Hilary Mason
@hmason.bsky.social
Co-founder & CEO of Hidden Door. I <3 cheeseburgers and making beautiful things. I know a thing or two about AI, but it's people who matter. I am interested in many things.
NYC
NYC
Reposted by Hilary Mason
It is delightfully strange for New Yorkers to have a humane and cuddly mayor. If I saw a photo of Giuliani with his arms wrapped around a bunch of kids, I’d assume he was trying to arrest them.
January 30, 2026 at 12:41 PM
It is delightfully strange for New Yorkers to have a humane and cuddly mayor. If I saw a photo of Giuliani with his arms wrapped around a bunch of kids, I’d assume he was trying to arrest them.
Spotify prompted me to try their new “prompt a playlist” tool and they BLOCK THE WORD “feminist”.
WTF Spotify!
WTF Spotify!
January 28, 2026 at 10:20 PM
Spotify prompted me to try their new “prompt a playlist” tool and they BLOCK THE WORD “feminist”.
WTF Spotify!
WTF Spotify!
OH: "If a dryad drinks tea is that like drinking hair tea?"
Ugh, I hate it.
Ugh, I hate it.
January 27, 2026 at 6:51 PM
OH: "If a dryad drinks tea is that like drinking hair tea?"
Ugh, I hate it.
Ugh, I hate it.
Reposted by Hilary Mason
If the NSA really wants to read my Signal chats they probably can. But if they want to read *everyone’s* Signal chats, they probably can’t. The more people use Signal, and the more you use it for recipes and setting up PTA meetings and sending dumb memes, the harder it is for the NSA or whoever.
I think it is *incredibly* irresponsible for someone like @stonekettle.bsky.social, with a huge following, to claim that Signal is just as insecure as texts or other public social media.
This is a classic “making perfect the enemy of the good” error.
This is a classic “making perfect the enemy of the good” error.
January 25, 2026 at 11:07 PM
If the NSA really wants to read my Signal chats they probably can. But if they want to read *everyone’s* Signal chats, they probably can’t. The more people use Signal, and the more you use it for recipes and setting up PTA meetings and sending dumb memes, the harder it is for the NSA or whoever.
Reposted by Hilary Mason
It’s not just that they are murdering people who are peacefully protesting, it’s that they then stand in front of the cameras and slander the victims by telling us that what we see on the videos didn’t happen.
January 25, 2026 at 1:30 PM
It’s not just that they are murdering people who are peacefully protesting, it’s that they then stand in front of the cameras and slander the victims by telling us that what we see on the videos didn’t happen.
I genuinely don't understand the idea of buying Greenland -- do countries just sell parts of themselves? Like can we just sell Florida?
January 14, 2026 at 11:06 PM
I genuinely don't understand the idea of buying Greenland -- do countries just sell parts of themselves? Like can we just sell Florida?
Reposted by Hilary Mason
Men don’t call a woman a fucking bitch when they’re afraid for their lives—they say it when they hate us. They say it when they’re punishing us.
jessica.substack.com/p/ice-shooti...
jessica.substack.com/p/ice-shooti...
From One Fucking Bitch to Another
These two words made Renee Nicole Good’s murder undeniable
jessica.substack.com
January 14, 2026 at 6:33 PM
Men don’t call a woman a fucking bitch when they’re afraid for their lives—they say it when they hate us. They say it when they’re punishing us.
jessica.substack.com/p/ice-shooti...
jessica.substack.com/p/ice-shooti...
Reposted by Hilary Mason
Saw this crowd with my own eyes at Bryant Park 💪
New York City turned OUT.
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social ✊❤️
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social ✊❤️
January 11, 2026 at 8:59 PM
Saw this crowd with my own eyes at Bryant Park 💪
I'm really appreciating that just as I enter my Typo Era, AI text generation has gotten good enough to make perfect text unappealing.
January 8, 2026 at 5:45 PM
I'm really appreciating that just as I enter my Typo Era, AI text generation has gotten good enough to make perfect text unappealing.
I put this on LinkedIn because that's where I think folks need to hear it, but TLDR: if you're on X, GTFO.
Sexually abusive content is not inevitable, it is a _choice_. If you stay on the platform, you are endorsing that choice.
Link: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Sexually abusive content is not inevitable, it is a _choice_. If you stay on the platform, you are endorsing that choice.
Link: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
January 8, 2026 at 5:37 PM
I put this on LinkedIn because that's where I think folks need to hear it, but TLDR: if you're on X, GTFO.
Sexually abusive content is not inevitable, it is a _choice_. If you stay on the platform, you are endorsing that choice.
Link: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Sexually abusive content is not inevitable, it is a _choice_. If you stay on the platform, you are endorsing that choice.
Link: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Reposted by Hilary Mason
Renee Nicole Good is the one whose reputation should be protected, whose death should be marked by flags across the country being lowered to half-staff, who should be getting tearful tributes and acknowledgments from politicians and media figures. These are the people we ought to honor.
January 8, 2026 at 12:10 AM
Renee Nicole Good is the one whose reputation should be protected, whose death should be marked by flags across the country being lowered to half-staff, who should be getting tearful tributes and acknowledgments from politicians and media figures. These are the people we ought to honor.
In the last month? Tried to climb up on a step stool with one foot while my other foot was somehow underneath the step stool. Fell over. Luckily just a weird bruise from that one!
What's the most ridiculous way you ever hurt yourself? I got out of the tub, skidded in water and tripped over the toilet. Ankle sprain.
😅
😅
January 5, 2026 at 11:51 PM
In the last month? Tried to climb up on a step stool with one foot while my other foot was somehow underneath the step stool. Fell over. Luckily just a weird bruise from that one!
Reposted by Hilary Mason
Retired immigration judge to @radleybalko.bsky.social: "It always starts with the minorities. It always starts with the immigrants. If we don’t stop them, it will be American citizens. We need to be screaming that this isn’t America—that this isn’t who we are" newrepublic.com/article/2042...
Trump’s Immigration Nightmare: It Is Happening Here
With astonishing speed, the administration has toppled the most cherished pillars of a free society. And the experts agree: It’s all going to get much, much worse.
newrepublic.com
January 2, 2026 at 5:59 PM
Retired immigration judge to @radleybalko.bsky.social: "It always starts with the minorities. It always starts with the immigrants. If we don’t stop them, it will be American citizens. We need to be screaming that this isn’t America—that this isn’t who we are" newrepublic.com/article/2042...
Reposted by Hilary Mason
Reposted by Hilary Mason
Eric Adams is going to use cryptocurrency to fight antisemitism. Eric Adams is going to use samurai swords to fight food waste. Eric Adams is going to use 100 rubber duckies to fight prostate cancer. I would believe literally any combo of words hellgatenyc.com/eric-adams-s...
Eric Adams Says His Next Gig Is Fighting Antisemitism With Cryptocurrency
How? Don't ask.
hellgatenyc.com
December 31, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Eric Adams is going to use cryptocurrency to fight antisemitism. Eric Adams is going to use samurai swords to fight food waste. Eric Adams is going to use 100 rubber duckies to fight prostate cancer. I would believe literally any combo of words hellgatenyc.com/eric-adams-s...
This is an excellent idea, data folks.
Trump has largely lost his ability to summon multi-syllabic words, or much of anything beyond the 1,000 most common words in English.
Somebody should really conduct an analysis of his vocabulary over time, sourced from his non-scripted remarks. It’s cratered. www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/p...
Somebody should really conduct an analysis of his vocabulary over time, sourced from his non-scripted remarks. It’s cratered. www.cnn.com/2025/12/29/p...
December 30, 2025 at 3:19 AM
This is an excellent idea, data folks.
Reposted by Hilary Mason
James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.
December 24, 2025 at 1:43 PM
James Merril’s poem “Christmas Tree,” written while he was dying of AIDS. 1995.
Reposted by Hilary Mason
To no one’s surprise, the secret history of RPGs has always been women innovating ideas that men “discover” anywhere from 10-400 years later! Fantastic thread from one of the hobby’s coolest academics.
Indeed. The purchaseable *product* we call the TTRPG begins in the 1970s with Western Gunfight, Chainmail, and D&D.
Yet role-playing "parlor games," simulations, and similar are centuries old and draw from a well that resembles all the positive stuff about D&D.
Parlor games were feminized...
Yet role-playing "parlor games," simulations, and similar are centuries old and draw from a well that resembles all the positive stuff about D&D.
Parlor games were feminized...
December 23, 2025 at 1:13 PM
To no one’s surprise, the secret history of RPGs has always been women innovating ideas that men “discover” anywhere from 10-400 years later! Fantastic thread from one of the hobby’s coolest academics.
Let's pretend for a minute that a technical definition would matter, and unfortunately --
Even from a technical point of view there's no clear definition of what is "GenAI" and what isn't.
Even from a technical point of view there's no clear definition of what is "GenAI" and what isn't.
December 22, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Let's pretend for a minute that a technical definition would matter, and unfortunately --
Even from a technical point of view there's no clear definition of what is "GenAI" and what isn't.
Even from a technical point of view there's no clear definition of what is "GenAI" and what isn't.
Reposted by Hilary Mason
“How might someone read one poem as they ascend a staircase + read the same words as a different poem when they descend? How cld different sight lines create nonlinear readings?… A sentence has pockets, holes, escape hatches[: how could] those ?’s cld be translated into an architectural context?”
BOMB Magazine | Kameelah Janan Rasheed by Warren Neidich
Through improvisation, annotation, and other radical strategies, the artist’s installations create embodied encounters with text.
bombmagazine.org
December 20, 2025 at 11:13 PM
“How might someone read one poem as they ascend a staircase + read the same words as a different poem when they descend? How cld different sight lines create nonlinear readings?… A sentence has pockets, holes, escape hatches[: how could] those ?’s cld be translated into an architectural context?”
Reposted by Hilary Mason
HEY AUTHORS: It's the last weekend before Christmas and/or the end of Hanukkah, so people are going to be looking for last minute holiday gifts, which books are perfect for, so use this thread to tell everyone here at Bluesky about your book so they can go find it at their local bookseller. GO!
December 19, 2025 at 5:40 PM
HEY AUTHORS: It's the last weekend before Christmas and/or the end of Hanukkah, so people are going to be looking for last minute holiday gifts, which books are perfect for, so use this thread to tell everyone here at Bluesky about your book so they can go find it at their local bookseller. GO!
"Synthetic Panels" make no sense. The LLM is trained on data from a particular point in time. This is the same as querying the distribution of responses from an LLM with built-in assumptions about what the distribution can look like.
Well done surveys are designed for the opposite.
Well done surveys are designed for the opposite.
Did you know that from tomorrow, Qualtrics is offering synthetic panels (AI-generated participants)?
Follow me down a rabbit hole I'm calling "doing science is tough and I'm so busy, can't we just make up participants?"
Follow me down a rabbit hole I'm calling "doing science is tough and I'm so busy, can't we just make up participants?"
December 16, 2025 at 6:59 PM
"Synthetic Panels" make no sense. The LLM is trained on data from a particular point in time. This is the same as querying the distribution of responses from an LLM with built-in assumptions about what the distribution can look like.
Well done surveys are designed for the opposite.
Well done surveys are designed for the opposite.
Reposted by Hilary Mason
QCon.ai is pretty lit today, y'all. @hmason.bsky.social's keynote definitely lived up to expectations.
Just enough snark mixed with optimism, with some definitely insightful thoughts on how the software engineering profession is evolving.
Just enough snark mixed with optimism, with some definitely insightful thoughts on how the software engineering profession is evolving.
December 16, 2025 at 6:25 PM
QCon.ai is pretty lit today, y'all. @hmason.bsky.social's keynote definitely lived up to expectations.
Just enough snark mixed with optimism, with some definitely insightful thoughts on how the software engineering profession is evolving.
Just enough snark mixed with optimism, with some definitely insightful thoughts on how the software engineering profession is evolving.