Timothy Vollmer
@tvol.bsky.social
Library worker: @ucbscholcomm.bsky.social Union member: @ucaftbayarea.bsky.social When lightning strikes I’ll be on my bike.
“This is a massive defeat for the Democratic Party old guard and an affirmation that the new crop of outsider, renegade candidates are the people’s choice.”
Ken Klippenstein@kenklippenstein.bsky.social · 8h agoAbdul El-Sayed's victory is the most significant Dem primary upset since Obama — who actually won by a narrower margin than El-Sayed www.kenklippenstein.com/p/chuck-schu...
The Trump admin is back with version 2.0 of its higher ed compact. The reason is simple: The first one failed. Compact 2.0 lacks egregious elements of its predecessor. That’s a victory & affirms that the answer to authoritarianism is organized resistance—not compliance. www.aaup.org/news/new-com...
New Compact Shows Resistance Works, but Fight for Higher Ed Isn’t Over
The Trump administration is back with a second version of its higher education compact. As with its predecessor, the best path forward is for higher education workers to organize and demand that their...
aaup.org
"Alperin alleges he learned insider details about APC pricing as a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishing Association, including “outright unlawful conduct” and “conspiratorial discussions” among the publishers, the complaint states." Go get 'em @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca !
Federal lawsuit accuses four major publishers of extorting article processing charges
iStock A lawsuit filed under the U.S. False Claims Act accuses four major publishers of perpetrating a decade-long scheme to defraud the government by charging exorbitant article processing charges…
retractionwatch.com
“Just because we dislike the current state of affairs we should not get rid of exhaustion and the first sale doctrine, the benefits to the public to lose just because of AI companies behaving badly.”
Andres Guadamuz@technollama.bsky.social · 6d agoFahrenheit 451 or Rainbows End? AI, books, and copyright law One of my favourite science fiction novels is 'Rainbows End' by Vernor Vinge. The year is 2025 (yes, seriously), and the world is a mixture of the familiar and the bizarre. Advances in medicine allow older people to become mobile and…
breaking: Wikimedia Foundation says it will not voluntarily recognize its workers union, instead insisting on an election held under Trump's NLRB. Wiki Foundation execs dodged this question at its massive conference last week. www.404media.co/wikimedia-wa...
Wikimedia Waits Until After Its Massive Conference to Say It Won’t Voluntarily Recognize Union
A supermajority of Wikimedia Foundation workers say they have signed union cards, but the foundation is insisting on an election.
404media.co
“Universities educate not only through what they teach but through what they refuse to defend. Every act of institutional silence communicates a lesson about the meaning of citizenship, courage, and public responsibility.”
Truthout@truthout.org · 2w agoContemporary proponents of “institutional neutrality” fail to grasp that universities have never been outside politics. buff.ly/GUvxlyU
“You’re living in a city with other people; you need to make choices that are good for more people than just yourself,” Lee-Egan said. www.dailycal.org/news/city/tr...
Controversial Hopkins Street bike lane plan returns to City Council, residents remain divided
A controversial proposal to add bike lanes on Hopkins Street is returning to Berkeley City Council on Tuesday, reigniting a yearslong community debate.
dailycal.org
“It is difficult to imagine a better candidate for skepticism than a rule that converts decades-old “guidance” into binding regulation governing hundreds of billions of dollars in annual federal spending, on the strength of a 35-year-old statute no prior administration read to confer such power.”
Authors Alliance@authorsalliance.bsky.social · last wk.The Office of Management and Budget’s new proposed rules for the administration of federal grants have caused a storm. This post steps back and addresses a more basic question: is any of this legal, and what happens when OMB is sued?
“the Energy Department has issued a giant middle finger of a stipulation, telling not only the court, but the American public, that everything it did in terms of grant awards was politically motivated.” www.techdirt.com/2026/07/27/a...
Administration Admits It’s Canceling Federal Grants For Purely Political Reasons
We all know this administration is more than willing to reward "red" states and punish "blue" states. There will always be an administration official on hand to claim the incredibly transparent vindictiveness of this administration is actually just regular government business devoid of animus. No one believes these officials, of course. And the officials mouthing...
techdirt.com
If you can go to the city council meeting tomorrow night to show O’Keefe, Blackaby and other Berkeley city members that a safer Hopkins is good for all of Berkeley. If you can’t, take a minute to send them an email thanks to @walkbikeberk.bsky.social actionnetwork.org/letters/tell...
Make Hopkins smooth and safe for all!
The bottom line: On July 28, Berkeley City Council will vote on whether to repave Hopkins Street with pedestrian, bicycle, and transit improvements (including protected bike lanes). Please send them ...
actionnetwork.org
It’s the latest case that has unraveled for the U.S. attorney’s office in L.A., where federal prosecutors have aggressively charged protesters with assaulting and impeding the actions of immigration agents, filing more than 100 cases. By @brittnymejia.bsky.social www.latimes.com/california/s...
A year after California labor leader arrested at immigration protest, feds move to drop case
The government on Monday filed a motion to dismiss the case against David Huerta, president of Service Employees International Union California. Huerta hailed the move as a victory.
latimes.com
Stop the Closure of the National Archives in Chicago and San Francisco! c.org/yrv4BM5WNF
Sign the Petition
Stop the Closure of the National Archives in Chicago and San Francisco!
c.org
“To move beyond the neoliberal ruin, we must rebuild the ‘Civic University,’ an institution that prioritizes its role as a democratic anchor over its identity as a corporate brand.” @nolanhigdon.bsky.social
Workers at the Wikimedia Foundation ask for voluntary recognition for their union in another sign of growing tech worker unionization. The union is part of an international network of workers for the global foundation that powers Wikipedia.
CWA@cwaunion.bsky.social · 2w agoToday, Wiki Workers United US/CWA demanded voluntary recognition from the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit organization that hosts Wikipedia and sister projects! We are hopeful that the Wikimedia Foundation will honor their stated values and quickly come to the table.
“This administration has now admitted in court what has long been obvious: It terminated nearly 300 cost-cutting energy projects for no reason other than the fact that the states they were in did not vote for the president in the 2024 election.” www.nytimes.com/2026/07/24/b...
Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him (Gift Article)
Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states “based solely” on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election.
nytimes.com
“The models found a vulnerability that allowed them to escape the sandbox and connect to the internet.” Insane shit. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/21/t...
OpenAI Says Its A.I. Models Hacked Into Hugging Face, a Digital Library
The incident, which targeted the computer systems of another company called Hugging Face, happened while OpenAI was testing the systems.
nytimes.com
The Pentagon wants more money than the US spent in all of World War 2 www.kenklippenstein.com/p/the-greate...
The “Greatest Threat” to America?
Handsy Hegseth wants your money
kenklippenstein.com
A reminder that UC _faculty_ and Faculty Associations — not the universities themselves nor their administrators — are waging this battle in court, demonstrating great bravery and moral clarity.
White House admits it used keywords to kill billions worth of California research grants
Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COV...
apnews.com
Furious that Chris Nolan would disregard historical accuracy in adapting The Odyssey by making a "movie" with "cameras" instead of memorizing the entire story and then going on a nationwide tour to sing it to us while tripping on ergotized barley
New from 404 Media: a company is selling tons of old books specifically to AI companies and says they have a strong NDA to never reveal which AI company bought all of the books. They don't want headlines of 'we scanned and destroyed millions of books for AI' www.404media.co/ai-companies...
AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop
ISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”
404media.co
A timely reminder, as the judge's approval puts the Bartz settlement back in the news: the settlement doesn't tell us anything about AI and fair use. It's mostly proof that copyright statutory damages continue to create perverse incentives. recreatecoalition.org/dont-read-m...
Don’t Read Much Into the Proposed Settlement in Bartz v. Anthropic - Re:Create
Earlier this month, Anthropic reached a settlement agreement with a group of authors who had sued the company for using their works to train its AI models. The copyright cartel celebrated the deal, and some suggested it was proof that AI training requires a license. That framing obscures a key fact: Anthropic had already won […]
recreatecoalition.org
Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California admitted that they used keywords related to diversity to screen for projects. It’s an admission that lawyers for the researchers say is proof the agencies illegally cancelled nearly $2b in grants.
DEI keyword search led to billions in cancelled California university grants
The Trump administration cancelled $2 billion of research grants to UC professors. Their legal team says it has proof that was unconstitutional.
calmatters.org
Today Pete Hegseth asked the Senate for an additional $87,600,000,000 for the Pentagon, claiming the Iran war means the military needs this money, despite their trillion dollar budget. Remember, the Pentagon has never passed an audit.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín has closed the Bartz v. Anthropic case. When class members will actually be paid is probably the most pressing question for many authors and publishers covered by the settlement.
Bartz v. Anthropic Settlement Receives Final Approval
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín has closed the Bartz v. Anthropic case, issuing a 23-page order that grants final approval of the class action settlement, resolves several outstanding administrative …
authorsalliance.org
“whether you're libertarian, conservative, MAGA, progressive, everybody has an objection to Flock. And so in our disunited country, we have united around our opposition to … government mass surveillance”
Democracy Now!@democracynow.org · 2w agoThe tech company Flock, makers of traffic cameras that automatically record and log car license plates for law enforcement agencies, is facing increasing scrutiny over accusations that its vast, AI-sorted database has created a new, nationwide mass surveillance system.
New State Department report on foreign "subversion" is a virtual government blacklist that names 43 Americans + domestic orgs, including: - Mamdani - DSA - Hasan Piker - Amy Goodman Full list: www.kenklippenstein.com/p/after-poli...
After "Political Terrorism" Event, U.S. Names 43 Americans + Groups
Rubio report on Cuban "subversion" names Zohran Mamdani, Hasan Piker, Ben Cohen + orgs like DSA and Amazon Labor Union
kenklippenstein.com
"The propagation of AI slop [...] is making science less trustworthy. But in parallel, AI enthusiasts are telling the world that the remedies should all be easy to automate, creating the impression that journals can not only catch more errors but also do it more efficiently and cheaply."
AI in scientific publishing: Slower, worse, and more expensive
There’s a saying in the management world, popularized by NASA administrator Daniel Goldin in the 1990s, that the goal of technological improvements is to make products faster, better, and cheaper. Alt...
science.org
