Pls join us in following the Global Sumud Flotilla as it attempts to break Israel’s starvation siege of Gaza. It will make more noise if more people are watching on YouTube. So far over 60,000 people are following live. www.youtube.com/live/uEN2bWF...

Interessant hier ist, dass Czollek fordert “beide Seiten” werden sich vergeben müssen. Das ist einfach gesagt wenn man nicht der “Seite” angehört an der Israel einen Völkermord begeht und die ganze Pol. und Medienelite das verteidigt. Aufarbeitung sieht anders aus!

Eine in Deutschland ansässige Medien-Firma, die unter anderem für Lidl, Red Bull und andere Großkunden arbeitet, unterstützt Israel mit Influencer-Propaganda – während eines andauernden Genozids.

State commits genocide, and the plan to end it includes demilitarisation, but of the victims! The perpetrators face no accountability, pay no reparations and can keep their occupation intact, while the victims are made to live under foreign domination, seemingly in perpetuity. That is dystopian

Remember this? It's from the 13th October 2023. "Israel’s goal is to destroy the Palestinians of Gaza. And those of us watching around the world are derelict in our responsibility to prevent them from doing so." Raz Segal was right then. And yet here we are now jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-c...

"Every year, the Muslim community breaks records on how much it gives to charity during Ramadan. Ramadan really reflects the most beautiful aspects of Islam." fivebooks.com/best-books/t...

This, surely, is important and I'm glad that scholars think and write about this. As I didn't know (but could have known!) the extent of Israel's crimes BEFORE oct 7 I'd like to point out that German media especially obfuscated and relativezed Israel's crimes in such a way one was led to...

The sheer amount of people - Germans first, of course, but others chimed in - who were okay with taking part in these explosions of violence and cruelty is staggering.

Heavy memories of German occupation

Another wonderful resource with great bibliography for educators critical of "AI" hype: "to tell apart nonsense hype from true theoretical computer scientific claims"

If you read just one paper about AI and existential risk this weekend, let it be this pioneering analysis from @atoosakz.bsky.social. Comes closer to addressing the inherent vulnerability of AI technology than anything I've found so far. Brilliant work! #AI #AIRisk #TechRisk #AIEthics #XRisk

"in lay terms, Midjourney and image generators like it produce images by combining the results of calculations based on the likelihood that the verbal prompts it receives are sufficiently similar to the data underlying other images it has previously processed." And that's why S.Fischer's ...

“AI” isn’t a tool or technology or even a cluster of technologies with a misleading name. It’s the infrastructure at the foundation of a form of capitalism dependent on data brokering. We should be teaching our students about this and not teaching them about “responsible” use.

100% And don't think a machine is going to do well where a human translator struggles. It only proceeds with the confidence of the brainless.

I find it truly sad to see how the publishing world has changed and how that book market now works under conditions that aren't quality-friendly. Tajja Isen explains it all so well, I learned a lot: "The careers of many literary titans of the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries ...

So glad this finally happened. It took us too long and I hope this is only the beginning. 100.000 in the streets of Berlin to end Germany's complicity in the Gaza genocide. Thank you to the wonderful and courageous organizers, @michaelbarenboim.bsky.social and all the others!

Schwieriges, scheußliches Thema, aber leider wichtig, da es in Deutschland keine Randerscheinung ist: pro-israelische Verschwörungstheorien.

Shibata Zeshin (Japanese, 1807–1891)

"The purpose of writing isn’t just to demonstrate knowledge in the most expedient way. Writing is to explore knowledge, to connect and synthesise ideas, to create new knowledge, and to share." Leon Furze, The Myth of the First AI Draft

"Drawing on the computational unconscious as a basis for a first draft implies that the initial creative output might carry underlying biases and structures from the data it was trained on, potentially shaping the direction and content of the final piece in unnoticed ways." Leon Furze in ...

This sounds super interesting! (The quoted post is part of a thread that provides an overview with many stunning images.)

By the sixth century the port was home to a Christian Byzantine school of rhetoric & philosophy, "an important library that could compete with Athens, Alexandria, Beirut and Constantinople."

Gaza became a major literary centre famous for its erotic poets, deeply rooted in their Hellenistic heritage, who were every bit as hedonistic as Gaza's many monks were ascetic.

Compilation of some background readings here : against-a-i.com/deep-backgro...

Emily Bender et al classic paper of what LLMs do s10251.pcdn.co/pdf/2021-ben...

I wrote something on autonomous computing and human agency ages ago (2008) and now it’s a different ball game. This is a good empirical study of what happens to brain when using chat GPT www.media.mit.edu/publications...

😍 Colibri? (I'm bad at brids.)

New from @EmpirePodUK The History of Gaza Episode Three Byzantine Gaza: The Rise of Christianity @anitaanand.bsky.social &I are joined by the great Professor Peter Sarris to discuss Byzantine Gaza podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/2...

anyway the AI chatbots are causing an unprecedented mass illiteracy of humanity, i know i sound like a broken record, but the scale of regression is so mindboggling after the sophistication of interpretation adn hermeneutics and the level of literacy in the world that humanity has achieved over time

kept on asking my colleagues when hearing "AI literacy" being repeated all the time: literacy of what? the whole point of ChatGPT is that you DON'T READ

Not difficult to understand. Not complex. Source: www.un-documents.net/a3r217a.htm

While even in Germany more and more articles tend to portray an increasingly realistic image of the acts of the Israeli military and political class, many issues remain. One particular problem is how undercomplex Palestinian society is seen. It's not a monolithic block but highly diverse! I ...

CLAUDE MONET (1840-1926, born in Paris, died in Giverny) Pot of White Azaleas, 1883

I knew a Holocaust survivor who talked about the importance of notetaking under authoritarianism, to track what normal was and how it shifted. Here's that 🧵 with respect to disability, itself a canary in the fascist coal mine: www.disability-rights-watch.com/2025/02/09/w...

Honoured to have been asked to participate in Makdisi Street podcast. Ussama, Karim and Saree Makdisi have created a format with fantastic guests and illuminating discussions which I would urge anyone to have a look at regularly! @makdisi.bsky.social youtu.be/NaFY7ywJF-c?...

I wish I had nine lives! There are so many interesting books in the replies to this post! Also do check out the posts that cite the one by David M. Perry. If an author reads this who is afraid of "self-promotion": No, we readers follow authors BECAUSE they share what they've written!!

I wrote an accessible introduction to the life and work of the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Economics - Elinor Ostrom. She showed that are not doomed to fall into the "tragedy of the commons." Collaborative governance is possible. islandpress.org/books/uncomm...

"One who takes two hours to finish a painting, should keep this unfortunate secret to himself! One should not go disclosing things like this, especially in front of young students! They should not be taught such carelessness and machine-like habits." V. Stasov Exactly, scholars who brag about ...

Schlimm. Auch schlimm: In Deutschland verfolgen Staatsanwaltschaften weder die Beihilfe zum Völkermord von Regierungsmitgliedern und Rüstungsunternehmen, noch die tagtäglichen Billigungen und Verharmlosungen von Völkermord. Politischer Druck oder vorauseilender Gehorsam?

LEO GESTEL (1881-1941, born in Woerden, died in Hilversum) Autumn Day, 1909

Grateful for the opportunity to provide a longer explainer on DW about ❎ Germany's duties under the Genocide Convention ❎ the UN Commission of Inquiry's Report ❎ in what sense Germany is drawing the wrong lesson from its history www.youtube.com/watch?v=APSJ...

Not causing harm requires staying awake. Part of being awake is slowing down enough to notice what we say and do. The more we witness our emotional chain reactions and understand how they work, the easier it is to refrain. It becomes a way of life to stay awake, slow down, and notice.~Pema Chödrön

⭐NEW SERIES LAUNCH DAY⭐ Gaza is one of the oldest urban centres on Earth, and today we start a series in which we explore its long history... In Episode 1, @anitaanand.bsky.social and @willdalrymple.bsky.social are joined by Josephine Quinn to discuss Philistines and Pharaohs in Ancient Gaza.

"A daily walk, the simple act of collecting leaves, or sitting quietly in a park can be deeply restorative. These experiences remind us that change is part of life’s cycle, and that beauty exists in every stage of transformation." Vincent van Gogh, Avenue of Poplars in Autumn, 1884

Excellent piece on gender and tyranny. "Trans people are being removed from the public sphere. And this is how you start. You are 'protecting' women. But you do this by reducing women to a set of biological facts. We all know where that leads. In the US they are already there."

Wait for the sudden change at the end, his roots vs. his wings:

With honey a traditional symbol of hope for a sweet new year, we're bringing in Rosh Hashanah with some homemade sticky honey chicken. Recipe via @lickedspoon.bsky.social and her fabulous Notes From A Small Kitchen Island. Wishing you a happy, healthy & sweet year ahead, full of love and kindness.🍯

“For Israel and its supporters, the Gaza genocide is a model: this is what awaits people who will dare to resist whatever measures imposed on them by extremely violent states in a world shaped by brute force.” Raz Segal delivers a *must read* on Gaza. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....