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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
@ashponders.bsky.social
5.1K followers 610 following 18K posts
I was a poet but then I wanted to get paid worse. I make photos for news. @ashponders.01 on signal. http://ashponders.com
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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · Nov 20
Ok! A buncha people came through & suggested some images I've made that might find a home on the walls of my many many admirers.

Because of their wonderful labor, I've increased the 'bluesky' discount to 50% and refunded the difference to those of you who've used the code when it was only 25%.
ashponders.bsky.social Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · Nov 18
Hey friends. I'm doing a holiday printsale over on ashponders.darkroom.com. Please take a look, I make images of pretty things like monkeys who are disappointed in you and rainbows that aren't. If you can buy a print, do!
A capuchin monkey stares out judgmentally from a wall of leaves.
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
silkyweineck.bsky.social
Silky @silkyweineck.bsky.social · 3h
this rocks. when indiana edu killed the student newspaper, Purdue stepped up, printed the forbidden issue, drove it to Bloomington and stocked the boxes.
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
lookitup.baby
Ian Coldwater 👻🌿 @lookitup.baby · 5h
This is correct. It’s VCs who spend their time doing drugs and inventing weird religions, executives who have boners about firing workers, and non-technical hucksters who are pushing this stuff. The vast majority of people doing actual technical work on the ground feel the way this piece describes
anildash.com Anil Dash @anildash.com · 1d
Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!
The Majority AI View - Anil Dash
A blog about making culture. Since 1999.
anildash.com
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
19thnews.org
19thnews @19thnews.org · 2h
Advocates against female genital mutilation and cutting are seeing their work co-opted by opponents of gender-affirming care. And the view that the two are the same is being backed by the White House, derailing a decades-old movement to stop a form of violence that primarily impacts young girls.
Anti-trans policies aren't preventing genital mutilation — they're disrupting efforts to stop it
The bipartisan movement against female genital mutilation and cutting is being co-opted by anti-trans activists, hindering urgent laws from being passed.
19thnews.org
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
soleilho.com
soleil ho @soleilho.com · 2h
I also need everyone here to know that my vetoed idea for the title of this was “AI Caramba!”
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
asherelbein.bsky.social
Asher Hellbein @asherelbein.bsky.social · 19h
...it's *very* interesting (and not at all surprising) that an auction house that primarily handles modern art is looking hungrily at the kind of fossil sales that the other big auctioneers have been making
Rare Baby Triceratops Fossil Poised for Mammoth Sale
The auction house renowned for selling contemporary art says its responding to "client demand" with the sale of a juvenile Triceratops.
news.artnet.com
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
johnedwinmason.bsky.social
johnedwinmason @johnedwinmason.bsky.social · 19h
This sounds great. American landscape painting & photography has too often erased Native Americans from sight & from history. Native artists are putting their people back in the picture.
hyperallergic.com Hyperallergic @hyperallergic.com · 1d
Native artists are staging an unsanctioned exhibition at the Met’s American Wing, using digital tools to layer Indigenous writing and imagery over artworks that erase their existence from the American landscape.
Indigenous Artists Reclaim The Met’s American Wing
An unsanctioned exhibition uses AR to insert works by Native artists, like Cannupa Hanska Luger and Jeremy Dennis, into the museum’s 19th-century landscapes.
hyperallergic.com
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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · 1d
Do you think Billy Big-Bollocks and Billy No-Mates know each other?
ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · 1d
The ol “Jesus, I see what you’ve done for other people and I want that for me” meme.
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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · 1d
I burned my ZZ Top beared off in college and now it only grows out about 15cm. I’ve got the coat tho.
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
jachristian.bsky.social
Jessica Christian @jachristian.bsky.social · 1d
A very eventful work week for me! @sfchronicle.com
A man on the left raises his arm and cheers as his massive pumpkin seen on the right weighs in at 2017 pounds. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff points while speaking to a crowd at Dreamforce. Actress Rose Byrne turns and looks towards a warm light while sitting for a portrait. Kaiser employees carry signs that read “On Strike” while standing on the corner of Broadway and MacArthur Boulevard with the Kaiser Permanente building seen in the background.
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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · 1d
Love yr breadth of work.
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
troutgirl.bsky.social
Joyce Park @troutgirl.bsky.social · 1d
Education is so important in Korea that they will backtrack very quickly if a new idea or technology doesn't improve outcomes. In the US we'll let kids suffer for years if not decades just to not admit we were wrong.
benpatrickwill.bsky.social Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 1d
South Korea pushed AI hard in schools. The national program was aborted within months, following massive pushback from students, parents and teachers, after a fortune had already been spent by both the government and education publishers
restofworld.org/2025/south-k...
AI-powered textbooks fail to make the grade in South Korea
South Korea’s AI learning program was rolled back after just four months following a backlash from teachers, students, and parents, underlining the challenges in embedding the technology in education.
restofworld.org
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
atherton.bsky.social
Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 1d
"The camera pulls back and into the frame slides Sheriff Darren White. “It's just a very strange device,” he says, ” and we had very trained investigators who are very familiar with meth labs and they can't identify it.”"

In June 2004, then-Sheriff Darren White spread a rumor on local TV
Coverage You Can'T Count On | Weekly Alibi
On the night of Thursday, June 10, Bernalillo County Fire Chief Bett Clark was leading a troop of local TV reporters down Brown Road in the South Valley, to
alibi.com
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
cengizyar.com
Cengiz Yar @cengizyar.com · 1d
The government doesn’t track how many citizens are held by immigration agents. @nicolefoy.bsky.social @propublica.org found more than 170 cases this year where citizens were detained at raids and protests.
www.propublica.org/article/immi...
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
delaneynolan.bsky.social
Delaney Nolan @delaneynolan.bsky.social · 1d
Wrote for @thenation.com about how we're all gonna drown in hot oceans because we are air conditioning slop bots 💫

www.thenation.com/article/envi...
AI Is Going to Kill Everyone You Love. The Surprise Is How.
It’s not hostile super robots you should worry about—it’s the heat they’ll generate.
www.thenation.com
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
josephcox.bsky.social
Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 1d
Wikipedia is seeing a significant decline in human traffic because more people are getting the information that’s on Wikipedia via generative AI chatbots that were trained on its articles and search engines that summarize them without actually clicking to the site

www.404media.co/wikipedia-sa...
Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors
“With fewer visits to Wikipedia, fewer volunteers may grow and enrich the content, and fewer individual donors may support this work.”
www.404media.co
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
reuters.com
Reuters @reuters.com · 1d
Exclusive: U.S. military holding rescued strike survivors on Navy ship, sources say reut.rs/4ouqatA
Exclusive: U.S. military holding rescued strike survivors on Navy ship, sources say
The U.S. military is holding two survivors aboard a Navy ship after rescuing them in the aftermath of a U.S. strike on Thursday on a suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean that killed two others, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday.
reut.rs
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
erikahall.bsky.social
Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 1d
Yup. And anyone tossing the word “inevitable” around should study the history of technology, even just the history of “artificial intelligence” as a field.
bextraordinary.bsky.social Bex, if you can keep it @bextraordinary.bsky.social · 1d
Also getting very fucking tired of people acting like those of us who are anti-AI are not tech literate. I'm one of the most tech-literate folks in my org, that's *why* I have strong opinions on this. I *do* understand what LLMs can and can't do - moreso than the people using them most often!
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
kimkelly.bsky.social
Kim Kelly @kimkelly.bsky.social · 2d
Happy John Brown’s Raid day to all who celebrate
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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · 1d
Looking at my ledger: yeah that sounds right.
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
dmain.bsky.social
Douglas Main @dmain.bsky.social · 1d
There's been a war against plant medicines and shamanism for so long that it has become invisible and seems unremarkable.
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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · 2d
I just found a pirate copy of the film Devil's Pie this morning.
I cried a few times.
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Reposted by Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest
anildash.com
Anil Dash @anildash.com · 2d
Unsurprisingly, I was just talking about this topic *yesterday* — @espiers.bsky.social perfectly describes the power of blogging. And the best part? It can still have that power right now. talkingpointsmemo.com/tpm-25/what-... So glad to see @talkingpointsmemo.com and @joshtpm.bsky.social doing it!
What Made Blogging Different?
Whether I like it or not, the first line of my obituary...
talkingpointsmemo.com
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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · 2d
Got an Ovid.tv subscription, Kanopy and Criterion weren't stretching my weird shit itch.

Let's see if this helps. Anyone got reccs?
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ashponders.bsky.social
Ash Ponders is judging the Smithsonian Photo Contest @ashponders.bsky.social · 2d
The news is a group project and I love it.
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