Incompetent courtiers being put in charge of key technical positions and then totally botching them was a recurring feature and major weakness of historical absolute monarchies and authoritarian regimes. Anyway, Bari Weiss,

I keep thinking it's the wrong day because my dialysis got changed. To accommodate for the holiday, they shifted everyone's schedule so I go in on Sunday and Tuesday this week. I normally got Monday and Wednesday. So my sense of time is all fucked up as a result.

Gold futures just reached an all time high of over $4,400 an ounce. (Gold prices typically go up when there is economic uncertainty generally and especially when there uncertainty about the stability of the dollar.)

Seen a few posts about how they act like they'll always be in power and I think it's more than that. Because they think they're actually liked. They're so isolated from reality by their yes men and - ironically - echo chambers they believe their policies are popular and it's only a few dissenters.

from the other place. Three years ago...

I promise you that no less than ten times tonight Bari Weiss has said "I don't understand why this is such a big deal" or words to that effect.

Tonight’s dumb napkin cartoon…

Seriously? No credit? And you're a Harpers editor?

*tapping the sign again*

the one thing that i don't think Bari Weiss (the fucking moron) recognizes is the fact that if there's one the press loves, it's about reporting on internal reporter drama

Alright, who ordered Leni Riefenstahl off Temu and put the result in charge of CBS News?

I think it’s pretty likely Bari Weiss quits far sooner than anyone expects because if there’s anything we learned from her tenure at the New York Times it’s that this lady hates working, absolutely despises it, and she probably had to send like four emails today

If you use generative AI to "explore ideas" you are mentally weaker than even the smallest child. If you feel that you need generative AI to "structure your thoughts" you lack the confidence of an 8 year old. If you feel shame about your diminished inner world, you should. You're bad at daydreaming

When I ask LLMs to summarise my own work, within two or three turns, it stops doing that, says what it reckons is the most statistically likely combination of words, says I talk about things I don't and misattributes either someone else's work to me, or my work to someone else. Trust it? Fuck off!

the shitstorm that’s already brewing because of Bari’s decision to spike this story is going to end up being vastly more damaging to her and to the admin than allowing the story to air would have been she’s an evil propagandist hack but she is also very bad at doing it in a way that isn’t hamfisted

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

It looks like it's been scrubbed from every official 60 Minutes page now. It's only a 30-second promo but here it is if you didn't get a chance to see it.

A Lord of the Rings cover band called Me First and the Gimli Gimlis.

After several MORE years of being pressured, often by very unpleasant people and actors, to use the Metaverse, NFTs, crypto...

Your time would be better served ruminating on what we are saying, admitting AI is a profound mistake, and figuring out how to atone for it going forward in your "work." Your Plagiarism Button has made our jobs infinitely harder and we are disgusted with everything your industry has foisted on us.

Historian: AI has no place in historical research or writing. AI pusher: You don't know what you're talking about! Historian: I do. I am a historian. AI advocate: Luddite! Historian: *writes twenty-seven post thread about Luddism*

Wait the corpse of The Escapist is still pretending to post news items? I thought it was just a gambling ad site now

Holy shit the people over at the Escapist are dumb. Context: they said Blue Prince, the new Indie game of the year winner, used AI assets and everyone should just shut up and get over AI. Blue Prince does not use AI assets. The article is just a lie. Go play Blue Prince, it's fucking amazing.

in 2010 my premium was $500/mo for a policy w/a pre-existing condition exclusion rider, so doctor visits, Rx meds, etc. related to that was out-of-pocket w/no cap. I went to Europe every year to stock up bc same meds were OTC there. Meds + airfare + hotel was cheaper than 3 months of the Rx here.

Heated Rivalry is a Crave production, from Canada. HBO is just a distributor. I really wish people would stop attributing anything in the production of this show to HBO.

Canadians, please sign! #TransRightsAreHumanRights We need compassion and community, not ideological cheats. Link to sign: www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en... More details from the petition in image, if you need it. Please sign! 🇨🇦

Save Ferris is one of those ska bands that got big for their cover song, which is sad because their original work is great just like this song, “Xmas Blue” www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gc7O...

They say there are no heroes any more. I say there are.

Freebies, Sales, and Charity Bundles for December 21, 2025 #ttrpg #dnd

‘Solstice’ comes from a Latin word that means “sun standing still.”

Her husband is a registered sex offender who was recently on house arrest and her brother is doing 25 years for raping a child. She defends and supports them both: www.bbc.com/news/newsbea...

TIL that in Colonial America in the early 1700s, a big part of Christmas celebrations was firing guns into the air. America gonna America, I guess.

Imagine historians using AI

This, and Kirking is when you convince the bot to delete itself.

AI supporters grant grace to AI mess ups that they would never extend to humans. "I used AI to create recipes! Every third one is awful, which isn't bad!" Whereas a human-authored cookbook would be in the trash at that failure rate.

I've seen some people saying that the new SFWA rule on "AI" in the Nebulas will prevent people from being transparent about their LLM use. Newsflash: They wouldn't have been anyway. It would cost them readers. It would cost them votes. It would potentially cost them opportunities with publishers.

I have said it before and I will say it again, Debate Kids are the ones actually ruining the country.

Discworld QOTD, from Lords and Ladies

🎯

the kid who designed this has got to feel like the coolest kid in the world right now

This has also been my philosophy in TTRPGs. If a big company like WotC or Paizo does it? Then I'll scream about it from the mountaintops. But some small publisher or solo designer? Better to let them wither in obscurity than give them any exposure and focus on promoting better indies.

iTunes: The Application That Doesn't Do Tunes

Once when we wanted to show the ineffectual dithering of The Good Place Committee, we had one of them say, "There are rules, procedures. This is The Good Place -- we can't just *do stuff.*" We almost didn't include it, because we thought it was a little on the nose.

👇Proof that TERFs/GCs are not only anti trans, they’re also anti women.

Live your life in such a way that your broken jaw isn't the highlight of social media's entire year.

I just spent six years writing a book. I learned how to use archives, how to handle secondary sources, how to structure a 140k-word argument. I fell so hard in love I went back to school for a PhD. Now people ask how I use LLMs to write or summarize and I can only think “You don’t value what I do.”