Alan Boyle

It really does feel like a lot of formerly reasonable people have been infected by some sort of terrifying brain parasite when it comes to unthinking and total acceptance of using AI tools

Narrator: Sadly though, SCOTUS has now exempted the president from the founders’ intent to criminalize bribery.

What an incredible last few days. Whale watching tour where we caught a group of 5 orca whale pods together in one place, a humpback whale, puffins, and elephant seals.

Then a ride out to Olympic, where we saw the most massive humpback breach from the beachside.

I love the PNW.

With just a few messages, biased AI chatbots swayed people’s political views University of Washington researchers recruited self-identifying Democrats and Republicans to make political decisions with help from three versions of ChatGPT: a base model, one with liberal bias and....

Researchers (including some fantastic people at UW) found that chatbots can persuade people on political issues, and that they often do so by shifting the frames of the debate: www.washington.edu/news/2025/08...

A particularly gut wrenching excerpt from this article:

Enough of the billionaires and their big tech. ‘Frugal tech’ will build us all a better world:
Titans like Musk would love us to believe innovation means top-down solutions that only enrich the wealthy. In fact, we all have the power.

Science, which purports to be a prestigious journal, discounts Larry's accomplishments simply because he's a cat.

News: Trump’s FCC wants to widen the (already huge) loophole that companies like SpaceX use when they want to launch tens of thousands of satellites while dodging environmental review studies. I’m busy with book revisions, but would happily chat with interested journalist friends. Thoughts below.

Tom the Dancing Bug The True, Top-Secret Story of President Donald Trump

This week's Tom the Dancing Bug comic now up on @contrariannews.org
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contrarian.substack.com/p/tom-the-da...

Illinois is the first state to ban AI therapists Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has signed a bill banning AI therapists into law, the first in the nation.

Illinois has banned AI therapy, making it the first state to regulate the use of AI in mental health services.

www.engadget.com/ai/illinois-...

A review of 'Ducks: How to Make Them Pay', which reads: 'Let me tell you I was bitterly disappointed to learn that this book is in fact an instructional guide to the profitable husbandry of ducks as a craft. There is not one silver insight about holding ducks accountable for their crimes against humanity, Earth or god'.

after sharing our book about making outdoor pigs pay, lots of people are sending us this meme:

The general consensus of Canadians towards America right now.
#SlavaKanadi #ElbowsUP 🟥🍁🟥

"Basically just autocomplete" is a very good concise phrase for encapsulating that LLMs are using statistical methods to produce intelligent looking prose without actually possessing intelligence.

Thank God I Didn’t Vote for Hope and Joy Several months ago, in the lead-up to the most recent Most Important Election of Our Lifetime, I wondered out loud whether we should choose the unc...

"This despair feels infinite and is therefore predictable and safe. Instead of living in some diaphanous house of cards built out of positivity and mutual respect, I’m living in an unheated, unlit cave at the base of a gloomy mountain called woe."

Email from the "PUBLIC RECORDS OFFICE" to Kate Starbird asking for all emails from Jan 1 2021 through July 30 2025 with any of the following keywords: "diversity and inclusion" "DEIA" "DEI" "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging" "DEIB" "gender identity" "racial preference" "ESG" "organizational equity" "intersectionality" "anti-racism" "critical race theory" "LGBTQ+" "transgender" "cisgender" "gender ideology" "white privilege" "privilege walk" "cultural humility" "equity audit" "restorative justice" "racial equity" "implicit bias" "microaggressions" "inclusive pedagogy" "identity-based oppression" "systems of oppression" "queer" "non-binary" "sexuality" “Trump” “fascist”

If anyone is curious about the current list of search terms being used by right wing activist organizations to harass university professors, here's a public records request I received today from Mike Howell of the Heritage Foundation. Not intimidating or meant to curtail by my speech at all, right?

The student newspaper.
This fell. To the student. Newspaper.

I’m Captain Ahab and I Say We Must Never Transition Away from a Whale-Based Energy Industry When I heard that the globalist oligarchs and fat cats in the Washington marshland were conspiring to invest in alternative, non-whale-based energy...

"Reducing our dependence on whales as an energy source will send us sliding down the slippery, spermaceti-lubricated slope to socialism. If we give up whaling, what will those lackwits come for next? Will I have to surrender my peg leg for a titanium prosthetic?"

Stop this. Just… Stop it. Stop using "generative AI" for anything that might actually matter, and especially things that, if it gets them wrong, *Might Fucking Kill You.*

Why does this need to be said? Why is this not obvious??? Why is this not the default way of fucking operating?! What the FUCK.

“Ask for what actually fixes the problem — and then go out there and fight for it.”

On Monday, @elizabeth-warren.bsky.social came to NYC to talk about universal childcare, and why we shouldn’t listen to billionaires who say making life affordable for working families isn't possible.

I feel like every single day I need to post a reminder: if you ask an LLM about itself it DOES NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ITS INNER WORKINGS and WILL NOT TELL YOU ANYTHING ACTUALLY ABOUT ITSELF. It just (as it always does) will make up some plausible sounding answer.

Blue Origin and five other companies study how orbital transfer vehicles can aid NASA Blue Origin is among six companies that will help NASA learn how orbital transfer vehicles can deliver spacecraft to hard-to-reach orbits.

NASA wants to hook up with commercial ventures that are working on vehicles that can send spacecraft to what are typically hard-to-reach orbits ... and Blue Origin says its Blue Ring could be just the thing. www.geekwire.com/2025/blue-or...

These two top vote-getters in Seattle's mayoral primary seem fated to face each other again in November's general election, but at this point, it sounds as if the progressive challenger has the upper hand. (Erica corrected this to read "FURTHER ahead.")

A fuzzy white dot on a blue background, with surrounding contour lines

3I/ATLAS measurement from HST is in: can see the coma but not the nucleus. Sets effective nuclear radius of r < 2.8 km (H>15.4), significantly smaller than earlier estimates (as anticipated).
Jewitt et al, (submitted?) arxiv.org/abs/2508.02934 🔭☄️

Interlune will team up with Astrolab to send a camera to the moon for helium-3 survey Interlune says it's struck a deal with Astrolab to send a camera to the moon to estimate how much helium-3 is present in lunar soil.

Seattle-based Interlune has struck a deal to send a helium-hunting camera to the moon aboard Astrolab's FLIP rover, which is due for launch as soon as this year. It'll be the first off-Earth step in Interlune's plan to deliver lunar helium-3 to paying customers. www.geekwire.com/2025/interlu...

BREAKING NEWS: a government watchdog confirmed the Trump administration is breaking the law by blocking NIH funds.
 
How many kids with cancer or grandmas with Alzheimer’s have to get closer to death while crucial research is stalled? 

Trump must end this illegal funding freeze.

Health secretary RFK Jr. shuts door on U.S. investment in mRNA vaccine research Vaccine experts and people steeped in pandemic preparedness expressed horror at the news that RFK Jr. has shut the door in U.S. investment in mRNA vaccine research.

Pandemic preparedness in the US has been leveled a crippling blow with the cancellation of multiple #BARDA contracts to help develop mRNA vaccines. No other vaccine platform produces vaccine so quickly; without mRNA, Americans will have a long wait for pandemic vax. www.statnews.com/2025/08/05/m...

Titan sub investigators blame OceanGate for safety lapses and say fatal disaster was ‘preventable’ The panel investigating the loss of the Titan sub and its pilot and passengers in 2023 blamed the disaster on a long series of safety lapses.

In a report that runs more than 300 pages long, the Coast Guard's investigative board details years' worth of safety lapses that led up to the catastrophic loss of OceanGate's Titan submersible and the 5 people who were riding it to the wreck of the Titanic in 2023. www.geekwire.com/2025/titan-s...

Earth’s Core Appears To Be Leaking Up and Out of Earth’s Surface | Quanta Magazine Strong new evidence suggests that primordial material from the planet’s center is somehow making its way out. Continent-size entities anchored to the core-mantle boundary might be involved.

Strong new evidence suggests that liquid metal from the center of the Earth is making its way up to the planet’s surface, potentially ferried through two monster-size blobs sitting at the core-mantle boundary. @squigglyvolcano.bsky.social reports: www.quantamagazine.org/earths-core-...

The Em Dash Responds to the AI Allegations “In recent months, a curious fixation has emerged in corners of academia: the em dash. More specifically, the apparent moral panic around how it is...

"Listen here, my good bitch. Writers have been using me long before the advent of AI."

Pro Soccer Player Who Spent 125 Days At CECOT Gives Chilling Account Of His Time There “Both the physical and mental abuse doled out by the officers made me think sometimes that I would never leave that place,” Jerce Reyes Barrios said.

pro soccer player Jerce Reyes Barrios followed all the rules when he came to the US. His lawyer told took his asylum case bc it seemed like a "slam dunk. Then US officials sent him to CECOT, where he was told he'd spend the rest of his life

w/@mattshuham.bsky.social www.huffpost.com/entry/pro-so...