I only ever go to LinkedIn when driven there by the right notification (a message from an old friend, for example). But every time I am forced to revisit it, it feels even more like what Facebook became for tech-phobic Boomers, but for corporate people. It's fully, unapologetically creepy.

My answer is LOL ROFL (dickbrain) The terminally AI-pilled can't even *imagine* some people have *never* asked stochastic parrots to cheat at their job for them.

Saw the top trending topic was "viral post mocks anti-AI critics" and of course it turns out it's that post where someone, probably a troll, admits that it only took two years with a shoddy tool to lose all his life skills. C'mon, bsky, get a better summary. "Bsky users mock dumb pro AI post."

I'll never understand targeting AI spam at authors. We have no money. We're a POINTLESS target. There's gotta be more lucrative ways to be a scam artist than going after authors, right?

Didn't expect to come across this recording of Glen while just drifting aimlessly online at 1 a.m. Didn't expect to have my heart ripped out. The world will ever see the likes again, will we. youtube.com/shorts/2m--2...

Glen Hansard - Grace beneath the Pines (EPIC live)

YouTube video by Epic Only

youtube.com

Years ago I was an editor for a local newspaper chain. We had both candidates for a primary in. One guy was past his prime but relatively effective, the other up and coming, ticked all the boxes. IIRC almost everyone else in the room was swayed by him. Time for change and all that. /1

Here's a new one, curious if any other authors are seeing this: someone creating books with AI is spamming my personal blog pitching his book. Normally I wouldn't blame the author but rather assume bots were using his name, but this guy's entire schtick is AI slop so guessing this is "marketing."

Thinking about comics I read early on that changed my perspective profoundly on how comics tell stories and dug out my old copy of Spider-Man vs. Wolverine (1987), a story that could only be told during the Cold War. It feels like Logan and Pete walked into a John le Carré novel.

Right as RFK Jr and Republicans spread COVID disinformation on national TV and public hearings, Meta decides to roll back its COVID-19 misinformation rules.

Meta to roll back Covid-19 misinformation measures

Meta is revising its policies to take a regional approach towards countries that still have public health emergency declarations.

mashable.com

We are seeing an increased ICE presence in NYC - making it imperative that NYers KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. I wrote a comic with @mayor.nyc.gov @nycimmigrants.bsky.social @davidhahn.bsky.social @elllewrightart.bsky.social @tayloresposito.bsky.social to do that! DOWNLOAD: www.weteachnyc.org/resources/co...

I worked with a consultant a while back who was BIG MAD, justifiably, that an LLM had stolen/shared some of his IP. He said: "never put anything valuable into an LLM, but I use it to write love letters to my wife and it's great at that." He was so close to getting it. This PBS video evokes that.

hiksmash@hiksmash.blacksky.app · 3d ago

What is PBS Kids doing telling 3rd graders to use Ai to write a poem???

This is obscene.

hiksmash@hiksmash.blacksky.app · 3d ago

What is PBS Kids doing telling 3rd graders to use Ai to write a poem???

I'm on probably an unnecessary number of mailing lists for writing gigs and every time I see "use AI-enabled tools to accelerate" I know they're just copy-pasting job descriptions off Linked In and probably a deeply unserious organization.

@kithrup.bsky.social truly is the patron saint of authors. Always and forever honored and delighted when he calls out the Indestructibles.

Sean Eric Fagan@kithrup.bsky.social · 3d ago

Cached US #KindleBookGiveaway: 10 copies of The Indestructibles (book 1 of the eponymous series) by @matthewphillion.bsky.social, which I *have* and *have read* and *have given out before* and highly recommend. This is one of my favorite YA-ish superhero prose series.

John Constantine would have an easier time getting the terms of a deal spelled out for him by Mephistopheles than an American has getting an accurate price estimate for an MRI.

Don’t use Copilot, because a malicious worm can propagate (and alter text) in documents and emails that you share with it. Don’t use AI, basically. Ever. The End.

Katherine Stiles@katherinestiles.org · 4d ago

Word worm crawls into Copilot, spreads chaos Researcher says months of coordination with Microsoft have yet to produce a robust mitigation www.theregister.com/security/202...

I've written about healthcare for years as a reporter but at the ripe old age of 49 I'm actually needing to USE my insurance, and the fact that we haven't torn the country to pieces over magical bills for made up numbers for stuff like labs continues to amaze me.

I was on an author panel about writing hopepunk about two years ago. Today I said "maybe this world needs another asteroid." I really need to get back to hopepunk me cos grimdark me is less fun.

Interviewed experts for articles last year about doctors using AI for research. I asked: docs are unmatched experts. They know AI hallucinates/invents fake research papers etc. and know to be cautious, yeah? Them: Nope. It's automation complacency. We're going to see malpractice suits for years.

I know Bluesky isn't built like other apps but I need to figure out what I did wrong, in the absence of an algorithm, that fully like 20% of my "Discover" feed is either strangers talking about their beloved pets dying or really alarming/upsetting animal rescues.

My partner just pointed out something I missed about that vile AI marketing email I got last night. "Jesus, they scraped your whole life from the internet. It mentioned HARLEY." My dead cat. It name-dropped my dead cat, my soulmate cat, WHO DIED IN 2020. Generative AI is for GHOULS.

Let’s be clear: what these bastards are doing to these books isn’t digitizing. Digitizing is about preservation and access to the original material. They’re gutting and destroying to make Soylent Green. Don’t let them get away with pretending to do this for humanitarian reasons.

The way Glen talked about pulling a ship over a mountain has been my North Star my entire adult life. If you've known me for more than three days you've heard me repeat some variation of it. He showed a lot of us by example how to pull ships over mountains. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf10...

Glen Hansard - Fitzcarraldo (Live @ Lollapalooza 2014)

YouTube video by KodaKorea

youtube.com

I know most of them are just bots, but if there's ever a human sending these scam AI-based book marketing emails, I hope they some day learn how REPULSED authors are by them. Just got: "The sentient hurricanes, the black hole heart, and the hidden algorithmic trap catching The Indestructibles"

Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.

There are so very few people I find aspirational, and Hansard was one. The world is a darker place without the continued light of his art.

@clgeiger.bsky.social · last wk.

when my dad died, the first place my ears went was to Glen Hansard. His version of The Parting Glass haunts me. Oh Glen. Such an unfair and untimely loss to this world your passing is. Raise to him the parting glass, friends. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCZc...

Why is everything so transparently evil now?

The folks I created a "Comms Pigeon" team mascot for asked for it in full color, so, here it is.

A Gen Z colleague said I give “Ben Affleck existential crisis while smoking meme” vibes sometimes and I cannot stop laughing at this

Every so often this panel, which I have saved on every device I own, pops up at the right time and it is always still relevant for my day to day life and always still morbidly funny.