I always think it is funny when people act like they can't differentiate between different uses of a tech. "Oh, a calendar app is okay but passing off LLM work as my own without attribution isn't?!?" Yeah. Those are very different things in fact.

Holly Lyn Walrath@hollylynwalrath.bsky.social · 14h ago

There is a lengthy pro-AI screed in the latest HWA newsletter and it is . . . a mood.

Very funny to imagine what US politics would be like if every state race was open to the entire country

comrade@nowarbutclasswar.myatproto.social · 13h ago

Just post this next time someone talks shit from Europe

This is precisely what you'd expect Bari Weiss to do and the exact reason she was hired.

Scott Horton@robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 18h ago

Bari Weiss canned major Epstein story.

Copyright and legality are one set of questions, but I think "LLM authors" underestimate how likely they are to plagiarize. Last semester I had a narrow writing assignment and 11 (!) students turned in work that was flagged as plagiarized from another student. In reality, they'd all used same LLM.

Basically everyone I know who is really into chatbots talks about how they really enjoy chatting with someone and how the chatbot treats them with "dignity" and so on. Yeah, there's a weird emotional connection there for the users.

Kate Holzemer@katebits.bsky.social · 2d ago

Another thought: in his statement, Hank Green expressed quite a lot of shame about the "dopamine hit" he gets from using AI. As a non-AI user I don't really know what he's referring to here. Is the AI voice flattering him while also doing his job (presumably poorly)? Because that's big weird.

And let's be honest, at least a fourth of journalists (nearly 100% in tech and political journalism) are functionally PR people.

Josh Sternberg@joshsternberg.com · 2d ago

There are 7 PR people for every journalist in the US. www.bloomberg.com/opinion/arti...

With the success of Backrooms / liminal space memes... is anyone pitching a reboot of The Langoliers?

Thought this thread was about books and films/TV at first, but works there too..

Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈@maxdubler.com · 3d ago

Online shopping eliminated these gatekeepers and disintermediated the market, allowing consumers to express their desires more directly. And it turns out that what people really want is cheap disposable goods, not more expensive but higher quality stuff that lasts a long time.

if I ever taught film criticism lesson one would be “you being smarter than the movie is not interesting to anyone”

The world owes the Mongols

Simon Kuestenmacher@simongerman600.bsky.social · 3mo ago

When the world gets you down, just remember the wonderful variety of dumplings out there...

Every now and then I see people try to call Dylan or Prince overrated, which makes me think about how those two are so insanely talented that merely the songwriting credits for songs they let others cover would be enough to canonize them.

In FIRE's telling, it's not even clear that this lone student had any desire to escalate the issue at all, it seems more as though s/he just raised a concern with the professor and was assuaged by the response, and then the president somehow "learned about the situation" and went berserk.

She was fired for teaching English literature in an English class. Now she’s suing.

In a story stranger than fiction, a Florida college fired an English professor for nothing more than teaching literature in a literature class.

fire.org

Every time I across one of these I watch the entire thing three times in a row

A lot of QTs/replies along the lines of "how can a book with bad prose fetch millions!?" I mean... those are about the only books that get big advances. These are the franchise popcorn blockbuster, Netflix reality show, or TikTok influencer account of books. Quality is rarely the goal.

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 6d ago

👀 Fascinated by the "withdrawn by its agents" detail. So the AI use was so blatant that the agents due a huge payday preemptively withdrew the contract?

One thing I can confidently say is that more than a few other books have been canceled for AI use--including by established authors and non-fiction books--that have just not made the news yet.

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 6d ago

👀 Fascinated by the "withdrawn by its agents" detail. So the AI use was so blatant that the agents due a huge payday preemptively withdrew the contract?

👀 Fascinated by the "withdrawn by its agents" detail. So the AI use was so blatant that the agents due a huge payday preemptively withdrew the contract?

Here's the story a DeSantis crony doesn't want his college-age daughter to read

Bettering Myself - Electric Literature

“Bettering Myself” by Ottessa Moshfegh My classroom was on the first floor, next to the nuns’ lounge. I used their bathroom to puke in the mornings. One nun always dusted the toilet seat with talcum p...

electricliterature.com

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 6d ago

A college professors is fired for teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh story that causes "mild discomfort" for one student. Implication is that DeSantis government was involved in the firing. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

A college professors is fired for teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh story that causes "mild discomfort" for one student. Implication is that DeSantis government was involved in the firing. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

Florida Professor Fired for Assigning a Profane Story, Lawsuit Says

South Florida State College fired an English professor after she assigned a story about a teacher who talks about sex with her students. Now the professor is suing.

nytimes.com

Someone got fired to teaching an Ottessa Moshfegh story?? www.nytimes.com/2026/07/29/u...

Florida Professor Fired for Assigning a Profane Story, Lawsuit Says

South Florida State College fired an English professor after she assigned a story about a teacher who talks about sex with her students. Now the professor is suing.

nytimes.com

Well now 👀 www.thetimes.com/sport/footba...

Uefa to boycott World Cup in protest against Fifa sell-off

European governing body takes decision at crisis meeting in move that will likely trigger a collapse in Gianni Infantino’s scheme to sell stakes in tournament to private investors

thetimes.com

Revising a novel is kinda like being a shrink ray-ed Dr. Frankenstein, mucking around in the guts trying to hook up all the veins and organs.

Lol and now Douthat platforms him again without disclosing their relationship. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/o...

Opinion | How Older Americans Hoard the Future

Aging politicians are just the “tip of the iceberg.”

nytimes.com

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 6d ago

Moyn makes a lot of sense when you realize he co-teaches with Ross Douthat and by pure coincidence writes NYT guest pieces defending Trump "from the left"

Conservatism has long been powered by misinformation and fantasy, but it is pretty wild how the MAGA movement's focus from "what they did to you in COVID!" to the 2020 election results is all about pretending Donald Trump wasn't president when he was president.

A lot of the "super AI killing spree" stuff does seem like a distraction from what the tech corps and their right-wing / authoritarian government allies are really planning. Increased information control. Mass surveillance. Automated drone warfare. Etc.

William B. Fuckley@opinionhaver.bsky.social · last wk.

I don't worry at all about terminator stuff, I worry quite a lot about Augmented authoritarianism, and I worry the most of all about a gigantic metastasizing perpetually low-trust neomedieval pile of shit that AI greatly exacerbates and possibly locks in for good.

I don't worry at all about terminator stuff, I worry quite a lot about Augmented authoritarianism, and I worry the most of all about a gigantic metastasizing perpetually low-trust neomedieval pile of shit that AI greatly exacerbates and possibly locks in for good.

dame@dame.is · last wk.

real talk, how many of y’all are genuinely concerned about super intelligent AI ushering in the end of days?

This prompted a Mandela effect moment for me

Kristi Yamaguccimane@wapplehouse.bsky.social · 6d ago

The largest Sturgeon ever caught was a Beluga measuring 23ft 7 inches and weighing 3,436 pounds from the Volga River on May 28, 1827. This is a 23 footer from 1922 out of the same river.

Seems like a face that's about to flap open and spit out a French horn in a Monty Python interstitial

Luke Knox@lukeknox.me · 7d ago

just became aware of William Howard Taft’s 1908 campaign poster

Moyn makes a lot of sense when you realize he co-teaches with Ross Douthat and by pure coincidence writes NYT guest pieces defending Trump "from the left"

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux@bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 7d ago

Striking how Samuel Moyn has to have a nonsense argument with positions liberals don't actually hold, parring with some sort of imagined liberal-imperialist wing because the alternative is being the sort of square who, like, opposes fascists, as opposed to the edgy dude that opposes liberals.

Why is everyone now like "horror movies are booslop" "Shakespearian sonnets are poemslop" "food is just fuelslop." Literally just saw someone call Proust "longslop." Did the AI companies pay all these posters to make "slop" a random suffix so it wasn't associated with LLM outputs anymore?

"I mean, fuck, it’s hard enough writing a story that works *now*, I can’t imagine trying to write something to appeal to the AI/human/lobster hybrids that will be around in one hundred years." - @paultremblay.bsky.social 🤖😬🦞

Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · last wk.

I had a great time chatting with @paultremblay.bsky.social about horror writing, unusual narrative approaches, and his new anti-AI novel DEAD BUT DREAMING OF ELECTRIC SHEEP countercraft.substack.com/p/processing...