A lot of people, including me, were wondering how an IRB could ever approve this study. The answer is that no IRB did. The person who “signed off” on approval from the only ethics board that reviewed it had resigned three years earlier. His signature was used without his knowledge.

and now for something completely different

Share all organoid neurophysiology data

Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by *the British monarchy* is an incredible “America at 250!” achievement

So what's going on with this Mayor/OIG dustup regarding MONSE?

how do I mute wearing jeans in a sauna in all modalities?

Before I even read that piece about how "you can't talk about AI with the left," I'd apparently already written a counterbalance piece over at my newsletter

I think a lot of this "the left doesn't get AI" or "you can't talk with the left about AI" originates with annoyance by libertarians and the right at people reminding them ethics and empathy should still matter in technology development and adoption, and it isn't just about "work flow efficiencies"

so far this + RAM is mostly a gaming story but this is much larger: at stake is whether personal control of computing power remains financially within reach or whether they enclose that and sell it back to us www.rockpapershotgun.com/ssd-prices-i...

oh so very much this

@lballant.bsky.social new issue of American Prospect is looking great

StickingPlaceFilms hosts a fantastic repository of footage cut from Medium Cool, as well as interviews with the filmmakers and actors about how it was made, what was cut, and why (vimeo.com/user3954622). Stills in this thread come from: "The Making of Medium Cool (2 of 6)."

A brief shot of Jesse Jackson at the Poor People's Campaign march on Washington, spring '68 - from the film Medium Cool. Jackson figured much more significantly in Wexler's original vision for the film ->

4-5 years ago there were MDs like Lucy McBride crowing about the urgency of normal, getting kids back to school. There were PR hacks like David Zweig supporting them. Now kids are being sent to immigration detention, getting measles & these folks are nowhere to be found. It was never about the kids.

We built Jikipedia, a new wiki that compiles Jmail data into exhaustive reports on key figures in the Epstein scandal. It lists all recorded visits to Epstein's estates, each person's possible knowledge of Epstein's crimes and laws that they may have violated.

Running is back on the menu

Dude are the Y working out in a collared shirt

call me a carceral urbanist or whatever but i think that if you murder an entire family with your SUV, at the very least, you should never be allowed to drive again

doi.org/10.1038/s415... This should not surprise anybody

How is this possible?

PwC somehow more lucid on AI and education than most university leaders these days

Most people don’t know this: Heat pumps REDUCE gas consumption even if running 100% on electricity from a gas fired power plant. More here in my piece for @carbonbrief.org👇 interactive.carbonbrief.org/factcheck/he...

Makaya McCraven and Christian McBride in the same weekend? Ding ding!

Now I want to move to VT

When did Adolph Reed stop writing for the Nation?

Anthropic's head of safety just resigned. Most likely a protest against the company's pivot to working with Palantir and Gulf Arab states. The "don't be evil" stage gets shorter. (I still think Anthropic is the most morally run of the AI corps but it's like cherrypicking rooms on fire.)

There's a special place in hell for people who benefit daily from state of the art medical treatment and then argue that the means to discover the next state of the art treatment should be eliminated.

Puerto Ricans have been fighting for energy democracy - the right to control their grid locally and build the clean energy future on the island - for decades. If you want to support an incredible effort, get plugged into the work led by Queremos Sol! queremossolpr.org

Loved it.

When AI was added to a tool for sinus surgery: “Cerebrospinal fluid leaked from one patient’s nose. In another… a surgeon mistakenly punctured the base of a patient’s skull. In two other cases, patients suffered strokes after a major artery was accidentally injured” www.reuters.com/investigatio...

FT outdone by ABC on this one abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory...

What's going on with the 1800 block of St Paul. Numerous houses boarded up. We need to expropriate these landlords.

As @postguild.bsky.social assesses the damage from last week’s layoffs, it turns out between 44% and 47.5% of the newsroom has been axed. It “may have been the biggest one-day wipeout of journalists in a generation.” washingtonian.com/2026/02/09/a...

I wish I could see the transitional forms with my own eyes

People should pay attention to this story. Trump actually tries his "you're fired" shtick, directly!! But it's mere words!! Because the guy has a (good) union (which is smartly making a symbol of this story) Ford meanwhile suspended him immediately and surely would have fired absent union action

“A bird with a 10-gram brain is doing pretty much the same as a chimp with a 400-gram brain,” said Onur Güntürkün, who studies brain structures at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. “How is it possible?”

Just a few weeks ago, the administration cancelled all remaining department of energy grid resilience projects in Puerto Rico. All of them. www.latitudemedia.com/news/the-end...

it’s interesting to see which ads acknowledge the dystopia and offer a supposed hack. the hims and hers ad acknowledged the dystopia of America‘s healthcare system, but the hack is just more dystopia. unfettered capitalism can’t be both the ailment and the cure.

Commenting on energy injustice is now the floor for any halftime act.

Turning Point USA Halftime Show Opens With Snake-Handling Preacher

Child at the podium: “A woo woo woo.” Mamdani: That’s how I felt when we came up with this plan. Together, we will expand the idea of what is possible in our city—and what sounds and noises we can make at a press conference.

Most importantly, if one truly does believe that we need an 'enforcement mechanism' at the border, is it very hard to imagine an alternative to ICE (an agency that was founded the same year I entered law school)?