two years of The Austin Salon ✨ with @dalequark.bsky.social 10 evenings spent discussing psychology, neuroscience, food equity, primatology, friendship, ai, and most of all community 🤍

MAGICIANS+INCEPTION Felix is an inept psychic who’s unable to maintain physical touch with anyone. His loner days end when he joins a lucid dreams based campus sleep study. Here, he meets an odd crew of coed psychics who protect the dream realm from a soul-stealing rogue. #LuckyPit #PopUpPit #SF #A

TREASURE PLANET×THE EXPANSE A bookworm dreams of escape from a pirate-run space station. With his friend, a tech genius, he finds an ancient wrist computer tied to his family and a legendary lost starship. As they seek answers, so does a notorious captain. #LuckyPit #PopUpPit #PopUpPitA #YA #SF #M

Grim Portents HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE X CONSTANTINE A man is murdered by a demon on his wedding day. With the help of the reaper who collected his soul, he must uncover who is releasing monsters from Hell if he wants to return to the life he was robbed of #luckypit #popuppit #popuppita #A #F #Hu #H

💫 CROWNED IN LIGHT 💫 NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST X RAVEN CYCLE SERIES 🌹Romance/Romantasy 👨‍👨‍👧Polyamory ❤️‍🔥Slow Burn 👨‍👨‍👦‍👦Found Family ⚖️Gods & Goddesses 🎵Music! ♿Diversity 🏳️‍🌈LGBTQIA+ 💖Soul Mates ✨Magical Realism Agent's guide included 📖 #WSPit #WSPitQ #WSPitS #A #F #R #bipoc #spec #magicalrealism

Well look what just came in the mail @mitpress.bsky.social 🧠🤖🦠

Curious about AI's impact on the future of humanity? Will you be in Austin, TX on March 25? Join me, @nikitanamjoshi.bsky.social, and The Austin Salon for evening of learning, drinks and discussion. www.eventbrite.com/e/the-austin...

A growing body of evidence suggests that decorating our spaces may influence our creativity in subtle ways, acting as a kind of emotional support, regulating our mental states so we can do our best work. 🧪

Hi, just a reminder that when you use Libro.fm for your audiobooks, you support independent bookshops vs. large corporations that drive them out of business. We also pay taxes. And so do indie bookshops.

I’m obsessive about my office. I want my workspace to inspire me, to act as a creative echo chamber for my inner musings. For @nautil.us, I wrote about the science behind why we curate our creative nests. In celebration, here are some of my favorite famous offices. 🧵 nautil.us/the-creative...

Boltzmann Brains are one of the most mind-boggling and influential paradoxes I ever encountered. Who better to explain them than @mariapopova.bsky.social ?

One of my favorite finds: “weapons salve,” a potion applied not to a wound but to the weapon that had inflicted it. This improved medical outcomes because at the time, it was safer to leave a wound untouched than to smother it with whatever weird pulverized-toad-virgin’s-blood “cure” you’d brewed.

My brilliant friend wrote for @theatlantic.com about the “McVulnerability Trap.” www.theatlantic.com/family/archi...

Wow! This is a BFD.

As someone who has reported on AI for 7 years and covered China tech as well, I think the biggest lesson to be drawn from DeepSeek is the huge cracks it illustrates with the current dominant paradigm of AI development. A long thread. 1/

Three years ago, I filmed a video explaining Transformers, the neural network architecture behind technologies like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Today it's at over 1,000,000 views! Woohoo! 🎊 What AI concepts do you need explained in plain English? Let me know! www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZor...

June 1625. Brandenburger colonel Wallraven von Gent, apparently employed by the Dutch Republic, takes the Westphalian town of Bielefeld from the Spanish by infiltrating the town gates with soldiers disguised as peasant women. This was a common ruse during the Thirty Years War.

More people speak English today than any other language in human history. But what do we lose, psychologically and culturally, as a result? For this week's @newyorker.com, I explore how English shapes thought—from our conception of time to how we talk about the senses.

Well I’m swooning.

Oh look what just arrived! 💕 The Kinship Issue from @nautil.us

In the 1600s, “animal cruelty” wasn’t really a thing, and people thought this hammer-powered cat piano was a delightful instrument. 🐈🔨 🎶 #skyhistory

I wrote a fun little speculative y2k short story for @reedsy.bsky.social about my favorite childhood place: the mall! blog.reedsy.com/short-story/...

Nothing to see here, dear #skystorians, except a human skeleton (with a hat and a feather) riding a #unicorn skeleton that is positioned next to two other animal skeletons (of a bear? and a deer?). Did I mention yet that the 4 skeletons are standing in an #earlymodern library? #LibraryHistory

TIL “fox tossing” passed for entertainment in 17th century Europe. “Fuchsprellen” was all fun and games until the fox a) died on impact or b) turned on the players with teeth and claws.

🌬️ My thoughts on this week's executive order on AI + why AI alone won't solve climate change. nikitanamjoshi.substack.com/p/why-does-m...

we'll miss you, friend

To early scientists, “the world teemed with the uncanny: witches, unicorns, mermaids, stars that foretold the future, base metals that could be coaxed into gold or distilled into elixirs of eternal life.” 🦄 Read my latest for Nautilus: nautil.us/how-the-occu...