“our audience is nerds, but normal people is where the money is” — overheard from dudes talking about ai and podcasts in a coffee shop

What if our feeds were filled with uplifting and wholesome content? Before getting into this month’s recap, I talk about some of the videos that came across my feed recently that made me feel good — and almost made me want to try to train my algorithm to get more of them.

A more wholesome algorithm?

Plus, a recap of tech stories you missed in July 2026

disconnect.blog

“Timely and persuasive, this revelatory account is difficult to ignore.” My new book HYPERSCALE received a fantastic review from @publisherswkly.bsky.social. Less than three months until it hits bookstore shelves! Get more info and preorder your copy: hyperscalebook.com

👀‼️ Holy shit BOOK ALERT! Paris Marx (@parismarx.com) has been one of my favourite sources of tech knowledge for several years now, providing essential insight into everything from EVs to hyperscalers to tech-fascism. I'm positive that this upcoming book will be a fantastic read! #tech #booksky

Paris Marx@parismarx.com · 24h ago

“Timely and persuasive, this revelatory account is difficult to ignore.” My new book HYPERSCALE received a fantastic review from @publisherswkly.bsky.social. Less than three months until it hits bookstore shelves! Get more info and preorder your copy: hyperscalebook.com

they should’ve done this to X but you know tim cook worried what elon musk would do in response

Apple briefly yanked Telegram from the App Store over CSAM violations

Telegram’s ban didn’t last very long.

theverge.com

“Timely and persuasive, this revelatory account is difficult to ignore.” My new book HYPERSCALE received a fantastic review from @publisherswkly.bsky.social. Less than three months until it hits bookstore shelves! Get more info and preorder your copy: hyperscalebook.com

so cool to start seeing the book out in the world! get more info and preorder your copy: hyperscalebook.com

Stephen Sparks@ssparks.bsky.social · 2d ago

A lot of people prefer to log on to get pissed off. I find it salutary to do it the old-fashioned analog way: by reading books like @parismarx.com's forthcoming Hyperscale, an expose on what our tech overlords are stealing from us in their quest for ever more compute.

“The Chinese used the model of joint ventures and tech transfers and IP transfers in the '80s and the '90s to build up their auto sector with Western automakers. Now, the script has flipped, where we have an opportunity to actually learn from the Chinese when it comes to electric vehicles”

ANALYSIS | Are there climate benefits to Canada's new relationship with China? | CBC News

When Canada announced earlier this year that it would allow a token number of Chinese-made electric vehicles into the country, the gesture didn't seem so much about climate action as a sop to ease Chi...

cbc.ca

getting tired of people on the left still launching substack newsletters after all the reporting on that company in recent years

Can’t wait to read it! Don’t forget to order a copy or four to be sent anonymously to your densest city councillors ! 🫶

Paris Marx@parismarx.com · 2d ago

so cool to start seeing the book out in the world! get more info and preorder your copy: hyperscalebook.com

so cool to start seeing the book out in the world! get more info and preorder your copy: hyperscalebook.com

Stephen Sparks@ssparks.bsky.social · 2d ago

A lot of people prefer to log on to get pissed off. I find it salutary to do it the old-fashioned analog way: by reading books like @parismarx.com's forthcoming Hyperscale, an expose on what our tech overlords are stealing from us in their quest for ever more compute.

i was thinking about this when the news about it hosting models that allowed the creation of explicit deepfakes came out last week

Dale Chapman@decmusicology.bsky.social · 2d ago

Really off-topic, but I’m never gonna be able to think of the brand name Hugging Face without thinking of this lol

A lot of people prefer to log on to get pissed off. I find it salutary to do it the old-fashioned analog way: by reading books like @parismarx.com's forthcoming Hyperscale, an expose on what our tech overlords are stealing from us in their quest for ever more compute.

Taylor Lorenz often points to being such a big supporter of Palestine when she’s called out for pushing increasingly reactionary and right-wing perspectives. Yet after all this time, she’s still using Israeli company Riverside when there are plenty of alternatives.

“In 2024, an uncertified company [in Jiangxi Province] was found to have improperly dismantled 364 metric tons of waste lithium iron phosphate batteries. The resulting contamination caused vegetation to die across 6 acres of forest and killed more than 420 cubic feet of standing timber.”

Alex aka @digiconomist.bsky.social (he who took on the Bitcoin bros) is a worthwhile follow on data centre misreporting, particularly on water-washing and deceptive disclosure tactics. lnkd.in/p/eEDd6vKQ

I led a report about the environmental and resource parts of this! Companies intentionally conflate wildly different machine learning applications: using a sprinkling of good to justify a tsunami of bad ketanjoshi.co/2026/02/17/b...

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 4d ago

There is a certain level of obtuseness in (some) "AI" apologists when they flounce up to point out what "AI" is good for in science, etc, while eliding the fact that almost none of that use is driving the current market capitalization, environmental degradation and resource hogging of the field

2024: "All they have to do is release the hostages" 2025: "All they have to do is fully disarm" 2026: "All they have to do is allow us to keep killing them and fully colonize Gaza"

Regina John Hakmann 🏳️‍🌈@reginajohnhakmann.eurosky.social · 5d ago

" Itamar Ben Gvir wrote on Telegram, adding: "The assassinations in Gaza must continue, the encouragement of immigration must happen, Israel must win." !!! www.france24.com/en/middle-ea...

I used to do some work on the ethical use of satellite and drone imagery for aid and disaster response, and it is genuinely hard to express in words what a dangerous, stupid thing Google is doing by making it easy to use GenAI to create faked satellite imagery:

How to plant a nuclear plant in Iran

The question is: what on earth is Google doing?

digitaldigging.org

We can see many of the ways tech companies are affecting the way we live, but their power goes so much deeper. I was so happy to have @ceciliarikap.bsky.social back on the show to dig into it!

Tech Won’t Save Us@techwontsave.us · 6d ago

Cloud giants wield influence in so many ways that we don’t even consider — including shaping and capturing research. This week @ceciliarikap.bsky.social joins @parismarx.com to discuss how major tech companies shape society and why we need to push back. Full ep: techwontsave.us/episode/339_...

why do i need to know random details from so many other marvel properties to enjoy a spiderman movie, and why does its purpose feel to be less giving me a good spiderman movie and more setting up an xmen franchise? i’m so tired of this fucking mcu shit

We can see many of the ways tech companies are affecting the way we live, but their power goes so much deeper. I was so happy to have @ceciliarikap.bsky.social back on the show to dig into it!

Tech Won’t Save Us@techwontsave.us · 6d ago

Cloud giants wield influence in so many ways that we don’t even consider — including shaping and capturing research. This week @ceciliarikap.bsky.social joins @parismarx.com to discuss how major tech companies shape society and why we need to push back. Full ep: techwontsave.us/episode/339_...

“Intelligence” is a frame that works like ideology. Once you lock into that story, you organize your observations around it. These metaphors make sense to the story, so advances affirm the myth, despite compelling, grounded and contrary explanations for the resemblance to self-directed behavior.

The “losing control” narrative creates the loss of control. Nobody is losing control of an emerging intelligence. They’re redirecting their own agency to it, as a way of diffusing responsibility, but the self-perpetuated intelligence myth has them convinced they have no choice.

Anna Mills@annamillsoer.bsky.social · last wk.

"They don't realize the debate inside the companies is if AI will be advancing itself past our control in two years or four." www.pacingthefrontier.com

ai finding a way to make *literally* everything even worse. we’re getting to the point where butlerian jihad may be the only option left.

Bloomberg News@bloomberg.com · 7d ago

Travelers hunting for airfare bargains are in for a rude awakening: the days of stumbling across a cheap seat on a popular flight could soon disappear

they better hope they create the ai god because if not there will be hell to pay for the destruction they’re wreaking at the peak of the hype

Shiro Sirius@shirosiri.us · last wk.

I don’t want to be too sensationalist about this but also I’m the least violent person in the world and I think if someone said this to my face I’d hit them

If you do not know enough to hate and reject a Nazi mass murderer and eugenicist, your ethics are inadequate for running a major publication

Paris Marx@parismarx.com · last wk.

After The Economist’s interview with Elon Musk, will major media finally reassess how they cover the fascist billionaire? As its editor-in-chief did the rounds saying she was “not a Musk hater,” he was on X calling her a traitor to the West and suggesting she be murdered. Please, have some dignity.

spending on elections is a small price to pay for someone as wealthy as elon musk to ensure the political system serves his interests above those of virtually everyone else

Exclusive: Musk plans massive push for GOP in midterms

Musk is resuscitating his America PAC, which spent more than $260 million in 2024.

axios.com

disappointed to go back to a jacobin article i wrote in 2021 about spider-man to see what i thought ahead of going to the new movie only to find they’ve since locked it behind a paywall 😔

What Happened to the Friendly Neighborhood (Working-Class) Spider-Man?

Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy introduced us to a working-class kid from Queens struggling to both save his city and pay the rent. But now under Disney, the Peter Parker of Spider-Man: No Way Home has...

jacobin.com

This tells us quite a bit about how deep the AI brainrot runs through Silicon Valley, and next to nothing about AI “advancing past our control.”

Anna Mills@annamillsoer.bsky.social · last wk.

"They don't realize the debate inside the companies is if AI will be advancing itself past our control in two years or four." www.pacingthefrontier.com