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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁

@frank.computer

Assistant Professor of Data Science @ Cal Poly SLO Accessibility, tool-making, visualization 📊 PhD from @hcii.cmu.edu. Prev: Adobe, Highsoft, Apple, Visa. Move slo and repair things. Disabled & making a ttrpg. www.frank.computer

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Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁@frank.computer · 2w ago

Hah! Such a great question. I am being obtuse here, really. The reason "sociotechnical" as a term is helpful is typically because it opens the eyes of optimistic technology-builders to see and realize that their technologies (all technologies) are socially and culturally situated. (continued...)

Helen Czerski@helenczerski.bsky.social · 3w ago

As both an academic and a writer, I am repelled by the "this looks like a long document. Would you like me to summarize it for you?" that seems to appear at the top of every pdf viewer now. NO. The *entire point* of good writing (either books or journal papers) is that every sentence has a purpose.

Celia@gusreads.bsky.social · 4w ago

"And I honestly wouldn’t like ideation, as this quintessentially human act, if I only ever did it alone or with a machine that simply confirms my biases and listens to my instructions." I recommend this text by @frank.computer to any creator, not only prototypers: www.frank.computer/blog/2026/03...

On genAI: Was prototyping really a bottleneck?

I keep hearing folks claim that the fact we can ‘prototype’ so quickly now is a good thing (thanks to modern genAI). But what if the slow parts about prototyping are actually what make it worth doing?

frank.computer

Shannon Mattern@shannonmattern.bsky.social · last mo.

Repair Day is coming up in Oct; I was asked to review my various Places articles on the subject over the past decade. It's nice when an accidental series emerges over time, when a single thread slowly braids itself with others — and you can continually reflect and revise your thinking.

Over the past decade I’ve written an accidental series of pieces for Places about repair: my “Maintenance and Care” (2018), which has been republished and translated widely, examined repair thinking across scales: from software and gadgets to interiors, architectures, and regional infrastructures. My “Step by Step” (2024) then explored the history of the repair manual, and asked if its utility might extend to social and ecological realms. Yet as I’ve grappled the fragility and irreparability of the human body through “Purity and Security” (2020), which addressed pandemic-era plexiglass as security theater, and “Concealment and Compassion” (2021), on the design of spaces for memory care — and as we’ve faced the inevitability of climate collapse and witnessed the cowardice of institutional leadership in the face of fascism — I’ve embraced the insufficiency of “repair” in addressing the profundity of dysfunction across sites and systems. I return to the article that initiated the whole series: “Community Plumbing” (2018) commemorated the sale of my family’s hardware store and explored the history of the site as a vital social infrastructure. It reminds me that we have the tools to reimagine and build anew; we have to teach one another how to use them.
Rob Whiting 📓@whitingx.bsky.social · last mo.

“New 🇪🇺 #EU rules have come into force designed to encourage consumers to #Repair rather than replace products to tackle the estimated 35 million tonnes of waste the premature disposal of consumer goods generates across the bloc.” www.rte.ie/news/busines... #RightToRepair

New EU-wide product repair rules come into force

New EU rules have come into force aiming to tackle the 35 million tonnes of waste the premature disposal of consumer goods generates across the bloc.

rte.ie

Grant Stoner@supercrip1994.bsky.social · last mo.

Fortnite's Audio Visualizer was an accessible mainstay. In April, Epic removed the crucial feature from Competitive, and in June, heavily nerfed the option in standard. Now, disabled players are left struggling to play. Read my latest @mothership.blog story here: www.mothership.blog/fortnites-au...

Fortnite's audio visualizer is gone, leaving disabled gamers in the lurch

The visual wheel became popular with disabled and non-disabled players

mothership.blog

ProPublica@propublica.org · last mo.

As the Trump administration ordered agencies to eradicate “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, we identified more than 1,000 nonprofits that removed such language from the mission statements in their tax filings. (Published Dec. 2025)

Under Trump, More Than 1,000 Nonprofits Strip DEI Language From Tax Forms

As the Trump administration ordered agencies to eradicate “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, we identified more than 1,000 nonprofits that removed such language from the mission statem...

propublica.org

Accessibility Awareness@a11yawareness.bsky.social · 2mo ago

If you have an election results chart, the alt text needs to communicate the results. "Election results" is not enough. The same rules apply for alt text for images of weather charts. "Weather chart" doesn't cut it and doesn't convey what the chart is actually saying to users.

Nate O@nateo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

You'd have to read to the thirteenth paragraph to discover the pull quote for the title was from Marcus Siding, a 23-year-old Swedish man living in Sweden that wanted to become a cop, but his ADHD diagnosis at the age of 12 barred him by law from becoming a Swedish cop Seems relevant

'“When my ADHD diagnosis was removed, it was a relief’ Rates of conditions such as ADHD and autism seem to be ever growing, but some adults diagnosed in childhood are happy to be free of their labels” Excerpt From “‘When my ADHD diagnosis was removed, it was a relief’” The Times and The Sunday Times https://apple.news/AdYlGGpX0SrG-Joy7OuhgMg This material may be protected by copyright.
Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2mo ago

Nature did a short piece on our preprint about how LLMs will affect the practice of science; my more detailed thread is below.

Scientists using LLMs will ‘do more, less well’, modelling study predicts

Research suggests that the combination of incentives to publish and the use of large language models will lead to more papers, but they will be less refined.

nature.com

Carl T. Bergstrom@carlbergstrom.com · 2mo ago

1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.

Frank Elavsky (he/him) ⌁@frank.computer · 2mo ago

This problem extends to "artificial" as well. Yes, many things are made up. But there isn't always a "real" thing (in a platonic or structuralist sense) elsewhere. "Intelligence," as we use it, is also it's own model. So much misunderstanding comes from this false real vs not dichotomy.

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 2mo ago

there are a lot of philosophical concepts that get egregiously misused out of the seminar room (and in the seminar room, to be fair). but in terms of sheer pernicious misuse "social construct" has gotta be top 5 somewhere and it's not number 5