ecosystem engineers’ requires a deep-time perspective rooted in evolutionary history and the fossil record. Howev…
www.sciencedirect.com
September 24, 2025 at 8:55 AM
New in Trends in Ecology & Evolution: 'Earth system engineers' and the cumulative impact of organisms in deep time 🔓 #ecoevo #openaccess
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A thread 🧵:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A thread 🧵:
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
RAPTCHA
Off to heaven if you click the squares with things that take you higher.
Off to heaven if you click the squares with things that take you higher.
September 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
RAPTCHA
Off to heaven if you click the squares with things that take you higher.
Off to heaven if you click the squares with things that take you higher.
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
Please boost! #linguistics student here at Swarthmore is running a survey for English speakers (who don't know Mandarin / any other tone languages) about how we learn tones. Take a few minutes to help out with this student research!
swarthmore.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
swarthmore.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Online Survey Software | Qualtrics Survey Solutions
Qualtrics sophisticated online survey software solutions make creating online surveys easy. Learn more about Research Suite and get a free account today.
swarthmore.az1.qualtrics.com
September 22, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Please boost! #linguistics student here at Swarthmore is running a survey for English speakers (who don't know Mandarin / any other tone languages) about how we learn tones. Take a few minutes to help out with this student research!
swarthmore.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
swarthmore.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
Imagine it's 1997. There's a Real World marathon on. You're randomly offered one factual sentence from 2025 as a glimpse into the future and it's this:
September 15, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Imagine it's 1997. There's a Real World marathon on. You're randomly offered one factual sentence from 2025 as a glimpse into the future and it's this:
What's the drawback though
"Consider the implications if ChatGPT started saying “I don’t know” to even 30% of queries ... Users accustomed to receiving confident answers to virtually any question would likely abandon such systems rapidly."
The cure is likely to be worse than the disease.
September 13, 2025 at 11:02 AM
What's the drawback though
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
"Consider the implications if ChatGPT started saying “I don’t know” to even 30% of queries ... Users accustomed to receiving confident answers to virtually any question would likely abandon such systems rapidly."
The cure is likely to be worse than the disease.
Why OpenAI’s solution to AI hallucinations would kill ChatGPT tomorrow
The cure is likely to be worse than the disease.
tcnv.link
September 13, 2025 at 6:50 AM
"Consider the implications if ChatGPT started saying “I don’t know” to even 30% of queries ... Users accustomed to receiving confident answers to virtually any question would likely abandon such systems rapidly."
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
Very glad to see that someone is doing the important work of aligning AI alignment. alignmentalignment.ai
Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers
We align the aligners
alignmentalignment.ai
September 11, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Very glad to see that someone is doing the important work of aligning AI alignment. alignmentalignment.ai
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
wild to me that whenever Epstein is in the news, bsky science folk are up in arms about a couple of famous academics who barely knew the guy rather than Martin Nowak, who took millions of Epstein dollars to run his lab, hosted Epstein there often, and somehow is still teaching at Harvard
September 9, 2025 at 4:46 AM
wild to me that whenever Epstein is in the news, bsky science folk are up in arms about a couple of famous academics who barely knew the guy rather than Martin Nowak, who took millions of Epstein dollars to run his lab, hosted Epstein there often, and somehow is still teaching at Harvard
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
If you have submitted a preprint to PsyArXiv in the last year or so and it *isn't* currently accessible, there's a good chance it's due to the document listing authors whom you haven't entered in the metadata.
September 11, 2025 at 8:42 AM
If you have submitted a preprint to PsyArXiv in the last year or so and it *isn't* currently accessible, there's a good chance it's due to the document listing authors whom you haven't entered in the metadata.
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
I am beyond excited to announce that ggplot2 4.0.0 has just landed on CRAN.
It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package.
Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats
It's not every day we have a new major #ggplot2 release but it is a fitting 18 year birthday present for the package.
Get an overview of the release in this blog post and be on the lookout for more in-depth posts #rstats
ggplot2 4.0.0
A new major version of ggplot2 has been released on CRAN. Find out what is new here.
www.tidyverse.org
September 11, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Marched myself out of the house this morning to take in fresh air and just heard a guy say "this mouse pissed in my fuckin mouth last night" so I think everything is gonna be alright 🌈
September 11, 2025 at 8:30 AM
Marched myself out of the house this morning to take in fresh air and just heard a guy say "this mouse pissed in my fuckin mouth last night" so I think everything is gonna be alright 🌈
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
"Half the population” of greater Los Angeles "now meet the government’s criteria for reasonable suspicion," in the wake of today's 6-3 SCOTUS ruling.
www.latimes.com/politics/sto...
www.latimes.com/politics/sto...
Supreme Court upholds 'roving patrols' for immigration arrests in Los Angeles
The Supreme Court says immigration agents may stop and question people they suspect are here illegally based on little more than working at a car wash, speaking Spanish or having brown skin.
www.latimes.com
September 8, 2025 at 5:02 PM
"Half the population” of greater Los Angeles "now meet the government’s criteria for reasonable suspicion," in the wake of today's 6-3 SCOTUS ruling.
www.latimes.com/politics/sto...
www.latimes.com/politics/sto...
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
September 6, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
September 6, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...
We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
I considered writing a long carefully constructed argument laying out the harms and limitations of AI, but instead I wrote about being a hater. Only humans can be haters.
I Am An AI Hater
I am an AI hater. This is considered rude, but I do not care, because I am a hater.
anthonymoser.github.io
August 27, 2025 at 5:04 PM
I considered writing a long carefully constructed argument laying out the harms and limitations of AI, but instead I wrote about being a hater. Only humans can be haters.
Reposted by Dr Christine Cuskley
Are we sure RFK Jr isn’t actually Meatwad from ATHF?
a cartoon character is running on a treadmill in front of a television which says adult swim
ALT: a cartoon character is running on a treadmill in front of a television which says adult swim
media.tenor.com
September 4, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Are we sure RFK Jr isn’t actually Meatwad from ATHF?