T.X. Watson
@txwatson.com
The actor who plays T.X. Watson on the internet. Rhetoric PhD student at [I have been advised not to specify for legal reasons]. I had 50 million followers on TikTok
Seriously. Some of the smartest people in the world are working to make online gambling as addictive as possible. You aren’t immune.
shauna@goldengateblond.bsky.social · 3w agoi worked in several casinos and later for an online sportsbook. the best advice i can give you is to stay the hell away from all of it.
“In the crusade to make everything social, Google ended up destroying one of the few genuinely social things it had ever made: the RSS-feed aggregator Google Reader.”
The New Yorker@newyorker.com · 3w agoWhile working at Google, Claire Stapleton cracked the code for generating corpspeak with personality. Then she lost faith in what the company was selling. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
had this pulled up for my freelancing guide how topical indeed
Brielle 💖@briellebear.bsky.social · 3w agoI really hate the “I don’t owe anyone anything” mentality because we actually owe each other and this planet a lot. You don’t have to be selfless all the time or burn yourself out but you should be kind and helpful and compassionate to the best of your ability. We need to care about each other more
New video! Took like two weeks to make, turns out it's exhausting to make a video explaining why I don't give a fuck about something I don't give a fuck about. youtu.be/bCS-bB8mqCM
I really just don't think the AI thing matters in the long run to be honest
YouTube video by T.X. Watson
youtu.be
New video up: academics are all blackmailing each other (metaphorically) youtu.be/IjSjpnL2dY8
Academics are all blackmailing each other (metaphorically)
YouTube video by T.X. Watson
youtu.be
To be clear, "ignored local zoning" here means, "this land is not part of the city of Vancouver or subject to its jurisdiction," so the Squamish nation can write its own zoning laws. But yes, this is awesome, and the buildings built so far are the coolest looking things in the Lower Mainland.
Max Dubler 🏳️🌈@maxdubler.com · 2mo agoThe Squamish people of what is now Vancouver were illegally dispossessed of their land 100 years ago. They sued, got the land back, and used their sovereignty to ignore local zoning and build 6,000 new homes over the loud objections of nearby wealthy NIMBYs. Now other tribes are getting in the game.
🎶 Well, the word got around, they said, "This kid is insane, man" Took up a collection just to send him to the mainland "Get your education, don't forget from whence you came, and The world's gonna know your name, what's your name, man?"
Ben Collins@bencollins.bsky.social · 2mo agoCircumcision Tylenol
watched the fifth element this weekend and i keep coming back to the fact that the most perfect supreme being in the universe doesn’t touch up her roots… much to think about
New YouTube video up! With apologies to @kjhealy.co youtu.be/KY4v594UoCo
Jargon's not what's wrong with scholarly writing
YouTube video by T.X. Watson
youtu.be
There's a reason we use a word for 'illusion' to describe certain jobs—there's a difference between what you see and what's there. & To @scalzi.com's point, in this sense every job has a glamour—though they're not all prettier than the jobs they glamorize.
Ann Leckie@annleckie.com · 3mo agoSame for the "glamorous" jobs. None of them is all champagne and lazing around. Not one.
In general we need to see more things as ends unto themselves and fewer things as mere means to ends.
David M. Perry@lollardfish.bsky.social · 3mo agoDon’t run universities like a business run it as a public good
New video this morning! Taking bets on whether next week I can get back to posting on Mondays like I'd planned to youtu.be/CAIVJRFcc6E
Wish I hadn't said that
YouTube video by T.X. Watson
youtu.be
Not only is this "Atomic" bullshit from ASU precisely and exactly the wrong way to go about using "AI" to develop course materials, it is in fact a culmination of many of my nightmare scenarios.
University Professors Disturbed to Find Their Lectures Chopped Up and Turned Into AI Slop
ASU Atomic, a new tool in beta at Arizona State University, takes faculty lectures and chops them into extremely short clips, that AI then attempts to turn into learning materials.
404media.co
Sam Cole@samleecole.bsky.social · 3mo agoASU's new AI tool cannibalizes nuanced, thoughtful faculty lectures into sound bites and chatbot junk text: www.404media.co/asu-atomic-a...
Oh this bill sounds amazing. Please spread the word and call your reps to tell them to VOTE YES for HR 4678 💜 this would be a huge anti-censorship win.
I learned of this today. I generated a class about digital media studies. Myself and 3 of my colleagues had 30 second to 2 minute clips taken from the video lectures from our online classes. The clips are interspersed with text that appears to be generated by ChatGPT (stupid emoji and all).
Chris Hanlon@chrishanlon.bsky.social · 4mo agoMeet “ASU Atomic,” a subscription platform that claims to offer customized learning modules for fee-paying users. None of the ASU faculty whose course materials were harvested for the module I generated were aware that their image, lectures, lessons, or other teaching materials are being used.
"All right chat, thanks for showing up. Got some amazing content for you today" I say from the lectern as the funeral director gives me the dirtiest look ever seen on this earth
Gender should literally just be a common thing that people *should* examine in order to have a fullness of life, even if nothing massively changes. It should be as common as developing a fashion style or a music taste. Deconstruction of societal imprint, no matter how “far” you go, is freedom.
This is a valid point: whenever you see this sort of high-pressure sales tactic turned on a technology, you can be CERTAIN that it's a fake—actually useful new tech sells itself! And don't underestimate the effectiveness of FOMO as a tool in the hands of a con artist.
Adam Conover@adamconover.net · 4mo agoI don't recall any previous transformative technologies that had to be sold to the public so hard. No one in 1999 was going, "Guys. Cell phone? It's coming, whether we like it or not. I think it's important, FOR WOMEN ESPECIALLY, to learn about cell phone. So that we're not left behind!!"
I made a video essay for an independent study. It has been a Process. I have a headache. youtu.be/nNbvhyVP8Sg
Why don't the Humanities do experiments? (kinda clickbait)
YouTube video by T.X. Watson
youtu.be
That money could’ve ended homelessness in the US, or established UBI for every American, student loan erasure, or supercharged every creative industry in existence to pay artists better, instead of, yknow, blowing it on dead malls full of Elegy of Emptiness statues for rich people I hate it here
Futurism@futurism.com · 7mo agoThe division has lost over $77 billion since its inception in 2020.
meta-discursive comment: the incentives of social media where making an incorrect naive prediction is seen as much more embarrassing than making an incorrect cynical one are very bad.
STOP CALLING IT AN IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN! TAKING CITIZENSHIP FROM EXTREMELY VETTED NATURALIZED CITIZENS IS NOT A CRACKDOWN! IT'S BETRAYAL.
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 8mo agoBreaking News: The Trump administration plans to ramp up efforts to strip some naturalized Americans of their citizenship, internal documents obtained by The New York Times show, marking an aggressive new phase in President Trump’s immigration crackdown. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/u...
A famous guy I was a fan of sent an email during the pandemic just being like "hey I like your show, great job" and it meant a ton to me. So ever since I've tried to reach out whenever I really like something and just tell the people who made it "I really like this, thanks for making it!"
Brendel@brendelbored.bsky.social · 8mo agoI’ve sometimes fallen into the trap of thinking that complementing a creative person for their work is less sophisticated or desired than discussion or debate about it but very often the best thing you can say to them is hell yeah and that doesn’t make you dumb it just makes you nice
