Jason Mittell

Imagine you have two machines. One you can open up and examine all of its workings, and if you give it every picture of a cat on the whole internet, it can reliably distinguish cats trom non-cats. The other is a black box and it can also reliably distinguish cats from non-cats if you give it half a dozen pictures of cats, some apple sauce, and a hug. These machines sort of do the same thing, but even without knowing how the second one works 1 am extremely confident in saying it doesn't work the same way as the first one.

A.I Isn’t People www.todayintabs.com/p/a-i-isn-t-...

We'll always have Iowa as a target for our mockery

Every news story is now “State Senator Randy Pervert (R-Springfield) was indicted on 8 counts of lewd behavior with a child under 12 and has been put on paid leave from his two jobs as Border Patrol liaison and youth pastor at First Presbyterian (PCA) where parishioners say they were ‘blindsided.’”

I haven't seen it since it came out, but I remember all the stuff with the chimp felt like Peele was doing it to make a point rather than advance the story - instead it distracted from the main narrative in a way that felt like he was trying to be clever

True - but NOPE (and US) are more thematically coherent than dramatically coherent. Not necessarily a problem if viewing expectations are well-calibrated (which mine were not)

Turns Out There Was Voter Fraud in Georgia—by Elon Musk The state board of elections found Musk’s PAC sent prefilled ballot applications.

The story that Elon Musk committed voter fraud has gotten next to no coverage -- one of those things you can't make come up on a Google search.

But I think it's time for Dems to go on offensive abt right wing coddling of this immigrant interfering in our elections.

newrepublic.com/post/206857/...

I hope you've made an appropriately cringe playlist for the drive

‘Andor’ Creator Tony Gilroy Gives the Interview He Couldn’t During Its Release While promoting his cautionary tale about fascism, Disney asked Gilroy to refrain from using the word. Nine months after it aired its finale, the 'Star Wars' series feels scarily prescient.

“We were stunned [about the prescience] for a while, but we’ve really gotten to the point where it’s really sad. It’s just sad how predictable and lame and obvious and wrong it all is. Fascism is just a total fail in the end.” www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-featur...

The Video Essay About The Show A multipart video essay both examining and imitating The Show About The Show, a long-running cult webseries created by independent filmmaker Caveh Zahedi.

After many months of work, my project "The Video Essay About The Show" has finally been published in the journal Open Screens! Check it out if you want to see me (and my dog) probe the limits of what counts as "scholarship" these days...

This is the vibe of What We Do in the Shadows

The question is moot Reverend Jesse Jackson Saturday night live Dailymotion video by Jesse Jackson Jr.

I know Jesse Jackson spoke so much truth to power for decades, often with memorable turns of phrase. But his most indelible & quotable line for me is "The Question Is Moot" from this 1984 SNL sketch (alas only available via this low-fi copy):

Wow.

The regime is now dictating what political views are acceptable to air on television and paramount/cbs are collaborating in that censorship bsky.app/profile/ditz...

YouTube video by BraveShoresVEVO Brave Shores - Never Come Down

Impressive that they posted this advanced promotion for the film... in 2014!

You should check out the movie for sure!

This shit rocks and the comment section on the YouTube video is, somehow, extremely funny.

Someone has sure already made this observation but the fact they can convert all those empty warehouses into prison camps means they could have converted them into housing, community centers, job training centers or, hell, libraries or schools all along. It’s always a matter of will not resources.

I really want to know - but once I know, I'll regret it

Yes, on the Blu-ray!

Saw Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie yesterday, and I've spent all morning searching for interviews to explain how the hell they made that! Such a great time at the movies (even if some of my core questions are still unanswered) - no background needed to enjoy the ride

But that would require acknowledging that anti-racism is a reaction to racism, which clearly makes no sense

I want every cis person to read the conversation from this post down.

This is the reasonable concern that is robbing trans people of a meaningful life.

It's pure prejudice. Recognise it, and pick a side.

I really wonder how his admin colleagues and Columbia's tech donors react to their Dean for AI Initiatives publishing this!

Opinion | A.I. Companies Are Eating Higher Education

Glad to see a Columbia administrator speaking the plain sense about AI so many college leaders refuse to contend with. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/12/o...

This is the perfect line of questioning to reveal that, even to "an expert" who wrote a book on "anti-white racism", defining "white culture" is impossible on its own terms without comparing to Black, Latino, etc. identity.

It was a pretty memorable & vivid metaphor

I'm not believing this until I hear from people in the streets of MN and neither should you

Got it - yes, I thought "fatal flaw" referred to overall impact, not intrinsic functionality. I don't play for social media points!

And in the 1940s, saying "nuclear bombs are fatally flawed and should not exist, so ignore the hype & propaganda and shut down the project" was totally legit and probably the right call. 80 years later, their existence is not up for debate. We're at that earlier stage with AI now.

I agree that anti- folks shouldn't ignore that there are legit uses, but the boosters cannot treat the massive negatives as just "downsides" on a pro/con list - they are potentially catastrophic at both macro & micro scales. How does me saying "sure, it's useful to automate coding" change anything?