Bruce D. Baker | Lightnews

Kate Shaw @kateshaw.bsky.social · 2h

I don’t write the headlines but I do like this one (post-Slaughter argument roundtable for @nytimes.com with @stevevladeck.bsky.social & @williambaude.bsky.social)

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/o...

Opinion | Looks Like the Supreme Court Will Continue to Overturn the 20th Century

www.nytimes.com

Leah Litman @leahlitman.bsky.social · 22h

"The New Substantive Due Process" - repository.law.umich.edu/articles/3065/

The New Substantive Due Process

After the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, commentators made much about the possible demise of substantive due process—the idea that the Constitution safeguards certain substantive liberties that ...

repository.law.umich.edu

Ed Fuller @edfuller.bsky.social · 23h

Im reviewing all rsch on teacher turnover & std achievement. Almost all studies find turnover affects ach (mostly negative) except for 1 guy who spent career arguing money didn't matter & then finally relented after it became obvious it did.

@schoolfinance101.bsky.social #EduSky #AcademicSky

Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 1d

The Department of Education is planning to start and finish workforce Pell regulation negotiations this week. Just like a student who waits until the last minute to write a term paper, the likelihood of mistakes making their way into important documents rises.

ED Wants to Begin and End Workforce Pell This Week

Higher ed policy experts question whether one week of negotiations will be enough to figure out how to expand the Pell Grant to workforce training programs.

www.insidehighered.com

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 1d

The evidence is the text. All you have to do is read the Constitution.

Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 2d

Indeed. I think it would be stranger if we *didn't* commonly impute thinking to something that's effectively producing words, since we spend our whole lives using and interpreting language being used to convey real thoughts. The ELIZA effect is rational! But also clearly a mistake.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 2d

human-ish?

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 2d

We weren't as easily duped when neural nets were being used for forecasting numeric patterns (or were we?) because that seemed less-human an activity. Predicting word/phrase likelihoods in context (based on massive training/test set data) is no different. It's just that the output appears more human

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 2d

Right - and it's because our minds work this way that many tend to overstate/misunderstand what LLMs are doing. Our minds are "making sense" of their word sequence predictions. They are not "making sense" of anything. We too often project that "sense making" onto the LLM itself. NO!

Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 3d

"Unlike a LLM, the human language network doesn’t string words into plausible-sounding patterns; instead, it acts as a translator between external perceptions and representations of meaning encoded in other parts of the brain (including episodic memory & social cognition, which LLMs don’t possess)."

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 4d

In brain scans of around 1,400 people, the cognitive scientist Ev Fedorenko has identified a sort of digestive system for language. Fedorenko spoke with Quanta about the system’s workings and how they might be compared to an LLM or the digestive system. www.quantamagazine.org/the-polyglot...

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 3d

what midwestern fool decided that was a good idea?

Benjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 3d

"Unlike a LLM, the human language network doesn’t string words into plausible-sounding patterns; instead, it acts as a translator between external perceptions and representations of meaning encoded in other parts of the brain (including episodic memory & social cognition, which LLMs don’t possess)."

Quanta Magazine @quantamagazine.bsky.social · 4d

In brain scans of around 1,400 people, the cognitive scientist Ev Fedorenko has identified a sort of digestive system for language. Fedorenko spoke with Quanta about the system’s workings and how they might be compared to an LLM or the digestive system. www.quantamagazine.org/the-polyglot...

The Polyglot Neuroscientist Resolving How the Brain Parses Language | Quanta Magazine

Is language core to thought, or a separate process? For 15 years, the neuroscientist Ev Fedorenko has gathered evidence of a language network in the human brain — and has found some similarities to LL...

www.quantamagazine.org

Anthony Michael Kreis @anthonymkreis.bsky.social · 3d

The entire debate over birthright citizenship is anti-constitutional because the purpose, intent, and text of the 14th Amendment were designed to foreclose any argument about who counts as an American citizen.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 3d

Then it's still Amtrak

Adam "I Was Hoping We Could Keep It" Laats @adamlaats.bsky.social · 4d

Thanks to @pbump.com for pointing it out.

Are they Nazis? Maybe, but there is a much closer parallel that carries just as much weight and is much closer to home:

Robed Ku Klux Klan figures next to a parade float proclaiming support for American public schools.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

hmmm... but how's the wifi signal?

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

the desire to subvert regular admissions was in each case associated with the pressure of accessing highly selective schools (Georgetown, USC) - not like OU? so that's curious as well.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

Most of the side door bribe cases were just about subverting regular admissions process - not about accessing D1 scholarship funds. ALSO - most of the bribes I saw reported were actually less than the cumulative expense of actual training to be good enough.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

many possibilities. But very curious when a player isn't even really qualified to be a practice partner.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

Actual athletes bust their asses for years to gain access to these slots! It's damn hard work and consumes many hours, even to make the cut on a decent DIII team. Save for another day the exploding economic inequality of the youth athletics pipeline.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

Two tennis coaches went down in this scandal (UT Austin? and Georgetown, though he had moved back to Rhode Island before the scandal hit)

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

*Apologies for the many typos in this thread - I think the point is still sufficiently clear. Someone needs to look into this potentially "impermissible benefit" and/or if such a benefit was bestowed to an unqualified candidate.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

Admissions offices and/or NCAA compliance offices need to be checking that an athlete is actually qualified? Someone should!

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

The way the process often goes - even at highly selective DIII schools (where womens tennis UTRs range from 6.5 to 9.5 btw) - is that the coach recommends a player for admissions and the admissions officers validate academic qualifications (but not athletic qualifications).

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

Going back to the admissions scandal, it was parents and coaches to seemed to take the hit. Parents, rightfully so. Coaches were/are the weak link in that they are a vulnerable point in the admissions process. They are underpaid, often (tennis, sailing, water polo) but have great power.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

I only went down this rabbit hole because there were posts on the "other" site about her as a tennis player: x.com/OU_WTennis/s... and I was simply curious how good? Habit of a long time tennis dad and former coach.

x.com

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

Slightly below the current #400 ranked US 6th grader (on tennis recruiting). The OU student in question appears on, but has not rating on tennis recruiting at all. What we have is enough record to validate that this player was simply not (even close to) qualified as an OU tennis recruit.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

OU women's tennis has mostly international recruits with "universal tennis ratings" at or above 10.0. The player in question last played any recorded match at an OU summer camp in '23 and had a UTR of 2.71. How weak is that by comparison?

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

An intriguing side story to the OU religious essay scandal, is that the student appears to have been given a slot on the OU women's tennis team (a very good team in D1), despite being verifiably unqualified (out of state applicant from Missouri). I have no idea why, but someone should be asking.

Bruce D. Baker @schoolfinance101.bsky.social · 4d

After the "college admissions scandal" which involved parents bribing boutique sports coaches (who are often underpaid) to give their children recruiting slots for which they simply weren't qualified (as an athlete) I started explaining the easy sources for checking athlete legitimacy in Tennis.

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