Writing about Elon Musk’s pay package without leading with this is like profiling John Wayne Gacy’s booming party clown career.

makes me weep to think of the gifts robbed from us because unaffordable housing has made it difficult for people to pursue their passions and hobbies

Chicago area folks: @icirr.bsky.social is holding Know Your Rights trainings all the time. I'm signed up for the virtual Nov 3 session (look for the Google doc in the middle of this page). Lots more resources & info on their site. app.smartsheet.com/b/form/a05b4...

the extent to which media elites treat liberal americans as if they do not count in the body politic is a real problem

the practice of giving books a star rating out of five has degraded literary culture profoundly and ought to be wiped from the face of the Earth

dems rly need to be building websites/tools that let people plug in details like zip code, income, type of insurance, etc. so that they can see how much money republicans have cost them/will cost them next cycle. hardly a better message than “these fucks are costing you $x.xx, vote for us”

i’m so pissed some of you were so rude to jack antonoff

Collective action is the way. Good for everyone that’s a “name” talent pledging to torpedo the creative credibility of any org that capitulates to unconstitutional censorship. Now, where can the unions use their leverage beyond the immediate condemnation statements?

this is my home district, and includes that rat bastard Steve king’s old house dist. It’s red as hell, but the idiot trumpers probably can’t tell you what a special election is, let alone when it is or how to vote. special elections are a big part of the playbook in shifting tides at the state level

hahaha this is insane. Netflix only has ~300M global subscribers! hell, there are only about 1.5B iPhone users globally!

Generative AI by definition is conformity. It is an averaging of anything you ask of it - quite literally guessing what the most likely version of a thing might be. It is, by definition, mainstream, as is everything it creates old and deeply ideological, as every model trains on similar data.

Hate is built on fear. The cure to fear is knowledge, experience, and empathy. So the backbone of any censorship movement is their ability to convince people that those three things are actually bad. We have a very easy argument to make if you think about it... We just need to be louder about it.

Bye forever, WeTransfer.

“The need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. Authority is brittle…Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction.”

Here is a great blog from @jscros.bsky.social about one of the worst media companies that has ever existed. Private equity really is the devil. www.discourseblog.com/p/rest-in-pi...

Truly whenever you’re trying to figure out why something is awful.

I post/repost this information every time I see it because every time I hear a mostly offline person talking about it, it’s in the same breath as Google and boy are they not the same thing.

the alternative reading of this, "We're guessing people will get used to bad writing by 2030 and will no longer have any discernment in how they spend their time"

Newsletter: It's time for a radical new approach to tech CEOs: mocking them, because they talk like idiots and provide little value to society outside of their dedication to shareholder value. They sound stupid, they do nothing, and it's time to fight back. www.wheresyoured.at/make-fun-of-...

I think much of the tech right’s turn to eugenics can be explained by their psychic refusal to accept that their massive wealth is the product of historical luck (being in SV at a time when investment money was cheap & abundant) and an insistence that it was instead a product of inherent supremacy.

All I can really think about when people start arguing against lifetime copyright for artists for their work are all the older comics artists who made the mega franchises you love...who have to beg for healthcare & financial support.

This sounds like a bit but I’m being serious: kids using chat gpt for their homework are denying themselves the invaluable experience of learning how to bullshit their way through a problem. You drink some caffeine the night before and figure it the fuck out. That’s a skill. You need it in life.

and Miss Bates was correct far more frequently

Hello. I live in Los Angeles. The president is lying.

AT LONG LAST! Book One (HOW TO BECOME THE DARK LORD AND DIE TRYING) is *easily* the book I recommend to friends the most. If you haven’t read it, go buy it *and* book two—you will love them (unless you have rotted orc entrails for brains.)

Using AI is risking plagiarism, and nothing will kill a writer's career quicker or deader than that. AI lacks flavor, and the special sauce of any writer is the flavor they put there themselves. Writers and Editors FUCKING HATE AI. Who becomes a writer to become disrespected? AI: not even once.

Project 2025 explicitly makes that specious connection. Call your reps and tell them to shut this down. reps.fyi

gotta find someone for iowa. i think ernst is probably more vulnerable than she looks

It’s so funny when people try to make sense of his ramblings. “It’s hard to figure out how he would implement such a plan” lol he’s an impulsive moron who doesn’t understand shit, it’s like ascribing complex motives to a dog eating another dog’s poop

You guys don’t need to try to convince me that any form of AI has merit. It doesn’t. It is boring and half-assed. I am fine getting by with human brain power. If the world nears its end and AI has one hater left, good news! I am still alive.

he’s right and he’s right to say it

Private equity buyouts are harming our firefighters, hollowing out our hospitals, & making our communities less safe. I’m pushing to stop this legalized looting & hold private equity accountable for anti-competitive practices that force communities to spend more and get less.

one thing i’ll say about That Publishing Account: anyone who fancies themselves an arbiter of objective good or bad in publishing is a fool. the longer you work in this business, the more you understand that the only thing you know is your taste, and you respect that writing a book is fucking hard

ppl keep mistaking Jurassic Park for a survival film against dinosaurs when it's actually a survival film against startup culture

This is a nice thread about The Onion. Thank you for saying nice things, and I can confirm the premise: If you pay your staff well, and you allow them to do what they're great at, it works better than chasing algorithms. The art is better, the truth is found easier, and—bonus!—the revenue is better.

if it was your opinion and judgment and you fail (which in both politics and entertainment happens frequently) then its YOUR fault. if all you were doing was "following the data" then you're blameless! you were doing best practices! It wasn't your decision. But there's no science behind the latter!

it's much scarier and riskier to be like "hey in my opinion this is a thing that will work and we should commit fully to doing it" than it is to be able to point to focus groups and polls and other measurable pieces of data. but it genuinely works better!

it's very similar to the process in Hollywood of making "data-driven" programming choices - ultimately good political messaging and hit movies are both an unknowable and unquantifiable commodity and the best process we've ever developed for getting it is "let smart, experienced people try stuff"

I know folks don't like giving out donations but PBS is a public good, often providing programming many companies are too frightened to. A subscription costs less than your average streaming service and in some cases less you barely watch. Keep em alive.

h e l l y e a h

No patience with members of Congress and other national leaders saying they're too scared of threats to stand for the Constitution, rights, and rule of law. You're not entitled to this post. It's not your birthright, nor a favor that you're doing the rest of us. Your feelings are not the priority.

This probably explains all of the “film buffs“ I’ve encountered who have seen very few actual movies, they just watch clips on YouTube and read the Wikipedia summary

the pitt is never more endearing than when you can feel the writers turning to the camera and saying something like "vaccines are good" or "abortions should be legal and accessible even to minors." like hell yeah dr. robby you tell em!!! we love an informed ethical perspective in fiction!!

Folks,

Really and truly, if I could communicate anything about history it's that genuine dumbasses can be key historical agents, and that has pretty massive implications for how we make sense of the past and present both.

oooooh baby when the neeps take center stage it’s worrisome indeed

History speaks. Europe’s lessons from a century ago can wake up and inspire our democracy…in 2025 America. Stream my hour-long special “Rick Steves’ The Story of Fascism in Europe” at www.ricksteves.com/fascism.

JUST IN: South Korea’s highest court has removed embattled President Yoon Suk Yeol from office, ending months of uncertainty and legal wrangling after he briefly declared martial law in December and plunged the nation into political turmoil.

"they hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak" our beef:

the dipshit can’t remember what he’s saying mid sentence, truly shocking to believe that he’ll remember pledging money to their little campaigns