Dmitri

"The Islamists oppose women getting an education," I mutter, as I aim my missile at the girls school

ai is a rhetorical technology.

when it produces a list of permissible targets, its value is not producing targets but producing permission

I feel this so strongly. Covid was a test of our moral integrity & decency -- *not just elites, but all of us* -- and we failed.

I genuinely think one reason Covid has been memory-holed so hard, & so crusted w/ myths & conspiracy theories, is that on some level we know this & are ashamed.

Counselor: These feelings of "everything sucks," how long have you had them? Butt-head: Uhh, since everything started to suck, I guess.

Here it is, your moment of zen.

AI does not enhance “efficiency.” AI is a permission structure for a totalizing regime of austerity and labor immiseration.

Movie description of the B horror move Death PhD. Gawdawful movie.

Now this is a movie plot!!! Someone understands grad school.

I may say more later but part of what some of us need to understand is that the right has built an entirely distinct civic society, with its own hierarchy and (mostly networked) cultural institutions. That includes celebrity.

I'm pretty proud of this poem I made out of the euphemisms that companies used to describe the ICE occupation in corporate communications. Also read the whole story: racketmn.com/corporate-co...

Man I'm so goddamn sick of ai. "Wahhh you can't have a reasonable conversation about ai on here," yeah maybe be mad about the two year parade of scam artists and financial charlatans and environmental ruiners who have radicalized everyone against the spell check that agrees with you

“Gramsci used to say 'Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will'. What he meant is: understand how the bloody system works.” - Stuart Hall, born Feb. 3, 1932

An extraordinary number of banger lines in this masterpiece of the genre of critical academic book review, but this in particular is straight up🔥: doi.org/10.1215/2834...

CHOTINER: and when you're in water you

PARTICLE MAN: don't get wet, that's right.

CHOTINER: And this is because

PARTICLE MAN: the water gets me instead. It becomes particle-manish

CHOTINER: There's been some debate on this point. Triangle Man, for example

PARTICLE MAN: I think we're done here

So what I’m gathering is a pedophilic billionaire successfully worked to destigmatize race science among the academic, political, and business elite partly by sex trafficking girls. Is that the shape of it so far?

Outstanding! The rumination on gender associations reminded me that the PBJ is also a staple among (male) professional athletes, most notably in the NBA during the season when people want fast calories. It comes up in player interviews sometimes. Might be they also want the memory of care then.

Repeat creepy meat problems at Boar’s Head plants draw congressional scrutiny Boar's Head plans to reopen the plant linked to an outbreak that killed 10 people.

It makes me crazy because they’re positioned as some upscale product when it’s really buying a ticket in the listeria lottery arstechnica.com/health/2025/...

My partner has struggled with poor sleep quality for years and this piece made both of us laugh on a rough day, so thanks, well done!

Those in power have tried to convince us that resistance would be too tiring.

But let Minnesotans teach you that it’s actually energizing to be a part of a movement to change society for the better.

If you’re tired, get involved. You’ll be surprised by how quickly you start to feel better.

Other folks have already noted much of this, but I think the MAGA 'theory of victory' here is:
1) DHS provocations trigger a riot or attack on agents which
2) Leads to widespread civil unrest in many 'blue' cities so that
3) Trump can invoke the insurrection act and send in the troops...

Big gap in my 80s cinema knowledge!

Orbital and Prodigy changed the course of my teenage life but I can’t remember anything else about the film except that Angelina Jolie was in it. Halcyon and on and on was a revelation back then.

One thing that irks me: people keep calling the folks on the streets in Minneapolis protestors. They are not generally there to protest, they are there to observe and document. This is the product of organizing and mutual aid. It is telling that these acts of citizenship are seen as protest!

All those people downtown yesterday, no ICE involvement, and not one incident. ICE shows up in a neighborhood and now another Minnesotan is dead. It's pretty obvious who the violent outside agitators are.

A head shot of the drum n bass producer LTJ Bukem wearing a black beret, dark sunglasses, and a black jacket open at the neck. He’s standing in front of a trippy mural.

How could you do LTJ Bukem like this.

A plea to all my peers in academia who feel powerless in the face of *all of this*: the biggest thing you can do right now is take every once of energy you can from your research and pour it into teaching. The fact is your impact in the classroom will far eclipse that journal article you're cooking.

It’s not (just) because executives as a class are both stupid and intensely marketed to by consultants. It’s that their aim—to discipline the workforce—retroactively determines the structure of what they need to believe, that AI will enable them to cut costs. It won’t, but the harms are real.

It’s the screaming lady–smiling eating cat meme but in Japanese woodblock style

We’re visiting a high-school friend of my wife and LOOK AT THIS PAINTING HER DAUGHTER DID

The list of most relevant themes we identified is: 1. Rhetoric of inevitability and technological determinism: presenting the adoption and use of (generative) AI as a fait accompli. 2. Exaggerated narratives: overstating the general capabilities of the technology, or leaving out that certain seemingly impressive capabilities can only be achieved under very specific experimental conditions. 3. Spurious comparison to human intelligence or Anthropomorphism: presenting AI as if it thinks or reason like a human. 4. Ethics and critical washing: presenting AI as being ethically or critically examined but doing so only superficially and inconsequentially. 5. Wishful thinking and uncertain feasibility: assuming desired outcomes or functionality despite lacking realistic evidence they can be achieved. 6. GenAI is presented as indispensable: portraying AI as essential even when simpler or non-AI solutions are sufficient. 7. Unrealistic and ill-defined conditions: formulating requirements for adoption and use that are functionally impossible or too demanding to be met, psychologically implausible to follow, or set unclear boundaries for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, which could easily create inconsistencies. 8. Resources as propaganda: resources for students, faculty, and other stakeholders are made available but only for incentivizing different degrees of use of genAI. 9. AI Overkill: Substitution or replacement of tasks for which the technology was not designed; from tutoring to teaching to research, everything must be now with AI, even if it is not adequate. Due to space limitations, rather than discussing all of the themes superficially, this essay addresses only the first four, which, in our view, are the most critical and the most urgently in need of critical scrutiny. T

For all those involved in drafting so-called AI guidelines, but being overwhelmed with nonsense, this is a lifesaver. Great work by Dagmar and Ariel!

Resisting Enchantment and Determinism: How to critically engage with AI university guidelines. doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

I was very annoyed at not winning the big penis prize (due to my penis size being rejected by the judges for some reason) but now the big penis prize winner has given me the big penis prize so now everyone knows I have the big penis.

Some time back, @prisonculture.bsky.social posted on here something like: you could do worse than organize yourself around seeking ways to reduce suffering for others.

It struck me, b/c that is the heart of my own religious & intellectual life, as a Buddhist teacher & scholar of Buddhist studies...

On this important day of mobilization, don't be scared off by self-appointed experts giving you a bunch of rules for how to protest or what not to do. The most important thing we need is more people in the streets, period. Our safety comes from numbers. As a criminal defense lawyer for decades...