Colin Ferguson

There is a real tendency to be against good technology when the problem is capitalism. Being able to stream movies is good. Being able to order food online instead of having to call is good. Being able to call a taxi with an app and see where it is rules. The issue is not the tech, it's capitalism

Gavin Newsom & the New York Times are doggedly working to strip rights and human recognition from transfolk, while insisting anyone who *doesn't* share their obsession is obsessed with "pronouns". Trust no one who claims to oppose Trump while taking delight in bullying the same people Trump bullies.

Is Matt from the same Gradwohl clan as the guy who ran The Gauntlet back at Bungie? Because I was on a team with his nephew. Seemed like a family business.

There's this couple I see frequently at the gym. One part of the couple is a pretty swole guy, and when I saw him tonight I noticed he was wearing a Bungie shirt. I asked him if he'd worked there too. Said he worked in recruiting around '19-'22 or so. I told him I worked there '13-'14.

Small world.

The political effects of X's feed algorithm https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2 Received: 16 December 2024 Accepted: 4 January 2026 Published online: 18 February 2026 Open access • Check for updates Germain Gauthier,5, Roland Hodler?5, Philine Widmer35 & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya3,4,5 m Feed algorithms are widely suspected to influence political attitudes. However, previous evidence from switching off the algorithm on Meta platforms found no political effects'. Here we present results from a 2023 field experiment on Elon Musk's platform X shedding light on this puzzle. We assigned active US-based users randomly to either an algorithmic or a chronological feed for 7 weeks, measuring political attitudes and online behaviour. Switching from a chronological to an algorithmic feed increased engagement and shifted political opinion towards more conservative positions, particularly regarding policy priorities, perceptions of criminal investigations into Donald Trump and views on the war in Ukraine. In contrast, switching from the algorithmic to the chronological feed had no comparable effects. Neither switching the algorithm on nor switching it off significantly affected affective polarization or self-reported partisanship. To investigate the mechanism, we analysed users' feed content and behaviour. We found that the algorithm promotes conservative content and demotes posts by traditional media. Exposure to algorithmic content leads users to follow conservative political activist accounts, which they continue to follow even after switching off the algorithm, helping explain the asymmetry in effects. These results suggest that initial exposure to X's algorithm has persistent effects on users' current political attitudes and account-following behaviour, even in the absence of a detectable effect on partisanship.

A new paper shows that less than 2 months of exposure to Twitter’s algorithmic feed significantly shifts people’s political views to the right.

Moving from chronological feed to the algorithmic feed also increases engagement.

This is one of the most concerning papers I’ve read in awhile.

It's not the military I'm worried about, it's the civilian 3%er types who are just itching to feel like they've been given permission from above to murder other citizens they don't like.

'Course, I'm sure plenty of them jumped at the call to join ICE so they had an official sanction to do so...

They tend to just assert "The left went too far!" and don't elaborate any further than that.

If you try to unpack it anymore than that, they end up stammering something like, "I was all for equal rights until those leftists demanded I give [specific minority] equal rights! That was going too far!"

correct! every post about fixing a broken games industry that involves [specific games industry tweaks] and not [destroying a speculation-mad executive class and using their bones for compost] is just wasting everyone's time

I think to reestablish trust with former MAGA they would first be required to acknowledge that they were willfully wrong. They were warned, repeatedly, including by the people they elected. I can’t accept any redemption until they can humble themselves enough to admit they wanted to believe lies.

"Pay unto evil."

Oh, @isaachannaford.com for starters.

Good job!

“The plural of video game is vidyjajames.”

Without downloading any new pics, describe your gender.

The only solution is to ensure we have no more elites capable of this kind of influence. I want to tax and regulate them into non-existence.

A screenshot from the 2001 game Uplink, by Introversion Software.

Oh yeah, and information can be a weapon. Going out of your way or spending resources to get intel on someone or something can open up new dialogue options, give you buffs versus a specific enemy, or change the distribution of items or enemies within a mission.

And different characters require different approaches, which you need to feel out. For example, one character will say flirtatious things to the player character. If you flirt back though, it lowers her opinion of you, but if you respond with polite professionalism then she respects you more.

Oh, it's great if you like Obsidian RPGs.

I like that you develop relationships with other characters that isn't just a progression from indifferent to like, it can evolve in other ways too. For example, if you constantly antagonise them you get a relationship that is more rivalry/vitriolic.

I can hear cheering in the distance outside.

UESCTerm 802.11 (remote override) 1034 08.25.2337

***INCOMING MESSAGE FROM DURANDAL***

<durandal.33.6792.23.91>

Sorry to give you the bad news, but you've been kidnapped.
You aren't where Leela wanted you to go, and you surely won't
get there any time soon.

Ugh, more AI slop commercials. :(

My mother is not a football fan. However, she did want to tune in for that halftime show.

Hell, that’s not far off from exactly what happened… twice.

Democratic politicians see polls saying right-leaning voters want to hurt Democrats, so Democratic politicians hurt their own base under the assumption right-leaning voters will reward them for it.

Right-leaning voters do not, in fact, reward them for it. Democratic politicians blame their base.

his utility as an object of propaganda for the right to wield as a cudgel was decreased.

I honestly think his actions were motivated more by his personal connections to another person he was close with than they were any particular ideological conviction. At least that was my read of the situation.

He came from a right-wing family, for sure. I’m still not convinced he was a right-winger himself though. He struck me as the type who was still discovering his own political identity, and probably held some contradictory positions. But it was hard to paint him as a left-winger either, and therefore

We could just record the name of everyone who crosses the boarder and hand them some documentation to prove they were properly processed. Problem solved, no need to remove anyone. And it’s not even a radical position, that WAS the immigration process in the U.S. for most of its history!