Matthew Isaac Harvey

Chomsky was so wrong about language in the 1960s he's still derailing research to this very day. New blog post: To Understand LLMs, Forget Chomsky medium.com/@acornapocal... #linguistics #llm #generativeai

GM: Charisma check. Mamdani: [rolls natural 20] GM: that’s a d6 how did you Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊

New article up! AI skeptics and AI enthusiasts—even those who consider themselves reasonable, grounded members of both camps—can easily deter engagement through overstatement or overzealous claims. medium.com/@acornapocal... #ai #writingadvice #contentwriting #persuasino #rhetoric

This is the kind of thing that BlueSky is for

DYK a language dies every ~14 days & more than half of the world's 7,000 languages could vanish by 2100. The Eyak language went extinct #OTD in 2008 when Chief Marie Smith Jones of Alaska's Eyak tribe & the last fluent speaker of Eyak died at the age of 89. #indigenous #language #linguistics (1/2)

TWIN CITIES FOLKS WHO WANT TO HELP AND DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START: I put together a big list of resources. Do you want to deliver groceries? do people's laundry? work in community defense? I want to help you get connected! naomikritzer.com/2026/01/19/h...

We've extended the deadline for #NERCCS2026 ! Don’t miss it! ✅More affordable registration fee compared to other conferences ✅World-class researchers as keynote speakers ✅Conference proceedings published in a diamond open access journal 👉Submit here: shorturl.at/52o0q

Astonishing. Beautiful.

This is why LLM-generated fake citations are a problem. AI as it currently exists just can't be used for knowledge work. The infrastructure we have doesn't safeguard against the problems it creates.

Like a lot of folks, I'm culturally Christian but not practicing. To me, that means embracing the message of love, acceptance, and universal human worthiness that we associate with Christ. Wise words from our malört pontifex. Merry Christmas 🎄❤️

Attention Writers! Hot new tip. Next holiday season, ask for the gift of nunchuck

I understand that allocating grant money is complicated. Equity, access, prioritization, practical questions and fundamental research. I get that it's a hard, collective problem. But holy cow, we are NOT crushing it.

My own little guy came from Where the Love Is! I was in Guilford, CT at the time. I'd recommend them strongly to anyone nearby — they rely heavily on volunteers and, at least in Kiwi's case, rescued a litter of stray puppies from a ranch that couldn't keep 'em. Where's your pet from?

Destiny, back in 2014. No one had ever made a shooter that felt so good to play. A miracle of game design. And the vibes were immaculate. These days? Goat Simulator. What could compare to laughing with your spouse?

God that's so cool. Imagine a government just doing stuff that fixes problems. I know they haven't taken action yet, but they're moving very fast and they absolutely crushed it last time this happened.

I guess this has probably already gone viral somewhere but I am simply dying at this picture of a bear that looks like it hired a photographer to do a glamour shoot

Yes! A brilliant read.

Hey, I just wrote about this! Nadis, like Begus and co, relies on Chomsky to define "metalinguistic abilities” — so this paper actually has nothing to do with human language in the same way that phrenology has little to do with psychology. medium.com/@acornapocal...

Geertz's "thick description" adds necessary depth to observational research. I love that "thick" empathy also seeks the concrete, grounding empathy in specific shared experiences. Great example of how phenomenology, like materialist analysis, can anchor abstractions in the realities of human life.

Even if one extends unwarranted charitability, "biological male/female" demonstrates poor linguistic awareness and a weak grasp of concepts tied to gender, sex, and gender-affirming care. "AMAB/AFAB" or "trans man/woman" are clearer, more informative, more accurate, and kinder to boot.

There are so many stories of animals finding only destruction in our built spaces. I love when, occasionally, an animal stumbles in and goes "oh hell yeah, this rules, it's my time to shine" I feel like raccoons are the champs of this. Maybe also rats.

"Not only is the ratio of AI’s resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, AI-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind." www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the...

Doubly important since the most effective anti-trans bigotry aims to muddy the conversation past any shared consensus.

WE WON. I am *begging* you to take note of who did this. *Not* UCLA admin—they’re still scuttling around behind closed doors, attempting to appease—but FACULTY AND STAFF, led by AAUP.

In our upcoming Technomoral Conversation we will discuss how AI has transformed science for better or worse, what it means for AI to be seen as a scientist & whether AI can truly fulfill its promise for science. 🗓️ Tues 4 Nov 18.00-19.30 GMT 📍 Edinburgh Futures Institute & online 🎟️ edin.ac/3VSUXUt

MONUMENTS, an exhibit featuring decommissioned Confederate monuments paired with work by contemporary Black artists, opens in Los Angeles next week. This is Karon Davis' Descendants (2025), showing her son, Moses, holding a squirming replica Confederate general www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

How did I only just learn that "walrus" was in Old English written the other way around—horshwæl—because it means "horse-whale"?

Last chance to submit your video to the CogSci Mind Challenge! ONLY 2️⃣ DAYS LEFT!

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

And if you don't win, hey, that's a cool essay you can post, publish, or submit elsewhere. (As far as I can tell, anyway.) If you're an undergrad in linguistics, anthro, cog sci, STS, comms, etc., think about submitting!

Forgot to add 🐦🐦

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

This whole section really.

Yes. And to write or speak well is, usually, to deliver both nuance and clarity. Which is why it's so hard

Microsoft will no longer allow Israel to use its cloud services to enable its mass surveillance of occupied Palestinians – "the first known case of a US technology company withdrawing services provided to the Israeli military since the beginning of its war on Gaza"

I didn't know that collecting comics actually whips Well, reading comics really whips, and collecting them is fun and is how you support artists. Best of all, collect and share instead of collecting for value. Buy the books you think totally rule and lend them generously