This is such a classic instance of what happens when a startup with a community of devoted fans gets acquired by a megacorp and then put on life support. www.wired.com/story/metas-...

Since the start of the genAI craze I have been arguing that OpenAI could well turn out to be, not the next Google/Facebook, but rather the next Netscape. Here is one analysis predicting that outcome: www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/o...

When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?

via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon

Thank you! This is truly annoying, suggesting an inability on the user's part to distinguish between the thing itself ("conspiracy") and the fancifully mistaken belief that the thing is real ("theory") -- furthering the very confusion that conspiracy theorists depend on to spread their conjectures

Anyway w/r/t to that thread on The Pitt, I think the show (which I love!) is a flashpoint for a broader argument in TV: Should the medium's new business & technologicial structure be constrained to preserve narrative formats and customs that only exist because of a previous business/tech structure

Ars Technica is hiring a Tech Reporter We're seeking an expert in one or more of these fields: software development, DIY tech, cybersecurity, free and open-source software (FOSS). Come join the team! condenast.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/CondeC...

A suitably soberer "Cluetrain Manifesto" for a more beleaguered time resonantcomputing.org the key will be insuring that those who work by such principles can protect them from long-term contact with the VC system and its incentives

The interesting, sophisticated thing about games is not whether they can tell stories as well as books or movies (they can’t) or float shocking themes as well as fine art (honestly, who cares). It’s the manipulation of systems, the play of contingency, the brokenness of machines.

Some of that proverbial personal news, since I realize I hadn't posted yet about it: I retired from Axios last month after 7+ years. Time for me to step off the news cycle, which is both addicting and exhausting. Grateful to my wonderful colleagues at Axios—their admirable work is worth following.

This morning, took a trip on a boat to an island via "Through This Fire Across from Peter Balkan," the new album from @themountaingoats.bsky.social. It's a musical-of-sorts, about three shipwreck survivors who find themselves stranded and starving on some faraway beach....

Talking to the youths in 2025: did you know that "podcast" comes from a pun on "broadcast" plus the Apple iPod, a precursor to the iPhone that only played music Talking to the youths in 2045: did you know that "tweet" comes from a pun on Twitter, a precursor to various shortform social media

Waiting for Godot: The Hunt for Godot is the recently announced newest installment of the Godotverse. The long awaited sidequel follows Godot's adventures during the events of the original play.

There are so many *different* ways AI is going to usher in utopia, and AI leaders have kept very busy over the last three years predicting future paradises. Here's my brief guide to the AI manifesto literature, in Axios today www.axios.com/2025/09/23/a...

if "grandpa with fox on in the background" made you sad, wait until you meet "grandpa who watches 2000 daily reels of slop algorithmically targeted at his worst impulses and fears"

I'm looking for stories about how AI is killing creative work, and I'd love to hear from you—artists, writers, illustrators, actors, designers, editors, voice actors and narrators—if your job or practice has been hit. This is going to be a big one. [email protected]

Having covered mass shootings for almost 20 years now, the things that so many have in common—and how we can prevent them absent, you know, sane gun laws—are best explained in this piece by @markfollman.bsky.social : www.motherjones.com/criminal-jus...

How's the mass rollout of AI going? My new 2-parter in Axios. Part 1: bot-vs-bot dynamics will bring new kinds of friction and over-optimization that, paradoxically, will make sharing ideas and buying goods online *less* efficient. www.axios.com/2025/08/22/a...

Can folks do me a favor? I was on Bluesky early & it was great. Mostly. I hit the eject button in January. I came back, many colleagues are here, but still don’t know I am. I co-created Halt and Catch Fire. I write TV & comics. Here’s two favorite set photos. Repost? I am in the wilderness.

Smart thoughts from Suleyman about how problematic it is to project consciousness onto the computer programs we call AIs; "seemingly conscious AI" is a useful phrase. BUT has he read Weizenbaum? If not, why? If so, why not mention? mustafa-suleyman.ai/seemingly-co...

Come January I will have been full time in AI and robotics for fifty years. I've lived through and been part of most of their history, and know their pre-me history pretty well. I'm the old guy in therapy here...

Mass shootings are preventable. The one in NYC is no exception—all the more tragic given the shooter's long-known troubled history. I wrote a book (and then again recently, a cover story) about how we can do more to stop these. And I'll keep writing about it... www.nytimes.com/2025/08/05/n... 1/x

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

The Tarbell Center is supporting ambitious journalism projects covering AI and I'm helping them judge the submissions. If you've got an idea, there's info here www.tarbellfellowship.org/grants and the deadline is 9/14.

One of the true greats. My parents thought it was fine for me, a tot, to hear his songs about the new math, Vatican II, nuclear proliferation and other adult topics when the headlines they responded to were fresh. They twisted me in a good way for the rest of my life. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...

What is happening with Epstein Files? Erving Goffman tells us exactly what to expect. Let's learn sociology of The Con! 1/

Developer: Yeah I reckon the AI coding tools make me about 20% faster Narrator: The AI tools made them 19% slower

if you start to think only metrics and data make things real, you need to put yourself under more and more intense surveillance to believe that you have a self that's real

Five years ago, I wrote about how AI-generated synthetic media threatens to overwhelm the historical record of our era with fabricated artifacts and events, triggering an age of "post-history." Given new developments with Google Veo 3, it's still relevant today www.fastcompany.com/90549441/how...

Just a few line breaks and em dashes turn Eno into Emily Dickinson Although variety's the spice of life — A steady rhythm is the Source — Simplicity's the crucial thing — systemically, of course

I couldn't sleep last night and started reading this. Now after finishing, I can't recall the last time a piece of journalism changed my perspective on a topic like this did. Going to be thinking of this @markfollman.bsky.social masterpiece for a while. www.motherjones.com/criminal-jus...

I suppose I should spell this out at some point but the reason named generation discourse is so unedifyingly circular is that modern American media culture came into existence simultaneous to the demographically real baby boom, so "kids these days" is baked into the fabric of how we see the world

we're doing the thing unbreaking.org

These things being thrown into the wood chipper, whether the NIH or the EPA, they aren't cost centers and they aren't even just public goods -- they are public wealth and protectors of public wealth, stuff we inherited from those that built them that keep us all richer in ways big and small.

Clive's thread is must reading for anyone who wants to understand why people who know anything about programming double over when they hear about the DOGE Social Security plan. Asterisk: if you don't care about screwing up the system/losing payments/breaking things then everything's great!

Like, even on my worst day of writing, a day where the writing feels like I'm banging my head against a rock, I never wish I could just push a fucking button to write that page, or that paragraph, or even a sentence. I want to do the work! THE WORK IS MYSTERIOUS AND IMPORTANT

if you care about understanding facebook you have to read kate losse's excellent memoir The Boy Kings. it's nonnegotiable imo

Instead of rooting out Social Security fraud, DOGE's slapdash approach to infosec is more likely to open the door to new fraud. From WaPo --> wapo.st/3DsqvLj

Tested is so so good

Very excited to see this one!

Gift link. A small unelected, secretive crew now has free access to sensitive private data of everyone. And Musk is already publicly targeting family members of judges who rule against the administration. If this isn’t ringing alarm bells, I don’t know what would. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/o...

Highly recommend this: @marynmck.bsky.social on the dangers of avian flu and the increasing likelihood of the next pandemic—in an environment where we can no longer count on the federal government's traditional research, tracking, prevention and containment efforts. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/o...

DOGE should submit its own paper to Nature about Musk's quantum superposition as both DOGE administrator and not

"But I am very poorly today & very stupid & hate everybody & everything. One lives only to make blunders." Charles Darwin, who had a pretty bad day every now and then, was born #OTD in 1809. 🧪 The letter to Charles Lyell with the quote above: www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter?docId...

If you're a journalist downloading CDC data today, please consider filling out this form so we have a centralized guide to who has what. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

things change, all is flux www.axios.com/2025/01/29/f...

This is not the case at Axios, I can say from personal experience, but it is definitely a larger issue in the media world and it dates back at least to the '90s, when nearly everyone in media who cared about the Web left because our own newsrooms wouldn't see what was happening

Why do AI leaders keep talking about the coming wave of "agents" as our new "AI co-workers"? My latest in @axios www.axios.com/2025/01/23/a...

as the rollercoaster crests the top of the initial incline, the ratcheting noise slows and stops, and you can, right before the plunge, observe the entire amusement park