So where are we this morning? Last week’s unambiguous electoral mandate did -not- strengthen the spines of congressional democrats. Instead, they seem to have folded up with no concessions at all, which makes the whole shutdown a waste, except … 1/?

Narratives about AI replacing work mostly seem to betray a profound gap in the author’s understanding of work. www.fastcompany.com/91435192/cha...

"I'll tell'y', be a neighbor and you'll have neighbors. Now I've tried that by experience ... you children remember that. Th'more you do for people, th'more they'll do for you. Always remember, t'have a friend, be one." Aunt Arie, The Foxfire Book

I fully believe in the corporate death penalty and believe we would be a better world if OpenAI lost its corporate charter and was forcibly dissolved. www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...

The @binjreports.bsky.social AKA @binjdotnews.bsky.social 10th anniversary celebration is a lot of fun. Here’s Chris Farone putting the whole entire establishment media on blast and obviously having a great time doing it.

Scarcity mindset: Grr. It is cold. Abundance mindset: The Big Fridge is BACK ONLINE!

They’ll roll all the way back to ‘reconsidering’ full-on human slavery if we let them. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/u...

Seems like folks are taking the occasion of James Watson’s death to tell their stories of how he was a problematic man in many respects. Here’s mine. 1/?

Occasional reminder: Elon Musk’s -very- first move when Trump handed him the keys to the federal government was to smirk about spending a weekend ‘feeding USAID into the wood chipper.’ He should be remembered as a racist mass murderer and nothing more.

Trump Cancels Christmas. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/u...

So hey, OpenAI is like … the industry darling and the future and the smartest white people in the room … but they also just asked the federal government do backstop their insanely overleveraged ‘investment’ and I think we should just say ‘nah bro, invisible hand, market smart, number go down.’

lol

My city is hosting a live, in theatre Godzilla marathon this weekend, and (a) therefore your argument is invalid and (b) I will not be taking questions between 2pm on Saturday and 2am on Sunday.

Ernest and Gracie’s. For when you’re having a ‘fuck it, pour some liquor in a milkshake’ kind of day.

If you defund, demoralize, and decimate the Agrncy responsible for regulating Food and Drugs, you will -immediately- get potential life-threatening quality problems in both food and drugs. Safety regulations are written in the blood of the people who died and proved we needed them.

Occasional reminder that for all their tough guy, testosterone poisoned talk … the thugs of the right will actually go all the way to a jury trial for ‘assault’ with a sandwich. What a bunch of whiny, pathetic, entitled, crybaby snowflakes.

Goddamn, there’s something I didn’t think I’d live to see. Maybe there’s hope for us yet.

Word on the street is that it’s Mayor @jake4somerville.bsky.social

Yesterday was a a glorious day to see the fall colors on one of my favorite ~35 mile loops.

Pretty emotional to think that this might be my last legitimate election. Hopefully we do better than that. Hopefully.

I was gifted a hand-written book this weekend. The author, a child of a friend, is six years old. It is titled, "The AA" 1/?

Wait, the whole Tylenol lie was just another piece of wildly illegal market manipulation and insider trading? www.nytimes.com/2025/11/03/b...

Section 8 of the US Constitution is a great reference for whether certain powers of government - including tariffs - are vested with Congress or the president. "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises." Seems clear enough to me. 1/?

A modest study confirms anecdotal evidence that drivers have no idea what to do with HAWK / PHB signals at pedestrian crossings ... and that the do dangerous shit like accelerating to get through -exactly- when a pedestrian is likely to be rushing to make the signal. www.umass.edu/news/article...

It’s small next to all of the everything wrong with the federal government, but I feel like it’s still important to note that this thing where congress has not been in session for a month, yet is supposedly still negotiating the budget, is a somewhat outrageous violation of Open Meeting Law. 1/?

Happy Halloween, everybody.

This should absolutely raise concerns on a number of fronts. www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

If you quietly substitute "I did a quick google and ..." whenever somebody says "I asked AI and ..." you'll understand my near complete disinterest in the details of whatever they say next.

Hey Somerville! If you haven't voted early or by mail, your last chance to do so is TUESDAY. Please go out and do democracy while we still have it. I've been thinking a lot about state power recently, and wanted to share a few of those thoughts. 1/?

Gonna break my streak of having never ever set foot in the Encore casino tonight.

Watching the last minute pre-voting meltdowns on Reddit, Facebook, and Discord and thinking on how my little hyper-online internet bubble’s opinion is usually wildly incorrect at moments like these.

Come out to support local journalism and have some fun while we're at it. November 8, 2-4pm at the 1st Parish Church in Harvard Square. @binjreports.bsky.social @horizonmass.bsky.social @jasonpramas.bsky.social www.eventbrite.com/e/roast-the-...

Rainy commuter morning.

I read this morning that the director of the FBI is giving his girlfriend trips on a federal jet, and it reminded me of this thread I wrote a few months ago about my own personal experience of government employees as generally stand-up, ethical people. bsky.app/profile/some... 1/?

The PTA at the Winter Hill Community School are holding an emergency fundraiser to provide free food and gift cards to families who are losing their SNAP benefit on Saturday. If you have the capacity, please donate to help keep our neighbors from going hungry. givebutter.com/qmnqus

I wrote about how "Grokipedia" is a new front on the war against reality itself. It's an attempt by the oligarchic class to seize the means of knowledge production itself and create a weaponized unreality. www.thedissident.news/grokipedia-a...

This article is utterly chilling. ‘Moving marginalized people to government camps is an idea with a long and shameful history.’ You think? 1/? www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/u...

Here's a quick thread about how I'm voting. Also, early voting starts today. No excuses. Get out there and do it. 1/?

Here’s my problem with candidate surveys, and my (more severe) meta-problem with meta-analyses of the candidate surveys: The surveys mostly discount the candidates ability to work as effective legislators … and the meta-analyses take it all the way to zero. 1/?

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

I have it on good authority that (a) government employees who work near the White House are being told to not take pictures of the East Wing demolition, (b) Secret Service are onsite to make sure they don’t, and (c) those bastards even nuked the bike racks.

Republicans in congress would rather see people go hungry than convene and work to pass a budget. www.reuters.com/world/us/us-... 1/?

FYI, the two (2) armed men supervising the two (2) construction workers at Park and Somerville are super, super intense about NOT WALKING THERE, for SAFETY (ya fuckin’ idiot!). I wish the department would bring that energy to drivers and moving violations.

Even with all the improvements we’ve made in protecting trees in Somerville over the last few years, it still raises my blood pressure when I hear the distinctive sound of somebody firing up a chainsaw and feeding a whole-ass tree into the wood chipper in the morning. Like, it’s probably fine?

I’m getting follows lately from supposed dom and kink accounts that are new and have very few followers. They look bottish. Sex workers, queer, trans, and kinky folks are totally fine with me. Welcome, friends. I do take issue with bots and trolls. That’s what’s up with me blocking them.

Do you want a nuclear armed AI? Because this is how you get that. futurism.com/science-ener...

It's really, really important to use the correct words for things. These are concentration camps. www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/p...

Status check on the fall of the US government: Republicans in Congress are actually, literally refusing to meet because, seemingly, of the risk that the details of their complicity in sex trafficking and abuse will finally come out. For a month. We haven't had a legislature for a month. 1/?

One of my spicier biotech takes is that it’s unethical and morally wrong to work on developing life extension technologies for the super rich and that nobody should be taking money to do that. That’s how you get vampires. Do you want vampires?

It's time to start the music, it's time to light the lights, it's time for CITY COUNCIL, up on Central Hill tonight. somervillema.legistar.com/MeetingDetai... 1/?