In September 1996, early in a misbegotten youth — though not nearly as misbegotten, I should say for the record, as Liam Gallagher‘s — my friend Gary and I attended an Oasis concert at Jones Beach, on Long Island.
Liberal. Music lover. Writer (fiction - different genres - and I also wrote about music). Here to talk about politics, music and other people's work. On the bird site as seaspinner since 2011.
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In September 1996, early in a misbegotten youth — though not nearly as misbegotten, I should say for the record, as Liam Gallagher‘s — my friend Gary and I attended an Oasis concert at Jones Beach, on Long Island.
You should be! What a great video - and you're as eloquent an Everton fan as they could have found. "It's almost in lieu of religion in this city..."
If you removed the dangerous fools in the Trump regime, there would be no one left. It's sometimes hard to believe this country has produced so many idiots.
I didn't know I needed a "Goofball in a box with a toy" photo today...but yeah, I really did. And that one's perfect. Thanks!
"Accelerate AI adoption" = bring AI slop and hallucinations to the BBC. AI cannot "enhance journalism" in any real way, no matter what the BBC News CEO says.
ICYMI: The macabre sounding Chamber of Progress—funded by Amazon, Meta, Google, Apple & Twitter/X—says Trump is exactly right. What circle of hell is this? These companies have certainly revealed themselves…& it ain’t pretty. @knibbs.bsky.social @wired.com www.wired.com/story/presid...
The only reason generative AI has any value is the illegal use of the world's intellectual property for training data, and the AI companies have never had any intention of paying for what they stole. In Trump they found a thief-in-chief to agree with them, as long as they bribe and flatter him.
Trump's pettiness and small-minded vengefulness takes the place of actual policy making. It taints the air in the executive branch like a forgotten bag of trash in a warm house on a summer day—even when you can’t see it, you know it’s there. www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...
“In short — AI, at least in its present incarnation, is a deeply toxic tree, the fruit of which is poison to our minds and dulls our senses, replacing originality with derivative output based on predictability. It is, almost by definition, a stupidity-producing machine.” medium.com/@nturkewitz_...
So much to indict, so little space. This is nothing but the “everyone is doing it/if I didn’t do it, someone else will” defense. I truly hope it gets the derision it deserves. And of course, it elides the fact that Anthropic itself uses creative works w/o consent to build its products. Bad guy much?
For anyone who has been following the tragic story of OpenAI whistleblower, Suchir Balaji.
That looks and sounds great! (I'm still planning to have a large, healthy salad for dinner, but that photo is making me feel deprived.)
ALEC is a very dangerous alliance of corporations and RW operatives and state legislators that's been undermining our democracy and increasing corporate power for decades, with very little media scrutiny, as it uses its state legislature puppets to introduce near-identical bills in multiple states.
Generative AI, the type getting 99% of the attention, was so illegally trained on stolen intellectual property that it really shouldn't be used at all by anyone aware of that theft who cares about all the people that IP was stolen from.
Fantastic news! Kudos to everyone involved!
Big news. The Royal Albert Hall has just become the first 5,000+ capacity arena to permanently adopt the £1 grassroots levy on all commercial rock and pop shows from October 2025 - a move that could raise £300,000 a year to support the foundations of the UK’s live music scene.
..was an actor, but I had to go find the people I was at the party with.
..as surprised and foolish as I did when they saw Star Wars later. I watched the start of that film wondering why the cute blond actor playing Luke looked so familiar, and I finally remembered at the binary sunset scene. I should've asked him more the first time I encountered him, after he said he..
This was more clueless than completely random, but I had two brief chats with Mark Hamill not long before he became world famous. The first at a party, the second when I ran into him the next day, stopped to chat, and a couple of guys came up and complimented me and ignored him. They probably felt..
And as bad as that already is, it will get much, much worse as generative AI is used to create more mindless, meaningless -but highly personalized - entertainment vomited out by AI models trained on all the copyrighted intellectual property the tech bros could steal for their plagiarism machines.
That could help, too, but it would direct payments to the news outlet whose link you saw first. Paying even $1/mo would encourage browsing on a news site and continued subscriptions and donations, which could help smaller sites grow.
Even tax breaks require a government supportive of independent media, which we can't count on right now. I don't see anything wrong with paywalls but they should be lower, maybe even $1/mo cheapest tier (with subscriptions at that level still having ads), which would mean a lot more subscriptions.
It's dystopian.
That kind of delusional conversation would've fit perfectly in "Mountainhead."
Congratulations! And what a gorgeous photo!
Sounds heavenly. I've found that leaning over a large plate on the kitchen counter usually works to catch all that juice. Though it also helps if the paper towels are within reach.
What BS, WaPo. Trump NEVER finds the right words, and claiming he "fulfilled a unifying public ritual for commanders in chief" is sane-washing and propaganda. bsky.app/profile/atru...
Thanks! Wasn't aware of that part of the Guardian's history. I've sold stories to a Conde Nast magazine. That was long ago, but it still reminds me how much better markets once were. It sickens me to think of corrupt billionaires gaining control of more and more of our media.
I'd never heard it that way, but after reading your post and listening again, I can understand why someone might have. Still a great song... youtube.com/watch?v=RlNh...
Some background on ICE doing this type of surveillance using Stingrays: 2020 ACLU article www.aclu.org/news/immigra... that links to a 2017 Buzzfeed article about ICE using Stingrays at least as early as 2013: www.buzzfeednews.com/article/adol...
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At least the NYT had only 5 paragraphs on it instead of what looks like 5 pages in the New Yorker. It does sound like a terrible ordeal, with one ineffective treatment after another. Incredibly painful, frustrating and scary for him. But buying luxuries as a "revenge tour"?
True...but that isn't mentioned till the 16th paragraph.
It's more a celebration of spending on luxuries than a celebration/analysis of his writing. They probably wished he lived in the Hamptons; they'd've been shopping for luxury groceries.
Okay. But you have a stack of books testifying silently but very eloquently against the claim that you're lazy.
...had required graduate degrees, and he recently started appearing at open mic nights again, a couple of decades after he quit his last band, and he's really enjoying it. If you were as introverted as some writers, I wouldn't be suggesting this. But you don't seem introverted.
You're a much-better-than-merely-decent singer. And if you wouldn't trust your own skills as a guitarist, you might know one who'd enjoy open mic nights. And maybe recording later. I have a friend who worked steadily in successful cover bands for decades, in addition to a day job that...
...and then I found out about generative AI trained on stolen intellectual property and since then have spent more time writing about that (and Trump too, of course, another obvious threat, but genAI is a huge threat).
You're also a pretty good musician. Do you ever appear at open mic nights? I'd given some thought to songwriting when I had free time again several years ago - something I hadn't tried before. Was also going to try kids' books & two different fiction genres in addition to the two I'd sold work in...
I'm sitting here with tabs open for your video and Radiohead's, going back and forth between them. That's an extremely good cover.
I had 2 scratching posts behind the couch (partway across a long living room) with my last cat. Also eventually had 2 pretty throws handy to cover the ends of the couch, if I had company who thought cats only scratched scratching posts. Would've happily sacrificed more couches for him. Priorities...
Very sad. The Trump regime is destroying this country.
At my neighborhood park on a gorgeous Sunday. The picnic tables and baseball diamonds would normally be full of families and life, barbecues and birthday parties. Not now. #AbolishICE
Very nice!
I tried putting almonds and sunflower seeds by the door to keep them away from the tomatoes. They still wanted salad.
Disgusting. This reads like promotion for Google's AI specifically, and for the surrender of our privacy and agency to chatbots in general.
Thanks for the best laugh of the day so far.
And btw, there is good music, real music, for road trips. You could start with Golden Earring's "Radar Love" - and while it might tempt you to speed, even a speeding ticket is better than the oblivion of generative AI, the tech for people who "simply hoped to think and feel as little as possible ."
Velvet Sundown's music is the embodiment of mindlessness, and you come close to celebrating mindlessness with this piece. Wondering how soon you'll dish up a ChatGPT-generated piece telling us, "Nobody cares if writing is real anymore" - to be followed by "Nobody cares if thinking is real anymore."
NEW: A July 4th reflection in my OUR LAND newsletter. As imperfect and divided as the founders were, they forged a union. Today, Trump does nothing to foster communality & instead fuels and exploits hate and division. The good news: MAGA is in the minority. link.motherjones.com/public/40552...
“A systematic pattern has emerged: shakedowns of law firms, business corporations, and media companies for the enrichment of Trump, his family, and his political allies,” writes @davidfrum.bsky.social:
"Watch Bade completely destroy any credibility she might've had, taking your credibility with her." There. Fixed it for you.
That's from the New Yorker, and the cartoonist, Ellis Rosen, is here on Bluesky: bsky.app/profile/elli...
Miller's clearly an aspiring Nazi. But please don't ask AI. Don't use generative AI. You're smarter than genAI. Plus it's all illegally trained on stolen intellectual property, including hundreds of thousands of words of my published work. It's a tech version of slave labor, harming creatives.
I remember (though not terribly well) Christopher Stasheff's The Warlock In Spite Of Himself. Not sure how well that book and the sequels sold, though.
Me, too. I felt physically ill reading that article.
Oh, and a rainbow, on the last day of Pride Month, even. Take one's good signs where one may, I say.
This is a nice piece on the backlash to AI, which has persisted so long that it might simply be considered the norm at this point "As a whole, the benefits of AI seem esoteric and underwhelming while the harms feel transformative and immediate." www.wired.com/story/genera...
"Leavitt brazenly lies" could caption every photo and video of her and every story about her. She should have it tattooed on her forehead for truth in advertising.
“I think Pichai is likely a little smarter than Altman, in the same way that Satya Nadella is a little smarter than Pichai, & in the same way that a golden retriever is smarter than a chihuahua. That said, none of these men are superintelligences, nor…do they ever seem to have any actual answers.” 💀
The AI Backlash Keeps Growing Stronger: (Full story link in follow-up)
Say NO to the 10 year moratorium on state regulation of AI www.transparencycoalition.ai/news/transpa...
1. They'd all find it hard to believe a stupid con man like Trump could become president. 2. You'd need to take them to 2004 for the first season of The Apprentice, because they'd also find it hard to believe he'd star in a reality show where he was presented as a great businessman.
Generative AI & Cultural Misappropriation, Chapter ll in which we follow our hero, Mark Lemley, as he discovers that generativeAI models are capable of producing verbatim copies of its training materials, thereby dooming any fair use defense. [ps—it was never fair use] futurism.com/lawyer-zucke...
Of course. They're sadists.
Trump has skated through a life of crime with no real consequences - at least for himself. The psychopath expects that to continue.
He's been ending a lot of his Truth Social idiocies that way.
We have a lunatic in the White House, surrounded by other lunatics.
If we survive the Trump regime, someone will someday write a book about this political era and call it The Great Embarrassment. Actually, that might have to be an encyclopedia. One book wouldn't begin to cover it.
I don't think Vance is nearly as clever as Putin, but he is an opportunistic soulless monster. He's currently just acting as Trump's buffoonish Troll-in-Chief, but he's so dazzled by his own childish trolling he apparently believes others are, too.
Toxic little techie wannabe supermen.
I breezed through “The Contrarian” by @chafkin.bsky.social in 2023 or so but am now re-reading for notes and, holy crap! This Peter Thiel biography is both a page-turner — and frighteningly ahead of the curve. Buy it now! Read it quickly! www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/609711...
youtube.com/watch?v=AZ_o...
Moira Weigel on Thiel and on Chafkin's book in TNR, 12/20/21: newrepublic.com/article/1647...
Long NPR interview with Chafkin: www.npr.org/2021/09/21/1...
Guardian review 10/3/21: "Thiel isn’t a gifted geek, just someone who is good at spotting an opportunity... [He] derides liberal democracy as too slow and stupid to survive [but] has devoted much of his career to building businesses that feed off its governments." www.theguardian.com/books/2021/o...
Exactly. If all the popular genAI tools had to be replaced by AI trained only on what's in the public domain plus whatever the AI company bought or licensed or had created as work for hire, few people would want them and everyone would see it was only the IP theft that gave them value.
I doubt the robber barons behind genAI have any intention of offering reparations or compensation. They're buying political influence wherever they can to avoid that. Not to mention fighting all attempts to get them to divulge what's in their training data.
Consider the sheer number of people harmed by AI companies' theft of the world's intellectual property. There's no comparison in terms of impact, and the theft of IP is ongoing and worldwide. I'm against forced and child labor and won't buy products made that way. You know genAI is unethical.
If you get it, then consider that LLMs trained on stolen intellectual property should never be used by any ethical person aware of that theft. Using them is giving a thumbs-up to the theft and the robber barons behind it. It's setting ethics aside to enjoy some new toy or convenience. Why do that?
As someone who had hundreds of thousands of words of published fiction stolen to train AI, I believe all LLMs trained on stolen intellectual property are fundamentally unethical tools and should be destroyed and the thieves prosecuted. I also believe genAI does much more harm than good. I'm serious.
youtu.be/hh7Cxt_PKqw?...
A study by MIT academics detected reduced brain activity in students who used AI tools for help with writing essays ⬇️
4 Pillars of AI Empire: 1. Resource theft (your data) 2. Labor exploitation 3. Knowledge monopolization 4. Savior complex narratives ("good" empire vs "evil" empire). My 💥 talk with @karenhao.bsky.social and @moonalice.com about Hao's best-selling "Empire of AI." www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8dd...
“The ultimate sales case for AI is removing accountability, a tool for granting social permission to make proposals without ownership, a safe space distanced from the vulnerability of risk.” —@eryk.bsky.social mail.cyberneticforests.com/complete-acc...
By baking these models into government, they show they value ‘productivity’ over creators’ rights. Their avid use of these models means there is no way they will ban them - which they should, as they are built by taking people’s life’s work without permission. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
You're very welcome! I'd wondered why I'd never heard of that commercial, and finding out it's British explained that. And it sounds like they've done some really strange commercials. This was the first one with Skeletor: youtube.com/watch?v=nqhL...
Just googled it. It was for a British company, Money Supermarket: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneysu... The Advertisements section there mentions this commercial and others.
Not from the moral high ground that Newsom has. Expect screams that this was insurrection and calls for Newsom to be arrested from at least some on the right.
Brilliant speech.
open.substack.com/pub/wewillno...
Stop Calling AI a Tool by @musefoundry.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/wewillno...
What Moran reported was demonstrable fact. Indisputable fact. Yet they suspend him. This is the advantage that Trump and his ilk have. They are so beyond the moral pale, so beyond normality, that it is considered impolite, impolitic, or intemperate to describe them as they are.
On June 6, 1944, thousands gave their lives for freedom. In 2025, we face a serious threat: tech fascism. We do not need to die. We just need to be 10% as courageous as those who fell. These are scary times. But never doubt that we can win.
And I just noticed you'd already posted about that. I've been checking Bluesky sporadically while keeping up on two other platforms.
No kidding. Especially since Musk just agreed with an Ian Miles Cheong tweet saying Trump should be impeached and JD Vance should replace him.
There's a special circle of hell for Trump and his enablers. And Paula White has been saying that, confusing Trump with God, since at least 2019: www.cnn.com/2019/11/07/p...
If any young men are stupid and/or maladjusted enough to be impressed by Yarvin, we'll need to educate them more, to begin with. Yarvin's "philosophizing" is the sound of a resentful, pretentious adolescent telling the world what he wants it to be.
A "film about four tech billionaires whose mountain retreat is disrupted by a global catastrophe"... Our most dangerous/incompetent tech lords ARE a global catastrophe. Good film, though. Watched it yesterday. Highly recommended.
p2a.co/GqrgNUO