And the existential threat from AI is not Skynet or runaway paperclips, it's what the terrible human beings plan to do to the rest of us with the power it confers on upon them.

This really needs an even tinier and cuter solar-powered panel cleaner to clean the panels that power the main solar-powered panel cleaner. And then you keep going down the scale recursively from there!

Kind of feel like we especially don’t need fancy law explainers at the moment. “Can the president just take money when he wants?” A third grader could answer this. A Yale law prof is likelier to write the wrong answer so their 2L can work for Alito

Up the Villa!

We would be a lot better off as a country at the moment if more of our institutions had said, "Fuck you, make me" over the past year and a half

Walks into the sea

I could sit here smugly having made the switch from Google to Kagi last year, but the open web information supply-side that alternatives like Kagi rely upon to have anything to index is pretty well doomed if these trends continue.

How do the Brewers just constantly humiliate us with a lineup full of guys like Jake Bauers and Andrew Vaughn and a constant pipeline of anonymous kids just up from the minors who all somehow throw 102 MPH? You've almost gotta hand it to 'em 😩

What is the whole odyssey if not a penelope cruise

Seven Samurai and Grogu. Yojimbo and Grogu. Except oops, those were both already episodes of the actual show

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Grogu

This whole thing of the entire global economy now being based solely on gullible fascists selling each other magic beans would be much funnier if the global economy wasn't how I feed, clothe, and house myself.

this is absolutely worth remembering: when the abolitionists began the struggle against the slave power, the slave power looked unbeatable. they fought anyways--a long, difficult, often thankless struggle. they fought anyways.

I honestly hope at least 90% of currently elected Democrats lose their jobs the next available chance in favor of people who actually believe power can be used to shape needed change for the people they're allegedly meant to represent. It's our only hope.

What fundamentally shifted is that American society was governed by literate values for so long that even literate people began taking them for granted. It really is as simple as: We did not understand how TV and, even more, the internet would upend the norms our country operated on.

I was annoyed that I couldn't find a database of David Attenborough documentaries where I could search for a specific episode by topic. So I made it. attenborough-100.vercel.app

We've reached the point where one party has so obliterated the rule of law that everyone else continuing to abide by it will only hasten the end of our democracy. That's a recipe for chaos and violence. It's terrifying, and I don't know what we do about it.

infinite positive liberty doesn't mean a whole lot if your primary liberty is getting to die from cholera

It was an enormous mistake by higher education (and, frankly, left-leaning politicians) to surrender the field and just adopt the view that the purpose of college is simple credentialism as if the only function universities accomplish is admissions. It's also a further product of Ivy-Disease.

You are a skilful and trusted vizier. You will advise me wisely on how best to rule the kingdom. You will not scheme or plot. You will not inveigle my other courtiers into turning against me. You will not lie to me about scheming or plotting. If you scheme or plot against me, you have to tell me,

Oh Brother Where Art Thou is the best odyssey adaptation because it understands the core truth of the original poem: Odysseus is kind of a dirtbag

Perhaps the only practical use for that rat's nest of old cables and peripherals you've been saving, just in case you might need one of them someday. But also, if the miracle occurs and you somehow happen to need a parallel port adapter on the go...

The Clone Wars and Ahsoka's overall arc all but spells this out, but can't ever follow trough because it would ruin the whole mythos and presumably traumatize the intended YA audience. Did they somehow write themselves into a corner, or? Either way, she's the real protagonist of the franchise.

Dust Bowl vibes several times over the past few years here in the middle of the richest farmland in the country. I'm sure it's fine.

if y'all have a stake in this you'll want to get involved with yr local public library & represent a demand for this type of AI education over free marketing & propaganda for tech billionaires. library execs & city/county officials are as susceptible as school admins to insidious tech pressure here

the basic reality is that this court has already destroyed the united states as a functional republic and none of the reforms necessary to rebuild it will survive the court as it currently exists any democrat not committed to expanding the court is not serious about fixing this country

Nothing good can happen until the Supreme Court is broken.

Payment processors dictating the terms of speech and association creeps from adult content into the mainstream political world, as such things always do.

Declaring that a technology "is the future" does not necessarily imply that the future in question is desirable

"A DOSUNMU TSUNAMI"

Brazil (1985) vibes intensify

This is the world so many of these people made and even they have to live in it

Pour one out for the Hilton staff who are working perhaps the worst shift in food service history rn.

Hoerner, in about 5 mins... 1. 2-out RBI hit to pull within 1 run 2. Baited Alex Vesia into making a 3rd pickoff throw which gave him 2nd base and put the tying run in scoring position 3. Then defensively in the bottom of the inning he made a perfect relay throw to get Pages at 3rd 4. And then this

I remember being so hopeful about digital technologies removing the barriers and gatekeepers and letting a million flowers bloom. But it turns out that all that gatekeeping and professionalism prevented shit like this (and much worse Nazi-level shit too, ofc).

"Weaponized poetics" I'll show you fear in a handful of dust! Get ready for the cruelest month!

we all know I have no life, so:

Perhaps they have judged that the US opposition as embodied by Bsky is so ineffectual that they should be silenced so something else can happen instead

At a time when mass surveillance and autonomous weapons companies like Palantir are openly announcing their plans for violent world domination, it is crucial that our attempts at “big tech reform” don’t actually give them more power—ie via government mandated age verification/identity software

A lot of our big “we’re gonna hold big tech accountable” bills actually hand them + the government unprecedented power to track, censor, and deplatform internet users—and would require us to link our identities to everything we do online, meaning no more privacy. Greatly reducing opposition to them

Look, for my money the absolute game changer technologies right now are batteries and biosciences, not statistically modeling a mid conversation, but you do you.

Man, it really is now a race between the Revolution and the Autonomous Kill-Drone Swarms, huh?

I'm not joking when I say mRNA technology is more important than "AI" and it's a tragedy we're throwing billions into one while our government is aggressively defunding the other.

Democrats should develop an actionable agenda of democratic reform in case they return to power. This cannot be limited to institutional refoms, but must include reigning in the power and wealth of technofascist companies and individuals.

This is the mirror image of the AI risk gambit. They're spinning out scifi utopias and dystopias for PR and distraction purposes. The real game is about what the people who currently own the AI infrastructure and the state actors they are cooperating with plan to do to the rest of us with it.

Did you know: There's HD video of Here Comes The Pizza?

Ruination Day (or, the overnight continuation of it anyway)

you shouldn’t learn about bands from shady TikTok manipulation, you should learn about bands by hanging out with a girl you like but are also extremely afraid of

TO DISAGREE PRESUPPOSES MORAL INTEGRITY

ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me