Frank Elavsky ⌁
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frank.computer
Frank Elavsky ⌁
@frank.computer
On the faculty job market!

Presently PhD candidate on "toolmaking" @hcii.cmu.edu. Former: Adobe, Highsoft, Apple, Visa, etc.

I care a lot about accessible data interaction 📊 (:

Disabled, getting into trouble, & making a ttrpg.

He/him
www.frank.computer
Pinned
I just finished recording my course materials for @albertocairo.com's Open Visualization Academy. 🎉

I'm looking forward to being able to share the first-ever comprehensive online course on Accessibility in Visualization. Stay tuned for this January!

openvisualizationacademy.org
Open Visualization Academy
openvisualizationacademy.org
This little project is still something that I would hope to explore more someday. It delights me when folks find one of these more-obscure side projects of mine!

I think that shared spaces should be co-repaired places.
”Filling the potholes of the web” by @frank.computer (2024)

www.frank.computer/blog/2024/04...
November 10, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Ahhh, I have my first on-site interview for a tenure-track faculty job next week! 🎉 Please wish me luck, but also send any tips or advice you have, especially on questions I should ask and things I should look out for.

Feels wild to have my first interview in so long, too.
November 10, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
i kind of like the idea of ghosts manifesting exclusively as white collar crime tied to specific buildings
November 10, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
I do not know how to explain to you how it feels to watch your savings go up in flames paying healthcare costs while fighting a medical system that gaslit you for years before finally giving you an accurate diagnosis and starting appropriate treatment that isn't covered by insurance...

and now this
November 10, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
It is very weird seeing my friends and family slowly start to realize we're not overreacting.
Read every word & share with everyone you know. This is real life here in Chicago. Americans need to know this grotesque reality & stand with us.
Kyle Kingsbury is not a journalist. He is not an op-ed writer.

He is a computer safety researcher.

And he has written one of the most compelling, comprehensive accounts of the ongoing hell in Chicago that you could possibly imagine.

In under 1600 words.

aphyr.com/posts/397-i-...
November 10, 2025 at 12:17 PM
I'm uniquely positioned to chime in on the Funko situation. It isn't a matter of the hideousness of the toy (which is undeniable) or the brand-loyal, cheap-plastic-loving millennials and xillenials hitting economic hard times.

It's their headquarters. It's haunted. Believe me.
November 10, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
It shouldn’t be forgotten that a big piece of Mamdani’s campaign was simply “cities are cool and lots of people enjoy living in them” which in and of itself dismantles alot of rightwing talking points
November 7, 2025 at 12:02 PM
Hell yeah
November 6, 2025 at 9:56 PM
Tools use us and construct our being.

Even a hammer requires us to mine iron, chop down trees, mill wood, and smelt the ore.

Entire worlds come together for the hammer. We do these acts for our tools.

And AI shapes our water, electricity, and policies on intellectual property.

*We* are the tool.
November 6, 2025 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
Some much needed nuance around that dumb chart. And “griftastructure” is just… chef’s kiss.
November 4, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
Teen Vogue produced some of the best political reporting in the nation and we’re not even a year into this cursed presidency
I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day.

certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.
November 4, 2025 at 9:08 AM
"Sensation does not equal causation" and beware of the AI "griftrastructure."

New post!

www.frank.computer/blog/2025/11...
ZIRP+174 Took Your Job, not AI
If you talk about AI and tech jobs (and the bloodbath of the last 3 years) without discussing ZIRP’s rapid disappearance combined with §174 changing (both of which hit the fan in 2022), I can’t take y...
www.frank.computer
November 4, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
This will be someone's dream position. Maybe yours?
📣 I am hiring a postdoc! aial.ie/hiring/postd...

applications from suitable candidates that are passionate about investigating the use of genAI in public service operations with the aim of keeping governments transparent and accountable are welcome

pls share with your networks
November 4, 2025 at 10:30 AM
I've gotten a few new connections/follows from VIS, Smashing Conf, and various talks recently (hello!! ❤️), so I thought I'd share my most-popular blog post (by a large margin):

"Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used."
Stop saying that AI is just a tool and it only matters how it is used
I’m tired of this phrase and this simple way of thinking about tools. This blog post is a wandering train of thought on the topic of what tools are and why it matters to be even slightly more mature i...
www.frank.computer
November 4, 2025 at 9:46 AM
One of the best resources of our field! I've used it often. And check it: you can even search for which PDFs are accessible too. How awesome is that?

We've come leagues and leagues in recent years.

I love the VIS community so much 🥹
🦉 BIG update to vispubs.com!! 🚀

I pushed CHI, EuroVis, and VIS 2025 late last night.

I'm especially excited by the many amazing research artifacts available for VIS this year. I'm always so inspired by the creativity, technical abilities, and academic rigor of our community.
November 4, 2025 at 9:43 AM
I'm at VIS! Come say hi. And if you caught the AccessVis workshop, I hope you had a great time and learned a bunch.
November 3, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
Don't miss our @dig.cmu.edu authors and their work at IEEE VIS this week. Visit the link in the post below for details.

@frank.computer, @perer.org, @domoritz.de
#cmuhcii #ieeevis #VIS2025 #DataVisualization #AccessibleVisualization #a11y #DataViz #DataVis @ieeevis.bsky.social
November 3, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
i should be able to click a button at the beginning of a sports season that says “i’m normal” and i don’t get served any ads for crypto or gambling
October 26, 2025 at 10:50 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
I don't understand why so many people are saying "good luck finding a man without a Nazi tattoo!!!" like bro how many of you are there
October 22, 2025 at 3:04 AM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
“Let him among you who is without a Nazi tattoo cast the first stone.” -The Bible
October 22, 2025 at 2:20 AM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
stealing paintings from museums will soon be considered just another tool in the artist's toolbelt
August 3, 2025 at 7:25 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
Dismantling the Institutional Review Board (IRB), that oversees all human subjects research, is bad. Really bad.
The entire HR department at the CDC is gone. Everyone at the IRB, which makes sure studies are conducted ethically and rigorously, and the ethics office, which oversee conflicts of interest for CDC leaders and advisory committee members, were also let go.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
‘Instability and confusion’ as CDC slashes 1,300 jobs before reinstating half
Trump administration says 700 notices were sent in error, while top CDC officer says ‘they didn’t think through what they were doing’
www.theguardian.com
October 19, 2025 at 4:00 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
Take note of all these people turning out for protests in small towns in red states.

Remember them the next time you’re inclined to write an area off because “they voted for this.”
October 18, 2025 at 4:29 PM
Reposted by Frank Elavsky ⌁
Everything is Gamergate.

If you do not understand what Gamergate is or how that has not only shaped the internet but our entire current reality.

Keep this in mind, and protect yourself accordingly.

www.cnn.com/2025/03/23/u...
October 17, 2025 at 11:39 PM