AI Bros: "It's getting better all the time, soon it won't make mistakes, really!" OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT: We just proved mathematically that "hallucinations" are inevitable. www.computerworld.com/article/4059... #AI #AICrap #AiResearch #GenerativeAI #OpenAI #ChatGPT

NB: the term "carpetbagger" refers to people coming from the North to aid in democratizing the South after the US civil war. It's a bit like "Luddite" in that people doing justice work are now used as a pejorative. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpetb...

Democrat warns US progressives against moving toward the center: ‘It lost me the election’ www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... #USPol #politics #USPolitics #progressive

Quick ❓ for folks following the #NYC mayoral race: When Mamdani calls Cuomo "my friend" and then "habibi", is he just being a wise-ass, or is he responding to something in Cuomo's video? (I didn't bother to watch Cuomo's vid.) I'm here for it either way! Just curious. #NewYorkCity #NYCMayoralRace

Increase a band: Thomas Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound

A quick explainer for people who don't know the ins and outs of computer hardware and cooling: storing emails doesn't take any water. Storing emails takes a little space on a hard drive, but honestly, not very much. Not compared to lots of other things like images, videos, and programs. 1/5

#AI #AICrap #NothingIsInevitable #inevitability #FuckAI

I don't think there's a "male loneliness" epidemic. That's absurd. There definitely is a fascist manopshere grifter problem, though, and we're currently not winning that fight.

Quick reminder that if you link to something on Substack — even something really cool and progressive and feminist — there's a whole bunch of people who won't read it. Because we don't give The (Other) Nazi Site our time, clicks, or eyeballs. At all.

Molly White, of Citation Needed and Web3 is Going Great, switched to Ghost last year. (Link to detailed article: www.citationneeded.news/substack-to-...) she also posted price comparisons with other similar services. (hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/...) there’s a post here too, but I can’t find it

I might be a bit too late to this party to start a trend, but I would love a comment thread full of Substack alternatives. Currently, ghost.org is the only one on my radar and I'd love to know more.

Wait, can you not do polls on Bsky? I was going to see if people thought my use of "delving" in my last skeet meant I was Nigerian, or an AI. 🙄

Delving a little deeper into that "3.5% of population to cause change" idea. One key takeaway: it's a description of what's happened in other situations, not necessarily a magic recipe for success. But it's a sometimes-useful guideline. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Lang Belta class is coming back to Dragon Con! Can’t wait to see one of my very favorite con communities again. (Probably ought not to actually *teach* wearing Drummer’s exoskeleton, though…) Official info on this, plus the debut of another workshop, soon! #TheExpanse

US TSA will (finally!) end its asinine policy of having people take off their shoes for security screening: abcnews.go.com/US/tsa-end-s... This can't come a moment too soon.

In the "Between the lines" section in www.axios.com/2025/07/07/d..., the 6th Dem talks about trying to persuade frustrated, angry Dem voters to focus on winning back Congress next year. Our obvious retort: youse didn't do jack with it the last time youse had it.😒Why should we think that'll change?

Yes, this is it exactly. I am a writing prof. Please understand, the PRODUCT is not the point of my courses. I have them write essays for the same reason you lift weights. The repetition is the point. It builds the skills. I am not collecting undergraduate essays for sale on ebay.

Oooh, the bar I'm is playing _The Dark Crystal_ on the TV. Which naturally makes me think of @skektek.bsky.social. 👋🏻 Maybe my next Manhattan should be a black one... 🤔

Re previous post: It drives me UP THE WALL how often protest is depicted in entertainment as spontaneous. Like, Rosa Parks' ride on that bus was planned for MONTHS. This stuff is very much like a military operation. The myth of spontaneity serves the interests of the ppl who hate organized protest.

kind of just endlessly sad and grieving that there are so few voices in the public sphere making the basic principled argument that immigration is an affirmative good in every way and the best way for this country to serve humanity is to welcome people who want or need to leave their homes

Periodic reminder, "ricing" a piece of technology--computer, car, whatever--is a super racist term. Just stop using it. You can say, "suping up." You can say "blinging out." You can say "bedazzling" if you want to. But why choose the racist term if you aren't racist? #linux #computers #technology

Fraudsters can now do deepfake videos in real time. Just what we needed, another assault on our ability to trust in reality or the evidence of our senses. www.404media.co/the-age-of-r... #deepfakes #fraud #epistemology

Just saw a news headline saying, roughly, "Academy Awards changes rules; now judges have to have seen all the films in a category in order to vote on it", and I'm like, 🤯 wait, they previously didn't have to‽ WTF‽ Did they have to watch *any* of them? What's going on here? 😒 #AcademyAwards #Oscars

I think I have wanted to paste *with* formatting maybe twice in my life. Every. Other. GODDAMNED. Time, I have wanted to just paste the DATA I copied from elsewhere, and have it match the place I'm pasting it into.

It seems today is the day the universe (or at least my job) decided to tell me, "Kagan, you don't know enough about using Postgresql on a Mac. Time to change that!"

I can't believe #NYC got rid of outdoor dining. This weather would be beautiful for going to Swift Hibernian Lounge after work and doing some writing in the outdoor space they used to have (it was lovely, full of plants!). But no, we had to get rid of all that... why, again? 😕❓

It's really annoying that when trying to find a handy guide to link to in my last post, I found a couple of really nice ones from the US CDC and ready​.gov... and unfortunately, I don't feel confident about linking to US gov't sites anymore. They might take anything down at any time. 😢

In commemoration of #SanFrancisco's Great Quake and Fire of 1906, this is an excellent day to review what to do in an earthquake: Drop, cover, and hold on. Don't try to run inside, outside, or to another room. Stay out of doorways. www.redcross.org/get-help/how... #earthquake #earthquakes

i need people to understand "death of the author" means the author can't dictate what you take away from the text, not that you're not complicit in what they do with the profit they make from you buying it in the first place

One of the most consistently neglected parts of today’s user experiences is our handling of errors. We’re so busy designing the happy paths through our products that we often forget to give the same care and attention to the times when things will go wrong piccalil.li/blog/how-to-...

Guys, I love all of you, but the answer to RFK, Jr. is not that autistic adults hold jobs, pay taxes, and get laid, it's that everyone deserves to live even if they can't work, pay taxes, or get laid.

AI and its hucksters don't get to claim the ✨ emoji. I'm holding the line on that. Queer and fey people get first dibs on it, as well as anyone else who needs to add a little (or a lot of!) sparkle to things. If AI wants to have an emoji all of its own, 💩 is right there.

Me last night: I should really do more writing! And work on other projects that I need to do. Me today: Holy shit, the weather is gorgeous. I need to go to the Japanese garden at the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. 🌸 So here I am. No regrets. #Brooklyn #spring #NewYorkCity #NYC

I've been writing using em dashes since the 1990s. The reason AI uses em dashes is because it was trained on my writing, and that of countless other humans like me. #AI #AICrap #EmDashes #typography #writing #FuckAI

That's weird. Why did I just suddenly, for no reason at all, get a craving for a chocolate milkshake? 🤔 Anyway, I'm not going out to get one. Closest I can do is a homemade chocolate Egg Cream... which I might do. Only if this craving persists for a while.

Tired😑: The problem with #RTO is, we're all in online meetings anyway. Wired🤩: The cool thing about everyone being in online meetings in the same open-plan office is, everyone has to shout to be heard in their own meeting over all the background noise around them! #OpenOfficesSuck #ReturnToOffice

Normal people: If you saw someone stealing food or baby supplies... no, you didn't. Trump's DOJ: If you saw a crypto exchange defrauding investors... no, you didn't. Seriously, #crypto​'s always been a dodgy investment, but now? Yikes. 😰🙅🏻 www.theverge.com/policy/64539...

"I drive a Swasticar, so I'm obviously a monumental asshole. But how can I make *really sure* that everyone can tell?" 🤔 "Got it!💡Double-park... *in a bike lane!*" #Tesla #asshole #Swasticar #Cybertruck #SomeoneTowThisMotherfucker

The US government is going to "crack down" on protesters. They will use violence to create panic and rationalize their own violence. Media will frame it as "rioting" bc that's what the police will tell them to say. I do NOT want ANYONE to get hurt,but this is a sign that the protests are working.

Friends, I know you're excited to try protesting, but under no circumstances should you ever sign up to attend one. I'm suspicious of any org asking people to put their name on a list that is easily accessible via warrant or may even be public. You can just show up day of.

Went to a meeting at work where one of the topics was "vibe coding" (and how do we feel about it?). I helped move the Overton window in the direction of "we hate it and won't use it for anything but toy prototypes", which I feel good about. And I wasn't the only one, which also makes me happy!

The term "scallywag," which I always thought was just some sort of toothless pirate insult, actually referred to white Southerners who allied themselves with the efforts of Reconstruction, so maybe delete that one from your vocabulary too.

With @katmabu.bsky.social running for office a lot of people are using the term "carpetbagger," which meant Northerners who moved South after the Civil War to help establish freed Black people in their new lives and you only think it's a bad word because textbooks are full of Confederate propaganda.

Everyone, I'm begging you to get the hell off #Substack. They *profit* from Nazis. This isn't complicated. This isn't nuanced. You don't "gotta" anything. They profit from Nazi content. Fuck 'em. Get a WordPress site.

STOP CALLING ALGORITHMS "AI." ALGORITHMS ARE NOT AI. ALGORITHMS HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR DECADES. STOP FEEDING THE BUBBLE.

Don't go to America. It's not safe. I'm so sorry. I know you have families, businesses, professional meetings. My employer is in New Jersey! I get it! Don't go to America. It's not safe.

The answer to the question too many men will be asking tomorrow is: November 19th. Ofc, asking it tomorrow makes it clear they don't actually care about men. They just don't want women to have *anything* nice, not even for one day, not even if men get the same thing.😒 #InternationalWomensDay

"Age yourself with a movie you saw in theaters." This one👇🏻. So very many times.