This is a great piece by @cwodtke.bsky.social. It articulates the love/hate relationship I have with Generative AI. AI can do lots of good things. It is not value neutral. cwodtke.medium.com/i-love-gener...

@cwodtke.bsky.social's latest post on why good UX is still your best strategic moat: eleganthack.com/ux-is-your-m...

Could we get the solution to climate change first, then scale out?

He could have commented on the dangers of a president vowing to punish an entire city because he doesn’t like the democratically-elected Mayor, or asked Mamdani to do so. Instead, he took these threats for granted and asked whether voters should decide to be swayed by the rhetoric of an autocrat.

In the 1st question of his brief interview with Mamdani. Anderson Cooper reports Trump’s strongman threats to punish NYC if the Mayoral candidate is elected, as if he gets to select where funding goes according to his whims, & then asks whether voters will find it “worth the hassle” to vote for him.

Okay, good: "Dislikes are private and the signal isn’t global — it mainly affects your own experience and, to an extent, others in your social neighborhood." Because public dislikes would be TOXIC AS HELL. bsky.social/about/blog/1...

Pam Bondi swore no victims were trafficked to anyone but Epstein. But the victims say Epstein and Trump worked as a team to traffick them to Prince Andrew…

Kerning is important!

laughing while crying

On the left, the refurbished Lincoln bathroom. On the right, picture I took in Saddam Hussein's palace in Basra in 2005.

The Winchester Mystery house seems fun but also perhaps triggering for people who have to use Workday at the office

1. You can't even get hot food on SNAP, much less use it for nails or "weave". It doesn't work like a credit card. Items that do not qualify do not ring up. 2. Let's call a spade a spade. That right there was not a dog whistle. It is old school pure uncut Reagan era racism. What he said was RACIST.

So I hear ICE is coming to San Francisco.

"The Cory Doctorow Doctrine Why are big tech products getting worse and worse? The critic has some answers about the origins of “enshittification.” " Highly recommended!

This is the mockery I crave

The ads write themselves. "While Republicans were making your prices higher and cutting your benefits, Donald Trump gave himself a gold-and-marble bathroom with a chandelier and a view of his Epstein ballroom."

this is happening in my birthplace, and I want to vomit.

There are basic issues of democratic legitimacy when armed and masked men are defying the wishes of neighborhoods and cities of America.

every morning, Nina gives sterling some loving. Sterling is not a fan.

"only about 5% of the variance in personality can be predicted from digital footprints, and personality‐tailored messages show negligible effects on behavior... When design and evaluation flaws are controlled, the combined end‐to‐end effectiveness of psychological targeting approaches zero."

If you see someone stealing food - no you didn't.

Nina hanging out

Let us all sleep so well

18

Nazi site prepares to make it easier to promote only Nazis

Smart appliances aren't smart. They're skeevy little rats telling your secrets to giant corporations who sell your life to other giant corporations because they can. Your Roomba and Alexa are basically creepy stalkers. Don't let them into your home.

"The Department of History invites applications for an assistant professor who will make enough leftist remarks to annoy conservative talk radio hosts but whose politics will ultimately support the neoliberal mission of the university."

I was next to (one of) the AI slop booths at DragonCon and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. So, as you may or may not know, there was a booth selling AI slop images printed on acrylic panels at DragonCon. They were in booth a-10. I was in a-11. Here’s what happened from my perspective.

Good info for short fiction authors looking to find whether their works are part of the Bartz v Anthropic class action

Daily Nina

I love the smell of consequences in the morning. Thank you, @dragoncon.org

Nina. Because we need dogs in this trying time.

Every morning Nina proves to me that all dogs are lap dogs, no matter how big.

"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?" Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.

This is not an overstatement The drug that has like saved my life in my 40s was only approved for medical use the year I started college. It’s heartbreaking to think about how many people like me won’t get to have a story like this with a new drug because of cuts to funding

Who is emotionally supporting who?

Until the apocalypse seems like it’s going away, I’ll be sharing all the cat and dog pics. You’ve been promised/warned.

I was feeling a little sad then my dog licked my elbow. Dogs are magic!

Umberto Eco compared his huge "antilibrary" of unread books to medicines. He'll need (and read) them - just not now. No one questions a well-stocked medicine cabinet, so why do people balk at a well-stocked medicine cabinet for the mind? Nassim Taleb built on Eco's position in "The Black Swan":

People who see my bookshelves ask if I’ve read all those books. That would be bragging. My shelves are a promise to future me that I’ll always have something to read.

@cwodtke.bsky.social on “Why Physical #Thinking Still Matters in the Age of ✨ Generated Everything”. eleganthack.com/sketching-wi...

I take my kid to college Tuesday and I find myself constantly thinking of things we could do next week, next month and realizing that no we won’t. I’m so happy and proud of her, but it’s sprinkled with tiny moments of grief.

ROMs and emulators and piracy and abandonware are great and the whole reason I was able to learn about a lot of game stuff when I was broke as shit, to say nothing of the level of access they give you to completely out of print or never printed in your region type shit.

@cwodtke.bsky.social provides some great guidance on ‘How to Hire a Real #UX/Product Designer’. “Hire a problem-solver. That’s how you get great products.” eleganthack.com/how-to-hire-...

Goose and a Watermelon.

A+. Perfect. No notes.