Sarah Emily Duff

I just want to point out that there is a lane for someone to start a small media company whose express mission statement is "nothing we put on the internet was made by AI" & every time a category gets overrun like this, they branch out

Ha!

Fresco which has a blackbird perched on top of a golden amphora against a green background.

Morning.
Pompeii, 100 AD.

A Life in Letters by John Updike — a personality revealed vividly This collection of the late writer’s correspondence is pure gold, shining with insights about literature and life

‘just before he separated from Mary in the 1970s, wrote to her: “What you must realize is that once I begin a story you become a character, not a person; Monet’s haystacks didn’t complain that they weren’t really purple.”’

Skye Gyngell, pioneering chef, 1962-2025 At Petersham Nurseries and Spring, she brought style and beauty to seasonal cooking

‘Spring later became one of the first restaurants in the country to eliminate single-use plastics, and in 2016 introduced a “scratch” menu using waste products at a lower price.’

On Skye Gingell:

it is not customary for such venerable leviathans to be at all social

Pleasure! It’s a really great list.

Painting of a woman dressed in pink holding a sword in her right hand she is standing with her left foot on a severed head. She is a peaceful expression on her face and she looks very relaxed

Judith — Georgione, ca. 1504

Born OTD in 1654, in Antwerp, Jan van Kessel the Younger. Like his father, a painter of bugs, beasts, & other naturalia. Occasionally humans too. Here, butterflies, shells, etc in 1680.

magical

Jean Cocteau at his studio in Paris, sitting with two Siamese cats

Jean Cocteau by Wolfgang Kuhn, c. 1960

#Caturday

YouTube video by optimisticwombatninja08 A Colour Box - Len Lye (1935)

(Relatedly, I love Lye's 1935 A Colour Box, commissioned by the British General Post Office)

Short Little Difficult Books Novels that challenge with style, story, or form that you can read in a day.

‘Aren’t learning new skills and trying new things sort of the whole point of life? … Perhaps one thing AI is revealing is that a certain percentage of the population has no real interest in doing, learning, or enjoying anything at all.’

By @thelincoln.bsky.social

Ruth Asawa’s Art of Defiant Hospitality A retrospective at MOMA puts forth a persuasive case for an artist who saw making her work and living with others as inextricably entwined.

‘She found a more lasting outlet for her geometric preoccupations during a summer in Mexico, where she learned to “knit” with wire. In the markets of Toluca, venders used the technique to make egg carriers, but Asawa was captivated by the material’s “insect wing” transparency.’

‘The French people want to save us’: help pours in for glassmaker Duralex The brand, which evokes nostalgia and pride, hit its €5m fundraising target within hours and orders have soared

‘“We want to involve as many people as possible but with almost €20m in pledges obviously some people will be disappointed,” Marciano said.

Since the company became a staff cooperative, turnover has increased by 22% and Marciano said he hoped Duralex would be breaking even by 2027.’

relinquish this turbulence

The slightly sinister world of Pelican Originals.

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Gift, Andrew Powie Fuller and Geraldine Spreckels Fuller Collection, 1999 © 2016 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris

Untitled blue monochrome (IKB 82) by Yves Klein, 1959
https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137339

Paul Klee♥️

Flower Myth ,1918
Watercolour on pastel foundation on fabric

The Strange Afterlife of Hilma af Klint, Painting’s Posthumous Star As af Klint’s fame has grown, so have the questions—about what she believed, whom she worked with, and who should be allowed to speak in her name.

‘Typically, when art circulates, it produces a ledger: sales, contracts, loans, dollar figures. But the story of Hilma af Klint lacks the blunt clarity of balance sheets, and her afterlife suggests that money, far from debasing art, is what pins it to the world.’

What Was ChatGPT? A Chatbot Optimized for Social Distance Three years after the launch of ChatGPT, we can finally speak in hindsight about what it was and how it came to be. Its meteoric rise shocked the world, gather...

‘It's possible that the chatbot is one of the lasting transformations of our social life from the pandemic. The pivot to frame Large Language Models as intelligent may just blind us to how most users really see them: as social.’

By @eryk.bsky.social

Opinion | How a Thought Experiment Changed the World Peter Singer and the roots of effective altruism.

‘Effective Altruism did not originate in the clean room of a thought experiment but in the matrix of compromise we call a social world … from conversations among elites and has necessarily been molded by the pressures on them and the opportunities afforded them.’

By @benwurgaft.bsky.social

The Second House (detail), 2009-2011 by Eran Reshef

No. 2 (No. 7 and No. 2)

No. 2 (No. 7 and No. 2)
https://botfrens.com/collections/25/contents/4844

AI in education is obviously not just a technology but something that different groups interpret and construct in various ways. I thought I'd have a go at characterizing them:

We have created three distinct certifications tailored to key audiences: Gemini Certified Educator: for teaching innovation and student success. Gemini Certified University Student: for academic excellence and professional preparedness. Gemini Certified Student (K12) for responsible, informed use by high schoolers. Please note a foundational course completion is required before the assessment can be taken.

Feeling queasy now I've learned that Google is not only now offering Gemini ambassador certificates to teachers but also awarding students and *children* to be corporate AI mascots. Coercive normalization of commercialized digital education. blog.google/outreach-ini...

Kandinsky Portrait Bauhaus Movement Modern.

The Red Disk

The Red Disk https://www.wikiart.org/en/joan-miro/the-red-disk