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Quickies
Quickies: Sexist AI
Alexa, are you making me sexist? – “This is all part of a bigger gender-bias problem afflicting the field of artificial intelligence. AI systems — including voice assistants — are being designed mostly by men. (In the machine-learning community, only 12 percent of the leading researchers are female, according to Wired.) That’s part of the reason these systems have been…
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Quickies
Quickies: Freeing science from behind paywalls
The open access wars: How to free science from academic paywalls – “Academic institutions have to purchase exorbitant subscriptions priced at hundreds of thousands of dollars each year so they can download and read their own and other scientists’ work from beyond the paywall. The same goes for members of the public who want to access the science they’ve funded…
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Quickies
Quickies: No longer reading books by white men
Why I’m no longer reading books by white men – I have also been doing this for about the past 4 years (with exceptions for LGBTQ+ men and very very few socially conscious men) and I’ve enjoyed it so much, I’m never going back. It’s not that I wouldn’t have read authors like NK Jemisin, Sam Delany, and Chimamanda Ngozi…
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Quickies
Quickies: The world’s most annoying man
The world’s most annoying man – “Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker is that guy. He thinks many people are very unreasonable, and makes sweeping claims about their irrationality and moral imbecility, but often doesn’t bother to listen to what they actually say.” Native high schooler uses state track meet to raise awareness for missing and murdered women – “Some runners at…
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Quickies
Quickies: Incels and plastic surgery
How many bones would you break to get laid? – CW: This is about incels, so beware. “On forums, incels argue that the diagnosis is often a kind of reverse discrimination and that women seeking invasive procedures to fix relatively small flaws are not greeted as skeptically. “Social media and ease of access/exposure to plenty of top 3% chaddy hunks…
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Quickies
Quickies: The struggling Ebola response effort
The Ebola response effort is struggling. Experts say these steps could help – “ETCs, as they are called, have become a place of stigma, associated with death. In fact, people who seek care in treatment centers quickly after the onset of symptoms have a higher chance of survival than those who eschew the centers — but that reality has not…
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Quickies
Quickies: Why the anti-abortion movement relies on white women leaders
Why the anti-abortion movement relies on white women leaders – “With the support of white women, anti-abortion activists can paint the many women who vocally protest their dangerous policies as hysterical and non-representative of all women. Subsequently, they can capitalize on the racial power dynamics that grant white women greater visibility and credibility than women of color to paint their…
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Quickies
Quickies: How many more of our stories do we need to tell?
How many more stories do we have to tell? – “It’s dispiriting that once again, women feel compelled to participate in what feels like an endless drip of confession, one whose intended audience refuses to not only listen but ideologically refutes the very premise of those experiences.” There is value in sharing our stories so that we do not feel…
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