Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Made some treats for tomorrow's on campus class. They have been a joy all semester so this is my little way of giving back.

Muffin like baked goods covered in sugar are arranged in a Tupperware container.

November 20, 2025 at 2:48 AM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Look at those tiny tusks!

September 13, 2025 at 2:15 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Elephants also love beer kegs!

September 13, 2025 at 2:44 AM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Impressed by the dedication of this landscape artist

A tall hedge with emoji/ alien style faces carved into it. Like lots of faces. Everywhere. Some smiling. Same with shocked looks. All varying degrees of creepy. Peeking behind the hedge is the roof of a normal looking if large residential house.

June 24, 2025 at 12:41 AM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Got junk? Make a T-Rex!

Large T-Rex sculpture made out of various spare parts. With air conditioner for a torso, digger bucket for a jaw, and hubcaps as tail spikes. Blue sky and city landscape in background.

June 21, 2025 at 10:24 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

I don't know how to cope with the daily onslaught of awful news. But for the last month I have embarked on a project that is devouring most of my attention.

A backpack, screen full of dirt, and shovel handle are centered in a field of green shrubs with a blue sky above

April 8, 2025 at 11:38 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Spot the gator.

Brazos Bend State Park, July 2022

A dirt path runs along the edge of a wooded area. The path is dappled with shade. A large alligator is walking away from the camera view along the boundary of the wood and path.

March 22, 2025 at 10:28 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Another fun tidbit: the hull planks of this vessel were joined together with mortise and tenon joints.

It would have been very fiddly and time consuming to build. Luckily for the builders, that effort was not wasted as this ship had a very long use life for a boat!

An illustration of mortise and tenon hull construction. Four runs of planks are shown. The top most planks are under construction to show the elements. Rectangular holes are labeled "mortise". Rectangular pieces of wood are labeled "tenon". A cylindrical piece of wood is labeled "dowel". Mortises are cut. Then tenons are inserted into the mortise so that half is exposed and the next plank is placed on top so that the half exposed tenons insert into its mortises. Dowels lock the tenons into place.

February 12, 2025 at 11:18 AM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

To set expectations, I made this example based on a required reading:

First pane of cartoon. Title at top says No More Gender Gap - Atlatl Adoption Now! On the left is the Hypothesis section with four stick figures of various sizes and hair styles. Orange lines connect the figures with a callout box showing three people throwing darts at a bison. Text surrounds the figures stating "People started using atlatls instead of javelins because 'a diverse array of people could achieve equal performance' (pg 1). In other words, the atlatl leveled the playing field (or hunting field). Aka the leveler. On the right is the background section with illustrations of the two weapons systems: 1) a javelin, a pointed stick that you through aka spear and 2) an atlatl and dart, skinnier stick thrown with the help of a hook and handle device aka spearthrower. Another illustration shows two figures using each system. A note on the side states that the illustrations are adapted from Figure 4.

Second pane of the cartoon. Materials and Methods section header. Illustrations of the javelin with a list of key stats (length, diameter, and mass) and the atlatl/dart with the same stats listed. A stick figure is labeled as a volunteer with seven data points labeled such as height, arm length, sex, and grip strength. The data is color coded by self-reported or measured data. 108 dots represent the 108 amateur volunteers from the study, color coded by sex (56 females, 42 males, 10 undisclosed). Amateur is defined in a call out box as "never used javelin or atlatl". At the bottom is an illustration of two stick figures throwing 10 objects at two targets with the text "All volunteers made 10 throws with javelin AND 10 throws with atlatl + dart." A sketch of a radar gun shows the number 15.1. Accompanying text states "velocity measured in meters per second (m/s)." Final call out box says "2160 weapon launch events."

Third pane of the cartoon. At the top is the results section. First result is Dart throws 65% faster with an illustration of a dart with a smiley face zooming past a javelin with a frowny face. Second result is Atlatl = Leveler (aka equalizer). A graph shows a 0 to 25 scale of velocity range with red rectangles representing average female velocity and blue rectangles representing average male velocity. Female javelin range 5.1-11.5. Male javelin range 8.1-16.1. Female dart range 10.1-20.1. Male dart range 10.1-24.1. Javelin results = significant difference; female javelin < male javelin. Dart results = no significant difference; lots of overlap. A large green checkmark is underneath the graph with the words Supports Hypothesis. A note states it is adapted from Figure 4. Third result is grip strength NOT sex affects dart velocity with an illustration of a hand holding a rod with a green check mark and sex symbols with a red X. A call out box provides the following text: "the greater the grip strength, the higher the velocity" (pg 2); in other words, strong hands = fast throws! At the bottom right is the Broader Meanings section. An illustration shows this sequence: a male stick figure with javelin is separated by a wall from a female stick figure with amorphous shape; both are frowning. An arrow points to an atlatl with a light bulb over it. A second arrow points to the same male and female stick figures now holding atlatls and darts and both smiling. A third arrow points to a circle of stick figures with joined hands and the words Unification of Labor. Below this sequence is a drawing of a woman carving an atlatl with the words Female Invention? along with a dashed line leading to the atlatl with lightbulb in the main sequence. A final illustration shows two skeletons in rectangular boxes representing graves. Both have atlatls and darts next to them. One is labeled with the male sex symbol, the other with the female sex symbol with the words Interpret the Same!

January 27, 2025 at 10:43 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

I made souffled lemon bread pudding from Claire Saffitz's What's for Dessert. Houston is not the best environment for souffle anything so it completely collapsed but still a pleasantly tart and lighter take on bread pudding.

A top down view of two yellow squares of bread pudding on white plates with silver forks. One plate sits atop an open cookbook next to a picture of the bread pudding (also in a plate with a fork). At the top of the photo, the silver bowl of a KitchenAid stand mixer shows a reflection of the plate with dessert.

Two plates of bread pudding sit in front of the What's for Dessert cookbook and a KitchenAid stand mixer. The bread pudding is pale yellow with dark spots of caramelization on the top. Lemon curd pools on top and on the side of the pudding squares. The plates of dessert are reflected in the silver bowl of the stand mixer.

January 26, 2025 at 4:16 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

If you see this quote with flowers from your gallery

Illuminated woodland fairy scene at night. A large pink petaled flower sits to the left of a fairy woman playing a flute. A large white tulip is to the right of the fairy. Strings of Christmas lights are visible in the tree branches overhead and in vertical lines in the background.

January 26, 2025 at 1:54 AM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

But it was also pretty magical to see my southern city as a winter wonderland

Snow covered park with slushy covered sidewalks meandering across the frame. Apartment buildings and high rises are in the background along with clouds on the left and blue sky on the right.

A small pine tree stands in a field of snow. Multistory townhomes are distant in the background. There is a stark color contrast between blue skies, green pine needles, and white snow

A small melting snowman sits on a snow covered bridge over a bayou. Its head is starting to fall to one side.

A four foot tall snowman stands in front of a large tree trunk. It has a goofy grin and outstretched arms. Large white two story home is in the background.

January 21, 2025 at 11:51 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Easy to believe we've entered dystopia when I have 4 inches of snow in my Houston backyard

A ruler sticks upright out of a blanket of white snow. It reads 4 in or 20cm. Several stalks and fronds of a banana palm are visible in the background.

January 21, 2025 at 5:06 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

Christmas Cookies 2024. This year included prune and almond rugelach, chewy molasses cookies (both by Claire Saffitz), pistacharoos (Bon Appetit), and Orange Sparkle Slice and Bake Cookies (King Arthur).

May your holidays be bright and merry however you celebrate!

Plate of four Christmas cookies. On the left are five rolled crescent shaped cookies with a dark burgundy colored filling. In the middle are four small square cookies with chocolate and crushed pistachio surfaces. In the top right are four round crackly dark brown cookies with a hint of sparkle. On the bottom right are five pale round cookies with small orange pieces and an edge of brown sparkles.

Comparison between the magazine picture of the pistacharoos and my own version. My version is smaller.

Comparison between the cookbook picture of the Rugelach and my own version. My version is bigger.

Comparison between the magazine picture of the orange sparkle cookies and my own version. They are about the same size

December 24, 2024 at 7:06 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

I can get on board with the title Lamplighter! And I wholeheartedly agree with all this. Machine learning can do amazing things! But we need to stop pretending a huge use case of LLMs is students cheating themselves out of learning.

Challenging generative AI’s influence over writing studies is not an anti-technology stance. My sci-fi–loving heart soars at the possibilities for human advancement AI can accomplish in medicine and neurotechnology. Let’s stop wasting all this energy on AI for K-12 and college writing homework and help future graduates gain the skills they need to embrace creativity, innovative thinking and artistic agency unassisted by robots.

OpenAI’s Sam Altman claims that “nobody is looking back at the past, wishing they were a lamplighter.” Wrong. Oblivious. Classist. But thanks, Sam, for unintentionally gifting the resistance with such a symbolic name: the Lamplighters. I’ll take it. Humanity does have the power to harness this technology for the betterment of all—on this I share both awe and optimism for the future. Yet such a future requires an abundance of original thinkers. Creativity is hardwired in our brains, and we cannot outsource thinking or acts of creation to a predictive robot that generates biased, bad jacket copy and deeply creepy art.

December 5, 2024 at 10:39 PM

Staci Willis

@sewnandsea.bsky.social

I struggle with this optimism though. I have worked hard to reimagine my assessment and implement this exact type of pedagogy -- "engaged, compassionate, playful, relationship-rich" -- but I still see a lot of LLM dishonesty every semester. Huge uptick this semester in particular.