An incredible piece of writing, a gift of a sort I had not known it was possible to receive

Here’s my go-to article that provides a good, concise overview of one of the main culprits in the privatization of libraries: Library Systems and Services. fullertonobserver.com/2022/03/08/d...

TRUTH

Come for the b-roll of people excited for sales, stay for the 2 seconds of this guy mugging for the camera

One reason why elite schools (Columbia, Brown, Cornell) caving to Trump’s illegal impoundment and extortion is so galling — a betrayal, really — is that they would have won had they fought. By giving up, they guaranteed every other school will have to fight harder.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have tried, it’s just that even success required overshoot (ie, missing the target). And because it’s been framed as a “game over” threshold, media coverage of 1.5 has contributed to the idea that climate action is now pointless. That is not, and will never, be true.

Axios tried to bust James Talarico for following adult content creators on Instagram and I'm genuinely impressed by his campaign's response

10% of Meta's 2024 ad revenue came from outright frauds and scams; the platform shows consumers 15 billion ads for fraud and scams every single day. This doesn't even include agitprop and AI slop. the existential collapse of this monumental pile of shit company simply can't come quickly enough

Cough cough pointing out that @nkjemisin.bsky.social illuminated this truth in fiction better than any poll or think piece ever could. (If you haven’t read The City We Became, tonight would be a great night to get a copy)

This is metal as hell and they should send it out as a scream emanating from the mouth of a demon

Even if we took what the indictment claims at face value (and you shouldn't)... this would be complete fucking nonsense.

If you’re wondering why real incomes are collapsing, here’s one reason: “.. almost 14% of workers are getting no raises.” (via MetLife)

there is a certain irony around tech bros who believe that the work of writers is largely worthless, while also claiming at the same time that they desperately need to use that written work - without compensating human authors - so they can make a bazillion dollars off LLM products.

This one’s for anyone who has ever sent a postcard or knows what deadstock is or uses a ballpoint pen or wishes their mailbox brought them joy

...including a new project I’m building with the brilliant @meganwesterby.bsky.social. THE POSTMASTER will deliver serialized stories to your off-line, real-world, please-could-there-be-something-other-than-junk-mail mailbox. Get on the early access signup list at gideongranger.com

I truly appreciate that she dropped the album announcement THEN the engagement announcement.

August should be a national holiday

Every single time I’m in an email anything and hit ‘f’ to forward and it doesn’t work I long for telnet

"gig workers call ICE on their immigrant coworkers who they view as competition" is a pretty concise summary of the 21st century, cybourgeoisie class warfare as a way to discipline labor. sourcenm.com/2025/07/11/r...

I have three good tickets to MCR this Friday in Seattle if anyone is looking — not gonna be able to make it.

Perfectly explained, impeccably executed, hilariously animated

It feels particularly wicked, I have to say, to snatch day laborers in a place where you can see dump trucks roll up and down the streets, throughout the workday, to clear the wreckage from a wildfire that destroyed thousands of homes.

i think most white americans who have never been Policed don’t realize that you are always already a criminal. the second anyone with institutional power believes you to be, needs you to be, or wants you to be a criminal you are and always have been.

American Cinémathèque doing great things at night in Los Feliz

tech bros fumbled the bag so bad on AI. they invented a way for humanity to glimpse the nightmare reflection of our own unfiltered Id and immediately neutered it so it can only spit out greeting card art and linkedin platitudes. we had an elder god on tap, and they made it a business major chatbot

this week's newsletter is about the lessons of our departed friend white genocide grok maxread.substack.com/p/regarding-...

It’s incredible that the President of the United States is openly flirting with suspending Habeas Corpus, disappearing people left and right, arresting judges and politicians, accepting ludicrous bribes from foreign countries, and people are still trying to normalize this shit.

The rats have chosen a new pope.

If you want to bring agrarian subsistence from family based labor structures, you also have to accept roaming bands of orphaned teenagers pillaging your farm because their parents died from cholera at the ripe age of 24

damn, it seems like the venture capital strategy of forcibly butchering a thriving business in order to funnel dump trucks full of money into the pockets of a few amateur phrenologists from silicon valley isn't a great way to run a sustainable business. I wonder if there's anything else we could try

RFK Jr was born in 1954. He turned 18 in 1972. Schools weren’t required to let disabled kids in and get quality education until 1975 now-named-IDEA. Millions of disabled kids were in segregated schools or institutions.

I didn't realize how badly I needed the Murderbot trailer to drink straight respect juice for the books until I watched it five times in a row with increasing delight. youtu.be/vEioDeOiqEs?...

What Josh says x 100. Some of the most impressive marvels of the modern world are not physical constructions but the system-level infrastructure that makes everyday life work, infrastructure that works so well it is often invisible.

Again, the two most impactful lies of the past half-century have been “Trump is a good businessman” and “Republicans are the good-at-economy party”

Stand by this: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

I went to the protest in DC yesterday and this is what really hit me--so, so many specific signs like the one that just said "I kept pacemakers safe"

Computer scientists writing about the social, cultural, political and economic impact of AI should really collaborate with people in the humanities and social sciences.

Just saw a farmer say, "you don't have to admit you were wrong, you have to admit you were lied to, " and idk that seems like a good framing to call people in

remember stuff like this when they tell you that diversity means a lowering of standards

I feel like this whole area is strangely revealing because it is both boring and frightening for people at the same time, operationalizing data and using it over time to check what we think we know about the world, but it pulls the curtain back on whether you value the truth or not as a business

I’m not, personally, against all of the tech that gets lumped under the heading of “AI”. Much of it actually has many valuable uses. But like anything they touch, they exaggerated the value & applications of LLMs so they can make one of these hype cycles. And got hundreds of billions for doing so.

My passion is data visualization

thing is you need to want civil rights for your neighbors—in your city, in your state, in your country and beyond—even if they are stupid fucking assholes

This is almost such an obvious point, it feels slightly crazy to point it out, but a politician winning a national election does not mean that the criticisms of that politician were wrong. Nixon and Bush both go reelected and everything their most unsparing critics said about them was right.

And most people find it dull, which it often genuinely is. The dirty secret of journalism is that, while more people once read serious news than is currently the case, it was never popular. It was subsidized by all the other stuff that came in the newspaper bundle: comics, sports, advice columns.

This is correct.

"Politically idiosyncratic" is a fun way of saying "right wing trump supporter" bsky.app/profile/aliv...