Lisa Schmeiser

Fact check: Grok tells users fake Tel Aviv video is real Can you tell this video is fake? The AI chatbot Grok could not. It’s been viewed millions of times on platforms like X and Instagram, with claims it shows Iranian missiles hitting Tel Aviv.

Grok busy labeling fake videos as real: www.cbc.ca/player/play/...

Absolutely. We're already seeing it in customer service. The ideal revenue model for a lot of these places: Rich people will get human customer service & human teachers in education & human professional attention. The rest of us will be shuffled into AI-generated, subscription-only support services.

Pentagon bars William & Mary from college program William & Mary "puzzled and saddened" by Department of Defense announcement.

University that educated American presidents who wrote the Declaration of Independence, established the Monroe Doctrine, now considered "too woke" by Pentagon: www.whro.org/local-govern...

I think there's going to be a reckoning in marketing sooner rather than later, b/c humans have a nose for AI slop & are beginning to resent the idea that they're not worth the time/care of human effort.

I get how some MBA will argue that upskilling newbies is an "uncertain ROI," b/c that employee could go, but in a genuinely capitalist set-up, that just means that a. you have a better-trained labor force, and b. companies have incentive to creatively attract/retain gifted employees.

But this speaks to a larger issue: corporate entities' systemic devaluation of human skill acquired over time. It's ironic b/c genAI demonstrated that human experience + critical thinking is the special sauce, yet companies want to eliminate entry-level positions that lead to both.

For years, grinning men (always men) have asked me what I'll do when AI puts me out of a job & I'm like, "Until it can correctly navigate Bloom's taxonomy of learning & provide actual context to anything, I'm good." If AI puts me out of a job, it'll be because of revenue issues, not skill issues.

The Grande Dame of the Epstein Files Peggy Siegal, once the most powerful publicist in New York, defends herself.

I was a subscriber to ALLURE magazine back in the day & PR giant Peggy Siegel was one of their most regular sources on any article that was, "Cosmetic surgery — are you doing enough? (You are not.)."

This is where she's landed — Epstein fixer trying to spin her choices: nymag.com/intelligence...

This skeet and the replies make for good and thoughtful discourse on the nature of labor, skill acquisition, and knowledge work.

Girl, if it's cold enough I'm still wearing socks with the 'stocks. Also, I loved those Volvo wagons!

How the 'K-shaped' economy is showing up at two big U.S. gyms The outlooks of Life Time and Planet Fitness show the divergence in spending between higher- and lower-income consumers.

Two fitness chains, two very different economic forecasts, one great illustration of how companies are going to continue to degrade their middle-income and working-class consumer offerings in favor of chasing the top tier: www.cnbc.com/2026/02/28/l...

"The CIA conspired to make me less cool than I was when I was 25" is the most succinct Gen X manifesto I've ever heard

Psychology - Wikipedia

Right? "Oh no, someone has correctly observed at least four things about me! How ever will I live?"

I mean, I'm part of a demographic that knew and chewed on WEIRD as part of psychology bias, I'm okay with AWFUL.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychol...

I try to limit my time/exposure to those spaces but I'm not sure AWFUL is landing like they're hoping it does because people are like, "I'm not sure why I'm supposed to be insulted by any of this?" and there's no point in an insult when nobody reacts.

True, you can't sleep on the "my kid told me about the project due tomorrow at 8:55 p.m." market.

Hypocrisy means immunity from accountability and consequences. I wish the "a-ha, gotcha!" brigade would stop acting like catching out people in a lie is a great victory when all you're doing it making these people look cooler to their target audience.

reading sloprehension [compound noun, coinage]: the skill of being able to suss out ai-generated copy using context and syntax clues

I'm sure there is ample research on this too — the lifecycle of a family's consumer patterns over 20 years changes when you go from "building family traditions" and "clothing a baby" to launching those kids. I only needed to buy one Easter basket, you know?

It is notable (to me) that the people who have correctly perceived this are the right wingers who are trying to make the AWFUL (affluent white female urban liberal) label stick as a perjorative.

I used to go for seasonal party/hostessing stuff — Easter basket candy, Halloween decor — plus craft & camping supplies for my scouts, plus kids' underwear & socks. But ... we've aged out of some of that, did one-and-done buys for other things (skeletons), and there are other places to shop.

What does Target offer that other places don't? It doesn't lead on price, it doesn't lead on customer experience, it doesn't lead on merch mix, and pissing off the woke libs did not boost sales with the customer base it wooed in 2025.

What's the value proposition at this point?

CEOs see AI as the biggest business risk, exceeding geopolitical turmoil CEOs and CFOs, confronting the rapid spread of AI, face the risk of underperforming by investing either too little or too much in the far-reaching technology.

"CEOs for the first time see artificial intelligence as the biggest risk, exceeding the potential harm to their industries from geopolitical turmoil, cyber intrusions, and financial and economic instability, the Conference Board said Thursday."

www.cfodive.com/news/ceos-se...

It is impossible for me to think about horses without thinking about swamp dragons. Just pure genius on Pterry's part.

Let's assume the Pratchett stuff would cause some self-selection and we'd only get the folks committed to his deeply curious and humane sense of righteous anger. The weirdos would get into dragon breeding w/combustible results.

(I'm an idealist at heart.)

From the tolkienfans community on Reddit Explore this post and more from the tolkienfans community

They like the framing of superior/inferior races, that's for sure. And they're probably really cool with the upsetting post-LOTR canon Tolkien came up with where hobbits were hunted for sport: www.reddit.com/r/tolkienfan...

This is the timeline where nerd tech company founders got weird ideas from The Lord of the Rings, but I want to live in the timeline where the nerds all read the Discworld series & launched a green energy company called The Fifth Elephant.

One of my 2026 resolutions is to spend one weekend afternoon per month staring at the sea, phone in my pocket.

So far, I'm three for three months. Highly recommend if you can do this, it's like a hard reset for any doom-looping brain.

No idea. They’re enjoying their group chat and really, who am I to interrupt someone else’s good hang?

So @philipmichaels.bsky.social and I are at the Apple store in Emeryville, there are literally 7 unoccupied employees here, and in the 8 minutes I’ve been running a stopwatch after noticing nobody said hi to us, not an employee has even looked at us. Amazing experience compared to previous visits.

Trying to deflect attention from the Epstein Class’s globe-spanning, decades-long campaign of exploiting girls by murdering an entire elementary school full of girls is a hell of a policy decision.