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Benjamin Harnett

@benjaminharnett.com

3.3K followers 660 following 5.1K posts

Sometime poet, historian, software engineer, novelist, union man. https://www.benjaminharnett.com https://thehappyvalleynovel.com

www.benjaminharnett.com

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · Jun 20

I interviewed 300 high achievers about their morning routine, and you will never believe, they all have inherited family wealth.

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Matthew Harrison @matthewharrison.bsky.social · 3h

i really like that when Sir Walter Raleigh needs a metaphor for the utmost despair, he picks being a historian.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 13h

Ah wonderful!

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Danny K @dannykpolitics.bsky.social · 3d

WATCH: ‘Portland Frog’ pepper balled by ICE agents

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 14h

Generative AI, in both form and content, and whether looked on favourably or critically, seems to embody a collective hopelessness about the prospect of human learning and creativity, if not human knowledge altogether. It’s as if climate change had fans.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 15h

Ah fascinating. Plants—so much going on

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Howard Mittelmark @howardm.bsky.social · 15h

Again! JFC. Well, maybe the next one.

A plastic bag some product came in, with the words THIS BAG IS NOT A TOY sternly printed on it.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 16h

The land that time forgot (aka my back yard)

There’s a lot going on here—big dark pine trees, clouds of all forms tinged yellow by afternoon sun, a wild black and white Boston terrier, yellowing leaves littering a patchy lawn, an over grown garden, forlorn looking fence posts, a low shed with a flat roof, dead trees, a half-built deck; bright colors, wild ideas.

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 16h

Night for day for night

A shot of the moon shining like the sun through a very old lilac tree twisting up over a metal roof with two looming brick chimneys. There are some visible stars in and out of the enormous halo of light. And the sumac leaves are going crimson in a primeval bunch at bottom right. The whole thing looks like day for night as shot in old films but it’s night; thanks iPhone night mode.

Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 16h

The lilacs are confused. So am
I, tbh.

A photo of a tiny lilac bloom in October; behind is a stormy sky and a peach-colored Victorian Italianate house, all blurred to focus on the goddamned spring blooming tree blooming in Fall.

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Elon Green @elongreen.bsky.social · 2d

murray kempton knew they were bullshit in 1983 and said so. No excuses!!!

Emily Galvin-Almanza @galvinalmanza.bsky.social · 2d

To put it another way, I have represented thousands of people. I cannot think of a single instance in which the initial police report was entirely correct. Not one.

Journalists, please stop copying them down as if they were. Or at least give context re credibility!

Matthew Guariglia @mguariglia.bsky.social · 3d

Whether you're a casual news reader or a breaking news reporter at the NYTimes, I implore you--please, please, please--do not believe or report DHS/ICE/CBP's side of events uncritically. End the state's monopoly on legitimate storytelling. They are not the objective arbiter of what really happened.

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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 2d

Well, I, for one, am proud of us for doing the sensible thing and basing our entire economy on computers that tell kids to kill themselves

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 2d

JPMorgan Chase reports that $1.2T of debt is now tied to AI-related companies, making it the largest segment in the investment-grade market (Caleb Mutua/Bloomberg)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

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Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · 2d

The idea that Israel cannot be (cannot become, cannot sustain as) pluralistic is a racist sleight-of-hand. There’s absolutely no reason there can’t be one integrated state EXCEPT that it would require dismantling the current system of judeosupremacist apartheid.

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erin pineda @erinrpineda.bsky.social · 2d

when I was in college contending with Bari Weiss’s astroturfed witch hunt turning my classes and my department upside down so she could make a name for herself, it simply never occurred to me that it would WORK and I would have to spend the rest of my life hearing her name

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chelsea g. summers @chelseagsummers.bsky.social · 2d

During these days of Amazon Prime, let me remind you that you may think you need it, but you probably don't, and if it's a book, you can buy it on Bookshop.org.

Bookshop: Buy books online. Support local bookstores.

An online bookstore that financially supports local independent bookstores and gives back to the book community.

Bookshop.org

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Arturo Magidin @magidin.bsky.social · 3d

An LLM-generated "review" is not "an additional perspective". There is no one there to provide a point of view.

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Mattilda B Sycamore @mbsycamore.bsky.social · 3d

Dahlia of the day 💛🧡

A dahlia that looks a little bit like a sea anemone, with peach tentacles that are yellow at the center, and a giant bud next to it, blue sky in background

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 3d

Holy cow

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Chibdm @chibdm.bsky.social · 3d

Robin Williams' daughter has some quality thoughts on AI slop

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Stephanie King @stephstephking.bsky.social · 4d

I do not wish to learn about the "protocols" of the social media site I am on. I just want to make lil jokes with my friends and not see nazis. Why is this so hard for anyone who makes a social media site to understand

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Helen Rosner @hels.bsky.social · 3d

2019 ✨

"I'm usually pretty appalled by the perspective and issues that Bari has decided to use her considerable platform to amplify," Rosner wrote to me in an e-mail.
"Even more, I find her apparent bafflement at being joked about and criticized-even as she has made her profession out of diminishing and criticizing people with whom she disagrees-to be cut from the same flimsy moral fabric as her public opinions."

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Sean T. Collins @seantcollins.com · 3d

CHATGPT: I understand where you're coming from. You worked really hard to get here, and now it's time to enjoy the fruit of your labors.

ISILDUR: So I should keep it? Elrond says I shouldn't

CHATGPT: The ring is precious. Sometimes friends don't have your best interests at heart.

ISILDUR: true

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Benjamin Harnett @benjaminharnett.com · 3d

If I give them true feedback I’m going to wind up on a list.

An email asking for feedback about United HealthCare.

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Joseph Howley @illdottore.bsky.social · May 16

The year is 2035. The Civil Rights Act has been ruled unconstitutional. My university’s main source of external research funding is Silicon Valley. I am once again reported to the DEI office for hate speech after identifying LLM hallucination in a student paper.

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Clayton Cubitt @claytoncubitt.bsky.social · 4d

Never voting for another democrat that doesn't promise and deliver class war and righteous justice for the crimes currently being committed

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