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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 14h

variety.com/2025/film/ne...

Reposted by angela zhou

Carlos Scheidegger @cscheid.net · 1d

This may just be the best CS paper I’ve read this year. Just read the abstract and first para of the intro! The rest of the intro is really wild too, but very very good:

dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

A screenshot of an academic paper. It reads:

Abstract
A "
'quine" is a deterministic program that prints itself. In this essay, I will show you a "gauguine": a probabilistic program that infers itself. A gauguine is repeatedly asked to guess its own source code. Initially, its chances of guessing correctly are of course minuscule. But as the gauguine observes more and more of its own previous guesses, it detects patterns of behavior and gains information about its inner workings.
This information allows it to bootstrap self-knowledge, and ultimately discover its own source code. We will discuss how-and why-we might write a gauguine, and what we stand to learn by constructing one.
CCS Concepts: • Computing methodologies → Philo-sophical/theoretical foundations of artificial intelli-gence; Theory of mind.
Keywords: reflection, probabilistic programming
ACM Reference Format:
Kartik Chandra, Amanda Liu, Jonathan Ragan-Kelley, and Joshua B.
Tenenbaum. 2025. Gauguin, Descartes, Bayes: A Diurnal Golem's Brain. In Proceedings of the 2025 ACM SIGPLAN International Symposium on New Ideas, New Paradigms, and Reflections on Programming and Software (Onward! '25), October 12-18, 2025, Singapore, Singa-pore. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/
3759429.3762631

1 A Way of Knowing

From time to time, we all have crises of identity-moments of radical and overwhelming uncertainty about our selves.
I' don't know whether the doubts that seize us can really be externalized in language, but if I were to try, I would express them as questions, questions like: Who am I? What am I?
What kind of person? What kind of mind?

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Reposted by angela zhou

Shematologist, MD @shematologist.medsky.social · 17h

NHANES is an invaluable tool that many researchers including myself use to report on conditions in the general population.

Like the fact that ~40% of 12-21yo females are iron deficient.

Tinyurl.com/JAMAFe

And so much more important work.

But they’re destroying it all.

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Daphne Cornelisse @daphne-cornelisse.bsky.social · 2d

Rapid RL experimentation is great. But how do you catch silent errors before they slip by?

In this post, I share tools and habits that help me move quickly from idea to result without sacrificing reliability.

How to catch subtle RL bugs before they catch you

Tools and habits for reliable, fast RL experimentation and development

open.substack.com

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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 5d

I don't know! For my class I'm subtweeting (word problems for poets and quants) probably we need to split into ai vegan & totally vibe-coded project based learning. But more broadly - relying just on in person exams as wake up calls (our current strat) sounds miserable for everyone.

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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 5d

Smart! How long does it take to do the quiz?

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Alejandro Schuler @aschuler.bsky.social · 6d

More constant but lower-stakes formative assessments. My course has short (3 q) pass/fail, multiple choice, in-person quizzes every week. But students can retake (another version of) them some weeks later to get the credit back upon fail.

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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 6d

Hey teaching folks are you seeing this trend to:
- anything submitted online is fair game for AI usage and quizzes online might as well be hws (aka ai)
- only in person exams will get folks to look at course materials-> 4 midterms in a course
- too many midterms -> always overwhelmed -> use AI

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Gaël Varoquaux @gaelvaroquaux.bsky.social · 14d

Normative framework of bigger tech

(aka, me trolling the tech audience)

Gaël Varoquaux @gaelvaroquaux.bsky.social · 14d

Come to my lightning talk
At @pydataparis.bsky.social in a few minutes

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ProPublica @propublica.org · 15d

The DOGE team was acting like “a bunch of people who didn’t know what they were doing, with ideas of how government should run — thinking it should work like a McDonald’s or a bank — screaming all the time,” former SSA Commissioner Leland Dudek said.

The Untold Saga of What Happened When DOGE Stormed Social Security

DOGE has ignored urgently needed reforms and upgrades at the Social Security Administration, according to dozens of insiders and 15 hours of candid interviews with the former acting chief of the agenc...

www.propublica.org

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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 15d

sure looks like systemic risk for selling gpus to me

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Alissa Walker @awalkerinla.bsky.social · 15d

Last week, convention center expert Heywood Sanders wrote this about LA's expansion plan: "the likelihood of any significant increase in the city’s convention business is effectively nil."

So I called him up to talk me through his analysis — and what he told me makes LA's plan seem *even worse*

Why this convention center expert is calling LA's expansion plan a disaster

"If you think that somehow a bigger convention center is key to downtown revitalization, or is going to do wonders for local job creation, or economic development? The answer is, you've got to be kidd...

www.torched.la

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Reposted by angela zhou

Ruha Benjamin @ruha9.bsky.social · 16d

As someone currently on probation at Princeton, what also stands out here is the sham faculty governance on display:

Faculty panel reviews all the evidence n decides there is no grounds for suspension.

Admin overrules their decision n Provost Kavita Bala calls for significant disciplinary action.

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · 16d

The whole outrageous story:

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Cornell Cut Classes by a Pro-Palestinian Professor After an Israeli Student’s Discrimination Complaint

Dr. Eric Cheyfitz, who has taught at Cornell for more than two decades, claims the university is attempting to silence him as part of a broader crackdown on pro-Palestinian activism.

www.thenation.com

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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 18d

We're going to need a new example :)

Burrito Justice @burritojustice.bsky.social · 18d

today at the California DMV:

1:41: use ‘Get In Line’ on dmv.ca.gov, am #13
1:42: drive to DMV
1:53: text: “you’re #6”
2:02 PM: park at DMV
2:02: “your ticket is being called”, walk to window. agent shows me what I’m missing, hands me clipboard w/ 2nd form I need
2:12: return forms
2:30: leave DMV

https://dmv.ca.gov—am

angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 18d

Do you have any other recommendations/ is there a good list around? :D

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Aaron Roth @aaroth.bsky.social · 20d

The opportunities and risks of the entry of LLMs into mathematical research in one screenshot. I think it is clear that LLMs will make trained researchers more effective. But they will also lead to a flood of bad/wrong papers, and I'm not sure we have the tools to deal with this.

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bianca wylie @biancawylie.com · 20d

"...a coalition-driven approach to AI contracting has the potential to flip the script – where public authorities set the terms and use their purchasing power to demand performance standards and quality control."
www.techpolicy.press/cities-need-...

Cities Need a New Model for Incentivizing Responsible AI | TechPolicy.Press

Emily Royall makes the case for cities to set AI benchmarks in procurement to drive accuracy, security, transparency, and accountable public sector use.

www.techpolicy.press

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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 22d

Is Jimmy Kimmel actually reading at stories tn or was that a social media intern joke

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Dr. William Horne @wihorne.bsky.social · 22d

The boycotts work, kids, & represent our most direct weapon against fascism in this moment. Time to *expand* them & leverage their impact against this increasingly dangerous regime.

Lauren McKenzie @themckenziest.gay · 22d

Jimmy Kimmel coming back to ABC after all of this is WILD

Jimmy Kimmel's show returning on Tuesday, ABC announces

The network pulled the show after the Federal Communications Commission chair threatened to revoke ABC affiliate licenses after the host's comments about Charlie Kirk's death.

www.nbcnews.com

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Andy Halterman @ahalterman.bsky.social · 26d

Very excited that my paper with @katakeith.bsky.social is now out in @polanalysis.bsky.social. We investigate whether LLMs actually follow the instructions/definitions provided in codebooks, propose some diagnostics, and release a new evaluation dataset.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Codebook LLMs: Evaluating LLMs as Measurement Tools for Political Science Concepts | Political Analysis | Cambridge Core

Codebook LLMs: Evaluating LLMs as Measurement Tools for Political Science Concepts

www.cambridge.org

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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 22d

Everyone, I wanted to let you know about the sad news that despite everyone's best efforts Bluestockings will close at the end of the year: www.bluestockings.com - I want to thank every single person who sent books to them through my book drive [will share more later]. A tremendous loss to NYC.

Bluestockings Cooperative

Bluestockings Cooperative: Established in 1999, Worker-Owned since 2021. Located at 116 Suffolk Street, New York, NY 10002. One of NYC's only queer, trans, sex-worker run bookstores.

www.bluestockings.com

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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 26d

it's time to launch

a picture of idyllic woods + pond. overlaid text reads "GROUNDED AI - TOUCH GRASS"

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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 26d

i'm stressed . tech culture has gone too far . it's time to move to a small hut in the mountains

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Alt18F @alt18f.bsky.social · 27d

“I hope that [future administrations] pick the tax work back up where it was, which was a lot of momentum. And I hope they take that same energy across the rest of the government. I’m a firm believer, government can be a force for good in people’s lives."

Direct File died under Trump. Meet the creators planning for its second life

After building the IRS’s free electronic filing tool, the Economic Security Project’s Future of Tax Filing fellows are writing a playbook for it to “come back someday” — and pushing for more.

fedscoop.com

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Reposted by angela zhou

Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 28d

Shot/chaser from today's NY Times:

1. Trump's Medicaid cuts are taking away housing from homeless people: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/u...

www.nytimes.com

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