Riley MacLeod

A Crash Course in the 3 Controversial Housing Ballot Proposals Do they represent YIMBY "Abundance" magic or an anti-democratic "power grab"?

Heading into the booth for early voting and confused about the three housing proposals on the ballot? We got you covered 👍 hellgatenyc.com/nyc-housing-...

Want to run the world's top marathons? Good luck getting in. Fueled by the rise of run clubs, social media influencers and a growing interest in wellness, demand for marathons has surged in recent years.

With skyrocketing demand, races are struggling to scale.

I went behind the scenes of the world's top races to understand why it's so hard to get a bib, and see how they were trying to keep up.
www.nbcnews.com/sports/track...

i got a charity slot to the NY marathon on a total whim in 2020, and by the time I actually got to run the race in 2022 that org wasn't even doing a charity team anymore, and it has given me a completely unrealistic understanding of how you get in lol

I've been working my way through the US version of Shameless, and every episode starts with a recap where a character is really mad at you for needing a recap, and somehow five seasons in I am still totally charmed by this

(Also how are there SO many seasons of this show, I had no idea)

A Wikipedia Conference Took a Dark Turn. Unfortunately, It’s Not a Total Surprise. An armed man at a gathering of the website’s volunteers is just the latest reminder: Editing the internet’s encyclopedia has never been riskier.

Felt this was important to write for @slate.com to capture the experience of Wikipedia editors who were there in the room as the armed man took the stage at last weekend's Wikipedia conference.

Pharos and Fuzheado showed courage & quick thinking by taking down the gunman and averting tragedy.

Squid Game: Unleashed

Days after hyping games business to investors, Netflix closes Squid Game: Unleashed studio
aftermath.site/squid-game-unl...

On the one hand, I don't have to worry about my premium going up because NYS is closing my health insurance program anyway; on the other hand, I will now have to pay even more for insurance that is already too much money.

around this time a few years back i did a big bike trip and my phone keeps showing me pictures of it and i keep thinking "damn, i wish i were on a bike trip" so your posts are not helping (also that is a lot of hills!)

BREAKING: Over a sharp dissent from Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan & Jackson, the Supreme Court will not stop Alabama from killing Anthony Boyd tonight.

Sotomayor tells the reader to count to four minutes on their phone. "Now imagine for that entire time, you are suffocating."

omg i forgot about the space mirror company

microsoft's logo surrounded by money (credit: FellowNeko / Shutterstock)

On today's stream we're talking the ravages of Microsoft's outrageous 30% profit margin (and the challenges of covering its games amid the BDS boycott), as well as why TwitchCon's beefed up security didn't stop the internet's biggest issues from invading real life

www.twitch.tv/aftermathdot...

well it wasn't EASY

Can *finally* talk about the big GDC changes!

• One main pass type: Festival Pass—equivalent to old All-Access pass, starts at $649 (indies/startups/academics can get deeper discounts.
• New "Game Changer" pass with premium stuff at $1,699
• Huge content overhaul for professionals of all stripes.

Microsoft Pushes Xbox Division to Hit Higher Profit Margins Management’s goal of 30% profit margins for gaming has led to job losses, canceled projects

SCOOP: For the last two years, Microsoft has pushed Xbox to hit profit margins of 30%, an ambitious target that's far higher than the industry average.

This chase for profit has led Xbox to raise prices, cut thousands of jobs, and rethink everything.

Story: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

So I actually just learned a friend of mine works in one of the offices with all the paper stuff and I think that is amazing, though I also recognize its lack of utility

Exactly what I was JUST wandering around my apartment muttering that I needed, amazing!

We already know this about AI, that its boosters think we will guzzle any slop they feed us simply because they are the ones feeding it to us. But these AI posts reveal less about the general population’s tastes and insecurities than they do the people making them. With AI providing a direct route from Trump and Cuomo’s brains to our screens, we get an unrestricted tour through their heads. They can show us exactly how angry and afraid they are, without even an actor to try to put a spin on it or a local street corner we can recognize. It’s the kind of stuff you could imagine them dumping out in a therapy session with Cuomo’s fake social worker: I am scared everyone is out to get me, I would like to take a big wet crap on people who are mean to me. Fake de Blasio can’t look us in the eye because AI doesn’t understand eye contact, but it also gives Cuomo’s gross fantasy a sense of shame, like some part of him knows these are not the kinds of thoughts you should shout out in public, like he knows these are not the kinds of emotions that should rule a person’s life.

There’s a sort of intimacy here that could almost be humanizing. The vulnerability in art made by humans can help us understand why people do the bad things they do, but stripped of craft or the self-reflection required to make something, the videos show them as not just vicious but also lazy, like even expressing their deepest insecurities isn’t worth their own time. AI gives us too much intimacy with these men. It gives them the uncut ability not just to externalize their crap in the limited words of Twitter and Truth Social, where a reader would then have to translate it into their own imagination, but in sound and color and the wavering facsimile of humans, the way they must experience their fantasies when they close their eyes and indulge them. They can show us, effortlessly, exactly what they see in their heads, without anything to get between us and their thoughts. We can live in their brains with all the vivid, inescapable impact that they want to bring to bear on the real world.

Cuomo and Trump's AI posts aren't just offensive or bad; they let us see the world exactly as they see it without anything in the way, which is how they want us to live our real lives too
aftermath.site/ai-trump-cuomo

I know this isn't the point but what does Cuomo think social workers do

In the audience tonight is Charlotte Bennett, one of the 13 women that Andrew Cuomo is credibly alleged to have sexually harassed while they worked in his government.

She can't speak for herself because Cuomo's lawyers have hounded her.

So I confronted him.

Cuomo can say Kościuszko but not Mamdani?

I like how debaters are super mean to each other but they have polite tone of voice about it, is that something they teach you in public speaking classes

following the assault of emiru, a popular streamer, many have claimed that twitchcon had no security. that's not true. but security and safety are not the same thing, especially when the people who need protecting are women in a community steeped in clip-hungry online misogyny

A cis woman relative of mine takes T and told me about it recently, and it was such a trippy conversation. (She knew so much more about it than I did lol, though in fairness is also a medical provider)

I have so many things to do and they're all different things and they're all stressful in their own unique ways, and it's like... it's not that I need an assistant, I just need another me except I don't have to be him

Valnet unfortunately let go of the entire TheGamer features team today alongside several other staff members.

Many incredibly talented and hard working writers I've had the pleasure of working with over the past several years.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation warned that President Trump’s planned 90,000-square-foot ballroom would “overwhelm the White House itself,” which spans just 55,000 square feet. https://wapo.st/4hmL8rC

✨Have YOU played powerwash simulator and then gone on to powerwash something in real life? Do you have thoughts on how they compare? I want to talk to you for a story I'm working on.

Shares appreciated!

does anyone live there lol? I wondered if its inhabitants were weirded out by a group of sweaty people standing outside their house

A white house in Brooklyn

I did a group run based on @hughryan.bsky.social’s When Brooklyn Was Queer and got to see Walt Whitman’s house!

Earlier on Canal Street, as agents attempted to disperse, one who I recognize from the courts pulled out a taser and threatened protester with it. @thecity.nyc