What? An astounding level of impertinence. This is almost Trump-level. giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

purveyor of fine OSINT techniques, @harrris0n on twitter, is exposing insecure vibecoded AI slop apps in the Apple store & has put them in a database. all of these apps are exposed/leaking user data right now. you can check if anything on your phone is doing this by going to firehound.covertlabs.io

Our new paper (with @biotay.bsky.social) is out and on the cover story of @currentbiology.bsky.social !!!! Veronika, a Carinthian mountain cow flexibly uses a “multi-purpose tool” to scratch herself. A video and more information will follow in the comments. www.cell.com/current-biol...

This why this “human in the loop” thingie may not work so well always.

Das ist Gregory Bovino, führender N... ähm Befehlshaber der ICE-Truppen. Ich will bitte kein Wort mehr über "unnötige Vergleiche" hören.

Nikita Prokopov points out all the inconsistencies, in the icons of Tahoe, the new Mac operating system. The “fifty shades of new” made my day. If you can’t find a good metaphor, using no icon is better than using a bad, confusing, or nonsensical icon. tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-i...

Nice article. Agents are cool in a way but what they don't incentivise is useful and good solutions.

Weekend thoughts on Gas Town, Beads, slop AI browsers, and AI-generated PRs flooding overwhelmed maintainers. I don't think we're ready for our new powers we're wielding. lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/1/18/ag...

Assuming "Human in the Loop" as a precondition good enough is not going to work.

Pretty much every non-hype defense of LLM products begins with "first you must already understand your work extremely well, have ironclad ethics, and also verify all of its outputs in their entirety" and these are simply not realistic conditions for a product to *require* before it can be useful.

Could it be that this is one of the reasons for the situation we are currently in?

1. Yesterday I was fortunate enough to visit the Alfa Romeo museum in Milan. What a gorgeous museum of design. Over the next few days I'll be posting a thread of pictures from my visit. Here's a teaser.

Margaret needs a biography that does justice to both her Netherlandish and Italian years. #earlymodern

1-8 We're getting very close to what Anders describes. Normal, civilised US citizens need to understand it's their system that is sick, not just one man. In pretty much every other democracy I can think of, doing a January 6 number would have meant imprisonment and being barred from public office.

One of the most influential records of my formative years. I still love listening to it. Pristine songwriting.

Saint Barbara reading, in richly detailed interior, with window view of her tower; oil on oak panel 1438, by Robert Campin, Flemish artist, died in 1444; an innovator in oil painting, he created subtleties of light & shade, textures & surface reflections, with intense realism. Museo del Prado

Montesquieu, distinguished French Enlightenment judge, historian and political philosopher, whose ideas on separation of powers influenced US constitution, born #OTD 1689; his landmark work De L’Esprit des Loix was published in 1748. Portrait after Dassier c. 1755 Château de Versailles

Territorial integrity and sovereignty are fundamental principles of international law. They are essential for Europe and for the international community as a whole.

I don’t know - all of this is so deranged and over the top, one always thinks there is a point in time when people just laugh and ignore this rambling.

Trump says he'll impose a 10% tariff (rising to 25% in June) on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the UK, the Netherlands and Finland, because they've sent people to Greenland, until the US can buy Greenland.

This week’s Just for Skeets and Giggles is out! Have a great weekend. open.substack.com/pub/statusku...

Relatedly, this book discusses the rise of "neoliberal feminism", a new form of (popularised) feminism that has "become increasingly compatible with neoliberal and neoconservative political and economic agendas".

Wow, sure would be pretty crazy if a ton of experts in the artificial intelligence field relentlessly warned everyone about this state of affairs being inevitable over and over for years.

"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." ― Frank Herbert, Dune cassidoo.co/post/good-br...

Summer: woman of ripe fruits & vegetables, symbol of fecundity, from Four Seasons series, 1563, by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, (1526-1593), Italian Mannerist artist working at Habsburg court in Vienna, & patronised by Rudolf II in Prague. He inspired surrealist Salvador Dalí. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien

The Disrobing of Christ, c.1577, acclaimed altarpiece by El Greco (1541-1614) Greek artist of Spanish Renaissance, pupil of Titian, humanist & scholar, whose work foreshadowed Expressionism and Cubism, died #OTD 1614; influenced Degas, Manet, Cézanne and Picasso. Toledo Cathedral

I feel like maybe giving her the Peace Prize was a mistake?

The Knight of the Doleful Countenance: Don Quixote de La Mancha, most influential work of Spanish literature and first modern novel, by Miguel de Cervantes, Vol 1, published #OTD 1605. Don Quixote, oil on canvas by Honoré Daumier c. 1868, Neue Pinakothek, München

“History...is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind...” Edward Gibbon, historian, author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, published 1776-1789; Gibbon died #OTD 1794.

Elon Musk’s Grok ‘Undressing’ Problem Isn’t Fixed www.wired.com/story/elon-m...

As a person who dabbled with the oboe for many years I really enjoyed this very nice article in the NYT. Totally analogue content! "I can tell you that it is a woodwind consisting of a reed, a top joint, a bottom joint and a bell. More technically: It is torture." www.nytimes.com/2026/01/14/a...

Wir sind das Problem. Niemand hört das gerne. Aber das Phänomen ist ein gesellschaftliches. Es betrifft alle Männer. Und keiner von uns kann sich darauf ausruhen, dass er eh einer von den Guten ist. www.derstandard.at/story/300000...

Totally worth reading. Thanks @garymarcus.bsky.social for sharing! garymarcus.substack.com/p/how-genera...

Bandcamp bans AI music

We extracted (parts of) 12 books in experiments with 4 frontier-lab, production LLMs. We prompted the LLMs with a short prefix of a book and asked them to complete the rest. For Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we extracted 95.8% of the book from jailbroken Claude 3.7 Sonnet.

Hmm. Almost 7.8 billion spent for 200 millions of revenue doesn't sound exactly like a sustainable business. From The Information newsletter...

Just in case there were any doubts.

The richest individual on Earth should not own the keys to the largest disinformation machine on the planet. It's not censorship to switch X off. It's common sense. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

X is unacceptable. Creating child porn and denigrating women is not covered by free speech.

During these challenging times, we could all benefit from a smile, so I would like to present the oldest smile in the world: the Mannetje van Willemstad (the little man from Willemstad, Netherlands). The Mesolithic figurine, dating about 5400 BC, was carved in oak wood. 🧵 1/2 📷 me 🏺 #archaeology

Vielleicht eh mal ein paar Non-Tech-Bro Follow-Empfehlungen von mir zum Thema KI: • @emilymbender.bsky.social • @abeba.bsky.social • @timnitgebru.bsky.social • @olivia.science • @alexhanna.bsky.social • @mmitchell.bsky.social • @irisvanrooij.bsky.social • @swachter.bsky.social

Here’s part 8 of this week’s Better Offline coverage of CES, featuring Cory Doctorow, @captain2phones.bsky.social, @cherlynn.bsky.social, @edwardongwesojr.com and @bishonentype.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b... Linktr.ee/betteroffline

Here’s part 9 of this week’s Better Offline coverage of CES, featuring Cory Doctorow, @edwardongwesojr.com, @iwriteok.bsky.social, @kylechouinard.bsky.social and @bishonentype.bsky.social podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b... Linktr.ee/betteroffline

47 years ago today The Clash’s London Calling was released in the U.S., on vinyl and 8-track tape (picture), following a Dec. 14 release in the U.K. #punk #punks #punkrock #theclash #londoncalling #history #punkrockhistory #otd

Indonesia temporarily blocks access to Grok over sexualised images reut.rs/4jvw0JI

Philip the Good of Burgundy, ruler of Europe's richest court, patron of Van Eyck, founded Order of Golden Fleece #OTD 1430. Bibliophile & collector of rich textiles, often purchased through his Italian silk merchant Arnolfini. Musée de Beaux-Arts Dijon; Arnolfini Portrait National Gallery London

This bizarre and dangerous claim violates literally every section of our Constitution, which was built by geniuses explicitly to limit individual power. Those entrusted with enforcing our Constitution have a duty to every Conservative and Liberal American. A duty to act. Now.

good god, please do not do this Do not trust this company with ANYTHING sensitive or personal. Or any of them.

Nice write up (as always) from @martinfowler.com with cool mention of @mariozechner.at martinfowler.com/fragments/20...

A review by Wired of outputs hosted on Grok's official website shows it's being used to create violent sexual images and videos, as well as content that includes apparent minors. www.wired.com/story/grok-is-g...