Food, man. Food is so much better than it was in 1986. All of it. Poor-people food, restaurant food, fresh food, frozen food. Food is just a hell of a lot better.

The irony of the Taipei Times website reporting on China's "united front" activities to influence Taiwan while allowing for Xiaohungshu (rednote) ads 🚩

The cat showed the guy who the boss was 😂 #Cat #Cats #Catsofbluesky #Caturday #LifuX

1/5 I went back to China to parse what is real tech from what is hype. The clearest fact: the depth of an alternative technological universe: ubiquitous E.V.s, more clinical trials than the U.S.; A.I. systems reaching into workplaces, schools, and even neighborhood trash bins.

BREAKING NBC News projects that @abdulelsayed.bsky.social will win the Democratic U.S. Senate primary in Michigan.

Now that’s a caprese salad!

Just something very comforting and satisfying about watching election-night news coverage. The rhythms of the broadcast talk, the hot takes, the stakes, the flashy visual design, the people expressing their will at the polls. Banal perhaps, but nonetheless a magical thing. God bless America 🙏

Yes just me posting even more @chicagoreader.com content chicagoreader.com/city-life/an...

Chicago’s new indie print publications want to highlight today's cultural scene - Chicago Reader

New publications like Gab, Write That Down!, the pub, The Issue, and more are invoking the long history of creating outside mainstream media.

chicagoreader.com

A towering Buddha statue demolished by Chinese authorities and transformed into a horse-racing track named after the Red Army. A Buddhist school razed to the ground. Our latest report reveals how sacred places are being repurposed to erase memory and identity in Tibet: tibetwatch.org/tibetan-budd...

Tibetan Buddhist landmark transformed into racecourse

Once home to a 99-foot Buddha statue in Sengdeng Village, the sacred site has been converted since 2023 into a racecourse.

tibetwatch.org

Much of Sigmund Freud’s work has been dismissed as quackery, Scott Stossel writes—but it might align with modern brain research more than we think.

What if Freud Was Right?

A neuroscientist dares to argue that old-fashioned psychoanalysis holds the key to curing mental illness.

bit.ly

You're not going to believe this but Gavin Newsom is taking the side of capital over workers. In this case it's tricky because he's backing the very MAGA allies his cosplaying X account claims he's fighting. www.wsj.com/business/med...

Exclusive | Newsom Expresses Concerns About State Antitrust Suit Against Paramount

The California governor has told people involved in the suit that blocking the $81 billion deal could harm Hollywood jobs.

wsj.com

“.. it’s one thing for Trump to have a personal fascination with one of the world’s most expensive metals. It’s another for the president to flaunt it at a time when many Americans are struggling to pay rent ..” @theatlantic.com www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...

The advent of reading “altered people’s consciousness and politics, along with the intellectual feats they were capable of,” @rosehorowitch.bsky.social argues—and the decline of reading will bring about changes of the same magnitude:

The Age of Reading Is Over

Can civilization survive the postliterate era?

bit.ly

"I'd like you to consider that legality is more about power and risk tolerance than it is about morality. That's how your upstream corporate platform opponents think about it, and it's one of the reasons they keep winning."

Adversarial internecting

How to move data to the Atmosphere and screw over someone else's valuation in the process

permadeath.com

The left rightly condemns #colonialism ... until the colonising power is China. In #Tibet, forced assimilation becomes “modernisation” and occupation becomes “liberation.” Anti-colonialism that depends on the identity of the empire is not anti-colonialism at all.

Tenam བསྟན་རྣམ།@tenam.bsky.social · yesterday

Si l’anticolonialisme ne s’applique que lorsqu’il est politiquement commode, alors ce n’est pas vraiment de l’anticolonialisme. Si la solidarité dépend de l’identité de l’empire plutôt que de la condition des opprimés, alors ce n’est pas vraiment de la solidarité. blogs.mediapart.fr/rangzen/blog...

I should be clear that the architecture of Bluesky makes it the social media place I most like to be. I'm not on social media to be an influencer or instigator; I want to hang out with folks and have an enjoyable time. This place delivers on that. I hope it continues to do so for a long time.

@tibetwatch.org documents the continued remaking of #Tibetan sacred space in #Drago: the site of the demolished 99-foot Maitreya Buddha is now a horse racing track, & the nearby Geden Buddhist School has been replaced with new buildings. tibetwatch.org/tibetan-budd...

Tibetan Buddhist landmark transformed into racecourse

Once home to a 99-foot Buddha statue in Sengdeng Village, the sacred site has been converted since 2023 into a racecourse.

tibetwatch.org

CNN tells the rare story of a Tibetan's daring escape from #Tibet, including his imprisonment at the age of 8, the shuttering of private Tibetan schools and Xi Jinping's crackdown on religion and #Tibetan language education edition.cnn.com/2026/08/02/c...

A young Tibetan flees his homeland – and reveals how China is eroding his culture | CNN

Xi has mounted what critics say are intensified efforts to suppress dissent and tighten control of China’s ethnic minorities.

edition.cnn.com

China’s new Ethnic Unity Law doesn’t just target dissent at home, it claims the right to pursue critics abroad. A concise explanation of why Article 63 matters for #Tibetan, #Uyghur, & other diaspora communities in Canada theconversation.com/china-is-cla...

China is claiming the right to punish its critics anywhere on Earth

China’s new ethnic unity law reaches across borders. The danger is not that it does so. It is what it criminalizes, whom it targets, and how it enforces.

theconversation.com

China’s reported push to restrict #Tibetan media at the #BRICS summit is about more than press accreditation: it tests whether Beijing can export its censorship beyond its borders. Delhi’s response will signal how firmly it defends it's sovereignty & press freedom. theprint.in?p=3003392

Ahead of Xi visit to India for BRICS, China pushes for curbs on media houses linked to Falun Gong, Tibet

Several media outlets connected to Falun Gong & Tibet are blocked in China. Nation’s embassy now wants Ministry of External Affairs to curtail access to such outlets too during summit.

theprint.in

130-year-old Hitachi Tree, located in Moanalua Gardens on Oahu, Hawaii. Also known as the rain tree or monkeypod tree, it is famous for its massive umbrella-shaped canopy, which can reach over 40 meters (131 ft) in diameter.

I wonder whether Nolan is cognizant that Zhong is invoking Xi’s famous formulation, “The East is rising and the West is declining.” She positions him as the "bard of a civilization at dusk"—the West—but he answers as if she means a crisis of civilization writ large. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eas...

The Hollywood Reporter@thr.com · 2d ago

Christopher Nolan China Interview Goes Viral Over Frank Views on Critics, Christian Themes in ‘The Odyssey,’ Being a “Bard for a Civilization at Dusk”

Christopher Nolan China Interview Goes Viral Over Frank Views on Critics, Christian Themes in ‘The Odyssey,’ Being a “Bard for a Civilization at Dusk”

Christopher Nolan China Interview Goes Viral Over Frank Views on Critics, Christian Themes in ‘The Odyssey,’ Being a “Bard for a Civilization at Dusk”

Despite The Odyssey giving up the throne to Spider-Man: Brand New Day at the box office, Christopher Nolan continues to make news, this time for a press tour interview he did in China that got deeply philosophical about art, history, storytelling, modern film criticism, and the appearance of Christian conceptions of atonement in his soon-to-be billion-dollar blockbuster.

bit.ly

After Anthropic and OpenAI both admitted to their AI models hacking other companies, @lorenzofb.bsky.social and I wanted to find out: Who is legally to blame when an autonomous AI agent hacks something? Lawyers say it's really complicated! Bypass for ad-blockers: web.archive.org/web/20260803...

Who's legally to blame for Anthropic and OpenAI's autonomous AI hacks? It's complicated | TechCrunch

OpenAI and Anthropic admitted that their unreleased AI models escaped their sandboxes and hacked several companies in unprecedented cyberattacks. Who is legally to blame? Should prosecutors charge the...

techcrunch.com

The Chinese Communist Party has sought to control the Tibetan people by attacking their religious leaders. But the strategy has failed. Faith can’t be commanded or coerced.

Why China Can’t Hijack Tibetan Buddhism | Journal of Democracy

The Chinese Communist Party has sought to control the Tibetan people by attacking their religious leaders. But the strategy has failed. Faith can’t be commanded or coerced.

journalofdemocracy.org

Today's soundtrack for some deep workmode meditations...

ASC - Next Time You Fall - full album (2025)

YouTube video by MIL Channel 2

youtube.com

"The lawsuit is a cautionary tale for anyone selling AI infrastructure to enterprise customers, especially to other tech companies, that increasingly have the engineering muscle to just build the thing themselves."

MCP startup Runlayer accuses Rippling of stealing its product idea | TechCrunch

Runlayer is suing Rippling after Rippling evaluated the startup's MCP gateway product and then opted to build one itself.

techcrunch.com

CEO Toni Schneider on protocols, community, and control. www.theverge.com/podcast/9743...

Bluesky’s new CEO wants to grow it all

Bluesky is many different things in a trenchcoat.

theverge.com

🔴 The #UN has ruled that 🇨🇳 govt's detention of computer programmer #NiuTengyu is "arbitrary." #Beijing has held him for nearly seven years and his sentence doesn't end until 2033. 👉 www.nchrd.org/2026/07/un-b...

Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim of Taiwan kicked off this year's China in the World Summit in Taipei! With over 350 attendees from 75 countries, nearly 100 speakers, and more than 60 sessions over two days — the event has grown a lot over five years. Will miss being an advisory board member!