It’s not just a coincidence that the Lazarus Project theme sounds like the Loki series theme, right?

So there’s a lawyer going around BlueSky right now responding to everyone talking about the Anthropic book settlement by (1) urging people to opt out and (2) saying that they are representing authors who are opting out.

If you're looking to make a difference, please support the River Valley Adult Learning Alliance here in Arkansas. They offer intergenerational literacy programs that: 🔶 divert people from extremist movements 🔶 help people get their GEDs, CDLs, etc. 🔶 help people get their Biliteracy Seal ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

No, TurnItIn. AI is *shallow* learning. It is *anti-intellectual.*

from a wider standpoint, we show how AI can add to "efficient inefficiency" (it may improve the efficiency of already inefficient practices) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It's a useful reminder that sometimes tech can make a task more efficient for one side (applying for jobs), and more efficient for the other side (writing job adverts), and yet make the system as a whole completely inefficient.

Asbestos: useful, but comes with some tradeoffs

AI is like asbestos! I’ve been thinking about unregulated social media as comparable to the “big tobacco” fight. Big AI is going to be so hard to fight and just as destructive, this time to democracy, education, and intellectual anything. Thinking itself is poisoned.

NEW: The first two years of Massachusetts' millionaire tax has raised $3 billion more than expected. And rather than driving the rich away, IPS researchers found that the number of millionaires has *increased.* Tax the rich. Greg Ryan in @bloomberg.com:

I'm Thomas Chatterton Williams, and as the reality of our entire political and cultural elite's deep enmeshment with pedophilia and sex trafficking goes from obvious to undeniable, I will be writing about how it's bad to have principles.

Look, if you're going to win a major sports award, it should be a requirement to have your dog with you on TV for the announcement. I don't make the ru...well, I guess I did make up this rule, but I think it's a good rule.

It's so exhausting living in a country where being rich counts as experience.

for the record, this is how the @nytimes.com covered Bloomberg, a man elected to the same office as Katie Wilson with the exact same amount of experience in public office as Katie Wilson, but whom the paper did not view with obvious contempt www.nytimes.com/2001/11/07/n...

Any time I visit a national park, I make sure to email the hotel I stayed at afterward to ask them to invest in dark sky lighting. Light pollution is easily fixable.

NEW — I spoke to DoorDash about the White House claiming the company's report shows "inflation has been tamed" and whether that's an interpretation one should make. An economist also weighed in, pointing out dictatorships use data obfuscation as a tool, and right now they're "grasping at straws."

apparently many people not only want to talk to ideology in chatbot form but also recognize it as a "friend"

If only our society took major crimes by rich people as seriously as minor crimes by poor people. Ideally more seriously. But as seriously would be a big improvement.

SAG-AFTRA stands in solidarity with the Condé United and NewsGuild of New York union members who were retaliated against for questioning the closure of Teen Vogue.

I still believe Christine Blasey Ford and I still believe Anita Hill.

I'm in medicine and I'm convinced if men experienced period pain even for one day of the year, we would have more treatments on the market qz.com/611774/perio...

The value of reading history is you know that in 1860 there were abolitionists who were so demoralized that they thought chattel slavery would be permanent. 5 years later those still alive had lived to see its end.

Oh god no

You have to understand what pieces like this from the NYT are and are not. They are not an honest assessment of the state of politics today. They are a negotiation tactic—an effort by a calcified, right-leaning legacy institution to steer the discourse in a direction more palatable to elites.

spoke with the executive director of my local food bank today and got this really incredible line: "if you donate 1 can of green beans, we can give away 1 can of green beans. but if you donate a dollar, we can give away 6 cans of green beans"

I think the belief by the powerful that "people will put up with many things if you are excellent at math" is incredibly revealing in terms of understanding How We Got Here

Because of my book and all I've published online about teaching writing I'm now hearing from some students who say that teachers are "making" them use AI on their writing assignments but they don't want to. What are the ethics? Don't want to undermine teachers, but how do I support student choice?

Did women ruin the workplace? No! Did I personally ruin my own weekend writing about the cynical fuckery that led to the New York Times asking that question? I sure did! Huge thanks to @moiradonegan.bsky.social for lending her expertise and insight to my ranting

When you are using the "AI" framing, does the way you talk about "AI" carry water for the Sam Altmans of the world? That is, are you helping to paint a picture of their tech as inevitable, all powerful, and/or anything other than commercial products? >>

Milo, stays doing the reading.

So many things wrong with the GOP framing here (that’s how insurance works, for one; ONLY 40% haven’t had to file a claim?!!), but my brain is snagging on this: if GOP actually cared about insurance profits and fraud, they’d be supporting universal healthcare. It’s bad-faith rhetoric 101 here.

Black American soldiers literally dug these WWII graves. Traumatic. To acknowledge that fact at a cemetery they helped construct is something the Heritage Foundation cannot accept. As Veterans Day approaches, never forget that this country both compels and disrespects Black military service. Always.

In a normal democracy, a total collapse of party leadership would result in an no-confidence vote and immediate snap elections to find leaders who can lead

Almost completely, every single problem with higher education that folks think is mainly about something else is <primarily> about the massive decline in state public funding since the 1980s. Yes, including everyone's obsession with getting their kid into the "right" college:

Things will never ever get better if the GOP can do this every year without fail

For all our Christmasing, the adults in my family are NOT exchanging presents this holiday season. Each kid will pick ONE main gift they want. Our usual spending will go to those in need. We are NOT participating in Black Friday. We're reusing old holiday decor. *Not a dime extra for this admin.*

"Hyde language" would be a ban on anything related to abortion. So, any Senate Democrat that caves is agreeing to vote to implement a nationwide abortion ban in exchange for healthcare subsidies.

Attendance has dropped at Chicago schools in communities with increased immigration enforcement. Chalkbeat Chicago reports: blockclubchi.co/43hlTBr

“A writer at the Times contacted me to talk. He said he was less interested in Mamdani himself than he was in the Africana Studies part…” On why maybe you shouldn’t talk to the New York Times about Zohran Mamdani.

HUGE: Nearly 3000 people have signed up with @runforsomething.net to run for office since Tuesday night. runforwhat.net

Tech guys six months ago: haha yes we’re cutting all this WASTEFUL spending by eliminating medical research and USAID Tech guys now: yes I think taxpayers will be excited to bailout my non consensual pornography machine

Such a key point about cutting back on language provision - it’s not good for science and it’s not good for growth www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Anyway, AI doesn’t have any value for me in anything I do. I understand this says something about *what* I do. But also? It’s only practically existed for maybe 18 months. I loved and worked almost 45 years without it so yeah, I’m cool.

This is the Borg.

This is the Borg.

Make it stop.

Was this the best use of my time today? No. Is it the most amusing way I could have spent the last 90 minutes? Absolutely. Pattern is free here: bit.ly/4nGGCGc