Brantman

Brantman

@brantman.bsky.social

Scientist, Husband, Cat and Dog father "We have the purpose of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States, and you know it, and that is all." -Clarence Darrow, Scopes Trial 1925

638 followers978 following1.2K posts

Pinned

Brantman
@brantman.bsky.social

Replying to @alexwild.bsky.social

It is worth adding that a huge part of the federal research budget goes through the NIH (under HHS), so Kennedy could do as much if not more damage to science than Elmo. The "pause on infectious disease" is potentially the most deadly sentence ever uttered, especially given recent history.

Brantman reposted

North Carolina Conference of the AAUP
@ncaaup.bsky.social

This op-ed really nails it. Universities going all in on generative AI are pulling us backwards on student mental health. Is that the university mission? Is that what a public good looks like? ncnewsline.com/2026/10/08/w...

ncnewsline.comCommentary: Would your campus host credit card companies or Big Tobacco? Then why Big Tech? • NC NewslineLike many other universities, NC State is introducing generative AI products into workspaces, classrooms, and learning management systems, but, to my knowledge, they are not informing students and par...

Brantman reposted

Eliot Higgins
@eliothiggins.bsky.social

In fairness to Russia, when they complain to states, countries don't pull out of supporting counterdisinformation conferences, so maybe "after Russia" isn't 100% accurate.

This post is unavailable.

Brantman reposted

James O'Malley
@jamesomalley.co.uk

Holy shit. Someone has decompiled the Adobe suite, rebuilt it in Rust and released it as open source. Either all software is dead or the US copyright laws are about to receive an update. getartcraft.com/apps

getartcraft.comCrafting Apps: open-source creative toolsImage editing, vector illustration, video, photography, PDFs, motion graphics and page layout: seven native, open-source apps from the ArtCraft team, built in Rust and free to use.

Brantman reposted

mr. TIM
@timkellogg.me

another researcher accuses OpenAI of training on conversations and then claiming a breakthrough

Brantman reposted

Benjamin Riley
@benjaminjriley.bsky.social

So we know AI helped a negligible number of students. But how many did it harm? I've crunched the raw data provided by the lead researcher, and what I've found is that ~9,500 students using AI studied less than even the *least* studious, non-AI using student. This should shock the conscience.

Benjamin Riley@benjaminjriley.bsky.social

Both the Economist and others suggest this study demonstrates that AI can help students. So I contacted the lead researcher to figure out how many. Answer: Out of ~26,000 kids, a total of 20. And five months after starting to use AI, only four continued to spend 65 minutes on homework. Four.

Brantman reposted

Michael Clemens
@mclem.org

Incredible. When E—n M—k & his crew obliterated USAID in a weekend, they deleted a vast trove of publicly-funded knowledge: the Development Experience Clearinghouse. A Canadian high school student (!) happened to have downloaded the entire thing for a project. AidData has now posted it for all.

aiddata.orgBefore reimagining development data, remember what we’ve learnedWhy we’re publishing a free, searchable, and ungated archive featuring a quarter-century of USAID evaluation reports.

Brantman reposted

Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD
@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social

Trump is signing an executive order today recommending that the MMR vaccine be separated into separate vaccines. There is no scientific basis for this recommendation. Separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines are generally not available in the U.S. Vaccines do not cause autism.

apnews.comTrump to sign executive order calling for spacing out childhood shotsPresident Donald Trump will sign an executive order calling for spacing out childhood vaccines into separate medical visits and splitting the combined measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three dif...

Brantman reposted

Steven Kahn
@sekahn.bsky.social

Given recent events at the ADA meeting, Kamran Abbasi, editor-in-chief of The British Medical Journal, speaks out on freedom of the press, politics, and science. Why do US editors not do likewise? Where are the medical associations? Muzzled? Do you want to be counted amongst those who stayed silent?

Brantman reposted

Oxford Clarion
@oxfordclarion.bsky.social

800 new homes are being lined up for the former North Oxford Golf Club, opposite Oxford Parkway. The ‘Land West of Oxford Road’ project, described as “a sustainable urban extension to the city”, is being brought forward by Oxford University’s development arm plus Exeter and Merton colleges.

Brantman reposted

McSweeney's
@mcsweeneys.net

"Ben owns a farm. He employs 100 workers. His total payroll is $10 million/year. One day, he buys a mule, which provides the worker who uses it with a modest 10% productivity gain. Ben fires 99 of his workers and purchases 99 mules, expecting a 1,000% productivity gain..."

buff.lyAI Economics for Dummies“Xavier owns an apartment that he rents out at a loss of $1 billion/month. Seeing this success, he decides to make financial commitments to construct $850 bi...