Robert Davis

Reminding folks that you, too, can have a voice and be part of the conversation of what works deserve recognition and praise - but only if you have a membership to nominate and vote! #Hugos #HugoAwards

ICE is continuing to seek more technology. Last week, the agency published a request for information for ways to better acquire and integrate so-called big data and advertising tech into its operations, saying it was “working with increasing volumes of criminal, civil and regulatory administrative documentation from numerous internal and external sources.” The questionnaire asked vendors to describe the types of data they could provide on “people, businesses, devices, locations, transactions, public records.” It also asked vendors how their systems could help “identify subjects, entities or locations of interest” and whether people could be searched by identifiers including “name, phone, device, account, location.” Justin Sherman, a distinguished fellow at Georgetown Law’s Center on Privacy and Technology, said the request showed ICE was “doubling down” on buying sensitive data.

ICE are alllll over Harlem right now, 116 & Frederick Douglass, checking IDs and targeting the area’s African community. Multiple people have been detained.

Community members are advising folks to carry citizenship documents - or stay away if they are at risk

This is where I remind folks once again that my personal site and Whatever, my blog, have been around longer than at least three and probably four generations of social media. Having your own space that only you control is a good thing, especially in an age of resurgent fascism.

Just deleted my TikTok account.

Please note that if you open TikTok on a web browser, it will ask you to accept a new TOS.

DO NOT ACCEPT THE TOS!

You can click through to settings and delete your account WITHOUT accepting the new TOS.

"ICE will leave Minnesota if you hand over your voter rolls" tells you everything you need to know.

This was never about immigration or fraud. It was always about rigging elections.

I don’t want to hear anything from an elected official unless it’s a plan to defund the DHS and impeach Noem, Bovino, etc. No texts. No emails. No talk about the economy. Step up or step off.

📡 SIGNAL RECEIVED!

Tor Books has successfully entered this timeline.

Expect books, dragons, and a good time 😎

Reading another psychology/human behavior book talking about the Milgram experiment and thought about what might happen now if universities were still allowed to conduct those studies and then realized that is effectively exactly what social media does. It's one big Milgram experiment.

Cambridge Analytical was just a shot off the port bow. The level of behavioral manipulation we're seeing now will form the basis of millions of graduate degrees and doctoral theses for a hundred years or more.

been thinking a lot about James Baldwin recently - from a 1970 documentary

I wonder if there is SOME self awareness for whoever put it together. The question of what we might consider useful was a fairly short list. The one of reasons we don't like it was... extensive.

EVERYONE DO THIS SURVEY

MAKE DISCORD PANIC AND REGRET AND REVERSE COURSE

DROWN THEM IN YOUR HATRED FOR GENAI

Yup

MORE LIKE THIS!!!

NYC Wegmans is storing biometric data on shoppers' eyes, voices and faces The supermarket chain says it’s a move to ensure shopper safety. Surveillance experts warn of privacy risks.

Wegman's is now collecting biometric data from anyone entering its two NYC locations gothamist.com/news/nyc-weg...

it's a massive failure of our society that we have allowed companies to distance themselves from the horrible things said by their AI, which has been created to represent them. if your AI says it, it should be equivalent to a live human person making the same statement, and treated accordingly

USPS POSTMARK CHANGE STARTING DEC 24, 2025 OLD WAY (Before Dec 24, 2025) 0-0-0 DEC 27 NEW WAY (Starting Dec 24, 2025) UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE 27 DEC 28 or DEC 29 UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE Postmark = Day of Drop-off (e.g., Dec 27) Postmark= Day of Processing (e.g., Dec 28, 29... +1-2 Days Delay) CRITICAL FOR DEADLINES (Taxes, Ballots, etc. IF YOU NEED SAME-DAY POSTMARK: Go to the USPS Counter & TAX Request a Manual Postmark! PSA Shared on December 27, 2025. Stay Informed!

This is a good visual. Looks like in order to ensure we have proof that we mailed something on a specific day, we will have to stand in line at the post office and request a manual post mark.

Yup. And after an hour+ on hold someone picks up and disconnects you.

a cartoon of a wizard holding a wand and a purple pot Alt: Merlin from The Sword in the Stone waves a wand and lowers books into a purple bag.

hello! do you like supporting independent bookstores? would you like a 20% discount on all books, including preorders? good news: oblong's annual new year's sale is today!

go get your books at a discount and give my staff some work to do: oblongbooks.com

ICE plans $100 million ‘wartime recruitment’ push targeting gun shows, military fans for hires An internal ICE document shared among immigration officials details plans to use influencers and geo-targeted ads to rapidly hire thousands of deportation officers.

New: We got an internal ICE document revealing its $100 million ad plan to bring in 14,000 new hires: deals with "tactical" influencers; ads to gun & military buffs; and geo-targeting phones around NASCAR races and gun shows.

A "wartime recruitment" mode with paramilitary branding: wapo.st/44QrP5j

This has been the autocrat’s playbook for a decade or two: have friendly oligarchs buy up independent media and then they impose government-friendly editorial policies so the autocrat doesn’t have to get their hand directly dirty killing the free press.

So much same. My grades ranged from A to F (usually from attendance rules when I reached the 3 max allowed absences of a class I found boring). My last college semester I did a crazy thing and only took classes that interested me... and I got the best grades of my life.

The day of placement tests it was very cold, so I skipped some and had to take college algebra. I was bored so I rarely went. They moved the date of the final and only told people in-class, so I showed up the wrong day. Failed the class... then tested out of having to re-take it.

Guy who is paid an insane sum to pretend AI chatbots are the future purports AI chatbots are the future despite literally no one wanting them in anything for any reason.

The world right now:

Do not steal books, I beg. Borrow from a library. Libraries lend e-books!

More news companies doing this nonsense. Have a look at the first two paragraphs of ProPublica’s mission statement. How is a genAI app going to do *investigative journalism* when it can only access what is already available on the web? When it can’t be relied upon to check sources? It’s ridiculous.

A wrong Grok post making up a white guy who stopped the Australian mass shooting.

BBC 'Hero' who wrestled gun from Bondi shooter named as Ahmed al Ahmed Emily Atkinson Sun, December 14, 2025 at 1:06 p.m. CST 2 min read A "hero" bystander who was filmed wrestling a gun from one of the Bondi Beach attackers has been named as 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed. Video verified by the BBC showed Mr Ahmed run at the gunman and seize his weapon, before turning the gun round on him, forcing his retreat. Mr Ahmed, a fruit shop owner and father of two, remains in hospital, where he has undergone surgery for bullet wounds to his arm and hand, his family told 7News Australia.

This is fucking grim. Somebody invented a white guy, an "IT professional" named Edward Crabtree, who stopped the Bondi shooting and spread it all over the internet, which was picked up by AI agents and slop aggregation sites.

The real hero is a fruit stand owner named Ahmed el Ahmed.