This reminds me of that hair stylist/amateur archaeologist who figured out that ancient Roman hairstyles were sewn in after a hundred years of rich white dudes insisting that all that art must be representing women in wigs bc OBVIOUSLY there was no way to actually make hair do that 🙄

Deidre Lynch@drbibliomane.bsky.social · 21h ago

You can/should read Emily Wilson's latest take on the Odyssey, but I'm logging on to convey my hairdresser's reaction. She was AGHAST that Nolan, with his million $ budget, gave Matt Damon ONLY 6 hair extensions. As a result, his hair did not blow around properly, & that ruined the film for her.

Last week I was making bath bombs with my own recipe that I developed through study & experimentation (trying other makers’ recipes & tweaking them, learning the basic functions of ingredients, etc) & they were falling apart. I figured out the problem & solved it only bc of all that xp & practice!

Angus Johnston@angus.bsky.social · 1h ago

Which is fine if you don't want to be good at doing the thing, and just want a robot to do the thing for you. But it's less good if doing that thing is, you know, your job. Or a part of being human.

And not just false but aggressively so—research already shows that even brief AI use erodes problem-solving skills & persistence, so in many cases using AI to do X actively makes people WORSE at it, even if it’s not giving them specific incorrect info or processes.

Angus Johnston@angus.bsky.social · 1h ago

"By using AI to do X, it keeps me from having to do X" is a statement that's clearly true in some circumstances, though the risk that AI is going to do X badly, and often invisibly badly, is a serious one. But "by using AI when I do X, I get better at doing X" seems clearly false in all instances.

For anyone not in Madison, this morning Mayor Satya ordered a 5 am raid on the peaceful encampment mourning Corey Ruiz's murder. So. Civility. Sure.

Essay Strophie@essaysays.bsky.social · 18h ago

Madison's 8/4 Common Council Meeting (City Council) - Mayor Satya opens by asking everyone, especially alders, to give each other grace and refrain from using profanity.

I’ve been on tonight’s common council zoom for 4.5 hours, four of which have been devoted to public comment about the MPD murdering Corey Ruiz & the Office of the Independent Police Monitor and literally ONE person has presented a position other than “fully fund the OIPM” or “resign now, Satya”

"I don't understand why you, a fantasy writer, don't appreciate the value of making bargains with the fae."

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

Every now and then someone takes a run at me along the lines of "I don't understand why you, a scifi writer, don't appreciate 'AI'," and I'm all, motherfucker, it's *because* I'm a science fiction writer I have the positions I have, how many times do we have to fucking yell "torment nexus," my dude

There’s a guy, great king, incredible king. Prester John. Scepter made of emeralds. Descended from the Maggie. Sent me a letter, beautiful letter, tears in his eyes. Begged me to let him help open the strait, big strong guy. I’m giving Iran 24 hours to comply or, Prester John, I might tell him yes.

if there's a sunday chore you hate doing i encourage you to avoid it. yes you've painlessly knock it out every other week and yes it only actually ever takes 15 minutes, but what if this time it kills you? best to avoid it

L (8) currently reading Calvin & Hobbes to @aj-the-great.bsky.social and AJ is correcting her pronunciations: “DisMEMberment” “Dismemberment” “Gorge” “Gorge”

It’s so funny when people are like “sure you’re an abolitionist now but wait until you’re the victim of a property crime.” Buddy, the most useful thing the police have ever done for property crime is put the form you need to submit to your insurance online.

So a masculinist understanding of notetaking would think a transcription app is the same as taking notes. That’s why they think an AI transcript is a time-saver. They think the notes are the thinking because when a human takes the notes, it is.

Not yet, Sam - it's only July 32

Samuel Pepys@samuelpepys.bsky.social · 5d ago

Up betimes and got me ready, and so to the office and put things in order for my going.

did anyone ever do a gag dub of the transformers movie where every character death was followed by an off-screen IT'S A MIRACLE. HE'S IN A COMA

Happy July 32, all academics. Yesterday, Joseph woke up and chose violence.

Joseph M. Adelman@jmadelman.bsky.social · 5d ago

Because the 1st is a Saturday, “How is it August already?!” will be observed today, Friday, July 31, 2026. Please panic accordingly.

Honestly the most historically accurate thing about Nolan's Odyssey is that fanpeople got mad Achilles wasn't in it. If that's not the world's oldest reaction to the Homeric epics idk what else is

In a hypothetical Muppet Odyssey, the no-name crewmembers should all be pigs. Then Circe turns them into humans with thick Boston accents, and we get a Matt Damon cameo.

Isekai as a genre is exploding in popularity because it appeals to a universal desire to get hit by a truck rather than live in the 21st century.

We now have the technology to eliminate HIV and AIDS. But cuts to USAID mean it’s not gonna happen any time soon. My latest. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

HIV prevention drug could reduce number of cases globally but USAID cuts prevent access, say experts

Injectable PrEP drug holds promise but investment in HIV prevention has declined dramatically worldwide

theguardian.com

- unsubscribe - stroke out - bashful bladder (it took two pregnancies to get past this!) - photo op - white coat hypertension

Merriam-Webster@merriam-webster.com · 5d ago

Find the 5 words from your birth year that perfectly describe YOUR vibe ⬇️ www.merriam-webster.com/time-traveler/

This is primarily a case of “tech changed in ways that made it much harder to dodge interaction with some level of plausible deniability so ppl had to start formally cutting ties” Like, yeah, parenting norms changed & certainly more ppl get therapy now but those aren’t even the main issues here

Meggie Z@nutmeggles.bsky.social · last wk.

Another classic case of “sucks to suck”.

Not really the same thing, but this reminds me of how after testifying for the public defender’s office about the basic structure & affordances of social media networks, I got put on a list of “computer experts” & had to explain several times that no, I could not recover hard drives for evidence

Cliff Pervocracy@pervocracy.bsky.social · 6d ago

upside of being the one person in the office who knows what an IP address is: very popular among coworkers downside: sometimes presented with hard/impossible computer problems with expectation that because I know how to rename a file I also know how to raise the dead

upside of being the one person in the office who knows what an IP address is: very popular among coworkers downside: sometimes presented with hard/impossible computer problems with expectation that because I know how to rename a file I also know how to raise the dead

liars think everyone lies thieves think everyone steals cheaters think everyone cheats

mattie lubchansky@mattielubchansky.com · 7d ago

what the fuck do you mean "everyone is using AI and nobody admits it." what the fuck do you mean. who are you talking to. you have allowed a demon to devour your soul. begone

At no time while reading this did I anticipate what was coming next.

jordan@jordantyranny.bsky.social · 7d ago

The only taxidermied blue whale in the world, 1865 CE, now housed at the Natural History Museum in Sweden. The public was allowed to enter the whale up until a couple was found having sex inside it. Now the whale’s jaws are opened only for special occasions, such as Swedish election days.

Boy have medical sociologists got news for them about literally all disorders (I am a sociologist with raging ADHD that didn’t get a diagnosis & the associated very helpful meds until I was 40 bc of the ways this particular social construct intersects with sexism, mainly)

Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · 7d ago

Channel 4 has announced documentary “The Great ADHD Myth?” It “seeks to determine whether ADHD is a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”

For anyone curious, this is the Honeycomb Storage Wall! I found the descriptions sort of overwhelming and not-intuitive originally so I'm gonna do a tiny tiny thread. (this is the main page I believe but there are custom generators all over!) www.printables.com/model/152592...

Honeycomb storage wall by RostaP | Download free STL model | Printables.com

Wall for attaching hooks and holders for your tools. You will create the wall according to your own idea. | Download free 3D printable STL models

printables.com

The thing about these companies doing HP tie-ins is they know exactly what they're doing. This isn't 2019, Rowling's views are going to be on the radar of any PR person. They've just run the numbers and decided that we won't lose them more money than the bigots and nostalgia zombies will bring in.

drunk girl trying to tell her friends that she thinks they are “weekend at Bernie’s” with McConnell, but she has got completely the wrong movie and keeps calling it “doing a Fish Called Wanda” with him and I’m dying

This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b

The thing with Hogwarts cosplay in 2025 is it marks you as either actively a bad person or someone so completely incurious as to be indistinguishable from one