Feeding the Novelty bias of some people Not for useful or usable things but for magic beans and shiny beads

💯 "Elon Musk Cannot Get Away With This. If there is no red line around AI-generated sex abuse, then no line exists." www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

What this has done in fact has simply moved content off the timeline and into private interactions with grok. So deepfake porn is still happening, in a less transparent way

In 2024, I rose in Senate QP to ask why the Govt of Canada was still using X for official communications. Today, they are still there. What exactly will it take to break the spell?

The only way to win the communications war long term is to stop using the tools owned and controlled by those that hate you and want to stack things against you.

A proliferation of sexual deepfakes on X has prompted other countries to investigate Grok, the platform’s AI software, but, so far, Ottawa remains silent. www.hilltimes.com/story/2026/0...

This use of Grok isn't personal perversion but political terrorism: it's designed to silence women, make us retreat from public life. Exemplified by the digital desecration of the body of Renee Good: someone prompted Grok to deepfake a bikini on her corpse. "You're next" is the message to women.

“We’re very concerned, but we’re going to keep letting it happen for now.”

For all that the media has spent years freaking out about what social media does to our brains, I don’t understand why there appears to be little effort to grapple with the fact that these chatbots are, for some not insignificant portion of the population, literally psychosis machines

For my dataviz and flag enthusiast friends, here's a project that analysis flags around the world, their colors, symbols, layout, changes, and so much more (too bad the contrast is meh though, hard to read white on light gray). By Ferdio flagstories.co/

The "liver, fava beans and a nice chianti" line in Silence Of The Lambs is a little joke for psychiatrists in the audience - those foods cannot be consumed with the meds (monoamine oxidase inhibitors) that Lecter is supposed to be taking.

This is an amazing fact

Explore Frank Lloyd Wright’s Iconic Houses Through Eight Short Documentaries

Let's start this week.

People do not need "AI literacy". They need a gd intro to statistics and probability course.

So if you're a MS Office subscriber and got a notice that the price went up. It's because are now charging for Copilot. You can opt-out by cancelling your subscription. When you do, they will offer a Office365 "classic" option which is at the previous price and doesn't include Copilot.

Check out this excellent reflection by Ethan Marcotte: ethanmarcotte.com/wrote/a-noti...

whoever did this, I would be absolutely thrilled to buy you a drink. seriously - dm or find me, I'm the only Cyd Harrell on the internet. I'm good for an excellent beverage & a civic tech rage session. americabydesign.fail

Geese in Flight Benjamin Chee Chee ~ Anishinaabe 1976

Me ten years ago: sure, I'll read your 10,000 word thinkpiece on teletubbies as a modern-day justice league. Me now: it's a 1m57s video and you're imploring me to "watch to the end"? I think not.

😑

But the company would access all those recordings and data mine them for anything they could sell. No, they don’t tell people that. Yes, everyone does know it. No, there’s nothing you can do about it.

Whenever I see men post this I think about how when women are lonely, it's not pitied. It's used to chastise them for not being nicer to men. Meanwhile, when men are experiencing a "loneliness epidemic" they decide the answer is *also* that women should be nicer to men.

Friends, please share! Proofs are ready for @skeuomorphpress.org's edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s "A Rant About Technology." I am so pleased with this book—in many ways our 1st real book project Details about how to get one through our fundraiser at skeuomorph.ischool.illinois.edu/le-guin-book...

shutupandtakemymoney.jpg

1974 JRR Tolkien calendar does not get very racy in either his poses or clothes

When I was young, old people had trouble double clicking Unrelated, it's gotten so my phone has such nuanced gestures that I do the wrong one as often as the right one to accomplish what I want (eg swipe left to the next tab in the app vs swipe edge left to minimize the whole app)

If it took 8 days to build a massive concentration camp in Florida then it means they could build and house the homeless at any point but choose not to

"When you outsource the thinking, you outsource the learning." deplet.ing/the-copilot-...

Andrew Stanton's Wall-E was released 17 years ago today. Still one of my fav sci-fi animated movie. 🤗

Computers used to scream every time they connected to the Internet. They knew. They tried to warn us. We did not listen.

Aye, SecUnit, righte ther wyth thee.

we have broken the promise of due process

PM Mark Carney has described developing fossil fuel infrastructure as “pragmatic.” But it’s unclear how a country grappling with abysmal air quality due to wildfires fuelled by global warming will benefit from further fossil fuel development. Deborah de Lange writes.

Learning the etymology of words, because our brains love a good story, is phenomenal for remembering new vocabulary. And morphology (learning roots, suffixes, prefixes, etc) helps with remembering & guessing meaning of unfamiliar words too. #LangSky #etymology Top notch infographic with alt-text

If a colleague had the reliability rate of an LLM, they would be fired. If ordinary* software did, it would be uninstalled. LLMs require the chat format, because chat makes us party to the conversation. We insert the meaning ourselves - and hold it to a different standard. It's the mirror effect.

If a human told you things that were correct 80% of the time but claimed, flat out, with absolute confidence, that they were correct 100% of the time, you would dislike them & never trust a word they say. All I'm really suggesting is for people to treat chatbots with that same distrust & antagonism.

#Throwback (2019)

This is absolutely delightful

Andrew has posted the full opening credits/theme song to The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon!

whocouldhavepredictedthisohyeaheveryone

An absolutely chilling story about a cost of climate disasters we don't think/talk about enough, from @ninalakhani.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The Times finally reporting what we all could see: Musk was absolutely tripping balls the entire time he destroyed the government. Very polite of them to wait to drop this until he’d left the position. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/3…

It's fascinating how much generative AI has become a reflection of climate change. We know what's happening, but we carry on as usual, regardless of the consequences. The important thing is to save money in the short term, and good luck to those who follow.

📢 New video and a big announcement! briefs.video/videos/intro...

I mean, we had evidence that physical buttons were better a decade ago, but that wasn’t enough and it was also too late to prevent the years-in-advance line planning delay of most automakers who chased taillights on the touchscreen war without waiting to see whether it was a good idea.

FINANCIAL NEWS: Tesla is a disaster CUSTOMERS: Fleeing company in droves CHINA: Launching cheaper EVs TESLA: Delays in new model production MUSK: Something something robotaxis (giggle) FANBOIS: Shut up and take my money

The environmental disaster that is GenAI trucks on, heedlessly. Musk is operating 33 illegal methane generators at this data center.