Kelly M. Socia, Ph.D.

Pretty sure there was a cheat code to blame the losses on the last person to played the game right before you.

It’s an incredible time to be alive if you’re mean and dumb as shit.

Trump tariffs depress hedge-fund managers.

Everyone’s like “this can’t be fascism it’s too dumb” but they don’t understand that fascism is in fact almost always very dumb! Fascist dictators are cruel and stupid men. And it’s popular because many people are cruel and stupid!

Time is a flat circle

LOL. LMAO.

I've played Pandemic, I know where this is going...

democrats won’t admit it, but my family’s economic outlook has gotten a LOT better since Trump took office. but what do i know? i don’t have a fancy economics degree, i’m just a regular guy who runs an airplane scrapyard

We all poop our pants sometimes Bex.

Experimental evidence of something @kellymsocia.bsky.social and I wrote about, building on work by Hirschfield & Simon (2010).

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

SUBJECT: Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs 'The American people elected Donald J. Trump to be President of the United States and gave him a mandate to increase the impact of every federal taxpayer dollar. In Fiscal Year 2024. of the nearly $10 trillion that the Federal Government spent, more than $3 trillion was Federal financial assistance, such as grants and loans. Career and political appointees in the Executive Branch have a duty to align Federal spending and action with the will of the American people as expressed through Presidential priorities. Financial assistance should be dedicated to advancing Administration priorities, focusing taxpayer dollars to advance a stronger and safer America, eliminating the financial burden of inflation for citizens, unleashing American energy and manufacturing, ending wokeness" and the weaponization of government, promoting efficiency in government, and Making America Healthy Again. The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve. This memorandum requires Federal agencies to identify and review all Federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with the President's policies and requirements. For example, during the initial days of his Administration, President Donald J Trump issued a series of executive orders to protect the American people and safeguard valuable taxpayer resources, including Protecting the American People Against Invasion (Jan. 20, 2025). Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid (Jan 20, 2025), Putting America First in International Environmental Agreements (Jan. 20, 2025). Unleashing American Energy (Jan. 20. 2025). Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing (Jan. 20.

ent these orders, each agency must complete a comprehensive analysis of all jal assistance programs to identify programs, projects, and activities that any of the President's executive orders. In the interian, to the extent applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency nay be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial surice tot foreign nongovernmental organizations, DEL woke gender ideology, and the pause will provide the Administration time to review agency programs of the funding for those programs consistent with the law and the he temporary pause will become effective on January 28, 2025, at 5:00 rehensive analysis. Federal agencies must immediately deadlines for assistance programs arising while the les must report this information to OMB along with an directs Federal agencies to pause all activities associated conducting merit review panels No later than Febrar - 10. 2025, agencies shail submit to OMB detailed information on any programs projects or activities subject to this pause. Each agency must pause. (i) issuance of disbursement of Federal funds under all open awards, and (il) other relevant has reviewed provided guidance to your agency with respect to the information act recordin grant and ptions allowing Federal agencies to issue new awards or take other case basis. To the extent required by law, Federal agencies may continue nistrative actions. such as closeout of Federal awards (2 CFR 200.344), or expressly required by law

NEW — OMB temporarily pauses all agency grants and loans programs.

Per copy of memo: "The use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve."

i will say that we have never experienced anything like an administration trying to essentially freeze the activities of the entire federal government while making a series of illegal power grabs. genuinely unclear to me what kind of response, if any, these guys are generating against them

I’m in England, in a field of Barley. Today, I’m going to collect wild yeast under that tree back there, and I’m going to show how to feed and grow it until it’s ready to bake with. We are going to start at the very beginning, and end at the end.

(this is an experiment in thread transfer)

NSF now sending “stop work” notices on funded active grants. Doesn’t sound like a pause.

And that's just for these NIJ grants. An impact on grants from, say, NSF would be orders of magnitude more damage to science.

IMO, unless the grants are opened back up quickly, the US loses one cycle (/year) of projects funded by the National Institute of Justice. Rough guess is 100+ new projects not started on research topics like forensic science, policing, corrections, etc. Student and faculty careers damaged/ruined.

Not sure how temporary it'll be since they just cancelled all open NIJ grants as well...

bsky.app/profile/kell...

NIJ webpage notice that all open grant opportunities have been cancelled.

Well that's not fucking good.
NIJ has cancelled all open grant opportunities.

Saw this painting at the National Portrait Gallery in DC back in 2020, and it was his eyes that were really striking. Not sure if it's my favorite painting overall, but definitely my favorite portrait.
(John Brown 1800-1857)

Nate Silver: "Thinking ChatGPT is useless is midwit. It's a magic box that answers any question you ask it from levels ranging from modestly coherent to extremely proficient. If you haven't bothered to figure it out to derive some utility out of it then you're just being lazy tbh."

i can see how you would come to this conclusion if your job didn't require you to ever be correct

Here are the main points from the research article titled "Vaccination prior to SARS-CoV-2 infection does not affect the neurologic manifestations of long COVID," published in *Brain Communications*: 1. **Study Focus**: Investigates if vaccination before SARS-CoV-2 infection alters long COVID's neurological symptoms. 2. **Participants**: Included 200 post-hospitalization and 1100 non-hospitalized Neuro-PASC patients, from May 2020 to January 2023. 3. **Key Symptoms**: Brain fog, numbness/tingling, headache, anosmia, dizziness, and others. 4. **Impact of Vaccination**: No significant difference in neurological manifestations of long COVID between patients infected before vaccination and those infected after vaccination. 5. **Comorbidities**: Patients with breakthrough infections had higher pre-existing conditions like depression/anxiety, lung diseases, headaches, and gastrointestinal issues. 6. **Cognitive and Quality-of-Life Assessment**: Both groups showed significant impairment in cognitive functions and quality-of-life measures compared to a US normative population. 7. **Conclusion**: Vaccination prior to SARS-CoV-2 infection does not seem to affect the neurologic manifestations of long COVID, highlighting different risk factors that require targeted management. The study emphasizes that while vaccines reduce the severity of initial infections, they do not appear to impact the neurological sequelae of long COVID.

A **US normative population** refers to a representative sample of individuals from the United States used as a benchmark or standard for comparison in research studies. Normative data from this population helps researchers determine what is typical or average for various characteristics, such as cognitive function, health metrics, or behavior. By comparing individual results to this normative data, researchers can identify deviations from the average and assess whether an individual's results are above, below, or within the expected range.

Both vaxxed and unvaxxed groups showed impairment in cognitive functions and quality-of-life measures compared to the benchmark.

While vaccines reduce the severity of acute Covid, they don't appear to reduce the neurological sequelae of Long Covid.
academic.oup.com/braincomms/a...

Which Colleges Always Lose Money? It is safe to say that there is a lot of concern right now about the financial viability of higher education. And while I think fewer colleges are going to close than pundits predict (and check out…

Using new IPEDS finance data, I took a look at the public and private colleges that consistently lose money. Forty-nine of the nearly 1,500 four-year institutions with available data lost money in eight or more of the last ten years--not a good sign. robertkelchen.com/2025/01/07/w...

I, for one, welcome our new viking overlords

College students caught between professors' AI bans and employers' growing demand for AI skills Research shows 75% of workers now use artificial intelligence on the job, yet many universities still classify its use as cheating.

No, they're not caught between anything. Stop it. The fact that AI may be used or useful in future jobs does not create a single dilemma at all for college students in how to actually complete their coursework. This is all nonsense & excuses for not doing the reading & learning how to think & write.

We both have tenure... Just saying...

White Wine In The Sun by Tim Minchin YouTube video by Tim Minchin

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCNv...

White wine in the sun

New publication: Preliminary data shows if you teach op-ed writing skills, most students like it and plan to use it as a tool for scholarly dissemination!

Thanks for my co-authors Stacy Fandetti and Ava Peters for collaborating on this.

journals.sagepub.com/eprint/DYKVI...

How did Tolkien write so much?

The answer is he didn't have two-factor authentication for every aspect of his life

Welcome to Saturday morning labor education. (I have to work today, so I might as well.)

What are your Weingarten rights, and how can you use them to protect yourself against a boss on a power trip? 1/