Erinn O'Dear
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erinnthered.bsky.social
Erinn O'Dear
@erinnthered.bsky.social
Redhead. Texan. Vagabond.

Expect typos she/her
Pinned
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
My uncle, Douglas Colesworthy, on the AIDS Memorial Quilt. He died in 1987. Silence = death.
December 2, 2025 at 3:08 AM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
i’m setting you free. i’m releasing you from the discourse
December 2, 2025 at 1:39 AM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
every trans person i see post about the OU suspension knows that the suspended target is trans & a grad student, & has an innate awareness that this is about purging trans employees. every cis person i see thinks the target is a rando professor & that this is about giving conservatives good grades
December 1, 2025 at 12:04 AM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
Headlines like this are extremely dangerous. Because moms of young kids are the people who make the bulk of the vaccine decisions for famillies. And for a lot of them, "reading the news" looks like scrolling past headlines on social media in the spare moments of the chaos of caring for kids.
November 29, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
This is a huge part of why so many people think we're in the middle of a widespread "anti-woke backlash": Small movements opposed to social progress are collected into trend stories by conservative media. Far larger movements that want more diversity are ignored or cast as threats.
"Woke is ruining D&D". Meanwhile Dimension 20, one of the wokest real play shows around, just sold out Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl for live shows and brings armies of new players to RPGs.
November 30, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
try to imagine the media firestorm if the military was conducting strikes and obama, clinton, or biden said "i dont know anything about it" and how the media just shrugs at trump saying the same thing.
talking to reporters last night, Trump claimed of Hegseth's double tap strike that "I don't know anything about it," then moments later claimed "I don't who you're talking about" when asked his plan to pardon the former Honduran president
December 1, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
Headline: "AI can replace 11.7% of workforce"

Actual study: Anthropic paid MIT to use a "labor simulation tool" that said 11.7% of TASKS could be done by AI
MIT study finds AI can already replace 11.7% of U.S. workforce
Artificial intelligence can already replace 11.7% of the U.S. labor market, across finance, health care and professional services, according to MIT's study.
www.cnbc.com
November 29, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
The enshitification of scientific publishing marches on. First arXiv had to clamp down on submissions thanks to a flood of AI-written papers.

Now ICLR authors say their peer reviews were churned out by AI. Reviews full of hallucinated content that didn’t exist and offering useless, vague feedback.
Major AI conference flooded with peer reviews written fully by AI
Controversy has erupted after 21% of manuscript reviews for an international AI conference were found to be generated by artificial intelligence.
www.nature.com
November 30, 2025 at 4:38 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
The Krugman blog today on affordability gets at exactly what I think is happening, and what's missed in the vibecession debates

paulkrugman.substack.com/p/affordabil...
November 30, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
It’s useful to think about things like this in numbers of tenure track professors.

$33M is 358 assistant professors. Or about fourteen percent of the total number of full-time faculty at Michigan State.
SOURCES: Michigan State is firing head coach Jonathan Smith, @theathletic.com has learned.

He went 9-15 in two seasons, including 1-8 in the Big Ten this year. (ESPN first reported).

MSU players meeting called for 2:45. Smith has a $33 million buyout (with offset).
December 1, 2025 at 12:05 AM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
A lot of editors don't even know about media magnification. One of the shocking things - to me - when I left journalism school was how little editors knew about like the study of journalism as a discipline. It's a profession based in norms even if those norms are harmful.
Unfortunately, in US journalism it is considered neutral to spread a lie, but it is considered "biased" to call out a lie. So, there is a structural asymmetry that rewards colorful lies with virality.
November 30, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
this is quite the detail
November 30, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
"They're trying to change our habits, because all of the projections rely on people becoming truly dependent on the technology. Whether or not it's actually a good thing for society isn't considered to be a factor."
Analysis: OpenAI is a loss-making machine, how can it survive?
Don't call it a bubble! Loss-making monster OpenAI is on the hook for $1.4 trillion (with a T) in compute commitments. How can this go on?
www.windowscentral.com
November 29, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
just a reminder that *lots* of countries have universities, and (to my knowledge) none of them but the U.S. treat their universities as largely minor league sports franchises
LSU is paying its previous football coach over $50 million NOT to coach there while likely guaranteeing Kiffin something approaching double that, all while having an academic hiring freeze and budget cuts across the board. What is the purpose of a university (rhetorical)?
SOURCES: Lane Kiffin is expected to accept LSU's offer to become the Tigers next head coach. Kiffin is set to meet with his Ole Miss team this morning at 9 AM CT. As we reported yesterday morning, LSU has been very confident it was going to land Kiffin. www.nytimes.com/athletic/684...
November 30, 2025 at 5:24 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
Chotiner’s superpower isn’t pointing out to a powerful person’s face that they’re wrong, it’s continuing to work in media after repeatedly doing so.
It’s always fun to see the clips of the Sunday political shows because you get to go “yep the news lets people lie to them for an hour and airs it”
November 30, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Ugh. My favorite playright. If you have a chance to see one of his works, take it. Any of them. You won't regret it.
Goodbye to the master.

❤️
November 30, 2025 at 11:39 AM
Hi, it's me. I just figured out why the grids in Stranger Things have names like G1. I definitely did not have a Key Map in my car until a decade ago. Thanks, insomnia!
November 30, 2025 at 8:50 AM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
our media is so obsessed with the five famous assholes who unapologetically fucked up instead of all the people who didn't

what about everyone who doesn't "need" a second chance because they didn't expose themselves or assault anyone or move a former student into their house right after graduation?
November 29, 2025 at 8:12 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
"I'm canceled," he says in the sleek profile they gave to him in the New Yorker while his latest special & his new novel is coming out. A lot of people wish they were that canceled.
Louis CK is not in a limbo of cancellation. He's straight up not cancelled & his "cancellation" became a profitable bit for him.
November 29, 2025 at 8:19 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
Since Louis CK is in the news again, it's worth restating that he never gave an honest accounting of his sexual misconduct—his initial "apology" and his subsequent statements have been contradicted by the testimony of his victims, and contained elisions and gaps intended to exonerate him.
November 29, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Thread and article
Years ago, my colleagues at Business Insider and I tracked YouTuber “cancellation” arcs. What we found is that for many entertainers, “cancellation” actually sets the stage for a redemption arc, one that can raise their profile higher than ever. It wasn’t career-ending. It was fuel.
November 29, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Reposted by Erinn O'Dear
The death of browsing is part of the reason art is the way it is now. Our opinions are largely fed to us by algorithms. Spending a spare 15 minutes wandering around a bookstore or comic shop or video rental place was how you found stuff you wouldn't ordinarily pick up and thereby expanded your taste
Bookselling is like the most "people go to the store and buy what looks cool to them without a particular agenda" type business left, and your purchases have a huge influence on what is ordered, what is displayed, and what is recommended.
November 29, 2025 at 6:44 PM
Oceangate, but with weapons.
Since its founding in 2017, Anduril Industries has become one of the hottest companies in a crowded field of defense-tech startup.

Its fast-moving approach comes with its share of setbacks.
‘We Do Fail … a Lot’: Defense Startup Anduril Hits Setbacks With Weapons Tech
The company’s products have had breakdowns and safety issues, documents show.
on.wsj.com
November 29, 2025 at 1:59 AM
Love to see these guys building the case against them every day. If you have a relative in SOUTHCOM remind them short term punishment is better than a murder rap.
“The strikes are so above board that we shitcanned the SOUTHCOM JAG lawyer for raising concerns!”
a lot of words, none of them denying that Hegseth gave an order to kill helpless people who were stranded at sea after he blew up their boats
November 29, 2025 at 1:50 AM
Condolences to Northwestern grads, but don't send your kids to any university that agrees to extortion.
BREAKING: Northwestern University has agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $75 million, over the course of three years as part of an agreement with the federal government to restore funding and end investigations into the university

Full statement from NU below:
November 29, 2025 at 1:48 AM