Tara Goddard
Planning/urban studies professor. Road safety, engineering, behavior, & culture; wildfire planning and response; inclusive disaster evacuation; ethics of tech in transportation; planning in the Petropyrocene. TX now, back to CA soon. She/her.
- It is never a good idea to ban regulation for a decade, particularly for technologies that are changing so rapidly, opaque to most of us, have the potential to do incredible harm, and are a potential moneymaker that explains the desire for lack of regulation ... [So much for state's rights .... 🙄]
- Folks call your Senators now!! A ban on any state laws on GenAi for 10 YEARS is gonna do unthinkable harm! For those of you wondering what to say here are two posts you can use to build your own script (use alt script to cut and paste) Need to find your representatives? Here you go: 5calls.org
- I'm staying in the medical center area of Houston for a week. It is truly its own city - it must be the largest in the world. And as I continue to benefit from life-saving treatments developed through decades of scientific research, I'm heartbroken to think about what is being destroyed.
- Reposted by Tara GoddardLarge language models make me think of cargo cults. The belief is that by creating strings of words that superficially look like those created by intelligence, intelligence will later magically appear Or, in Chomsky terms, it's the belief that by aping surface structure, deep structure will appear
- Reposted by Tara GoddardThe right-wing attack on universities and the widespread use of ChatGPT to replace thinking and writing are two sides of the same relentless assault on what the Greeks called paideia: the education and development of citizens as ethical beings engaged in their communities.
- Iconic
- I will post more later but just in case I don't get a chance, you need to know that I jumped up and ran out of my house in my pajamas and slippers when I saw the postal worker drive up in one of the new trucks 😂
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- Reposted by Tara GoddardI think this is the first time I've lived walking distance from a grocery store and I'm out of my mind about it. I'll walk there several times a day. Oh did I forget to grab something? No big deal I'll simply Walk To The Store
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- Reposted by Tara GoddardOnce again begging media reports to get the math right. For example, cutting a $5M five-year grant in year 4 isn't saving $1M, but it is wasting the $4M already spent. Stop letting this administration get away with so many lies.
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- Reposted by Tara GoddardYesterday, the National Significant Wildland Fire Potential Outlook showed us the first glimpse of August & it is not pretty. Neither is July. As for June, it looks rough in the SW. This, with diminished federal response capacity & who knows what with FEMA. Buckle up--you're probably on your own.
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- Reposted by Tara GoddardDespite the widespread and often employer-encouraged adoption of AI tools, a new study finds that artificial intelligence chatbots "have had no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation."
- Ok, I laughed at this, thank you Bluesky support. (still would love an edit typos function or at least better spell check 😅)
- Reposted by Tara GoddardI just got word that this federal transportation grant was terminated today, despite us removing the word "climate" from the title. The moral of the story? Obeying orders doesn't keep you safe with this administration.
- I was just told that I have to remove “climate” from the title of an ongoing grant if I want to keep it. And publications from that grant cannot include “climate” and other forbidden words. I can’t believe I’m writing this from the United States of America. #AcademicSky
- This is .... I have no words. The NCST at UC Davis and the Mineta Transportation Institute?? 💔
- Well, I guess that frees up the time I was planning to spend on grant applications this summer 💔
- Reposted by Tara GoddardGreat to see this op-ed by UNC System President Peter Hans on WHY the federal government funds research through competitive grants. #HigherEd
- For the zillionth time, I miss posting only about transportation. 💔 Trump Administration Cancels $1 Billion in Grants for Student Mental Health www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/u...
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- Reposted by Tara GoddardThe Trump administration this week summarily dismissed more than 400 scientists and other experts who had begun to write the latest National Climate Asst. As I say here, climate change puts us all at risk, and we all need this vital information. Without it, the future will be much more dangerous.
- Absolutely 💀. 😂 . . . I'm not a re-litigate the election type usually, but my goodness did we ever get robbed by not having Governor Walz representing us as VP.
- So, the government, not parents, should decide about kids and social media. But parents, not the government, should decide about vaccines for kids who attend public school. But government, not parents, should decide what books kids can read. Do I have that right? 🙃 www.kvue.com/article/news...
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- Better appreciate these recalls while we can, I suppose. Sure is nice to avoid burns and electrical fires and broken blades rather than suffering enough of them that the "market decides" we need safer appliances.
