And equally important, "intelligence" isn't a singular trait. That is, at its root, a fiction designed to portray the white and wealthy as "superior". Being skilled or knowledgeable with one thing guarantees nothing about other things. It doesn't even guarantee repeat success with the first thing!

This seems to be an especially vivid example of "There is no cloud, only other people's computers". I could easily imagine any cloud or X-as-a-service provider doing this, and maybe even doing it by mistake because their AI told them to. I don't have a solution, I rely on this stuff too.

it's an essentially aristocratic worldview, and it fits an era in which SV has become an essentially aristocratic culture www.programmablemutter.com/p/silicon-va...

It's fitting that the cover on AI mindlessly apes an earlier creation and also displaces workers while elevating Silicon Valley plutocrats.

there’s a lot of irony around how writing a genuinely good prompt for LLMs requires the exact kind of clarity and precision in communication that is taught by good (human) writing instructors - who have now almost all been laid off by college admins

No, this is wrong, stop reposting this absurd and miscalculated meme. It assumes Cratchit is working a 40 hour work week (he isn't) and that straight line inflation extrapolations over centuries are valid (they're not) and fails to understand both Victorian class and household finance.

If you've ever been to a naturalization ceremony, you know they're filled with people whose palpable love of this country is twenty times stronger than the pinched "patriotism" of any native-born MAGA chud. Just unspeakable assholery.

Very embiggenable photos of a nice E-type at the link... booksbikesboomsticks.blogspot.com/2025/12/auto...

something I think is underdiscussed about employment/capitalism discourse is that abusive/bad labor/management practices are probably more common in nonprofits and trendy organizations that people on the left are likely to work for than big boring office companies

Remember that capital is a paper tiger. If they can roll over for Trump, they can roll over for us. And we want American businesses to grow. We just don’t want the bosses at the top to horde all the money and give the rest of us pennies. They don’t even make pennies anymore!

Fun! This is a near-miss of my own bookshelf -- we had Ashcroft and Mermin for solid-state physics, and Cohen-Tannoudji, Diu and Laloë for QM, and as far as I recall, no Pedro Pascal at all.

Rolling Stone: clearly documents a 30+ year long con job. A rural county's own leadership lined their pockets by helping ag interests destroy the water supply. Everyone who read the article apparently??: Amazon data centers did this in 2011 www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

A good way of defining the working class versus the rich who need to be eaten is: If you could go into a coma for 10 years and wake up richer than you had been, you are not working class. Literally every billionaire would *make more money* while in a coma. The coma test.

Firstborn continues to fall into my traps.

Scary thread about how some students lack engagement with the educational project. I wonder about "convenience inflation", if you can get peer respect with a hot take on social media, and it feels like accomplishment, why work harder a less-good feeling? And/or, why write when nobody reads?

Sixty years ago this week in the Berkshire (MA) Eagle: "Saturday, Richard J. Robbins, 19, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and Arlo Guthrie, 18, of Howard Beach, N.Y., each paid a fine of $25 in Lee District Court after pleading guilty of illegally disposing of rubbish...." web.archive.org/web/20201125... 1/2

PROMOTE YOUR BOOKS! EVERYONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS! Do not ask me how my writing is going.

In our household, a standard phrase for expressing incredulity is "What, you think soup is a biped?" IYKYK.

I feel like this thread captures something about my life-long skepticism about convenience technologies of all stripes -- I have a neurotic fear of being "de-skilled." Probably I am over-reacting in a lot of cases, but for AI, it feels pretty real.

This phrase, "too many books," is confusing. Like, I know what each of the words mean, but when you put them together like that it's just nonsense, like the colorless green ideas thing.

A friend who teaches theology shared with me a post about CS Lewis's Mere Christianity, which discusses foundational Christian logic across denominations. It reminded me of Dale's tweet below, and I wanted to share some thoughts here regarding modesty and respectability, which are often hot topics.

The theme for #SC25 is "HPC Ignites," but AI and quantum seem to be key topics.

It begins.... #sc25

I like how full text search of every book and human thought ever was a SOLVED PROBLEM in 2001, and now dicks at search engines and my own phone – a piece of silicon faster to respond than God was ever imagined in scripture – prevent it from working, _as a retroactive infantilizing design choice_.

The real problem for Bond is also the problem for Batman, Doctor Who, and dozens of similar characters -- the idea that a melodrama hero must also be a dramatic protagonist. The two roles are fundamentally irreconcilable. I blame George Lucas and Joseph Campbell.

For some reason I am enormously pleased by Edmund Fitzgerald discourse. The below post is quite a banger -- see the thread for nuance, if that's your thing. Also TIL that Edmund Fitzgerald the man was president and CEO of Northwestern Mutual insurance, which invested in mining.

Once more for the North Americans: I'm remembering Leonard Cohen, my inspiration, co-national, and songwriting buddy. Here's a video I stitched together of CC licensed photos for "On Hearing a Name Long Unspoken". Music by me, words by him in the 1970s. Dead nine years today. youtu.be/FycRg8IobCA

applying for jobs again

One thing to like about this chart is that you can try and spot the transformative technologies in the past

Trump defeated the establishments of both parties to become president twice, break most civic and legal norms of import, end-run the Constitution's safeguards against Trump-like figures, survive numerous career-ending scandals, and now single-handedly holds a party together that would have spent

i wrote about having long covid as a hypochondriac and why no one should ever go on reddit www.late-review.com/p/the-galler...

Wonder why this scene looks so familiar... #WildlifeWednesday 🐦🐕

‘Study after study shows that students want to develop these critical thinking skills, are not lazy, and large numbers of them would be in favor of banning ChatGPT and similar tools in universities’, says @olivia.science www.ru.nl/en/research/...

Wasn't sure that it was appropriate to quote somebody else's story abt leaving academia as context, but some of the most important work is being done by people in precarious positions - students, postdocs, on contract - & every one who must leave is present conditions robbing us of a greater future

The first (1955) Danish edition of Ray Bradbury’s FAHRENHEIT 451. Later editions did not convert the title, so this is the only SI-compatible edition! 🎢

📊 #dataviz ⚠️PSA: Time to issue the annual Halloween _Axes of Evil_ Warning. 👹 Don't let any of these cross your threshold.

i think if you ride public transit enough you learn that most weird behavior is not dangerous, and conversely i think driving a car teaches you that everyone is trying to kill you at all times

Gift link to Tressie McMillan Cottom's NYT piece today about Graham Patner and his tattoo. Nuanced and insightful, but I'm gonna post it to social media anyways. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/29/o... #giftlink

TLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵

Defended my PhD in nuclear engineering

Trektober 30 - The women of Star Trek fandom! Star Trek has a long history of fandom (One of the first!) and women are such an integral part of it that I thought I would highlight some of them! (Long thread upcoming)

As a wise man once said, if you can get to the coffee shop in 15 minutes but the barista commutes from the suburbs, it's not a 15-minute city, it's a theme park. (A bit of googling, the wise man is apparently Gareth Klieber, quoted by @danwentzel.urbanists.social.ap.brid.gy )

High-value thread about public messaging. As the great Mel Brooks told us, "The thing you gotta know is, *everything* is show biz."

women created fandom over star trek. cons, fanfiction and shipping, even being obnoxious and demanding of corporate media, the invention of cosplay. it all started with women who were mad about star trek getting canceled.

My mom was one of the OG Spirk zine enthusiasts who wrote letters to get Star Trek back on the air. WOMEN got that show on the air (we love Lucy🖖) and women organized letter writing campaigns to keep it there! There IS no Star Trek without women supporting it! (PS look up Bjo Trimble)