Author | Lightnews

Raechel Portelli

@raportelli.bsky.social

1.3K followers 1.5K following 1.2K posts

Geographer- too many interests to take academia seriously (thanks ADHD)? Teach courses in data science, cartography, and GeoAI Literacy. If it's tactile art, I've probably attacked it in a hyperfocus episode ⭐

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · Jan 26

"What would you be like if there was nobody else in the world? Who would you be if the only opinion was yours? Because if you want to be truly happy you must be that person. You must search inside yourself for what is uniquely you. When you find it, polish it, until it becomes your style." Crisp'09

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Reposted by Raechel Portelli

God @thegodpodcast.com · 11h

Thou shalt not the miserable pricks get you down. It’s literally the only thing they want; for you to be as miserable as they are.

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 8h

I finished it. Book 12 of 2025. It was such a fast read once I got into it. Atlas of AI needs to get done next and I'm 100% sure I will not hit 20 books in 2025.:(

Cover of Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter pomerantsev

Reposted by Raechel Portelli

Katrina Stack @katgeographic.bsky.social · 9h

📢 Call for Panelists | #AAG2026
“Ethics, Creativity, and Refusal in Storytelling and Scholarship”

Interested in joining our panel? Email 📩
[email protected] + [email protected]

Full panel description ⬇️
www.canva.com/design/DAG2h...

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 8h

This sounds amazing!

Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 10h

There is a great exhibit on this at the Air Force History Museum at Wright-Patterson. A must see place for anyone interested in air tech and photo interpretation.

Renata Keller @renatakeller.bsky.social · 13h

63 years ago today, on October 22, 1962, JFK revealed to the world that the Soviet Union had placed nuclear missiles in Cuba. To mark the anniversary, I'm going to share an excerpt from The Fate of the Americas where I offer a new "take" on this famous speech... (1/16) #History 🗃️

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 10h

I hope the person using a crosscut saw in the dorm room above me doesn't plan on doing it all night since I left my noise cancelling headphones in the office. Also, a very random new set of watercolor paints for play.

Water color paints in their pan and on a page in bright neon colors.

Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 1d

Random question for everyone. What would a chicken wrap it's wings around? No wrong answers

Reposted by Raechel Portelli

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 1d

From photos of cutover land in the Wisconsin State Historical Society collections. Photographer, date, and location unknown for this one. More: www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records?&fac...

A large area of land covered with stumps. There is a prominent gully in the foreground.

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 1d

We're doing some sentiment analysis next semester in two classes and so I thought I'd refresh my mind before I try to teach it again. I won't say what the topic is in this trial, but you can probably guess from the way the title sentiments are aligned geographically.

Bar chart showing the number of articles falling within each of the different geographic regions - Midwest, northwest, pacific northwest, southeast and southwest. Negative click bait titles reign supreme in red, while blue is a title aligned with the article content and green represents positive clickbait.

Reposted by Raechel Portelli

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 1d

Trump's FTC just deleted articles by former Chair Lina Khan about the dangers of AI.

Meanwhile, Trump is fast-tracking data center permits after Big Tech gave huge donations to his inauguration.

AI is making the richest Americans even richer while everyone else pays the price.

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 1d

I miss my dogs.

White woman and black dog locked eyes while he's sitting on her lap.

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 1d

My least favorite part of online teaching is the lack of boundaries. From email expectations late night to submitting assignments weeks late even with the implicit instructions that you cannot submit late work past 1 wk (or after the official course end date). It's like herding cats.

three cats are standing next to each other with one wearing a bell collar

Alt: four cats are standing next to each other with one wearing a bell collar and another wearing a red bow tie.

media.tenor.com

Reposted by Raechel Portelli

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 2d

Amazon controls over a third of the global cloud computing market.

Its customers include Capital One, United Airlines, and the US Army.

Today's outage should be a wakeup call: Dependence on a handful of powerful corporations is a threat to economic and national security.

Morning Brew ☕️ @morningbrew.extwitter.link · 2d

BREAKING: Amazon Web Services

A massive AWS outage early this morning sent major websites and apps down for several hours

Tracking site Downdetector has received over 8 million reports around the globe

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capitolhunters @capitolhunters.bsky.social · 2d

Many people are outraged that Trump is demolishing part of the White House. But of course Trump can't do it without help. It's ACECO LLC of Silver Spring MD ("full-service demolition") that is tearing down the People's House. You can call them and let them know how you feel. 1/

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Jen Mapes @mapesgeog.bsky.social · 2d

Was fortunate to have Micheale Glennon visit my lab today and she brought examples of her work: Maps? Art? Dataviz? All of the above✅ These show 1. the importance of stream buffers, 2. how HABs are created and 3. underwater pollutants in the Genesee watershed. www.adkwatershed.org/wool-water-g...

Green and blue weaving. From her website: “This piece represents a hypothetical stream in an agricultural setting and ranges from a poor (nonexistent) buffer at one end to a high-quality, wide and structurally diverse buffer at the other.”

From her website: “ This is a half-pi shawl depicting the conditions favorable for the formation of harmful algal blooms which include sun, warm, calm water, and nutrients. In this improvised shawl the sun is at the top and solid color rows depict warming water temperature. Next is a section of wavy stitches followed by plain garter stitch which depicts the transition to calm conditions. Beads represent nutrient inputs. At the bottom edge, the combination of these factors – sun + warm, calm conditions + nutrients – results in HABs represented by bright green roving.”

From her website: “This sweater is a representation of the Rochester embayment and infrastructure identified by the Environmental Protection Agency as vulnerable to extreme weather including the total number of underground pollutant storage tanks (335; bobbles) and permitted dischargers (31; colored squares) within the Genesee River watershed.”

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Reposted by Raechel Portelli

wishda @wishda.bsky.social · 2d

After 20 or so years in higher ed, these are the major changes I’ve seen.

The over-reliance on adjuncts has eroded faculty power.

Faculty power is concentrated on those who bring in large grants and run centers. That power is not shared.

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Keith Hamilton Putnam @timetravel.camp · 2d

The AWS outage today is a good reminder that there is no "cloud", there's just somebody else's computer.

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 2d

A good excuse not to determine final grades for the 8 week courses:)#ThankYouAmazon

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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 3d

The 100 lowest-paying US corporations spent $644B on stock buybacks from 2019 to 2024.

Buybacks artificially boost share prices and inflate CEO pay.

The typical worker at these companies earned $35k last year.

Meanwhile, the average CEO was paid $17.2M

See the problem?

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Suzette Smith @suzettesmith.bsky.social · 4d

At the South Portland ICE facility, after pushing back the crowd to let some vehicles leave, agents gassed the street for approximately 10 minutes solid. S Bancroft was opaque with gas; agents also threw flash grenades and shot pepper bullets.

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Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 3d

Close looking today. Gray tree frog. His little froggy knee pits are yellow and black spots.

Gray tree frog with gray and lighter gray splotching but yellow and black spots in his joints.

Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 3d

Lol, it's amazing how long things can hide. One of my chores was cleaning the kitchen and I used to throw away Mom's old (like before I was born) spices and herbs. She'd take them out of the garbage and put them back.

Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 3d

Working on the GeoAI Literacy course for next semester and came across this really interesting project. Very interesting perspectives that I can't say that I've given much thought to. The Better Images of AI Guide: blog.betterimagesofai.org/better-image...

Better Images of AI: A Guide for Users and Creators - Better Images of AI Blog

Stock images strongly influence the ways in which non-expert audiences think about and understand the topics they illustrate. This is why it is worrying that research has repeatedly shown that many im...

blog.betterimagesofai.org

Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 3d

Happy Detroit Marathon Day to all the celebrates. Should be a "fun" one with the rain leftover and the high winds today.

Raechel Portelli @raportelli.bsky.social · 4d

Thank you Louisville and NACIS for a fabulous time, but I'm completely ready to hit the road!💛

The "to hotel lobby" light up square sign