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alexsaum.bsky.social
reader, writer, poet, professor. Doing digital things in and out of UC Berkeley. En inglés y en español. Spain and LatAm, but also English comparative stuff <3 (she/her) http://www.alexsaum.com/ // not sure if she can do this all over again //
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The next time that someone aligned with the current administration blusters about how they support free speech, post this list of words federal agencies are being told to avoid using. Heaven forbid you use the word "injustice." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

The public really needs to understand this. Every university system in the world rests on public funding, there has never been an alternative model at any time in history. We have universities for literally the same reason that we have roads and armies.

In the USA in 2025 ordinary people have to rally to protect basic science. @standupforscience.bsky.social

Nice turn up at #standUpforScience at UC Berkeley today!

This is today, friends! You shouldn't miss it! Paloma es la más lista y lo saben!

Atentes, amigues! Este libro increíble sale en unos días! Es de lo más completo que hay ahora mismo para entender la España contemporánea (sea lo que sea eso!) www.routledge.com/The-Routledg...

While Trump obviously takes this to a new level, some of us have been saying that this is often a root impulse of the criminal law: it claims it is a shield to protect people, while in reality it is a sword used to attack disfavored groups. Most gang policing falls into this category. Gun laws too.

Cómo era aquello de decirle que no a las drogas? www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

«AI in this scenario exists not for its own sentient self-interest but as an instrument for consolidating power in the hands of the few ... AI will simultaneously be a Potemkin replacement for actual services, resources, and expertise, and a powerful tool of weaponized dataveillance.»

I'll participate on Friday at UC Berkeley. Find your nearest march and join us!! #StandUpForScience

I asked my MLIS students to give me 6 words each to describe their feelings about AI and the future of information professions.

The competitive authoritarian playbook - make vague, illiberal proclamations and try to intimidate people with the possibility of selective prosecution or other forms of punishment

mi wifa publica libro y VAYA LIBRO!!!!

It's out! "Storyteller + digital artist Mez Breeze explores the liminal spaces of The #Backrooms, a #foundfootage web series which is based on a popular #creepypasta of the same name. In doing so, Breeze confronts the feelings of alienation and predation inherent to late-stage capitalist society."

📣The CFP for #ACH2025, our virtual #DigitalHumanities conference, is now available! The conference will be held June 11-13. Proposals due March 23.

These numbers are terrifying www.nytimes.com/2025/02/27/o...

Trump regime working to accelerate climate change.

me estás matando locamente, pero no sé cómo te lo voy a decir

"The same system that lets companies profit off the public domain and decades of creative theft is the same one that enables AI firms to scrape public domain material without credit, compensation, or regard for its original context." - @goodspeed.bsky.social

whenever I am feeling gaslighted by the political moment I play this awesome song. you are welcome. happy tuesday. youtu.be/AE1ct5yEuVY?...

and the best possible title ever

today, friends, only in person :)

Well, crows wake me up every morning at 5 am, so maybe now I will be able to ask them politely to shut the f up. One of the best uses of #AI so far, imo www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Another on my favorite topics around tech metaphors 😒😒

I know it's all about #AI lately BUT have you wondered about the future of #VR? If you have, come join us Monday 2/24 at 4pm! I will be talking with the brilliant Nicole Starosielski, Clancy Wilmott and Emma Fraser More info and registration here> matrix.berkeley.edu/events/virtu...

📡 at very long last, today is the big day! my beloved book, OTHER NETWORKS: A RADICAL TECHNOLOGY SOURCEBOOK, is officially available for pre-order! 1/5 #othernetworks shop.mexicansummer.com/merch/495898...

A better word than “hype” for how AI is now being deployed is *opportunism* (which resolves to capitalism).

Cognitive offloading makes adaptive sense. I also think I’m dumber by the day. Thanks.

I know a million other bad things happened today but this is truly awful and will make so many people's lives worse.

Come work with us at the Berkeley Center for New Media! We are looking for a Lecturer in Digital Infrastructures to join us this summer! More deets and apply here>>>> aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04745

Also today!

Today!

I wrote for Slate about how a conservative think tank plans to "identify and target" Wikipedia editors who it claims are abusing their position—a dangerous escalation that shifts the fight from debating edits to going after the editors themselves. slate.com/technology/2...

Google: don't be evil Also Google: jk be as evil as you wanna be, literally slay, Queen www.wired.com/story/google...

You should buy or borrow David Golumbia's _Cyberlibertarianism_. We lost him too soon but he still rose to the moment.

El eterno dilema del "malmenor-ismo"; "ya que todes lo usan, mejor usar una versión customizada que sea más 'segura' no?"

Interrupting your doomscrolling to share this cute event our grad students are organizing in our #Spanish and #Portuguese Department, where faculty and grads share our on-going research projects <3 Come if you are around! Friday 1pm at Dwinelle 5125 @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social

Jevons paradox getting its moment in the sun

President Trump issued an executive order to find out what education funds he can legally rescind based on curriculum he doesn’t like. Existing law already answers that question —nothing.

Past-Present-Past-Present-Future www.iwm.org.uk/collections/...

La mayor asociación de escritores de los EEUU "certifica" el valor de entender la voz literaria como voz humana www.theverge.com/news/602918/...

Apaga y vámonos. Literal.

The winner of the 2025 Internet Archive Public Domain contest, where the 130+ contestants were encouraged to use recent public domain works to make a brand new remix, is really a different level. "When I Leave the World Behind" Queline Meadows archive.org/details/when...

Attacks on higher ed are also attacks on the economy. Pass it on.