Lydia Laurenson

‪Also, if you start using Apple Pay or Google Pay everywhere, then that plugs a lot of security gaps during real-life credit card use‬

- If a company is being sketchy about canceling a subscription, you can close the specific card on that merchant

- If a merchant gets hacked and your info stolen, it doesn’t matter - each card’s info is locked to its function

I learned about this service via social media and want to pass it on. :)

While refactoring a lot of my personal security protocols, I recently started using privacy dot com. This is a service that connects to your bank account and generates individual “card numbers” you can use to pay for things without giving your main credit card number, which means that…

yeah after years of thinking about it and watching social fabrics, I don’t understand how it’s really supposed to work unless it’s a full-on intervention with a bunch of people involved

though, one thing is, I think it can help someone know who to decompress with if they later regret their actions?

Description of Lydia’s upcoming talk at HOPE (also available at HOPE website) - title: “Media, Vibe Coding, and the Long Tail”

Thrilled to be giving a talk at @hope.net in August in NYC. And also so excited to be coming back to that great city 💗

Is she on social media anywhere? I’m assuming no because you didn’t tag her but I’m a bit surprised given her subject. I thought the piece was great and would follow her if I could find her

Supreme Court justices trying to recreate feudal monarchy entirely within the framework of a constitutional republic like a bored programmer trying to run DOOM on a smart fridge

wrt the horror movie thing, one weird aspect to me is the sudden shifts in genre day to day

one minute it’s one genre, next minute… we are in deep body horror

The older I get, the more I think the old feminist saw that “the personal is political” is totally accurate.

Of course there are lots of nonsensical attempts to connect the personal and the political, too, based on bad stereotypes, but that doesn’t mean the two are disconnected!

as it happens, I fully agree on this

open.substack.com/pub/betterco...

I’m at the Norman Rockwell Museum @normanrockwellm.bsky.social today.

I was today years old when I learned that this picture, often used in memes, (a) was painted by Norman Rockwell and (b) is actually titled “Freedom of Speech”

Worthwhile account of what it was like to start questioning our ability to know what's actually going in our own country in the current media landscape.

Not explicitly stated, but I read this as partly about death of local news removing an empirical check on national outlets

Thrilled to announce Season 4 of The Ick, featuring writing from @eurydicelives.blogsky.venki.dev, @jakee.bsky.social, @lydialaurenson.bsky.social, @ninatummyache.bsky.social, @deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com.deepfates.com + more surprise guests TBA!

Omg Cameo I love this strategy! So simple. I might just do this myself

About the Curtis Yarvin "New Yorker" Profile A statement on my ex-fiancé

ok fine I wrote something about the New Yorker article open.substack.com/pub/lydialau...

"The Reactionary Spirit:" Interview with Zack Beauchamp of Vox Zack and I discuss reactionary politics, polarization, and hints of cultural transformation

Just posted my interview from yesterday with @zackbeauchamp.bsky.social about his book, “The Reactionary Spirit.” 💫

Audio, background notes, and transcript are all here: open.substack.com/pub/lydialau...

One of my husband Robert's favorite quotes comes from Horace Greeley, a newspaper man who founded the New York Tribune so many years ago. I think of it often:
“Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.”

That’s awesome - I didn’t know they had a Robert Frost edition

I’m so sorry Jonathan. Sending love and light. I hope those people see the error of their ways

82-year-old APS customer died after power was shut off in May 2024 An 82-year-old woman died in May 2024 after her power was cut off on a very hot day. Her son and an advocate say this shows an issue with state policies.

I have a deep aversion to local TV news, but now I am ON it because last year, the power company Arizona Public Service cut off electricity to my mother’s house outside of Phoenix, killing her.

Vibe Coding and The Future of Media: I (Sort Of) Built An AI Fact-Checker How I learned to stop worrying and love what artificial intelligence will do for journalism

I learned to vibe code and made an artificial intelligence fact-checker in an afternoon. Now I have new thoughts about the future of media

lydialaurenson.substack.com/p/vibe-codin...

Mostly Exalted - I did a tiny bit of work on Vampire: The Requiem, but it was behind the scenes and conceptual type stuff, not writing

I have an ongoing fascination with how it’s affected Twitter/X for all users to infer that the website owner can probably see their private likes on posts

Oh but people have so much fun deciding they already know everything about me. I’d simply hate to take away their fun with boring facts.

Anyway, I’m somewhat constrained in what I say publicly about Curtis rn, but, as one of my friends noted to me recently, “your silence is very loud”

what do you want to know? People seem quite content with their own commentary on the subject; I’m surprised you think I have anything to add

(This would make some sense if true because it would be an inside joke, because Guardiagrele was the site of a weird currency experiment some years ago)

Yeah. Just to be clear I’m not actually sure how they did the thing with the gray check account. I originally thought that they hacked the Guardiagrele account but now I’m wondering if they got the graycheck account another way, and then just labeled it Guardiagrele when they were done

The Obsidian Shards of Infinity: A Mythic Martial Art (2006) A fantasy martial art inspired by shattered mirrors

My latest Substack post is a throwback to my early career as a roleplaying game writer:

A mystical martial art inspired by shattered mirrors, made for an anime/wuxia game

I’ll probably only do this once :) but I got some surprisingly good feedback for it already!

open.substack.com/pub/lydialau...

🤢