numinosity 🎬

if I cannot witness a performer experience a full range of emotion—e.g. furrow their brow or cock an eyebrow incredulously when required by a scene—as a consequence of cosmetic work (filler, botox), I have no desire to watch them inhabit a role on screen, and even less desire to cast them in a role

beating this drum again

given the state of things, it seems frivolous to say, but:

a character’s specific traits notwithstanding, I have less than zero interest in watching any media – particularly cinema – wherein the onscreen talent cannot exercise the full expression of their facial features

📌

i feel profoundly seen by this essay, for i, too, am an Ai hater. Ai has enabled enshitification of EVERYTHING at warp
speed

2nding iMazing. fantastic and intuitive software that performs this function exactly

📌

Yes to California’s “No Robo Bosses Act” California’s Governor should sign S.B. 7, a common-sense bill to end some of the harshest consequences of automated abuse at work. EFF is proud to join dozens of labor, digital rights, and other

California’s Governor should sign the “No Robo Bosses Act,” a common-sense bill to end some of the harshest consequences of automated abuse at work. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

📌 sounds promising. eager to follow this development though the human subject clinical trial phase

Devastating news. I’ve learned so much from Cascade PBS – @laureldemkovich.bsky.social’s work and exploratory videos about the history/culture of the PNW region are so engaging and informative. I hope you all land positions in short order – good journalism is so crucial right in our present moment

Pritzer gets the mechanics of authoritarianism – systemic intimidation, seizing control of elections, etc. – in a way others in national democratic leadership don't or won't say out loud.

The offer made to women in the enticement to become trad wives is the same as the offer made to citizens in the enticement to embrace authoritarianism: give up. Abandon the aspiration to self rule. It’s imprisonment recast as rest and relief.

In Those Years Adrienne Rich In those years, people will say, we lost track of the meaning of we, of you we found ourselves reduced to I and the whole thing became silly, ironic, terrible: we were trying to live a personal life and yes, that was the only life we could bear witness to But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged into our personal weather They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove along the shore, through the rags of fog where we stood, saying I

RFK Jr.-Backed Vaccine Panel Advises Against MMRV Vaccine for Young Children New members of a key committee tweak routine childhood vaccine guidance as some states and insurers go their own way.

RFK Jr. is objectively pro-disease, pro-illness and pro-child death.

Instagram account connected to Gilroy shooter pushed staple of white supremacist internet forums

Anti-Semitic open letter posted online under name of Chabad synagogue shooting suspect

Pittsburgh synagogue shooting suspect threatened Jewish groups, pushed migrant caravan conspiracies

New Zealand mosque shooting: Attacker's apparent manifesto probed

These are right-wing terror events I covered just from 2017 to 2023. It's not even close to comprehensive. The government's trying to erase this history.

the great missing thru-line in media reporting remains trump's assault on fact & reality. it's weird, because it's a decade-long failure, yet fact is essential to the press' role in democracy. it's just a consistent, repeated failure to articulate for the public that propaganda *is the policy*.

Insurers Continue to Rely on Doctors Whose Judgments Have Been Criticized by Courts In dozens of cases ProPublica reviewed, judges found that some doctors working for these companies engaged in “selective readings” of medical evidence and “shut their eyes” to medical opinions…

One doctor’s recommendation to deny a 43-year-woman coverage “contained errors on practically every aspect” of her condition, the Labor Department said in 2012.

United and other insurers continued to hire the doctor over the next decade.

(Published Dec. 2024)

AI Eroded Doctors’ Ability to Spot Cancer Within Months in Study Artificial intelligence, touted for its potential to transform medicine, led to some doctors losing skills after just a few months in a new study.

Stop offloading cognitive tasks to "generative AI." Stop using systems w/ "AI" features either inextricably woven through them or prominently displayed at the top to nudge you into their use. Stop *Designing* "AI" tools & integrations that way. Stop building or using "AI" like this. Fucking Stop it.

One of the central achievements of the Affordable Care Act was to *raise* the Medicaid eligibility threshold to 133% of the federal poverty level—because everyone understood that there are plenty of folks who couldn't otherwise afford health care even though they're just over that (arbitrary) line.

Vaccines under attack. With Dr. Atul Gawande and Dr. Jeremy Faust. US to stop funding Gavi, the global vaccine program. A recording from Jeremy Faust, MD's live video.

“HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the United States will no longer donate funds to Gavi, the global vaccine program that has saved millions of lives worldwide.”— @jeremyfaust.bsky.social
“This is one of the deadliest decisions ever made by any American.”

Texas Approves Use Of Fracking Wastewater To Irrigate Crops - CleanTechnica Texas wants to use recycled wastewater from fracking operations to irrigate crops within the state. What could possibly go wrong?

*screams unendingly and piercingly in ecotoxicologist*

cleantechnica.com/2025/06/12/t...

Nbd just kinda telling how all our advice about how to stay safer at protests is about protecting ourselves from cops and not ever not once that I have ever seen about keeping us safe from other protesters

Almost like there's only one real threat to protester safety or something

ICE is going to parks in Los Angeles and kidnapping nannies who are caring for small children

The children are witnessing these kidnappings and being held in custody until their parents are contacted

Women and children in parks

i've been trying to see what the right wing platforms (even outside of X) are showing people regarding the protests in LA and i am not sure it can be overstated just how much the AI slop is being used to reinforce the idea that downtown is a post-apocalyptic war zone

Everyone I knew who covered disinformation got laid off, their bosses got bullied into firing them, or they changed their beats from actual Nazi harassment campaigns. It cannot be stressed the damage the paid-for Substack “free speech” guys did in the service of fascism and against real free speech.

I’ve said it before but it is embarrassing that so many intellectuals spent years in small factional battles over the propriety of calling this fascism.

This piece going round on why LLMs hallucinate is absolutely excellent.

LLMs don’t fact check. They can’t, they won’t, and they probably never will.

If your work relies on facts being correct DO NOT USE GenAI

garymarcus.substack.com/p/why-do-lar...

Doctors call for return of face masks after new Covid strain reaches UK Doctors have called for a return to face masks after the WHO has observed rise infections in three regions across the globe – the news comes coupled with a new COVID variant being detected in the UK ByJoshua Whorms 14:33, 04 Jun 2025 Updated 14:34, 04 Jun 2025

UK: Doctors call for return of face masks after new COVID strain reaches UK.

In the UK, cases of the new COVID variant NB.1.8.1 have been reported. WHO is monitoring due to its rapid spread and possible resistance to prior infection or vaccination.

Source: archive.md/DTVHw

A Fatal Tesla Crash Shows the Limits of Full Self-Driving As Elon Musk touts robotaxis in Austin, federal regulators are investigating whether Tesla’s system is dangerous even with a human behind the wheel.

BIG doc score by @danahull.bsky.social

@bloomberg.com is publishing photos & partial footage of a fatal Tesla crash, which was recorded by the Model Y and downloaded by police, for the 1st time after obtaining the images & video through a public records request
www.bloomberg.com/features/202...

Idk what the term is but we need something like illiteracy for people who can like, read words but whose ability to interpret facts and context has been completely destroyed by the internet