Amon Barros

I knew it would take less than a day for a tiktok dj to make something.

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Even the companies can't know or say for sure how many of the layoffs are due to AI.

We're just in a mode where corporate managers are going after past over-hiring, padding margins, navigating big tech-spending commitments and conveying to investors they are forward-thinking and efficiency-minded.

Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is riding high as the most popular major president in South America

#BrazilBusiness:
Brazil’s state-controlled postal service faces its third year in the red, and the government prepares a BRL 20 billion bailout.
https://newsletters.brazilian.report/p/correios-postal-service-crisis

New work on school cell phone bans just dropped.

"Bans...led to a[n] ... increase in student suspensions in the short-term ... but disciplinary actions began to dissipate after the first year."

"We find significant improvements in student test scores in the second year of the ban."

OpenAI’s ‘embarrassing’ math | TechCrunch No, GPT-5 did not solve a bunch of previously unsolved math problems.

An OpenAI executive said GPT-5 found solutions to 10 "previously unsolved" math problems when in reality all it did was find online references to places where people had already solved them

techcrunch.com/2025/10/19/o...

German far right setting agenda as opponents amplify its ideas, study finds Normalisation of far-right stances likely to affect success of such parties at ballot boxes across Europe, say researchers

“Political communication by mainstream parties plays a central role in the electoral success of the far right”

How much more research do journalisten, politicians, pundits and strategists need before they finally change course?

Poster with a gradient blue background. Large text reads “the web we’ve built.” Smaller text says “Celebrating 1 trillion web pages archived.” Pixelated 3D icons of a floppy disk, magnifying glass, cursor arrow, computer window, and others radiate outward from a bright starburst in the center. On the right, text lists event details: “Wednesday, October 22, 5–10PM PT. Live stream: 7–8PM PT. 300 Funston Avenue, San Francisco.” The Internet Archive logo appears in the bottom right corner.

The web has a memory — & we’ve saved 1 trillion pages of it! 🌐
Join us in celebrating the people, stories & technology that preserve our digital world.

📅 Oct 22
🎟️ In Person ➡️ www.eventbrite.com/e/1626438133...
🖥️ Virtual ➡️ www.eventbrite.com/e/1626431011...

#Wayback1T

London Became a Global Hub for Phone Theft. Now We Know Why. About 80,000 phones were stolen in the British capital last year. The police are finally discovering where many of them went.

London has been plagued by increasingly brazen thieves, often masked and on e-bikes, who have become adept at snatching phones from residents and tourists.

About 80,000 phones were stolen in the British capital last year. Now we know why.

Populism and Economic Prosperity Mainstream political parties normally claim that populist parties, if they ever got to power, would damage the economy. We have clear evid...

Y'days post: Populism and Economic Prosperity mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/10/popu...
We would expect populist governments to damage the economy. The evidence suggests that they do so in a big way. But we know from Brexit that the media typically nullifies the impact of this evidence on voters.

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

A striking thing about articles I’ve read claiming to “study the effects” of generative AI on student writing skills and consumption of information is that (1) they nearly always find the effects are negative and (2) most “conclusions” are still written assuming that we must use AI, for some reason.

Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport Pedal power is booming, spinning up a new culture war

Forget EVs. Cycling is revolutionising transport www.economist.com/internationa...

Alimentação escolar do Brasil é exemplo mundial Programa brasileiro atende 40 milhões de estudantes de 150 mil escolas, incentivando alimentação saudável

Notícia da @folha.com

"Alimentação escolar do Brasil é exemplo mundial"

Link sem paywall ⬇️

A frase não faz sentido, nesse contexto, dadas as mortes e lesões causadas pela bebida adulterada.

EM ABSTRATO: falsificações, em geral, estão em cadeias controladas por criminosos e envolvem mais que a banquinha. Vale ver Gomorra (livro, filme e série) mostrando a profundidade do problema.

3 panel comic Panel 1: Blue Guy and Pink Guy. Pink Guy: Ai will change EVERYTHING. Just give me a Shitload of money Blue Guy: okey Panel 2: Blue Guy hands over a massive stack of cash and says “How will it change everything?” Panel 3: Pink Guy is running away as fast as he can with the money. He says “It’s a secret”

buying into AI

Abstract

New paper out with @dasalgon.bsky.social: “Far-Right Agenda Setting: How the Far Right influences the Political Mainstream” doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100066 #openaccess in @ejprjournal.bsky.social🧵

Women in the UK take a lasting earnings hit when they become mothers, losing an average of more than £65,000 over five years following the birth of their first child. on.ft.com/3VND4GI

LLMs are not accountable. Who is?

Race and Racism in Trump 2.0 With Victor Ray and Hakeem Jefferson Right Now With Perry Bacon

I spoke with @perrybaconjr.bsky.social and @hakeemjefferson.bsky.social about Trump and the emerging post-colorblind racial order. Also, it's my Substack debut, so if you are over there, hit me up.

Jane Goodall with monarch butterfly scarf

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.”
― Jane Goodall

💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Vai fazer sucesso, secar água, aumentar o preço da energia e fazer as pessoas ficarem mais tempo nas telas.

YouTube video by Johnny Cash - Topic Ain't No Grave

All this talk about rapture reminded me of this song: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zE4...

What kind of "emotional" truth is that shared by Trump and Bolsonaro? We discuss this in our recente paper Occult enemies of the market order.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Brazilians protest in their thousands against granting Bolsonaro amnesty Huge crowds pack the streets to oppose endeavours to help ex-president escape jail

“Huge crowds packed the squares and beaches of some of Brazil’s biggest cities to voice their opposition to rightwing endeavors to help Bolsonaro escape jail for his failed power grab”

Protecting Indigenous Amazon lands may also protect public health, study says Indigenous territories are widely recognized as vital for conserving the environment and biodiversity, but far less is known about their role in protecting human health. Only recently have…

Researchers found that Indigenous territories can effectively reduce the risk of vector-borne or zoonotic diseases if they’re located in municipalities with at least 40% forest cover.

Tira de Laerte, em um único quadrinho. Uma porta de banheiro público masculino, com a tradicional figurinha em silhueta indicando, se abre e aparece um grupo de homens das cavernas, com machados de pedra lascada, dilacerando o corpo de um grande animal recém-abatido. Um deles, segurando uma tocha, olha a porta aberta e grita: “AQUI É O DOS HOMENS!!”

saiu na Folha @folha.com