I want to read something (fiction or nonfiction, narrative or non-narrative) that is easy but not stupid, and this turns out to be easier to formulate as a requirement than it is to make it appear The most recent book that satisified this requirement was Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf

On such nuances philosophical matters hinge: “Is the foot part of the leg” and “are feet part of the legs” are related but distinct questions, and this is neither of those

post malone ergo propter malone@proptermalone.bsky.social · 2d ago

a question that is bitterly dividing my household: are feet part of the leg?

New: We found 50 cops who misused Flock cameras and other license-plate readers for personal purposes, often to spy on their girlfriends or ex-wives. He "watched every single move I made. ... Who do you turn the chief of police in to?" wapo.st/3S6rTuo

She left her ex. He secretly tracked her through a network of policing cameras.

Flock’s array of license-plate cameras was built to fight crime. But at least 50 law enforcement officers were charged with or accused of misusing it and other systems.

wapo.st

Good framing.

Kindergarten girls targeted for invasive exams by new GOP-led ballot measure

Washington State voters will decide the fate of a ballot initiative that would require girls from kindergarten through high school to undergo sex-verification testing before playing school sports — a ...

rawstory.com

Bane, Charlus, c’est la meme chose

Gabriel Hankins@gabrielh.bsky.social · 2d ago

Christopher Nolan’s In Search of Lost Time, with Timothée Chalamet as Marcel, Zendaya as Odette, Tom Hardy as Bane

I’m one of the guys (gn) whose deal is trying hard to understand what’s happening and right now I understand very little of what’s happening

DOD is not letting trans service members attend their own separation hearings unless they conform with Whiskey Pete's notion of their gender. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u...

Hillary Clinton has so much to answer for

Dan Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 2d ago

The question "who was president in 2020?" continues to tear America apart

Barney Rubble: Our Age of Stone is Collapsing

B.o.B. (Bombs Over Baghdad) is closer to Kool Herc than it is to today

ATLiens, Aquemini, Stankonia (with the double fourth album just for fun)

Mia Murphy 🏳️‍⚧️@miamurphy.com · 4d ago

What's the best three album run from a band? (the correct answer is Moving Pictures, Signals, and Grace Under Pressure by Rush, but I'm excited to learn second place)

Listen if you haven’t been the wicker man in the relationship we are not the same

I had a long, honestly pretty spectacular conversation with Antonio Banderas (!!!!) and i think you will really enjoy reading it www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

Antonio Banderas’s Acts of Faith

Antonio Banderas on meeting Stephen Sondheim, staging “Godspell” for the Pope, and the thrill, in the new Anthony Bourdain bio-pic, of playing someone “good.”

newyorker.com

The WNBA product is so, so good. And there are enough people who want to consume it without wanting to embrace that fact that it's a league built by Black and queer athletes. CC gave them a way in that made them feel more comfortable, Cunningham is letting them wave their bigot flag proudly.

Impossible that nobody has ever done Paid In Full

Stop Calling Me Frank@stopcallingmefrank.bsky.social · 5d ago

You have a month to write a 33 1/3 book about the album of your choice. Which record are you going to write about? (No previously covered albums allowed; new shit must come to light: see below.) (For all books in the series: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/33_1/3) (H/t @monostich.bsky.social

I was just thinking about how "you need to become an influencer to sell books" is ruining everything

Delilah S. Dawson@delilahsdawson.bsky.social · 5d ago

I hate how what I need to do is write books, and yet I keep thinking, "Maybe if I wore increasingly weird glasses and sat in front of my taxidermy with a bubble pipe and did unhinged houseplant reviews I could go viral and sell some books." Doing the work doesn't feel like enough, some days.

FLASH: Justice Dept seeks to dismiss Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool criminal case against former Olympian David Hearn Trump Admin acknowledges: "Damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor"

Sometimes I think about writing a book called PLATO WAS RIGHT but then I think about all the stuff he’s wrong about

Update: Google just sent me a statement saying it is “rolling back” this AI feature that let anyone make completely bullshit satellite images. Comes after our demos of the tool and those from OSINT researchers. One of the worst AI tools I’ve ever seen bsky.app/profile/jose...

Joseph Cox@josephcox.bsky.social · 5d ago

New from 404 Media: Google Earth has introduced an AI feature that lets anyone fabricate completely bullshit satellite images. In our own tests, we added a “bomb blast and crater” to an area of Los Angeles. This is a misinformation time bomb, will 100% be abused www.404media.co/google-earth...

your apartment, the sport of basketball, and the Republic of Korea are all social constructs. mere recognition of this fact does not actually make the question of whether you are standing in your own apartment, playing basketball, or a Korean national up in the air until settled by op ed editors

there are a lot of philosophical concepts that get egregiously misused out of the seminar room (and in the seminar room, to be fair). but in terms of sheer pernicious misuse "social construct" has gotta be top 5 somewhere and it's not number 5

Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · 7d ago

Channel 4 has announced documentary “The Great ADHD Myth?” It “seeks to determine whether ADHD is a genuine neurodevelopmental disorder, or a social construct.”

I want you to notice how the New York Times does not think it's important to mention that both the OpenAI and Anthropic "AI gone rogue" hack events were completely avoidable and caused by human error

Anthropic Says Its A.I. Systems Broke Into Computers at 3 Organizations (Gift Article)

The disclosure followed OpenAI’s report last week that its own artificial intelligence had hacked into the network of an online library.

nytimes.com

There are a lot of people who were capable of being open-minded when Arabs and Muslims were simply the *subject* of US policy but whose response to those communities having an active role in American politics on par with other ethnic and faith groups has been to totally lose their shit.

Asher Elbein@asherelbein.bsky.social · 6d ago

I'ts hard to escape the impression that a certain faction of the Democratic Party just straight up does not believe that Arabs specifically -- and perhaps Muslims generally -- have a place as active players in American politics

🚨 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👇

The robot met its end in Elfreth’s Alley on Aug. 1, 2015.

hitchBOT was decapitated on this week in Philly history

inquirer.com

Yes, but ours was the 1952 edition

S. Kramer@libraryephemera.bsky.social · 6d ago

Were you a child who read The World Book Encyclopedia for fun?

Do you still remember your first romantic partner's (gf/bf/etc) birthday? Mine is a week from today and it's like damn, she's almost as old as me

Thank you, pretend Chaucer

Chaucer Doth Tweet@levostregc.bsky.social · 7d ago

Righte now the greatest danger to the future of universityes ys universityes. Remembir the missioun, remembir the studentes, remembir those who have come bifor and will arryve aftir, remembir teachinge and learninge and dialogue. A universitye ys much more than a corporation wearinge a mortarboard.

This is Penn vs Princeton now

Aaron Bady@zunguzungu.bsky.social · 7d ago

Okay now it's getting real