Christopher N. Dougherty

me: if z is the length of a slice and a is the area of the pie, then pi(zz)=a

PhD advisor: this is what you’ve been working on for three and a half years?

An open letter to Grammarly and other plagiarists, thieves and slop merchants To everyone at Grammarly, I am writing a book right now, a really challenging endeavor that no doubt someone in Silicon Valley will think it’s fine to steal the day it’s published. I’ve been a profes...

I finally lost my shit about so-called AIs, LLMs, enshittification & everything fucking evil that @officialgrammarly.bsky.social is doing. I'm fucking furious, and not just about what 1 company has done. An open letter to Grammarly & the rest of the LLM hype machine www.moryan.com/an-open-lett...

Book Group The last Thursday of every month was Book Group,
when the books would gather together to discuss Brian. “It’s no fun here any more,” remarked Bleak House, glumly.
“Why doesn’t he read us?” whined the Grapes of Wrath. “It makes me so angry!” 
“I’m sure he only bought me so he can show me off to his friends,”
complained Ulysses, in a stream of self-consciousness. “I bet he can’t even remember my name, The Idiot,”
muttered a voice from the Russian literature section.
“That’s because he avoids you like The Plague,” said another.
“C’est vrai!” came a cry. “It is like I do not exist.” “Let’s not give up on him yet.” It was Brave New World.
After some Persuasion, they agreed to give him one last chance.
“Be quiet!” cried Waiting for Godot with Great Expectations.
“Here he comes now!” Brian entered the room, with his phone.
He sat down and watched some videos of baby pandas falling over.
After an hour or so, he started googling cats dressed as celebrities. On the shelf, the books waited with uncracked spines,
their silence speaking volumes. Brian Bilston

In celebration of World Book Day, here’s a poem called ‘Book Group’.

The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.

Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.

This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

its amazing how chatgpt knows everything about subjects I know nothing about, but is wrong like 40% of the time in things im an expert on. not going to think about this any further

Dear academics,

I propose we nickname “revise and resubmit” as “Australian no” since it has been brought to my attention that if you say “R&R” it sounds like an Australian saying “oh no!”

Sincerely,

Me

"The Dark Lord has taken over our land. What do we do?"

"Learn from the goblins."

"What? Those useless little-"

"Takes skill to mask rebellion as incompetence."

"What?"

"They know His reign will end. For now, they persist and resist."

"Oh."

"Also: remember every moment of joy is a victory."

Phorcys and Ceto

Econ 101 has a bunch of assumptions that aren't true anymore - lots of buyers, lots of sellers, buying and selling based on economic utility maximisation, predictable production costs, transaction costs, and taxes. Might have to look at the assumptions of mercantile markets instead of free markets.

Ugh… no… there’s no reason to even appeal that decision other than hating the individual politician that was under investigation. The Morneau investigation that used the same facts found wrongdoing in his case, because there was a lot of door opening and information passing going on in that MINO

Thanks! Looks like I’m out because they exclude people who have previously received a tricouncil award at the same level

Is there eligibility criteria listed somewhere? I’ve got a project proposal that could fit as a postdoc, but the eligibility fine print will matter in my case

Make it easy for humans who have context and hard for generative AI: “Using only assigned readings from the syllabus, and at least two of the four frameworks discussed in weeks 2 through 9 of the course, provide your analysis and policy recommendations for the case discussed in week 10”

War, on drugs

Economics is just a set of tools for solving constrained optimization problems. The tools can be used to optimise anything, it doesn’t have to be production or consumption. We could choose to optimize for care, or social capital, or QALYs, or global hamster populations.

That’s a euphonium

thanks!

this position looks interesting! are there any specific teaching needs that applicants should address?

Sure, but there was a not small amount of outsourcing to secretaries, typist pools, and wives

See also: Flag of Convenience

Small, positive.

Dangerous times...

Experimental evidence of the effects of large language models versus web search on depth of learning Abstract. The effects of using large language models (LLMs) versus traditional web search on depth of learning are explored. A theory is proposed that when

When people learn with ChatGPT instead of following their own searches, they end up knowing less, caring less, and producing worse advice, even when the facts are the same.

Friction is an essential ingredient for learning! Convenience makes us shallow.

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

Troy (Donald Glover) from the TV show Community, walking into an apartment holding two pizzas. He looks shocked and appalled (because the room is on fire).

Waking up and checking the timeline before work

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

When speaking to Tommy Robinson at the far right demonstration in London today, Elon Musk wore a t-shirt saying "What would Orwell think?"

So let's dive in - what would George Orwell think about Tommy Robinson and Elon Musk? 🧵

Denmark summons US envoy over Greenland influence reports – DW – 08/27/2025 Denmark has summoned the US head of mission in Copenhagen over alleged covert US influence efforts in Greenland. US President Donald Trump had said he wanted the island — and even hinted at using forc...

Um, she said, in her polite Canadian way.

As if Excel wasn’t the source of enough errors in research already #stats #metasci

And if the inflation index is just the product, and doesn’t include transaction fees, shipping, retailer subscription fees, surcharges, and on-time delivery guarantee costs, well, inflation will still be officially lower while consumer costs increase.

Sure, assume an index of online retail prices became a standard for inflation & gov’t has an incentive to keep inflation in a target range. Given Amazon tariff pricing transparency example, online retail is vulnerable to gov’t pressure, so gov’t policy will mean bread is officially 16 kopecks.