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Laurie Woolever

@lauriewoolever.bsky.social

Author, editor, speaker, crank

31 Posts2613 Follower 464 Folgt

s. e. smith @sesmith.lol · 23h ago

I did NOT realize that many supermarket sushi counters are actually run as franchises within stores, & that the working conditions are horrendously abusive. Journalism like this surfacing these issues is so important, so if you like this, please donate to @prismreports.org so they can keep doing it!

The hidden cost of America's supermarket sushi boom

Myanmar refugees face exploitative working conditions as the backbone of the grocery store sushi industry, according to a lawsuit

prismreports.org

Flaming Hydra @flaminghydra.com · yesterday

ALSO TODAY: @lauriewoolever.bsky.social on RFK Jr.'s stupid cooking show. "When he is not making inane claims like 'The government was lying to us for 70 years and saying that protein causes heart attacks,' Kennedy stands there looking like a wet and sleepy raisin." flaminghydra.com/open-your-mo...

Open Your Mouth, Await the Harvest

This Absolute Fucking Shitwhistle Has A Cooking Show

flaminghydra.com

Laurie Woolever @lauriewoolever.bsky.social · 2d ago

www.bonappetit.com/story/anthon...

Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · 4d ago

The Republican party leader and U.S. president is a crook and a rapist and Republicans in Congress, who can remove him from power, are not taking even one step to do so

Reuters Legal@legal.reuters.com · 4d ago

The disclosure marks the first time a bank has formally tied money laundering concerns to Trump's family business.

rax ‘levon honkers’ king @raxkingisdead.bsky.social · 6d ago

i wrote about my favorite odyssey adaptation, o brother where art thou (2000)

Emily Wilson is a scholar of The Odyssey and I am not, so I'll gladly defer to her on all matters of what the poem says or what it meant historically. I'm more concerned here with its status in our culture as a dead thing from nearly three thousand years ago, one more unappealing item on a bored middle schooler's assigned reading list. In Homer's age, The Odyssey must have been alive, no? It was the thriller of the season, for hundreds of seasons in a row! It was packed with everyone's favorite adventure stories! I can't imagine those audiences listening to it in the dutiful, lofty, museum-going spirit so many of us reserve for our infrequent brushes with "high culture." When I imagine ancient Greek audiences hearing the poem, I think of the crowd at a wrestling match I attended recently, of the moment when a wrestler produced a folding chair wrapped in barbed wire. YOU SICK FUCK, we all hollered in delight as he advanced on his cowering opponent.
YOU SICK FUCK YOU SICK FUCK YOU SICK FUCK!

Flaming Hydra@flaminghydra.com · 6d ago

TODAY: @raxkingisdead.bsky.social on Oh Brother Where Art Thou?'s thrillingly loose, modern and musical adaptation of The Odyssey. "It can develop or dismiss any parts of the source material as it sees fit in order to kick the maximum possible amount of ass." flaminghydra.com/issue-618/#f...

Laurie Woolever @lauriewoolever.bsky.social · 2w ago

Another world is possible

Jan Rosenow@janrosenow.bsky.social · 2w ago

Pornainen, Finland (pop 5,000) is now heated by a silo of crushed soapstone. I spoke to CNBC about it. 100 MWh, charged when power is cheap, emissions down ~70%. Days to weeks of storage, no critical minerals. www.cnbc.com/2026/07/25/f...

Laurie Woolever @lauriewoolever.bsky.social · 2w ago

I’d pay $3 *per paragraph* for a piece like this. Subscribe to Flaming Hydra - $3 per MONTH!

Flaming Hydra@flaminghydra.com · 2w ago

TODAY: @jdconnor.bsky.social on the history, science, and technology of waiting in line. “Queuing theory is a real thing, with real math and real consequences for our lives. There are mathematical models for lines, and there are agent-based simulations.” flaminghydra.com/retractatus/

Niko Stratis @nikostratis.com · 3w ago

journalists, especially cultural, do not need to contend with AI. It's a machine fed and wielded by billionaires and fascists that is destroying every little corner of the world, and to treat it as a fun toy some people have learned how to drive is advertising for capital interests. Have some class.

Flaming Hydra @flaminghydra.com · 3w ago

TODAY: @lauriewoolever.bsky.social on the book "How To Stop Time," an account of heroin addiction that "could not be farther from the histrionic and self-aggrandizing nostalgie de la boue typical of celebrated 20th-century addiction memoirs." flaminghydra.com/r/edb41ae6?m...

Speak, memory

Laurie Woolever on living in the past

flaminghydra.com

Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · 3w ago

Replace Bari Weiss with Jorts

Jorts (and Jean)@jortsthecat.bsky.social · 2y ago

We are all going to have so many kinds of diarrhea

Programme 4 @programme4.tv · 11mo ago

Programme 4 is brought to you in part by Ramon’s Venetian Room on Rte. 9

gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social · 4w ago

you’ve hardly touched jean stapleton’s nut fingers

JEAN STAPLETON’S NUT FINGERS

¼ cup butter or margarine
4 cup confectioners'
sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups finely chopped black walnuts or pecans
About 1½ cups confectioners sugar, for coating
Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease 2 large cookie sheets. In large bowl cream butter or margarine and ¼ cup confectioners sugar until light and
fluffy. Add 1 cup flour and baking powder; beat until well mixed. Add remaining flour, water and vanilla and mix well. Dough should be stiff.
Stir in nuts. Pinch off small pieces of dough and form into finger shapes.
Place on cookie sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes until light golden. Immediately roll in confectioners' sugar:
Cool on wire rack and roll again in remaining sugar. Makes 8 dozen, about 55 calories each.

Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · 4w ago

If you've been meaning to subscribe to @flaminghydra.com, do it now and read @samthielman.com on creeping fascist discourse; impeccable, sanity-restoring. flaminghydra.com/issue-602/

Advance compliance / Prank calls

Sam Thielman on cozying up to villains; Miles Klee, scam connoisseur

flaminghydra.com

Flaming Hydra @flaminghydra.com · last mo.

TODAY: @g-kwiatkowski.bsky.social on a time of mourning. "We were greeted by a jovial worker from the funeral home. He showed us different people, different bodies, and turned it into a kind of guessing game: was this him or not?" flaminghydra.com/issue-597/#m...

End game / Lovers leap

A delicate reminiscence from Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, and jj skolnik on reality (blurring) TV

flaminghydra.com

Elon Green @elongreen.bsky.social · last mo.

I wrote about how the vice president of the United States waded into the personal affairs of a friend who may, or may not, be Rod Dreher. Please share & subscribe! [reposted]

Flaming Hydra@flaminghydra.com · last mo.

TODAY: @elongreen.bsky.social on the friendship between JD Vance and “socially conservative Minion” Rod Dreher flaminghydra.com/hillbilly-bl...

Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · last mo.

This is so good. It would be so good even if it didn't have a most remarkable photo at the end. But it does. flaminghydra.com/issue-592/

But I like it

Anna Merlan’s days as a record store clerk

flaminghydra.com

Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · last mo.

Holy mackerel this is insane. LLMs have a strong bias toward *their own* 'writing' to real writing in sorting tasks. iow human submissions automatically drop to the bottom in LLM sorting tasks. Resumes examined here with jaw-dropping results arxiv.org/pdf/2509.00462

Methodology/results: We examine this question in the context of algorithmic hiring, a high-volume screening process central to workplace operations. In this setting, job applicants increasingly rely on LLMs to refine resumes, while employers deploy similar tools to screen those same materials. Using a large-scale controlled resume correspondence experiment, we find that LLMs consistently prefer resumes generated by themselves over those written by humans or produced by alternative models, even when content quality is controlled. The bias against human-written resumes is particularly substantial, with self-preference bias ranging from 67% to 82% across major commercial and open-source models. Managerial implications: To quantify the operational impact of self-preference bias, we simulate realistic hiring pipelines across 24 occupations. These simulations show that candidates using the same LLM as the evaluator are 23% to 60% more likely to be shortlisted than equally qualified applicants submitting human-written resumes, with the largest disadvantages observed in business-related fields such as sales and accounting. We further demonstrate that, in many cases, this bias can be reduced by more than 50% through simple interventions that target LLMs’ self-recognition capabilities. These findings highlight an emerging but previously overlooked risk in AI-assisted decision making and call for expanded frameworks of AI fairness in business operations that address biases from AI-AI interactions.

Laurie Woolever @lauriewoolever.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In case you missed it, I wrote for FLAMING HYDRA about Bourdain fan culture, Summer House and the Mets: flaminghydra.com/like-a-fist-...

Like a Fist Around Your Heart

Because I worked with Anthony Bourdain for a number of years, and wrote Bourdain, an oral biography, after his death, people often share their memories and ideas about Tony with me. Without asking for...

flaminghydra.com

Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Again, please share. In every aspect of American history you will run smack dab into the critical contributions of Black people. It’s not Black history. It’s American history. Trying to erase it is a fool’s errand. We live it every day. time.com/5836444/blac...

The Forgotten Black History of How Memorial Day Started

Historians like the Pulitzer Prize winner David Blight have tried to raise awareness of freed slaves who decorated soldiers' graves in 1865

time.com

Covie @covie93.bsky.social · 3mo ago

No money for pediatric cancer research but there's $1.7 billion for people who beat cops and smeared feces on the walls of the US Capitol.

Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · 3mo ago

Flaming Hydra posts at Bluesky only, because it offers healthy options for human journalists and readers: no-algorithm, follow-only feeds, plus Galactic Block. We can't be hijacked or smothered here. Bluesky is great for @flaminghydra.com and independent journalism flaminghydra.com

Flaming Hydra

journalist owned and operated

flaminghydra.com

Greg Pak@gregpak.net · 3mo ago

Worth noting that most of the people who say Bluesky is dead or useless are journalists, not organizers. Bluesky has been OUTSTANDING for me as an organizer. I've raised THOUSANDS of dollars here, gotten HUNDREDS of people to actual events, gotten LOADS of people to DO POLITICAL THINGS.

Rob Delaney @robdelaney.bsky.social · 3mo ago

naturally

Penile implant specialist with history of Far-right comments leads hantavirus presser

Laurie Woolever @lauriewoolever.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Come to West Cork with me, let’s cosplay White Lotus and Yaddo open.substack.com/pub/lauriewo...

Let's Go to Ireland Together

I promise it will be worth it

open.substack.com

Flaming Hydra @flaminghydra.com · 3mo ago

ALSO TODAY: @lauriewoolever.bsky.social on a somewhat disquieting hat about her old, dearly departed, greatly mourned boss. "Casual fandom is the long tail that helps keep the memory alive." flaminghydra.com/like-a-fist-...

Like a Fist Around Your Heart

flaminghydra.com

Flaming Hydra @flaminghydra.com · 4mo ago

TODAY: @lauriewoolever.bsky.social on book tour in Australia. "Older, wiser, sober, and no longer obligated to an airline sponsor requiring me to take such a horrible route, I was determined this time to arrive in top form." flaminghydra.com/r/0b80b9fc?m...

Author’s note / Fish tale

Laurie Woolever visits the Land Down Under; new short fiction from Luke O’Neil

flaminghydra.com

Maria Bustillos @mariabustillos.com · 5mo ago

Today @lauriewoolever.bsky.social reflects on a recent visit to the Oneida Community Mansion House museum; Oneida was yet another in a long line of social experiments torqued to fit the needs of one man's sexual appetites. Very fine essay 'Free Love, Yeah Right' flaminghydra.com/issue-519/

Cult classic / Mad scientists

Laurie Woolever visits the Oneida Community; Misha Angrist on the war on science

flaminghydra.com

Newcastle Writers Festival @newwritersfest.bsky.social · 6mo ago

From working with a British Formula 1 racing team to the intense heat of New York kitchens and creating award-winning croissants, Kate Reid and @lauriewoolever.bsky.social have been shaped by ambition and a hunger for meaning. They will speak to Kate Evans at #NWF2026 🎟️ bit.ly/4rfO4ul

Newcastle Writers Festival @newwritersfest.bsky.social · 5mo ago

New York cook, food writer, & personal assistant to the late chef Anthony Bourdain, @lauriewoolever.bsky.social, joins festival director Rosemarie Milsom for a candid conversation about finding her voice. 🎟️ www.newcastlewritersfestival.org.au/events/care-and-feeding-laurie-woolever-in-conversation/

Laurie Woolever is shown seated and leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, wearing a denim button-up shirt.

Joel S.@joelhs.bsky.social · 7mo ago

“ICE isn’t the Gestapo. The Gestapo was…” (proceeds to describe qualities that apply to what ICE is currently doing)

From Senator Chris McDaniel: “Lately, some folks have taken to calling ICE “the Gestapo.” It sounds fierce. It feels righteous. But it isn’t true, and it isn’t harmless.

The Gestapo was a secret police force. No warrants. No courts. No lawyers. And no appeals. People vanished in the night, not because they broke the law, but because the law no longer meant anything. The knock on the door was the sentence.

ICE isn’t that. Not even close.

ICE is a public agency enforcing laws passed by elected officials. Its agents file reports. They seek warrants. They lose cases. Judges stop them. Lawyers challenge them. Some detainees go home. That’s not tyranny. That’s bureaucracy, for better and worse.

You can hate immigration policy. You can argue enforcement is too harsh, too sloppy, or too broad. You can work to have the law changed if you wish. That’s a republic doing what it’s supposed to do.

But when you call ordinary law enforcement “the Gestapo,” you cheapen real evil. You turn history into a slogan and suffering into a metaphor. And once every badge is tyranny, no tyranny is left to recognize.

In Mississippi, I was raised to believe words should earn their weight. This one hasn't yet. It throws around the language of dictatorship while living under a system where courts still rule, lawyers still argue, and the government still loses.

That difference matters.

Because the day enforcement becomes secret, unchecked, and answerable to no one, we won’t need to borrow names from history. We’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with.

And we’ll wish we’d kept our words honest.”

Toussaint Egan @thesaintoftous.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I saw this video of a Vietnam vet in the fur coat yelling at ICE and thought to myself, "this is missing something," before I realized, "Ah, of course, the Ether instrumental. It's so obvious."