Rob Scott
@robscottanthro.bsky.social
Union member. Academic. Highland Park, NJ. He/Him
Mamdani is succeeding in part by projecting joy Ossoff is succeeding in part by projecting steely ferocity We’re in a moment when attitude is nearly as powerful as ideology, because we all need courage. And these are two ways of summoning it
This rocks. 3 pts to John put an absolute 11 for Athena.
John Scalzi@scalzi.com · last wk.Today on Whatever, @athenascalzi.com offers a rebuttal to my "Guitar Hero" analogy for "AI" - Not because she's defending "AI" (she thinks it sucks) but because she believes I am slandering Guitar Hero. Catch up on this intergenerational clash at the link: whatever.scalzi.com/2026/08/10/w...
I wrote about a reason not to use generative AI in your writing that I haven't seen anyone talking about. Once I realized this, banning GenAI in our lab's writing became a no-brainer. Feel free to share, I think this is probably useful especially for trainees: www.carlsonlab.bio/thoughts/the...
The only reason you’ll ever need not to write with AI — The Carlson Lab
Over the last year, our lab has been developing a policy on AI use. To do this, we did three main things: We read a lot of academic publications and tech news. We set up an #ai channel on our la...
carlsonlab.bio
This thread is a public service and I don’t want to live in Zuck’s dystopia
Dave Karpf@davekarpf.bsky.social · last wk.Starting to read the Zuckerberg essay and this is SUCH a weird/clunky passage. They absolutely paid some consultant to sort through “types of philosophy,” and he’s just declaring which categories he selected.
I would like to see more companies admit this - being a public company no longer means running a successful, thriving business. It strictly means delivering growth to investors, every single quarter, who do not care at all about the product the company sells or the people who produce it.
Hannah 'Pichy' Stockmann@hpichystockmann.bsky.social · 2w agoSavage.
I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.
"We may think companies are immoral, but that’s because we assume they are coldly dedicated to their bottom line, not making billion dollar decisions based on something someone sent them on Facebook."
We used to be able to buy things in this country
Locking up toothpaste was a warning sign that our executive class was crazy
dannykatch.substack.com
This is a good site. Theory, critique, and maybe helpful in achieving less stuff that is better.
Worse On Purpose@worseonpurpose.bsky.social · last mo.One PE firm owns Pyrex, Corelle, CorningWare, Instant Pot, Anchor Hocking, and Oneida. The pastel Instagram pans lose their nonstick between cooking cycle 30 and 60. A pan measured in months, priced like it's forever. Who owns your kitchen, and what's still worth buying 👇 tinyurl.com/2s3xc53m
They kept distributing it until Thursday. So we've still 2 weeks of poss. new cases. "The shredded iceberg product was distributed June 29th thru July 16th in AL, AR, CT, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, MI, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, OH, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, VA, and WI." www.taylorfarms.com/recall/
Product Recall Information - Taylor Farms
Stay updated on Taylor Farms’ product recall information and learn about our commitment to food safety. Find FAQs, current statuses, and helpful resources.
taylorfarms.com
I’ve led chants on more picket lines than I can count … but never one where my daughter was one of the strike captains! #DadLander, indeed. (1/3)
really thinking about this tweet as i’ve been struggling to breathe through nausea for the last 5 hours
Luke LeBrun@lukelebrun.ca · last mo.These images of First Nations community members evacuating Collins, Ontario on motorboats are absolutely surreal www.facebook.com/reel/1548244...
This is awful. Disturbing a univeristy would sell their soul and shortchange students and scholars like this. And none of those tasks are “administrative”, how can I say it is ever okay for my students to use it to draft content. Brainstorming? Sure let’s just kneecap creativity where it starts.
Emily M. Bender@emilymbender.bsky.social · last mo.On the quick start guide, we're given a quick rundown of what Purple (a large-language model) is supposed to be good for: uwconnect.uw.edu/it?id=kb_art... Reader, NONE of these are appropriate use cases for chatbots/synthetic text extruding machines. >>
We are given only a limited number of truly perfect summer days in our time on Earth. One of the more insidious cruelties of fossil fuel greed is how it slowly strips those days from us, more and more throughout our lifetimes, perhaps without us even realizing what we have lost.
Another stolen summer day
What are we still waiting to learn?
heated.world
This morning in Biddeford, Maine, a 26-year-old man said goodbye to his wife and daughter and left for work. Moments later he was dead, shot in the head by ICE agents, the second man ICE has killed in six days. ICE is killing our neighbors. ICE cannot be reformed. Abolish ICE.
ICE agents shouldn’t be executing people on the street even if they ARE the target of the warrant
So. I did it. Lotta people gonna be mad about this one. Show it some love?
A Jewish Case for AI work exemptions
or: why should CHICAGO POPE have all the fun
lifeisasacredtext.com
This is probably the most insightful read I've ever appreciated on the topic of #UBI that didn't require a college degree to understand. #UniveralBasicIncome is the way to go, the math proves it, and Scott's explained it well for us.
Scott Santens@scottsantens.com · 2mo agoUniversal programs are indeed the way to go — combined with taxes.
U.S. Democratic Socialists BREAKING: AOC just introduced the AI Data Center Moratorium Act, which bans the construction of data centers until Congress addresses all impacts of AI on our society and planet. 💪 I support this 💯
“Less support for scientists means strange questions no one will get to chase.” And chasing strange questions builds a better world. www.nytimes.com/2026/06/20/o...
Opinion | The Science That Turned Lizard Venom Into GLP-1s Is Under Attack
nytimes.com
Did DoD just admit in a court filing that it used xAI's Grok Gov Model to hit the girls' school on the first day of the Iran war? Based on some passages flagged by @rgoodlaw.bsky.social in DoD's recent filing in NAACP's case against X, it looks like it did 1/
Here's my actual true opinion. The only way to fix all of this nonsense is rent affordability and health care . If people can afford the rent and get healthcare, then they can start and go to work for normal businesses, and write and make art and music. And there can be third places, etc etc.
An underappreciated threat posed by LLM software is that it is definitionally a tool of bias retrenchment. The very mechanisms that enable their party trick also guarantee that their output will only ever reconfirm and propagate existing biases, making this kind of use case especially dangerous.
They removed CD/DVD drives from PCs. -Made physical media harder to buy and use. -Removed expandable storage from phones. -Pushed us into streaming subscriptions. -Made always-online normal. -Made unlimited internet necessary. -Slowly raised the price of everything. Ownership quietly became renting.
Buttigieg: Nowhere in the Constitution does it say that there have to be nine Supreme Court justices. That one doesn't even take a constitutional amendment. It just takes a readiness to set up a court that fits this country.
some say no regrets. yet it’s only natural to have some when looking back at one’s life. forgiveness plays a magical part moving forward. the thing is to hold regrets lightly, like scenes in some long ago movie. that way, they don’t have you. and unburdened, you can best steer your present course.