just in case anyone's not already aware, horg.com is an amazing & hilarious website that classifies bread-bag clips as if they were living organisms, using the rules & conventions of modern taxonomy Definitely one of my all-time favourite weird Internet passion projects

cageyratfish (UTC-7) 🐟🏳️‍⚧️@cageyratfish.bsky.social · 20h ago

hey @davidbrace2.bsky.social i successfully identified the species of occlupanid you did your fly painting on 😺

@rachelspacek.bsky.social at @investigatewest.bsky.social examined how closely one Idaho county's probation office is working with ICE -- even going so far as to compile a "foreign born list" for ICE. www.investigatewest.org/idaho-county...

Idaho probation office compiles ‘foreign born list’ for ICE

Emails show how Canyon County probation officers are helping immigration authorities — including making a list of foreign-born individuals

investigatewest.org

A site created by his former students

Ordinary Notes@hystericalblkns.bsky.social · 2d ago

leilacancode.github.io/everythinggo...

Truly biodegradable plastic exists now: #ShareGoodNewsToo www.reuters.com/sustainabili...

Scientists in Japan develop plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours

Researchers in Japan have developed a plastic that dissolves in seawater within hours, offering up a potential solution for a modern-day scourge polluting oceans and harming wildlife.

reuters.com

SCOOP: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it. What did we find? It ended up at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. Yes. This is literally the logo outside the Amazon warehouse door. Read now:

We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility

We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.

404media.co

🚨BREAKING 🦠 On Friday, the US CDC arbitrarily shifted higher COVlD levels into lower categories depicted with cooler colors. Much of what was Very High is now "High." What was High is now "Moderate" or "Low." Low is "Very Low." 1/

NYT killed this. After 8 months of editing, rounds of fact-checking, replication of methodology. Elias Law Group, for DCCC + DSCC, sent a cease-and-desist. Again fact-it was cleared by staff. NYT bosses killed it. @thebulwark.com took it. Demanded extensive re-write + cutting findings. Adam said 👋🏼

Adam Bonica@adambonica.bsky.social · 3d ago

The fundraising texts you delete are working on someone. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking. An 85yo in Ohio gave more than double the value of his home. A 91yo in an Indianapolis senior facility gave 25K times. The DCCC/DSCC don’t just tolerate the spammers who exploit seniors. They take part.

“Nobody is losing control of an emerging intelligence. They’re redirecting their own agency to the thing they are building.” It’s a myth, a self-affirming form of sense making: they take the action to build it, but insist on describing it as if they are passive witnesses to an inevitable force.

The System From Nowhere

When Accountability Goes Rogue 💡I recently spoke with Dr. Zena Assaad for her podcast, Responsible Bytes. Video is above, below is an essay adapted from the conversation. "The system from nowhere" i...

mail.cyberneticforests.com

True to form, Meta says they will do something—in this case removing creep content—and it gets widely reported. Meta doesn’t really do the thing, but gets the credit until researchers, activists, or journalists point it out. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Instagram vowed to crack down on Meta glasses creeps. A month later, it was easy to find dozens of the videos still up.

Instagram said it would remove harassing videos filmed with Meta AI glasses. Weeks later, dozens remain.

businessinsider.com

"We are the daughters of the witches you couldn't burn" quote goes hard etc But statistically speaking? We're largely the offspring of the people who accused their neighbors of being witches. The people who believed those accusations. People who were mostly fine with the burning, hanging, etc.

🔇 🔇 🔇 My book, Deep Unlearning, is now available for preorders! I don't know how people write so many books because this one took a lot out of me. It turns out, I had a lot to say 😂, with editors cutting out 50k of my words 🫣 ✴️ You can now preorder it at www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deep-U....

networksofny2026.bigcartel.com/product/netw... if you would like a copy of your own you should preorder a copy!

Networks of New York, 2026 Edition (PRE-ORDER)

SHIPPING SEPTEMBER 2026! Networks of New York is a book by me, Ingrid Burrington. It helps readers identify indicators of physical internet and telecommunications infrastructure in New York City. Usin...

networksofny2026.bigcartel.com

Ingrid Burrington@lifewinning.com · last wk.

Got proofs for Networks of New York 2026 edition!!

Well this is terrifying. Good for him for fighting back…again.

Christine Langhoff@clanghoff.bsky.social · last wk.

www.wired.com/story/he-ble...

If you have so much work to do that you feel you need AI in order to get it all done: you don't. You need a union.

Jim Henson didn’t muppeteer a tiny green frog that was singing and playing the banjo, with rubber gloves while totally submerged underwater in a airtight aluminum tank just so you could tell me that AI is “inevitable”.

Gwen C. Katz@gwenckatz.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The Wachowski sisters didn't use 120 cameras to film one shot just so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable."

International Catuday Rémi Vacher Photography "The sand cat is one of the most elusive wild cats on Earth."

This is the main reason I'm so angry about the "AI" bubble. All this enormous effort could have been spent combatting the climate crisis and the opportunity cost of your fucking chatbot is going to be the very climate we live in Imagine what we could have done with those 3 trillion dollars?

Yikes. Women accounted for all of the job losses and all of the labor force decline in July, according to @nwlc.org

A teenager in North Carolina has been arrested for assault with a "deadly weapon" after taking abortion medication. @kylietcheung.bsky.social has been doing such an incredible job with these pieces on post-Dobbs criminalization

North Carolina Teen Arrested for Using Abortion Pills As “Deadly Weapon”

The 18-year-old faces criminal charges for trying to self-manage an abortion

jessica.substack.com

no, actually, an executive order cannot "expand the category" of people excluded from birthright citizenship, we literally just went through this www.axios.com/2026/08/06/t...

ICYMI: ICE added an estimated 920,000 DNA profiles to the FBI's criminal database in a single year. Most of the people swabbed have no criminal conviction. CBP records show 492 children under 14 sent to the FBI. 21 of them were five-year-olds. One was 4. By @dmehro.bsky.social

ICE Collected Nearly 1 Million People’s DNA Last Year—Including Young Children

Internal documents show ICE's DNA collection has skyrocketed in the second Trump administration. Now hundreds of thousands of people never convicted of a crime are in an FBI criminal database forever.

wired.com

I know I am just being a grouchy elder but how is it 2026 and writers are still out here saying "we" think of the Internet as "immaterial"—who is this "we" and where have they been for the last decade

I worked with survivors of domestic violence for over 25 years and let me tell you… They cooked a lot of dinners for their abusers. Want to know why? 🧵

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com · 2w ago

Rep. Max Miller: "These are incredibly serious criminal accusations. If these accusations were true, I would be in jail — I would be. My former wife would not have been offering to cook me dinner and inviting me to playgrounds. Think about that."

A health worker union has accused Kaiser Permanente of screening patients and making care recommendations through “a digital, automated algorithm” without clinician oversight — a practice the union says violates state law. cal.news/4fISnd7 📸 Jules Hotz

ICE activity in NYC has increased significantly in recent weeks – and with Trump’s TPS cancellations, we fear they may ramp up detentions of Haitian New Yorkers in the coming days. (1/3)

i hate that AI companies have muddied the word "generative" Generative art: procedural art created using a *system of mathematical rules designed intentionally* by the artist. AI-generated: created by automated systems (LLMs) using opaque, extractive processes unknown to both the user and viewer.

Fatima Ameaka followed all the rules and she still got scooped on a domestic flight, caged, shipped to another cage, and then released with a promise of trial. The labyrinthine paperwork system is already cruel, now it's punctuated with random kidnappings.

Johns Hopkins researcher Fatima Ameaka released from ICE custody

A public health researcher at Johns Hopkins University who was arrested by immigration officials while boarding a domestic flight has been released after spending multiple days in federal custody acro...

thebanner.com

🚨 WE HAVE A DEAL! After three years, in a major step forward for our members, we have ratified our first contract with @propublica.org’s management. We deeply appreciate everyone who supported us along the way. Here are some of our big wins👇

“This court is granting you voluntary departure...I wish you all the best.” Inside the NYC Courtroom Where Detained Children Face Deportation Without Attorneys www.thecityreporter.nyc/2026/07/31/u...

Inside the NYC Courtroom Where Detained Children Face Deportation Without Attorneys

Around 20,000 unaccompanied minors nationwide are set to lose legal services when the federal government ends a contract Friday. One NYC immigration court shows us what that will look like.

thecityreporter.nyc

The Trump administration is sending armed agents to journalists' doorsteps — an effort to intimidate the press that could ultimately leave the American public in the dark. Read @rcfp.org's Gabe Rottman in @latimes.com:

Contributor: Sending armed agents to reporters' homes is a threat to free press and whistle-blowers

Government searches, subpoenas and other legal demands targeting journalists’ materials, sources and communications represent extraordinary government overreach.

latimes.com