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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

Dan Davies @dsquareddigest.bsky.social · 43m

Tom Lehrer died a few weeks ago I guess

Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 1h

"Norway is bracing for the aftermath of the Nobel Peace Prize announcement on Friday as the Nordic nation has faced increasing pressure from Donald Trump and his administration to award it to the US leader."

Norway on Edge Over Trump Ahead of Nobel Peace Prize Verdict

Trump’s aggressive push to secure the prize, including public declarations he deserves it and calls to Norwegian officials, has intensified with a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and a possible pea...

finance.yahoo.com

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1h

i hope they stop murdering people there. i am rooting for that.

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1h

“In smaller courses, the difference in the quality of…discussion where 70% of the students have done 50% of the readings and one in which 20% have done 10% of the readings is obvious in the same way…a cold Coke tastes different than lukewarm spit. The former is no Chablis, but it is more palatable.”

Rebecca Spang @rlspang.bsky.social · 1h

Another excellent piece by Professor Musgrave. In my own undergrad "Enlightenment" seminar this semester, only one student had heard of Robinson Crusoe [which I was first assigned in 8th grade]. I asked her to summarize; she told the plot of Tom Sawyer! musgrave.substack.com/p/a-post-lit...

A Post-Literate Society is a Too-Literal Society

Directness is a virtue and subtlety is lost

musgrave.substack.com

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

Francis Wilkinson @franciswilkinson.bsky.social · 1h

"Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action’s sake. Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes."

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1h

“It’s true that Bush did more to infringe on civil liberties than Trump did in his first term, but if Trump had been president on 9/11, he probably would have put the country’s entire Muslim population in internment camps.” @mattyglesias.bsky.social www.slowboring.com/p/the-author...

The authoritarian menace has arrived

And so has the backlash — but the resistance needs to be smarter

www.slowboring.com

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

Flying Mezerkis @bananapantz.bsky.social · 2h

One of the major problems we are going to have going forward is that search makes is extremely heavily biased towards recent updates / info / pages. Like monumentally so.

It’s very challenging to search for anything that happened in the even recent past.

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 9h

what variety of exquisite corpse is this?

FinTwitter @fintwitter.bsky.social · 9h

ESSILOR LUXOTTICA CEO SEES META GLASSES AS REPLACEMENT FOR PHONE

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 13h

that would be racism and posting racism is illegal.

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social · 1d

'By applying protections meant for vulnerable groups to shield government actors, Apple has created — within its own ecosystem — a new kind of protected class: state power itself."

migrantinsider.com/p/scoop-appl...

SCOOP: Apple Quietly Made ICE Agents a Protected Class

Internal emails show tech giant used anti-hate-speech rules meant for minorities to block an app documenting immigration enforcement.

migrantinsider.com

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

Robert Black @hurricanexyz.bsky.social · 13h

Defying a *mandate* in a specific case is an extreme measure, but ignoring *precedent* is like, not even that extreme

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 16h

they could give Trump and Putin the Nobel Peace Prize together, for the efforts they’ve jointly undertaken to end the war. even if the work is not complete.

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 18h

Maybe beginning to feel news coverage that either ignores this sort of blather or balances it with a polite “Some experts disagree with the assessment that Portland is a burned-out hellscape under the rule of Antifa warlords” doesn’t really cut it.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21h

Trump: "I don't know what could be worse than Portland. You don't even have stores anymore. They don't even put glass up. They put plywood on their windows."

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

NY Times Pitchbot @nytpitchbot.bsky.social · 17h

Both sides

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 17h

it’s when you’ve entered your own private Idaho.

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1d

people underestimate the power of mere annoyance in politics. often people just vote against the people they consider more annoying.

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1d

in a dystopian society, billboards would be dominated by ads for personal injury and divorce lawyers. radio (they’d call it “podcasts”) would be constantly hawking supplements, CBD, and psychotherapy.

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1d

Adam Ozimek organized some nice events at his bar/arcade/bowling alley in Lancaster PA.

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1d

www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics....

www.csmonitor.com

Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1d

any softness in the AI sector would be contained.

utopia deferred @utopia-defer.red · 1d

Financial contagion, including market sentiment, famously never propagates between banks and their portfolios in a fire sale event. Solvent, healthy industries have never seen a withdraw in investments due to liquidity shortages in other sectors as private lenders actors fail to cover their margins.

Judah Grunstein @judah-grunstein.bsky.social · 1d

I keep seeing some people downplay the systemic risks of the current investment bubble in AI. A lot of it makes sense to me: it's mainly cash not debt, just an accelerated schedule of planned build, can be repurposed if AI disappoints.

But this kind of entanglement makes me wonder about wind-downs.

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

Amy Hoy @amyhoy.bsky.social · 1d

i think if i were supreme master of the universe, one of the first things i'd do is outlaw affiliate programs

they distort things far beyond their seemingly innocuous power

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 1d

twice a year the entire U.S. press becomes a marketing extension of a single billionaire-owned retailer, and nobody in any position of editorial power thinks it's weird or gross

photo of Google News search results for Amazon Prime Day (the second this year)

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1d

the entrenchment of a gerontocratic political leadership globally suggests life extension research may have social costs its enthusiasts and funders have not reckoned with. for much of the world, the finitude of leaders’ natural lifespans represents the public’s best hope for change.

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1d

* revert…

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

Conor Sen @conorsen.bsky.social · 1d

“Either this machine will be powerful enough to take your job or it’ll blow up and you’ll lose your job in a recession” is a tough outlook for white collar workers over the next few years.

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Steve Randy Waldman @interfluidity.com · 1d

once you define oat milk as a chemical weapon, portland really is a war zone.

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Reposted by Steve Randy Waldman

David Wallace-Wells @dwallacewells.bsky.social · 1d

“Starbucks holds nearly $2 billion of customers’ money in its rewards program. That’s more than the total deposits managed by 85 percent of chartered banks, making the coffee chain one of the biggest financial institutions in the country.” jacobin.com/2025/10/bank...

Everything Is Becoming a Bank

Most major corporations — from airlines to social media platforms — now aspire to become unregulated banks. Bankification today accounts for the highest profit margins in the US economy, crippling pro...

jacobin.com

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