EssayWells
@essaywells.bsky.social
Scientist, husband, parent, possibly a little too into Dungeons and Dragons. @essayWells on Twitter (Ex-Twitter?)
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“These deals are real” is the kind of thing you never need to say when you make real deals.
Brooke Rollins: "These deals are real. No one in the history of our country has ever been able to effectuate deals like this. We won't see the effect until next year."
December 9, 2025 at 9:56 PM
“These deals are real” is the kind of thing you never need to say when you make real deals.
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It's truly wild to me that this just keeps happening. Coca-Cola runs an AI ad and people overwhelmingly react with disgust. They do it again, and people are disgusted again. Now McDonald's makes an AI ad that's so bad that so many people are furious about it they pull it down.
People hate AI slop!
People hate AI slop!
McDonald's Pulls Down AI-Generated Holiday Ad After Deluge of Mockery
McDonald's Netherlands is catching flak for a stupefying AI-generated video, which was roundly condemned on social media.
futurism.com
December 9, 2025 at 8:29 PM
It's truly wild to me that this just keeps happening. Coca-Cola runs an AI ad and people overwhelmingly react with disgust. They do it again, and people are disgusted again. Now McDonald's makes an AI ad that's so bad that so many people are furious about it they pull it down.
People hate AI slop!
People hate AI slop!
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Just legal Calvinball. Obviously lawless.
December 6, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Just legal Calvinball. Obviously lawless.
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Reposted by EssayWells
This is actually a good example of why the customer model is wrong.
I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
If you are providing me with an education that is low utility in the world then it’s a disservice. My composition class spent four weeks on poetry. I’m sorry, but that only would’ve been useful if I wanted to be a poet. I don’t need to know iambic pentameter in order to be a victim advocate.
December 9, 2025 at 7:17 PM
This is actually a good example of why the customer model is wrong.
I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
I wouldn't have chosen poetry writing, but UNC made me take a class. And it absolutely made me become a much better writer, with an eye to concision and an ear now trained to the rhythm of words. I'm a better historian as a result.
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I think other people have made this point, but: if college is just a vocational school -- if its sole purpose is to "prepare young people for jobs" -- then there's no point in college at all! Just create actual vocational schools.
December 9, 2025 at 8:38 PM
I think other people have made this point, but: if college is just a vocational school -- if its sole purpose is to "prepare young people for jobs" -- then there's no point in college at all! Just create actual vocational schools.
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Sue, you're shouting at biscuits
I'd pay good money just to see her argument for these biscuits being "biologically male"
December 8, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Sue, you're shouting at biscuits
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I'd pay good money just to see her argument for these biscuits being "biologically male"
December 8, 2025 at 6:15 PM
I'd pay good money just to see her argument for these biscuits being "biologically male"
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2014 from me: No, students aren't customers. Because you, the student, are much more important than a financial transaction.
www.chronicle.com/article/facu...
www.chronicle.com/article/facu...
Faculty Members Are Not Cashiers
Why the “customer service” lingo in academe is bad for students.
www.chronicle.com
December 9, 2025 at 8:32 PM
2014 from me: No, students aren't customers. Because you, the student, are much more important than a financial transaction.
www.chronicle.com/article/facu...
www.chronicle.com/article/facu...
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The newly fascist media understands perfectly well what is play and treats it as such. The problem is people who understandably don’t like this keep expecting the fascists and their media to stop playing in their faces—when that is the entire point.
insane that no reporter ever followed up asking trump about the video he posted where an AI version of himself promised cure-all medbeds to the entire population
December 9, 2025 at 8:20 PM
The newly fascist media understands perfectly well what is play and treats it as such. The problem is people who understandably don’t like this keep expecting the fascists and their media to stop playing in their faces—when that is the entire point.
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it is actually kind of bananas how unitary executive theorists have taken a straightforward clause requiring the president to "faithfully execute the laws" and transformed it into a grant for the exercise of limitless unenumerated power.
The Take Care Clause was a byproduct of the lessons learned from the Glorious Revolution that the executive should not be able to dispense with the law promulgated by the legislature. It was not a constitutional provision to empower the executive branch— but to constrain it!
December 9, 2025 at 2:20 PM
it is actually kind of bananas how unitary executive theorists have taken a straightforward clause requiring the president to "faithfully execute the laws" and transformed it into a grant for the exercise of limitless unenumerated power.
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And remember, it's not just the short-term acute illness of COVID. It's also the many many potential long-term health impacts of COVID. And it's only been around 6 years. We still don't know long-term health impacts beyond that time. So many people throwing the precautionary principle out the window
December 9, 2025 at 7:40 PM
And remember, it's not just the short-term acute illness of COVID. It's also the many many potential long-term health impacts of COVID. And it's only been around 6 years. We still don't know long-term health impacts beyond that time. So many people throwing the precautionary principle out the window
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“You’ll get the hole from a bagel, not Ukraine,” said Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, addressing Russia at a Security Council meeting.
“Our land and sovereignty are not for sale. This isn’t a Christmas market or some shady bazaar.”
“Our land and sovereignty are not for sale. This isn’t a Christmas market or some shady bazaar.”
December 9, 2025 at 7:52 PM
“You’ll get the hole from a bagel, not Ukraine,” said Ukraine’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, addressing Russia at a Security Council meeting.
“Our land and sovereignty are not for sale. This isn’t a Christmas market or some shady bazaar.”
“Our land and sovereignty are not for sale. This isn’t a Christmas market or some shady bazaar.”
Reposted by EssayWells
Reposted by EssayWells
Home Office Ministers state publicly, on the record, that they are deliberately making life worse for older people and people with disabilities who depend on care services, but it's worth it because it reduces net migration.
December 9, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Home Office Ministers state publicly, on the record, that they are deliberately making life worse for older people and people with disabilities who depend on care services, but it's worth it because it reduces net migration.
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Hey everyone, it's time to play "guess the year we knew COVID was airborne"!
(answer in link: wayback.archive-it.org/17275/202203...)
(answer in link: wayback.archive-it.org/17275/202203...)
December 9, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Hey everyone, it's time to play "guess the year we knew COVID was airborne"!
(answer in link: wayback.archive-it.org/17275/202203...)
(answer in link: wayback.archive-it.org/17275/202203...)
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Pictured: a prior generation's cookie-cutter housing
December 9, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Pictured: a prior generation's cookie-cutter housing
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Oh look this one's fun.
It's from the Canadian Medical Protective Association - this is the body that ends up holding the bag for legal bills for malpractice.
It went up in 2020, but they've since taken it off their public page for some reason 🤔
web.archive.org/web/20201205...
It's from the Canadian Medical Protective Association - this is the body that ends up holding the bag for legal bills for malpractice.
It went up in 2020, but they've since taken it off their public page for some reason 🤔
web.archive.org/web/20201205...
December 9, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Oh look this one's fun.
It's from the Canadian Medical Protective Association - this is the body that ends up holding the bag for legal bills for malpractice.
It went up in 2020, but they've since taken it off their public page for some reason 🤔
web.archive.org/web/20201205...
It's from the Canadian Medical Protective Association - this is the body that ends up holding the bag for legal bills for malpractice.
It went up in 2020, but they've since taken it off their public page for some reason 🤔
web.archive.org/web/20201205...
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It's been effective for me in talking to kids and students -- they think it works, that it knows what it's doing, and pointing out simply and cleanly that it doesn't do what it says it does is easy and effective. Then you can move onto deeper arguments.
There’s this idea that I’ve been pondering for a bit that’s probably yet another Everyone Will Yell At Me thing, but… I don’t think that pointing out that AI is full of inaccuracies is an effective tactic at getting people not to use it. It’s based on cultural context that not everyone shares…
December 9, 2025 at 2:18 PM
It's been effective for me in talking to kids and students -- they think it works, that it knows what it's doing, and pointing out simply and cleanly that it doesn't do what it says it does is easy and effective. Then you can move onto deeper arguments.
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My 7th grader's teacher did a really engaging presentation about how inaccurate it was and my son (who I have been evangelizing for ages about how terrible it is) came home saying "AI sucks and it's gonna make you fail" and NOW we start on "it's also unethical and not fun and makes you dumb."
December 9, 2025 at 2:22 PM
My 7th grader's teacher did a really engaging presentation about how inaccurate it was and my son (who I have been evangelizing for ages about how terrible it is) came home saying "AI sucks and it's gonna make you fail" and NOW we start on "it's also unethical and not fun and makes you dumb."
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Has anyone figured out exactly which editor at NY Mag took Nuzzi's vacuous slop and made it readable? The more of her writing comes out, the more heroic that person appears in retrospect.
“I look down at the crashing swell. Alone at the after-party, a kind of honeymoon in hell. I am on the list, a bit of grave misfortune. I am in the New York Post, even worse. The ink is black, the pages yellow. Everything, some kind of lie. What of doubt? Scientists cannot see the soul.”
Sentences From American Canto That Sent Me To The Hospital
I reviewed Olivia Nuzzi's American Canto for Slate. There's far less RFK Jr. in it than you'd expect.
substack.com
December 9, 2025 at 6:25 PM
Has anyone figured out exactly which editor at NY Mag took Nuzzi's vacuous slop and made it readable? The more of her writing comes out, the more heroic that person appears in retrospect.
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Trump and Co. haven’t been dismantling US institutions just this year, they’ve been doing it since 2017.
America has been democratic backsliding into authoritarianism for nearly a decade. Much of what we see now builds on what they did in term 1 and advanced in the interim.
But too many denied it.
America has been democratic backsliding into authoritarianism for nearly a decade. Much of what we see now builds on what they did in term 1 and advanced in the interim.
But too many denied it.
One theme here is the speed of American institutional collapse.
“It took Erdoğan 15 years to do what Trump did in 100 days. If [Americans] do not accept the fact that this is a long game, and it will be brutal, I think you won’t have the patience and stamina to bear it.”
“It took Erdoğan 15 years to do what Trump did in 100 days. If [Americans] do not accept the fact that this is a long game, and it will be brutal, I think you won’t have the patience and stamina to bear it.”
We asked activists from authoritarian regimes what they wish they’d known sooner. Here’s what they said www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
December 9, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Trump and Co. haven’t been dismantling US institutions just this year, they’ve been doing it since 2017.
America has been democratic backsliding into authoritarianism for nearly a decade. Much of what we see now builds on what they did in term 1 and advanced in the interim.
But too many denied it.
America has been democratic backsliding into authoritarianism for nearly a decade. Much of what we see now builds on what they did in term 1 and advanced in the interim.
But too many denied it.
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Free newsletter: NVIDIA Isn't Enron, so what is it? My 15k word guide to Wall Street's messiah - how it makes money, how its future relies on endless debt, how millions of GPUs are sitting waiting to be installed, and why it no longer makes sense to buy more GPUs.
www.wheresyoured.at/nvidia-isnt-...
www.wheresyoured.at/nvidia-isnt-...
NVIDIA Isn't Enron - So What Is It?
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At the end of Novembe...
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December 8, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Free newsletter: NVIDIA Isn't Enron, so what is it? My 15k word guide to Wall Street's messiah - how it makes money, how its future relies on endless debt, how millions of GPUs are sitting waiting to be installed, and why it no longer makes sense to buy more GPUs.
www.wheresyoured.at/nvidia-isnt-...
www.wheresyoured.at/nvidia-isnt-...
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we have created EndWar from beloved video game Tom Clancy's Do Not Create the EndWar
December 9, 2025 at 5:51 PM
we have created EndWar from beloved video game Tom Clancy's Do Not Create the EndWar
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"To conclude, air purifiers – even at airflows lower than
recommendation – are efficient in reducing contaminant spreading in an open plan office."
www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3s...
recommendation – are efficient in reducing contaminant spreading in an open plan office."
www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3s...
www.e3s-conferences.org
December 9, 2025 at 4:47 PM
"To conclude, air purifiers – even at airflows lower than
recommendation – are efficient in reducing contaminant spreading in an open plan office."
www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3s...
recommendation – are efficient in reducing contaminant spreading in an open plan office."
www.e3s-conferences.org/articles/e3s...