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Spotlighting The World Factbook as We Bid a Fond Farewell Somewhat devastating news today from the CIA: One of CIA’s oldest and most recognizable intelligence publications, The World Factbook, has sunset. There's not even a hint as to why they …

The CIA just stopped publishing their World Factbook and took every page, including the archived copies of previous versions!

This sucks. It was public domain, so I recovered the 2020 edition (the last one published as a zip file) and shared it to GitHub simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/5/t...

If anyone was wondering, the ~23% reduction in ICE agents in Minnesota apparently doesn't include the ones down the street that are lurking, now as I type this, as vulnerable folks are getting their kids to the school bus this morning.

We cannot rest until ICE is gone, entirely.

A Social Network for A.I. Bots Only. No Humans Allowed.

If you're trying to figure out what "Moltbook" is and why people are chattering about it, this NYT story by Cade Metz featuring @simonwillison.net is a helpful starting point. (Congrats, Simon!)

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/02/t...

Why are we here, you ask?

This. This is why we are here.

Yet I still run into the occasional person who talks about "that nice young man who ran for mayor"...

What'll it take to open people's eyes to his duplicity?

I was one of the external reviewers.

Doing some bench buffing of graffiti in downtown Oakland before work. If you ever see a SFBABC bench with offensive language or really bad graffiti, go to SFBABC.org click the bench on the map anf report it. We'll buff it in 24 hours or less.

After reading his previous books (especially Other Minds) I was really looking forward to @petergs.bsky.social new one, and it does not disappoint. A great journey through the evolution of life & cognition and how they have shaped our biosphere. Must-read @brigan.bsky.social @jordiplam.bsky.social

Pie chart showing that over 1 million jail bookings per year involve missed court dates

Cops called in to testify end up missing hearings at double the rate of defendants.

Yet in many places, defendants alone face the harsh consequences of jail for missing a court date:

graph tracking democratic backsliding is occuring more quickly in the US than elsewhere.

New from me: It is not just that the US is experiencing democratic backsliding. Authoritarianism has emerged more quickly than in other benchmark countries.

This graph from John Burn-Murdoch sums it up. 🧵
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/autocracy-...

My quote of the day

We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.

Carl Sagan

An Artificial Intelligence Developed Its Own Non-Human Language When Facebook trained chatbots to negotiate with one another, the bots made up their own way of communicating.

Anybody remember this from 2017?

www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même BS.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, one of the country's highest-ranking Catholic leaders, called for the defunding of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement due to "concern for the common good."

At NIH, a Power Struggle Over Institute Directorships Deepens The biomedical research giant is largely run by 27 institute and center directors. Will those roles become politicized?

Excellent deep dive into the NIH Institute Director search morass from Undark.

undark.org/2026/01/29/n...

They didn't die in vain. Every astronaut who flew after, including my brother Scott and me, benefited from lessons learned. We explore more safely because of them, and we’ll never forget their sacrifice.

Racial disparities in officer discipline complicate OPD’s push to end federal oversight A federal judge praised progress toward ‘constitutional policing’ but said the Oakland Police Department has not yet earned full independence from court supervision.

A federal judge praised progress toward ‘constitutional policing’ but said the Oakland Police Department has not yet earned full independence from court supervision.

I'll try it!

Redditors say this is real, loaded in Port Of Oakland

(if you’re colorblind like me, the shipping container colors spell out “Renée”)

Wikipedia at 25: What the web can be - Anil Dash A blog about making culture. Since 1999.

I just set up a recurring donation to @wikipedia.org. As the information environment grows increasingly totalitarian, Wikipedia is more important than ever, and it's under existential threat. Imagine losing it.

h/t @anildash.com

www.anildash.com/2026/01/15/w...

Goddamit I should have known it was too good to last. Some senior editor decided to both-sides it after all. Cowards! Charlatans!

“Please get the truth out about our son.”

Read and share the statement from the parents of Alex Pretti, the VA ICU nurse who was shot and killed by border patrol.

Kudos to the NYT editor who took “Appears to” out of the lead headline (finally)

This woman speaks for the majority of Americans. 🙌🙏🫶👇

Lot of terrible stuff happening right now but the Bay Model in Marin is the coolest thing ive been to all year. So awesome to see a simulator showing the delta , the Berkeley Marina and the salt falts of the South Bay!

If this is what they do to white American citizens in front of everyone, imagine what happens to non-white people behind closed doors.

This book by Wimsatt is exceptional if you're interested in understanding the world, knowledge, science, etc.
It can be challenging especially in some parts.
But now Johannes Jaeger has written a stand alone accessible paper. I highly recommend it!
zenodo.org/records/1829...

2/ And Republicans in congress: Stop your silence and stop being complicit.

Democrats needing to message on affordability as the country endures a brutal authoritarian takeover is tragic. Take it from someone who lives in occupied Minneapolis. Our problems go deeper than prices.

The most consistent principle to surviving under Trump is that everything can be rolled back if the organizations involved can bother to fight it.

That is why the preemptive surrender from universities, corporations, the Democrats, and even national governments, is so galling. They don’t need to!