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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

8.
Ideas are cheap. So, too, is content. Value rests in my dwindling days, in my choice of how to spend them. Will I drown in the lethean pleasures of the feed, or will I attend to something else. Time, as always, is running out.

John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

7.
Instagram, my carefully curated followings have been overrun by content algorithmically decided for me, often videos of still images of text from X or Tumblr, and I gag on it, half-remembering that there are other ways to spend the 1,200 or so weeks I have left to me (if I'm lucky).

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

6.
When I fire up the internet these days, I am reminded that I will die. The slop shoved down our gullets—meant to anesthetize us—tastes so revolting, it startles me out of complacency.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

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A fading body and limited time with which we can bear witness: "Attention is biological curation," Alioto says.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

4.
Alioto points back to the only human place left to us, which, conveniently, is the truest, oldest human place. Things have meaning, Alioto argues, because we die. "Attention is what makes us human," she writes. "But death is the only reason attention matters—and by extension, art."

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

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Everything must go. Kierkegaard's clearance sale has reached its endpoint now, with the rise of generative artificial intelligence. And a cottage industry has risen alongside the technology: what does anything even mean anymore?

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

2.
"Not merely in the realm of commerce but in the world of ideas as well our age is organizing a regular clearance sale," Søren Kierkegaard wrote in FEAR AND TREMBLING. "It is questionable whether, in the end, there is anybody who will want to bid." Ideas, in other words, are cheap.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

1.
Here's a link from today's edition: dirt.fyi/article/2024.... "Attention is what makes us human" by Daisy Alioto at DIRT.

(I stumbled on this after reading @caitlindewey.bsky.social's incredible Substack, "Links I Would Gchat You If We Were Friends.")

Here's a thread with some ~feelings~.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

3.
I've recreated a blog, but since I send this to just a couple of friends, it's a blog with a limited audience. I love it. "Social" media has devolved, it seems to me, into a lot of content I didn't ask for from people I don't know.

I can't recommend this enough: A purposeful group blog.

John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

2.
I've found this process meaningful, almost meditative, especially the *finding* of articles that mean something to me and that I want to share. I added the ability to put in a "note": an explanation for why I'm including something, and I've started to treat these like mini-essays.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 2d

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I've got a friend who, for personal reasons, can't read the news on their websites, but still wants to read from time to time. So I coded a little CMS that produces "editions" of a daily magazine just for him. I copy–paste articles, pick an open-source image, and text him a mobile-friendly PDF.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 4d

I wrote this essay, which is, in part, about the time I tried to turn a language model into Bartleby the Scrivener.

The Wall Street Journal @wsj.com · 5d

Experimenting with the math and data behind large language models helped me understand how AI “thinks.” I wish everyone had the chance to do the same, writes WSJ software engineer John West.

Essay | I’ve Seen How AI ‘Thinks.’ I Wish Everyone Could.

Experimenting with the math and data behind large language models can be exhilarating—and revealing.

on.wsj.com

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 5d

I know AI is a polarizing topic, but I created a very-little-language model using Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener." I asked it to finish my sentence: "I would..." and it responded "...prefer to, yes."

My AI never quite got it right—the most human thing about it.

www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ive-...?

Essay | I’ve Seen How AI ‘Thinks.’ I Wish Everyone Could.

Experimenting with the math and data behind large language models can be exhilarating—and revealing.

www.wsj.com

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · 24d

Miles Davis, upon being asked to tailor his own pants, “You want me to sew what?!”

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Sep 14

The highest compliment!

John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Sep 14

For the nerds, here's how we did it: www.wsj.com/business/air...

How the Journal Analyzed More Than One Million FAA Reports

Reporters used machine learning algorithms and large-language models to perform the first analysis of fume-event reports at this scale

www.wsj.com

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Sep 14

Toxic fumes are leaking Into airplanes, sickening crews and passengers. The problem is getting worse and not much is being done about it.

From Ben Katz, me, and @andrewtangel.bsky.social for @wsj.com.

🔓 www.wsj.com/business/air...

Text of the article, reading:

> The Journal’s reporting—based on a review of more than one million FAA and National Aeronautics and Space Administration reports, thousands of pages of documents and research papers and more than 100 interviews—shows that aircraft manufacturers and their airline customers have played down health risks, successfully lobbied against safety measures, and made cost-saving changes that increased the risks to crew and passengers.

> The fumes—sometimes described as smelling of “wet dog,” “Cheetos” or “nail polish”—have led to emergency landings, sickened passengers and affected pilots’ vision and reaction times midflight, according to official reports.

> Most odors in aircraft aren’t toxic, and neither are all vapors. The effects are often fleeting, mild or present no symptoms.

> But they can also be longer-lasting and severe, according to doctors, medical records and affected crew members.

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Reposted by John West

Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc) @shengokai.blacksky.app · Aug 31

Kantians must be stopped.

stellz @piss.beauty · Aug 31

The Kant Car

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Sep 1

Every year!

Star Trek Minus Context @nocontexttrek1.bsky.social · Sep 2

Happy Labor Day

Chief Miles Edward O'Brien, who could strangle you with a cordless phone if he wanted to, is pictured. Chief O'Brien, who can kill 2 stones with 1 bird, is facing the camera and winking. O'Brien, who can dribble a bowling ball, is on DS9 station and wearing his classic gold uniform, and has the energy of a man who is walking away from an explosion without looking backwards at it. Closed caption reads, "He was more than a hero. He was a union man."

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Sep 1

I really loved this new Elvia Wilk essay: clereviewofbooks.com/elvia-incorp...

(If you haven't read her book, DEATH BY LANDSCAPE, you should.)

Elvia, Incorporated - Cleveland Review of Books

I left the bank fully and completely realized as ELVIA INC, annual projected revenue: one million dollars.

clereviewofbooks.com

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Aug 29

🫡

John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Aug 23

Over @wsj.com, my colleagues Sara Randazzo, @ceostroff.bsky.social, and Shane Shifflett have a deep, fascinating look at how researchers are amending grant language to keep federal funding and avoid getting flagged in the Trump administration’s push against "DEI." www.wsj.com/health/scien...

An excerpt from the article:

Scientists are removing words like “diverse” and “disparities” from hundreds of federal grant renewals to avoid getting flagged in the Trump administration’s focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a Wall Street Journal analysis shows.

At least 600 research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health have been modified in the fiscal year starting in October to remove terms associated with diversity, equity and inclusion, the Journal analysis found. Nearly all of those projects were multiyear grants that had already been approved but were up for routine annual reviews. The modified grants were worth $480 million this cycle.

The most frequently deleted term was “diverse,” removed in 300 instances, followed by “underrepresented.”

In some cases, scientists are yanking words that aren’t DEI-related at all, but could be flagged as such, including references to “discrimination” of antibodies in transplant patients.

Other changes researchers are making are more substantive, shifting the scope of projects. Scientists caution that research on medical issues affecting minority communities is being de-emphasized. Some grants up for routine yearly renewals sat in limbo until scientists submitted the revisions. Funding delays at times led to layoffs and disrupted ongoing research.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Aug 23

I studied Baroque music, and Beethoven is definitely *not* Baroque, but I did have some fun with this Sonatina of his. And, yes, I know my interpretation is pretty far off, but I was, as they say, ~vibing~.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Aug 14

I absolutely loved this essay by Patrick Nathan. patricknathan.substack.com/p/soul-searc...

A quote from the essay:

> A genre that used to annoy me but that I now find somewhat charming is the why-I-left-New-York essay. As with most annoying essays, this is all Joan Didion’s fault.1 And as usual, Didion nailed it: Yes, New York is tiring — because people get tired. People get old. The habits we don’t change as we change start to burden us, not support us. One day, it’s unbearable to look around and find your youth — the bars you went to, the lights that dazzled you, the food you relished — not only harder to recognize, but worse: unwilling to delight you, console you, or even welcome you. Unwilling to want you. Going on unchangedly in a city that’s changed, trying to live as you once did with a body that’s changed, is to set yourself up for rejection. That city, that past, that youth — none of it can be recaptured, at least not in life, not in the things you do from day to day. Either you contend with that, consciously, or you leave. Most people leave.

> Nostalgia isn’t homesickness, in this understanding — not quite. With its overtone of loss, of irrevocability, and of yearning for the impossible, it’s something closer to time sickness: one can feel, one can see, that youth is gone.

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John West @johnwest.bsky.social · Aug 3

New Sumerian myth just dropped. archaeology.org/news/2025/07...

(How rad is it that we're still deciphering these things!)

News - Newly Deciphered Cuneiform Tablet Contains Unknown Sumerian Myth - Archaeology Magazine

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS—A riveting lost Sumerian myth was recently rediscovered thanks to University of Chicago Sumerologist […]

archaeology.org

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