Joshua Walker
@jshwlkr.bsky.social
Ann Arbor // Tech Lead & Fixer
Commonly referred to as a shit-starter. Perpetually annoyed.
https://jshwlkr.info
Commonly referred to as a shit-starter. Perpetually annoyed.
https://jshwlkr.info
Pinned
Joshua Walker
@jshwlkr.bsky.social
· Apr 8
Even though it might seem quaint, let us not forget what they are trying to take from us. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7...
May 1, 1969: Fred Rogers testifies before the Senate Subcommittee on Communications
On May 1, 1969, Fred Rogers, host of the (then) recently nationally syndicated children's television series, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (named Misterogers' Neighborhood at the time), testified…
www.youtube.com
December 14, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Even though it might seem quaint, let us not forget what they are trying to take from us. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKy7...
"that’s not how any of this works, and anyone who stayed awake during middle school social studies should know better" www.techdirt.com/2025/12/12/t...
Trump Pretends To Block State AI Laws; Media Pretends That’s Legal
The mainstream media just failed a basic civics test so badly that you’d think their brains have been pickled by the kinds of folks who spend all their time on X (oh, wait…). Headlines across…
www.techdirt.com
December 13, 2025 at 2:21 PM
"that’s not how any of this works, and anyone who stayed awake during middle school social studies should know better" www.techdirt.com/2025/12/12/t...
Workers shouldn’t pay for UIA’s latest mistakes • Michigan Advance michiganadvance.com/2025/12/11/w...
Workers shouldn’t pay for UIA’s latest mistakes • Michigan Advance
In the early days of the pandemic, confusion was widespread. Workers and families were forced to adapt to new risks and respond to changing guidance. Meanwhile, the government had to spring into…
michiganadvance.com
December 12, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Workers shouldn’t pay for UIA’s latest mistakes • Michigan Advance michiganadvance.com/2025/12/11/w...
Michigan Offers Handouts for Data Centers Promising Jobs. Will Those Jobs Come? | TechPolicy.Press www.techpolicy.press/michigan-off...
Tech Policy Press - Technology and Democracy
Tech Policy Press is a nonprofit media and community venture intended to provoke new ideas, debate and discussion at the intersection of technology and democracy. We publish opinion and analysis.
TechPolicy.Press
December 12, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Michigan Offers Handouts for Data Centers Promising Jobs. Will Those Jobs Come? | TechPolicy.Press www.techpolicy.press/michigan-off...
What the fucking shit. www.wlns.com/news/michiga...
Michigan lawmakers announce DOGE Task Force Initiative
LANSING, Mich. (WLNS) — A dozen Republican lawmakers in Michigan are announcing the DOGE Task Force Initiative at a news conference Thursday morning. According to a news release sent to 6 New…
www.wlns.com
December 12, 2025 at 2:21 PM
What the fucking shit. www.wlns.com/news/michiga...
"We need to empower and incentivize communities to create their own media. We need to create structures where people can see themselves and their communities in media. We need to understand the news process as a fundamentally human approach to understanding the world."
Libraries are a locus for civic change
Jennie Rose Halperin on the need to invest in underexplored partnerships between civic media makers and libraries as a clear place of change.
objectivejournalism.org
December 11, 2025 at 7:21 PM
"We need to empower and incentivize communities to create their own media. We need to create structures where people can see themselves and their communities in media. We need to understand the news process as a fundamentally human approach to understanding the world."
"institutional auto-cannibalism" www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
AI is Destroying the University and Learning Itself
Students use AI to write papers, professors use AI to grade them, degrees become meaningless, and tech companies make fortunes. Welcome to the death of higher education.
www.currentaffairs.org
December 11, 2025 at 3:45 PM
"institutional auto-cannibalism" www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...
"GenAI risks contributing to the erasure of systems of understanding that have evolved over centuries, disconnecting future generations from vast bodies of insights and wisdom that were never encoded yet remain essential to human ways of knowing" aeon.co/essays/gener...
Generative AI has access to a small slice of human knowledge | Aeon Essays
Huge swathes of human knowledge are missing from the internet. By definition, generative AI is shockingly ignorant too
aeon.co
December 11, 2025 at 2:21 PM
"GenAI risks contributing to the erasure of systems of understanding that have evolved over centuries, disconnecting future generations from vast bodies of insights and wisdom that were never encoded yet remain essential to human ways of knowing" aeon.co/essays/gener...
"In almost all areas of governance, the Republican Party stands for Trump. Nothing more, nothing less." talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things...
It’s Time to Govern, and Republicans in Congress Can’t Remember How
Republicans Try to Remember a World in Which Not All Policy Came...
talkingpointsmemo.com
December 10, 2025 at 9:10 PM
"In almost all areas of governance, the Republican Party stands for Trump. Nothing more, nothing less." talkingpointsmemo.com/where-things...
"the US State Department will now start denying H-1B visas for anyone who has anything to do with trust & safety, fact checking, content moderation, or mis- or disinformation research" www.techdirt.com/2025/12/08/y... Pedophile president enabling pedophiles .
Your Job Was Stopping CSAM? Trump Says No Visa For You!
You want to see actual government censorship in action? And have it done by people claiming they’re doing it to stop censorship? Check out last week’s revelation (originally reported by Reute…
www.techdirt.com
December 10, 2025 at 7:21 PM
"the US State Department will now start denying H-1B visas for anyone who has anything to do with trust & safety, fact checking, content moderation, or mis- or disinformation research" www.techdirt.com/2025/12/08/y... Pedophile president enabling pedophiles .
“When they come to power for the second time, they feel more ruthless, and they behave as if there are no boundaries any more” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... Ugh hard to read when you're living it.
We asked critics from authoritarian regimes what they wish they’d known sooner. Here’s what they said
Critics from Hungary, El Salvador and Turkey offer advice to the US about what they’ve learned about authoritarians
www.theguardian.com
December 10, 2025 at 3:45 PM
“When they come to power for the second time, they feel more ruthless, and they behave as if there are no boundaries any more” www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... Ugh hard to read when you're living it.
Can every blog writing gift-giving guides right now just cool it with the Amazon and Wal*Mart recommendations please? I'd rather not celebrate the spirit of Christmas with my nieces and nephews while simultaneously funding the decline of Western democracy.
December 10, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Can every blog writing gift-giving guides right now just cool it with the Amazon and Wal*Mart recommendations please? I'd rather not celebrate the spirit of Christmas with my nieces and nephews while simultaneously funding the decline of Western democracy.
"we find that acquisitions—all of which in our setting are complete takeovers where the acquiring firm fully absorbs the target—lead to sizable and persistent losses in workers’ earnings" www.promarket.org/2025/12/08/s...
Swedish Workers Lose Out In M&A Even When CEOs Gain - ProMarket
Summary Teaser: In a new working paper, Jakob Beuschlein, Jósef Sigurdsson, and Horng Chern Wong find that workers at acquired firms in Sweden experience wage cuts. Rather than from the increased…
www.promarket.org
December 9, 2025 at 3:45 PM
"we find that acquisitions—all of which in our setting are complete takeovers where the acquiring firm fully absorbs the target—lead to sizable and persistent losses in workers’ earnings" www.promarket.org/2025/12/08/s...
"The real threat to Hollywood isn’t (just) that the Internet made distribution free, favoring the Aggregators; it’s that technology has made it possible for anyone to create content, and the threat isn’t theoretical: it’s winning in the market." stratechery.com/2025/netflix...
Netflix and the Hollywood End Game
Netflix is driving the Hollywood end game, likely confident it can increase the value of IP, and fend off YouTube.
stratechery.com
December 9, 2025 at 2:21 PM
"The real threat to Hollywood isn’t (just) that the Internet made distribution free, favoring the Aggregators; it’s that technology has made it possible for anyone to create content, and the threat isn’t theoretical: it’s winning in the market." stratechery.com/2025/netflix...
"Trumpian stupidity is less a form of organizational inertia or disarray than a slash-and-burn assault on the very things — universities, public health, market data — that help make the world intelligible." www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/pol...
Stupidology | William Davies
The challenge posed by this political crisis is how to take the stupidity seriously without reducing it to a wholly mental or psychiatric, let alone genetic, phenomenon. Stupidity can be understood…
www.nplusonemag.com
December 8, 2025 at 2:21 PM
"Trumpian stupidity is less a form of organizational inertia or disarray than a slash-and-burn assault on the very things — universities, public health, market data — that help make the world intelligible." www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/pol...
Reposted by Joshua Walker
Libraries are sites of refuge, where curiosity is nurtured, where people find shelter, education, entertainment, job assistance, skill-building programs, and access to resources that would otherwise be out of reach.
In the Fight Against Fascism, Libraries Should Be Defended — Not Defunded
Libraries represent the kind of infrastructure progressive leaders must fortify at all costs, especially in this moment.
truthout.org
December 3, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Libraries are sites of refuge, where curiosity is nurtured, where people find shelter, education, entertainment, job assistance, skill-building programs, and access to resources that would otherwise be out of reach.
Reposted by Joshua Walker
Airlines and landlords are using personal data to charge their customers more. One AI company wants to make pricing for everything “much more similar to dynamics in NASDAQ.” From @ddayen.bsky.social: trib.al/e21T2M3
Prices in the Machine - The American Prospect
AI’s real contribution to humanity could be maximizing corporate profit by preying on personal data to raise prices. In fact, it’s already happening.
trib.al
December 3, 2025 at 10:30 PM
Airlines and landlords are using personal data to charge their customers more. One AI company wants to make pricing for everything “much more similar to dynamics in NASDAQ.” From @ddayen.bsky.social: trib.al/e21T2M3
Thugs and criminals. "That review found more than two dozen cases in which officers deployed the weapons in ways that appear to flout the government’s own rules, including by aiming at someone’s head, spine or groin and deploying chemical agents at moving vehicles or near children."
Trump’s Immigration Forces Are Recklessly Deploying ‘Less Lethal’ Weapons. Protesters Are Getting Maimed.
This story is part of a collaboration between FRONTLINE and ProPublica that includes an...
talkingpointsmemo.com
December 2, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Thugs and criminals. "That review found more than two dozen cases in which officers deployed the weapons in ways that appear to flout the government’s own rules, including by aiming at someone’s head, spine or groin and deploying chemical agents at moving vehicles or near children."
“The more persuasive explanation for the relative lack of young people in the anti-Trump, pro-democracy movement is that they are demobilized and demoralized... Older generations should instead recognize that the world we have created does not seem to offer a viable path to making change.”
How severe is the political pessimism of young Americans?
Somewhat buried in the pre-Thanksgiving conversation, Dartmouth University's Brendan Nyhan offered an interesting observation in an essay for the New York Times. "[T]he scale of the protests"…
www.pbump.net
December 2, 2025 at 7:21 PM
“The more persuasive explanation for the relative lack of young people in the anti-Trump, pro-democracy movement is that they are demobilized and demoralized... Older generations should instead recognize that the world we have created does not seem to offer a viable path to making change.”
“The kids need food more than they need to be read to.” The ugliness of it was devastating. In all the years I’d spent amassing my modest library, it had never occurred to me that I might one day have to weigh a book against a piece of bread for my children. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/10...
Hunger by Muhammad al-Zaqzouq
October 3, 2025 – “Hunger came for us in our home, as it did for others. We eat one meal a day now, halfway through the day.”
www.theparisreview.org
December 2, 2025 at 3:45 PM
“The kids need food more than they need to be read to.” The ugliness of it was devastating. In all the years I’d spent amassing my modest library, it had never occurred to me that I might one day have to weigh a book against a piece of bread for my children. www.theparisreview.org/blog/2025/10...
We already know how this story ends. Companies get hacked. Data gets breached. And suddenly your real name is attached to the websites you visited, stored in some poorly-secured database waiting for the inevitable leak. www.techdirt.com/2025/12/01/l...
Lawmakers Want To Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They’re Doing
Remember when you thought age verification laws couldn’t get any worse? Well, lawmakers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and beyond are about to blow you away. It’s unfo…
www.techdirt.com
December 2, 2025 at 2:21 PM
We already know how this story ends. Companies get hacked. Data gets breached. And suddenly your real name is attached to the websites you visited, stored in some poorly-secured database waiting for the inevitable leak. www.techdirt.com/2025/12/01/l...
Yes. This is what we must use this thing we call AI for. github.com/ethanwheatth... Sooner or later this will be the standard form of Ad blocker.
GitHub - ethanwheatthin/Sports-Ad-Muter
Contribute to ethanwheatthin/Sports-Ad-Muter development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
December 1, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Yes. This is what we must use this thing we call AI for. github.com/ethanwheatth... Sooner or later this will be the standard form of Ad blocker.
I keep struggling to with people in my life not understanding how a nazi bar works. "The key insight—the one that keeps getting missed—is that claiming 'neutrality' in these situations isn’t actually neutral. It’s a choice." www.techdirt.com/2025/10/27/h...
How “Neutrality” And “Free Speech” Become Excuses For Driving Out The People You Claim To Value
Mike Brock’s piece on Sequoia Capital last week laid out a pretty damning case study: a well-respected COO complains about a partner’s Islamophobic posts, senior leadership invokes R…
www.techdirt.com
November 30, 2025 at 9:10 PM
I keep struggling to with people in my life not understanding how a nazi bar works. "The key insight—the one that keeps getting missed—is that claiming 'neutrality' in these situations isn’t actually neutral. It’s a choice." www.techdirt.com/2025/10/27/h...
"There is no excuse. The refusal to act, to even start to pound the drum on impeachment, is an abdication of their own declared duty to the nation and destructive in and of itself." www.techdirt.com/2025/11/26/o...
Oaths Of Office, And How Everyone Not Moving To Impeach Trump Is Violating Their Own
Until very recently the only member of Congress excused from not having moved to impeach Trump was Rep. Grijalva, because until someone swore her in there was nothing she could officially do. But f…
www.techdirt.com
November 27, 2025 at 2:21 PM
"There is no excuse. The refusal to act, to even start to pound the drum on impeachment, is an abdication of their own declared duty to the nation and destructive in and of itself." www.techdirt.com/2025/11/26/o...
Being a nerd isn't a competition. But are you nerdier than this? ursulakleguintoddbarton.bandcamp.com/album/music-...
Music and Poetry of the Kesh, by Ursula K. Le Guin & Todd Barton
13 track album
ursulakleguintoddbarton.bandcamp.com
November 18, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Being a nerd isn't a competition. But are you nerdier than this? ursulakleguintoddbarton.bandcamp.com/album/music-...