A. Amer

Thanks to my wonderful colleagues @scuethics & @SantaClaraUniv, you can now read a version of my postman analogy on #NetNeutrality⁠ ⁠⁠ ⁠ ⁦@sfchronicle⁩ sfchronicle.com/opinion/openfo…

"Perhaps the most dangerous misconception is that #disinformation targets only the unsavvy or uneducated, that it works only on ‘others’... [W]e may have trouble seeing the problem when content aligns with our political identities." Or when we are in shock and pain. #ethics

Three months ago I heard Salman Rushdie speak at the PEN World Voices Festival. He said: “A poem cannot stop a bullet. A novel can’t defuse a bomb … But we are not helpless … We can sing the truth & name the liars.” We must tell better stories than the tyrants.

Like computing & philosophy? Join us on the 22nd-24th for the International Association of Computing & Philosophy's 2022 meeting at SCU (a limited number of physical spots are available through Saturday & free virtual registrations closes Wednesday) scu.edu/engineering/ia…

"Facebook declined to answer detailed questions about its filtering systems and policies on data from crisis pregnancy centers. It’s unknown whether the filters caught any... data, but our investigation showed a significant amount made its way to Facebook" revealnews.org/article/facebo…

Grading can be difficult and stressful, but I’ve heard my civil engineering colleagues have improved on the manual process (though their machinery seems overkill). Pictured below: a machine for grading undergrad Lepidoptera (or post-grad Felidae).

@aleatha But, who’s e-Ent, and why would they know whether or not you’d been directed to somewhere?

Am I sentient?

@a__cubed @IEthics Thank you. That’s incredibly kind of you. Now I really wish I’d had the foresight (and courage) to propose it as such.

@aamer @IEthics This would be a perfect Gikii talk.

Sometimes you want a searing critical analysis of comparative robot ethics … other times you just need a moment of silliness and whimsy. scu.edu/ethics/interne… Thank you, @IEthics, for resurrecting (and so kindly hosting) this particular folly.

@klukoff @ackermanmaya @shoha99 @boilerir @davidjeong @AmyLueck3 @maxkreminski @BehnamDezfouli @subbuvincent They tell me the chandeliers and lights are being set up as part of graduation/end-of-school-year festivities, but nonetheless they seem to fittingly reflect our delight at your joining us.

And, excited to share that in Sep. I will start as an Assistant Prof. in CS&E at Santa Clara University! Looking forward to collaborations w/ new colleagues, including @ackermanmaya @shoha99 @boilerir @davidjeong @aamer @AmyLueck3 @maxkreminski @BehnamDezfouli @subbuvincent

Excited to share that I’m now officially Dr. Lukoff! THANK YOU to my committee for all of the support and feedback: @smunson @EricPSB @juliekientz @rcalo and Alexis Hiniker and the larger community at @uwdub @hcdeUW

Check out tellmeaskme.com to get a glimpse of why I’m lucky to have colleagues like @HooriaJazaieri

@aleatha The pedant in me must tediously point out that this work seems to be, literally, nit-picking.

Human DNA Extracted From Nits on Ancient Mummies Sheds Light on South American Ancestry scitechdaily.com/human-dna-extr…

@aleatha @JoelMcCracken “Why didn’t he ride an eagle to Mount Doom?” … whatever the reason, I guess that precludes Sam from playing Sam. As for Aragorn, I vote Sweetums! Or Fozzie, subbing Floyd for Boromir “like, one doesn’t just walk into Mordor, man”

@JoelMcCracken @aamer Scooter -> Frodo Kermit-> Legolas Rowlf -> Gimli Fozzie-> Boromir Gonzo plays Wormtongue, and Waldorf and Stadler as Saruman and Denethor..this slaps. Having trouble casting Aragorn though. Can we keep Viggo in?

I don’t particularly like Home Alone, but replacing everyone but Joe Pesci with a muppet would significantly improve it. Kermit plays Kevin. Or Harry Potter and keep Dame Maggie Smith.

“Is it ever moral to sacrifice a hostage to save a hostage-taker?” is a question I did not want to ask … again. But with antivaxxer apologists arguing “yes,” ICUs being overwhelmed, and ethicists+policymakers repeatedly avoiding the question, here we are … again.

May your best day in 2021 be its shortest. And may I be proven wrong about that with every day to come. (Translation: Wishing everyone happy holidays in a tough year, but happier days to come)

@ShannonVallor Sorry if this isn’t particularly helpful if you don’t have the option to adjust smart shuffle, but for what it’s worth I like to think of a shuffle playback failure (to seem random) as a triumph of human pattern/link-detection.

@ShannonVallor Or to put it another way, when I say “I want random” I likely should say “I don’t want to notice repetitions (though that’d be normal)” and so different shuffle algorithms try to give that, with varying degrees of success (and in some cases, varying user-adjustability).