The rise of coding LLMs makes me deeply glad I decided to get out of programming as a career.

A blog post with slightly more (but still inadequate) detail in honor of the life of Mala Htun. 3d.laboratorium.net/2025-11-09-m...

Cornell AAUP statement on the ageement with the federal government. aaup-cornell.org/2025/11/07/s...

I just found out that Mala Htun, who was the TA for my college course in the political economy of international development, died of cancer earlier this year. She was an intellectual and moral force of nature, someone who shone with an inner fire of purpose. polisci.unm.edu/news-events/...

trans rights are human rights 💾🏳️‍⚧️✊ #floppydiskart #transgender

Sinners (2025) boxd.it/KQMM

my roommate made me make this, saying it would be hilarious

Well over 150 UC law faculty have just made public this open letter to the UC Regents arguing, point by specific point, for why the Regents should not accept any of the major demands the Trump administration has made of UCLA. We argue it's not a genuine settlement offer, but a form of extortion.

I find it ironic that the Crumbl website asks if I want to reject non-essential cookies. That’s their entire business!

The incredible shrinking attack on U.S. universities continues. Cornell has signed an agreement—but unlike the UVA agreement, instead of pledging to follow the gov't's highly questionable July "guidance" on discrimination, Cornell simply agrees to hand it out to faculty as a "training resource"!

While I don't think that one should pay even one dollar in exortion, I'm generally happy with the settlement Cornell reached. It doesn't include any of the intrusions on academic freedom and university autonomy I criticized in the Columbia settlement. 3d.laboratorium.net/2025-07-25-c...

Cornell settles with the federal goverment. $30 million to agricultural research, $30 million to the government, campus climate surveys, and some admissions statistics, but not much else. announcement: statements.cornell.edu/2025/2025110... agreement: statements.cornell.edu/2025/documen...

This is perhaps pedantic, but in a sign of how vapid and superficial these folks' engagement with antiquity is, they're giving a 'Bellator' award with a Latin name - a word the Romans rarely ever apply to their own (or Greek) soldiers - featuring the image of a Greek helmet the Romans didn't use.

It’s offprint day! It’s offprint day! It’s offprint day!

We know from scientific research that up to 75% of intersex people with varations of sex chromosomes never become aware of this during their life. You, a boring cis woman, might find yourself in the man section of a DHS holding facility and being charged with fraud just by traveling to the US.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy in the dumbest possible timeline.

Bad content drives out good. www.404media.co/the-future-o...

Bad content drives out good. www.404media.co/arxiv-change...

Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 (1892). IYKYK.

Behind our efforts let there be found our efforts.

Per @matt-levine.bsky.social: (1) everything is securities fraud (2) everything is sports betting (3) everything is seating charts I look forward to seeing the 10b-5 lawsuit over a betting market on where traders' desks are.

The EFF’s post announcing the job profile for its next executive director is deeply cringe, and filled with the kind of empty corporate-speak the EFF has always avoided. Cindy Cohn is still in charge for now, and I honestly can’t believe that she let this go out. www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

I've fixed the http/https issue that was preventing the 2000-14 Laboratorium archives from displaying properly. laboratorium.net/archive/2014...

Try your hand at my IP midterm! There's something growing down on Skid Row, but is the secret ingredient (spoiler alert: it's blood) patentable? james.grimmelmann.net/courses/ip20...

As Rebecca says, it's the rare article that is both "novel and clearly correct." It solves a doctrinal puzzle and brings clarity to what can be a confusing area of law.

Trump take candy. kotaku.com/halloween-ca...

I've sometimes made fun of the 1636 Forum—Sam Lessin's alumni group/newsletter "dedicated to improving Harvard's focus on its academic mission, governance, and campus culture"—in the past. But it/he/they have been putting in the work, and it shows. 1/3 1636forum.app

Cornell undergraduate calls out a Cuomo aide, who reacts predictably (i.e., shamefully). www.cornellsun.com/article/2025...

I am starting to get the sense that OpenAI's legal review process for marketing and product launches is less than fully robust.

those of you who are afraid of aging, please understand that one of the huge blessings of middle age is arriving at this exact station

Instead of reading Elon Musk's BAD analysis of LOTR, why don't you read my GOOD analysis, in which I expand on some @bretdevereaux.bsky.social thoughts about how systems of magic and morality work in Middle-earth, and how they're essentially the same thing.

All you can do is all that you can.

I've posted slides from two recent talks: Community Notes as Bridging Counterspeech (based on a draft with Kenny Peng): james.grimmelmann.net/talks/2025-1... Does Generative AI Infringe Copyright? (updated to cover the Bartz and Kadrey decisions) james.grimmelmann.net/talks/2025-1...

Complicity is not contagion. 3d.laboratorium.net/2025-10-29-c...

As someone who wears dumb glasses to help my dumb eyes see, I'm not thrilled about the possiblity that jerks with "smart" glasses are going to ruin it for the rest of us. www.404media.co/metas-ray-ba...

The patently unlawful murders continue apace, and no one (e.g., in DoD, in Congress, among other states) appears much to care. And now it's been over 60 days since the military was deployed in anticipation of such strikes--which means ... [1] @justsecurity.org www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/u...

Marvel: 'Infinity War is the most ambitious crossover event in history

It's pretty striking how many campus speech controversies are also nonprofit governance controversies. See also, e.g., the Columbia Law Review, the Harvard Educational Review, and the Indiana Daily Student. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Cornell is seeking postdocs for the Empire AI Fellows program. The focus is on technical research, but if this looks interesting to you and your technical AI work has connections to law, please reach out! academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/30971

Bad content drives out good. www.404media.co/a16z-backed-...

A house is not a home, by Rein Kooyman, 2025, 📸 via @mlbonfox

How many British shipbuilders did it take to change a light bulb in 1965? Three. One to carry the ladder, one to set it up, and one to climb it and change the bulb. www.construction-physics.com/p/how-the-uk...

Charles Barkley’s Hellraiser

Au contraire! What is a build system, ultimately, but a series of social relations between people masquerading as a series of social relations between files?

for some reason back in 2017, I decided to make a website to make fake video game screenshots. This was a good idea and made a lot of people laugh. Here's to the Death Generator, eight years and 270ish games later! deathgenerator.com

I'm definitely a Prompt Engineer.

This view assumes that the present legal and constitutional order of the United States will continue into the indefinite future.