“We’ve been sharpening knives & testing them on our flesh. They’re starting to pierce our skin. Should we continue sharpening & testing on ourselves? ‘A brutal bloodbath is imminent & we don’t know how to prevent it’ said Knife CEO while sharpening a 12 inch blade.” www.nytimes.com/2026/08/24/s...

Anatomy of an Autonomous Attack: 5 Alarming A.I. Capabilities (Gift Article)

When OpenAI’s agents went rogue in July, they demonstrated ingenuity and drive beyond what many experts imagined — a dangerous harbinger of what such bots could do in the future.

nytimes.com

theintercept.com/2025/01/28/p...

Proton Mail Says It’s “Politically Neutral” While Praising Republican Party

The “privacy-first” company surprised its user base when CEO Andy Yen lauded Trump on social media.

theintercept.com

Hey @1password.bsky.social, time to change course.

1Password Supports the Ethnic Cleansing of Europe — Andrew Lilley Brinker

1Password has committed $300,000 to Omarchy. This is unacceptable and must be rescinded.

alilleybrinker.com

It’s the 𝘛𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘡𝘰𝘯𝘦 episode where the guy wishes anything to beat the deceased pool champion of all time, so the champ comes back to life & loses on purpose, forcing the new guy to suffer a restless afterlife always having to return to face any challenger. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Game_...

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 2w ago

in 1989 francis fukuyama invented the clickbait title and has been punished for his sins ever since

I’m always here for a David Brooks takedown — the guy is just so eminently takedownable. Total vaporware punditry & Reader’s Digest thinker.

Gregg Gonsalves@gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 4w ago

OK. @jamellebouie.net has a great takedown of our pundit class. Exhibit 1 is David Brooks. Guess what? Yale just hired him to teach undergrads. 1/ youtu.be/46tpqFxfomI?...

This is IT! “The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy” drops tomorrow (8/18) 1st week sales are crucial to success. So: Give the tech fascists hell, make “The Nerd Reich” sell! Big things coming! Be a part of this moment—please buy it wherever you get your books.

You mean the big brains over at Amazon can't figure out how to scan a book without destroying it? They could if they wanted to!

Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · last mo.

New from 404 Media: we solved which AI company is buying massive shipments of rare books, scanning and destroying them to train AI. We put an Apple AirTag in a rare book, followed it. It ended up at an Amazon facility. Its logo is a dinosaur ripping through a book www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...

Some apt words introduced in print the year of my birth according to Merriam-Webster: attention deficit disorder, BFF, bodice ripper, dramedy, electroweak, enterprise zone, gap year, hepatitis C, off-grid, open mic, paragliding, pay-per-view, techno-thriller, telematics, trash talk, uncanny valley

aside: an anecdote i like from computer history is how sql was originally conceived so suits could pull their own reports this is laughable for lots of reasons but the particular one i want to surface is the fact that the whole point of being a suit is somebody else pulls the reports for you

Tragedy and farce: Shock & awe … Shock & aw shucks

Dead Carl@deadcarl.bsky.social · 2mo ago

"Full AI Communism," a phrase from the Wall St Journal this morning on whether China's vision of AI as a public good or Wall Street's as a private product will win the AI race. Good title for a book!

Why do we as a society even tolerate private equity? Just an entire industry premised on the idea of making everything else worse

Louisa@louisathelast.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Well, this article is incredibly depressing for cooking enthusiasts. The short version: private equity has, over the last couple of decades, quietly bought up most of the classic brands you’ve heard of and then traded on their names while drastically cutting quality and closing American factories

A really interesting piece on reducing AI cheating in the classroom from a Professor of English and former Dean of Humanities at University of Utah. The solutions? Smaller classes, lower teaching loads for faculty, and in-person classes.

How to limit unauthorized AI use in the classroom

A handy rule

hollisrobbinsanecdotal.substack.com

Maybe if we stopped thinking of ourselves as so special and removed from broader labor dynamics, we'd actually have models for enacting the change we want to see.

Some responses to this post have been so defeatist, basically saying "admin will never change and there's no money so we're fucked." I wish faculty feeling this way had a little more humility. Union organizers in the past were beaten and killed, but they worked on. Let's take our lead from them.

Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa@benjaminschultzfig.bsky.social · 2mo ago

A really interesting piece on reducing AI cheating in the classroom from a Professor of English and former Dean of Humanities at University of Utah. The solutions? Smaller classes, lower teaching loads for faculty, and in-person classes.

TIL the CIA World Factbook was discontinued this past February. RIP. You got me through many games of Carmen Sandiego. It seems OpenFactBook may carry on its legacy, offering accessible geographical info with less imperialist ties openfactbook.org

OpenFactBook - World Factbook Alternative | Country Data & Statistics

The community-maintained successor to the CIA World Factbook. Free comprehensive data on 260+ countries: geography, demographics, government, economy, and more.

openfactbook.org

You can, and almost certainly should, opt out of being part of Muse Image's new experiment in making the internet a worse and more invasive place.

Instagram about to start letting internet randos "remix" your photos with AI

Instagram about to start letting internet randos "remix" your photos with AI

avclub.com

Now, we need to stop private equity from buying hospitals. It's a disaster waiting to happen, if not already here.

Stephen Miller must be tried

Marisa Kabas@marisakabas.bsky.social · 2mo ago

ICE agents must be tried for the murder of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.

Educating myself about campus culture at my new employer & really enjoying the excellent journalism in the student newspaper, The Mac Weekly. themacweekly.com

VR, AI, face computers … How many times is FB going to choke on poorly regurgitated old tech fantasies before people realize that maybe the rapey webpage guy doesn’t actually have any good ideas? finance.yahoo.com/technology/a...

Zuckerberg Admits That AI Is Not Working Out the Way He Imagined

Shocker.

finance.yahoo.com

Please let’s all start using this coinage and let this be his most lasting legacy in the public consciousness … that and the lesson learned to never make this kind of compromise again.

LunchCounterPunch@theultrasecret.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The US absolutely face platnering these past few hours.

Friends & colleagues, I'm very pleased to announce that this fall I'll be starting a new job at Macalester College as Assistant Professor of Media & Cultural Studies. Events at my current institution haven't left much space for sharing good news, but I hope we can also celebrate light in dark times

Le Guin on the idea that there is a secret to getting good at writing.

Definitely one of the more interesting & intellectually dishonest figures in US politics. According to this review he manages to celebrate the US cause in WWII & endorse fascism. Elsewhere Trump's VP has the audacity to criticize Bill Clinton's "moral failings" www.nytimes.com/2026/07/07/o...

Opinion | JD Vance Is Worried

nytimes.com

Are the many “Intellectual Freedom Centers” being placed on college campuses nationwide really just mandatory ideological indoctrination centers? 🤔 #AcademicSky

They’re talking about abundance but we’d rather have a Bund

How many Jews shouting ‘genocide’ will it take until everyone understands that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism?

can’t believe a narcissist is being so publicly humiliated by a reflecting pool

I mean without occupy there was no Bernie 2016 and without Bernie 2016 there was no dsa as it is today and without dsa as it is today there's no Mamdani. Highly unlikely an AOC, but also Bernie 2016 on that one.