Ben Novack
@titlecharacter.bsky.social
South Philadelphian, tech-skeptical tech worker, involuntary cider enthusiast, occasional woodworker. Descended from refugees. Never interested in zero-sum.
Reposted by Ben Novack
I finally realized the reason I hate Jingle Bell Rock is because the guy singing it sounds like he’s been there all day and has also come to hate the song
This is the “official video” this song deserves
youtu.be/ZnDmmiiFSUU?...
This is the “official video” this song deserves
youtu.be/ZnDmmiiFSUU?...
Bobby Helms - Jingle Bell Rock (Official Video)
YouTube video by Christmas Music
youtu.be
December 5, 2025 at 12:31 AM
I finally realized the reason I hate Jingle Bell Rock is because the guy singing it sounds like he’s been there all day and has also come to hate the song
This is the “official video” this song deserves
youtu.be/ZnDmmiiFSUU?...
This is the “official video” this song deserves
youtu.be/ZnDmmiiFSUU?...
Reposted by Ben Novack
It's simple — @propublica.org workers should not be replaced by artificial intelligence. Our contract proposal specifically says that generative artificial intelligence ("GAI") should not be used to replace employees. Management struck out this entire section in their response to our proposal.
December 3, 2025 at 9:46 PM
It's simple — @propublica.org workers should not be replaced by artificial intelligence. Our contract proposal specifically says that generative artificial intelligence ("GAI") should not be used to replace employees. Management struck out this entire section in their response to our proposal.
Reposted by Ben Novack
Confirmed: They're playing November Rain by Guns n' Roses ahead of Trump signing a peace agreement with Rwanda and the DRC at the US Institute of Peace building.
December 4, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Confirmed: They're playing November Rain by Guns n' Roses ahead of Trump signing a peace agreement with Rwanda and the DRC at the US Institute of Peace building.
Reposted by Ben Novack
it is MIRACULOUS that we got rid of lead paint and asbestos when we did. if we had tried that today, there would be people whining about how we're restricting their rights.
Bring back residential-use lead paint, you cowards.
December 4, 2025 at 2:06 PM
it is MIRACULOUS that we got rid of lead paint and asbestos when we did. if we had tried that today, there would be people whining about how we're restricting their rights.
Reposted by Ben Novack
is anyone here a psychiatrist I can meet with via telehealth (in Pennsylvania)? mine closed her practice because of new DEA rules (she was all telehealth) and I am struggling to find someone with availability to take on new patients and I really need help, sorry if this sounds desperate
December 4, 2025 at 4:05 PM
is anyone here a psychiatrist I can meet with via telehealth (in Pennsylvania)? mine closed her practice because of new DEA rules (she was all telehealth) and I am struggling to find someone with availability to take on new patients and I really need help, sorry if this sounds desperate
Reposted by Ben Novack
Because you're an adult you fucking muppet. You gotta pay the magic forward.
December 3, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Because you're an adult you fucking muppet. You gotta pay the magic forward.
Reposted by Ben Novack
"We're all standing. I'm just very tall."
December 3, 2025 at 5:39 PM
"We're all standing. I'm just very tall."
Reposted by Ben Novack
It’s the mark of an amateur – in journalistic writing, book writing, TV, whatever – that they think ideas are the currency, where the value is, and need fiercely protecting.
Everyone has ideas. Usually ten before breakfast. Executing them well is the hard bit.
Everyone has ideas. Usually ten before breakfast. Executing them well is the hard bit.
'The words are AI, but the idea is all me.'
'This is MY story, I just needed telling it.'
'The voice is authentically my own.'
'The novel is mine, but I used AI to write it.'
'This is MY story, I just needed telling it.'
'The voice is authentically my own.'
'The novel is mine, but I used AI to write it.'
December 4, 2025 at 10:33 AM
It’s the mark of an amateur – in journalistic writing, book writing, TV, whatever – that they think ideas are the currency, where the value is, and need fiercely protecting.
Everyone has ideas. Usually ten before breakfast. Executing them well is the hard bit.
Everyone has ideas. Usually ten before breakfast. Executing them well is the hard bit.
Reposted by Ben Novack
I'm at the combination
December 4, 2025 at 3:17 AM
I'm at the combination
Suddenly it all makes sense, some poor kei car fan in the US wished for them to be legalized back in 2016 and the monkey’s paw curled and that’s how all of this happened. All of it. To lead us here. To this moment. This was the only path to fulfilling that goddamn wish.
President Trump, apparently enamored by the pint-sized Kei cars he saw during his recent trip to Japan, has paved the way for them to be made and sold in the US despite concerns
Trump Wants Asia’s ‘Cute’ Kei Cars to be Made and Sold in US
President Donald Trump, apparently enamored by the pint-sized Kei cars he saw during his recent trip to Japan, has paved the way for them to be made and sold in the US, despite concerns that they’re too small and slow to be driven safely on American roads.
bloom.bg
December 4, 2025 at 4:23 AM
Suddenly it all makes sense, some poor kei car fan in the US wished for them to be legalized back in 2016 and the monkey’s paw curled and that’s how all of this happened. All of it. To lead us here. To this moment. This was the only path to fulfilling that goddamn wish.
Reposted by Ben Novack
All I want for Christmas is for the worst people in the world to experience some consequences
December 3, 2025 at 8:03 PM
All I want for Christmas is for the worst people in the world to experience some consequences
Reposted by Ben Novack
All super rich guys sound the same now. It’s all “I sleep four hours a night and spend the other twenty hours a day developing a product that’s going to bring us the best widespread poverty anyone’s ever seen.”
December 3, 2025 at 9:53 PM
All super rich guys sound the same now. It’s all “I sleep four hours a night and spend the other twenty hours a day developing a product that’s going to bring us the best widespread poverty anyone’s ever seen.”
Reposted by Ben Novack
Taking up the mantle of anti corruption and reform is such a fucking layup, it unlocks to ability to imprison almost everyone we hate, and it's still to big of an ask for these fucking losers
December 3, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Taking up the mantle of anti corruption and reform is such a fucking layup, it unlocks to ability to imprison almost everyone we hate, and it's still to big of an ask for these fucking losers
Asking for a status update halfway through a plan is basically asking for project management 101. This isn’t a gotcha it’s routine bureaucratic yawn stuff. Assuming you’re competent and operating in good faith, of course…
Scoop: 5 lawmakers are asking AG Pam Bondi for a status update on releasing the Epstein files
Merkley, Murkowski, Lujan, Massie & Khanna want to know if Trump adm is on track to comply with the law's 30-day deadline.
They want a briefing by THIS FRIDAY.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...
Merkley, Murkowski, Lujan, Massie & Khanna want to know if Trump adm is on track to comply with the law's 30-day deadline.
They want a briefing by THIS FRIDAY.
www.nbcnews.com/politics/con...
Lawmakers ask AG Pam Bondi for a status update on releasing the Epstein files
Five members of Congress spanning both parties and both chambers want a briefing by Friday on the Trump administration's progress in releasing the Epstein files.
www.nbcnews.com
December 3, 2025 at 3:26 PM
Asking for a status update halfway through a plan is basically asking for project management 101. This isn’t a gotcha it’s routine bureaucratic yawn stuff. Assuming you’re competent and operating in good faith, of course…
Reposted by Ben Novack
Wow!
A book from the 19th century that depicts the Rhine Valley by creating an impression of three-dimensionality and spatial distance.
@MasayukiTsuda2 #globalmuseum #books #travel #19thcentury
@MasayukiTsuda2 #globalmuseum #books #travel #19thcentury
December 3, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Wow!
Reposted by Ben Novack
I just find it hilarious that his whole cabinet is sloberring praise all over him with ridiculous hyperbole and he is falling asleep while they're doing it.
You couldn't write comedy better than this. It's better than VEEP.
You couldn't write comedy better than this. It's better than VEEP.
December 2, 2025 at 7:57 PM
I just find it hilarious that his whole cabinet is sloberring praise all over him with ridiculous hyperbole and he is falling asleep while they're doing it.
You couldn't write comedy better than this. It's better than VEEP.
You couldn't write comedy better than this. It's better than VEEP.
In a world with even a scrap of logic (I know…) we’d actually say we have a solid bipartisan agreement that both parties have had a bad experience recently with very old candidates and presidents and we can get some solid common ground on preventing this from happening again.
December 3, 2025 at 1:08 PM
In a world with even a scrap of logic (I know…) we’d actually say we have a solid bipartisan agreement that both parties have had a bad experience recently with very old candidates and presidents and we can get some solid common ground on preventing this from happening again.
Reposted by Ben Novack
I have done this thing over and over again where I have encouraged people to understand it's not about winning rural areas. It's about shifting them 5 points to the left.
If it's 10 points instead lmao
If it's 10 points instead lmao
December 3, 2025 at 2:25 AM
I have done this thing over and over again where I have encouraged people to understand it's not about winning rural areas. It's about shifting them 5 points to the left.
If it's 10 points instead lmao
If it's 10 points instead lmao
Reposted by Ben Novack
2026 is going to be a *great* year to run for office. @runforsomething.net will help you. Filing deadlines are coming up fast - it's just barely not too late to get started. runforwhat.net
Where Can I Run by Run for Something
Take the next step: Look up offices you can run for
runforwhat.net
December 2, 2025 at 8:48 PM
2026 is going to be a *great* year to run for office. @runforsomething.net will help you. Filing deadlines are coming up fast - it's just barely not too late to get started. runforwhat.net
Re TN-7 tonight:
This is why you contest every. Seat. Every. Time.
Yes, most of them are just gonna be rough. But sometimes it’s not and those waves do happen. They’re rare but not impossible and you want to be ready.
Howard Dean was right about the fifty-state strategy dammit!
This is why you contest every. Seat. Every. Time.
Yes, most of them are just gonna be rough. But sometimes it’s not and those waves do happen. They’re rare but not impossible and you want to be ready.
Howard Dean was right about the fifty-state strategy dammit!
December 3, 2025 at 1:55 AM
Re TN-7 tonight:
This is why you contest every. Seat. Every. Time.
Yes, most of them are just gonna be rough. But sometimes it’s not and those waves do happen. They’re rare but not impossible and you want to be ready.
Howard Dean was right about the fifty-state strategy dammit!
This is why you contest every. Seat. Every. Time.
Yes, most of them are just gonna be rough. But sometimes it’s not and those waves do happen. They’re rare but not impossible and you want to be ready.
Howard Dean was right about the fifty-state strategy dammit!
Reposted by Ben Novack
A core problem for American liberalism is a constitutional inability to tell people who were important to the movement decades ago to go away because they're not relevant anymore.
Reagan/GW Bush admin people might as well not exist to the modern right. Maybe that's...something to consider.
Reagan/GW Bush admin people might as well not exist to the modern right. Maybe that's...something to consider.
Hillary Clinton blames TikTok and “totally made up” videos for young people’s views on Israel and Palestine.
She says social media influenced “not just the usual suspects” but also “young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand.”
She says social media influenced “not just the usual suspects” but also “young Jewish Americans who don’t know the history and don’t understand.”
December 2, 2025 at 9:54 PM
A core problem for American liberalism is a constitutional inability to tell people who were important to the movement decades ago to go away because they're not relevant anymore.
Reagan/GW Bush admin people might as well not exist to the modern right. Maybe that's...something to consider.
Reagan/GW Bush admin people might as well not exist to the modern right. Maybe that's...something to consider.
Reposted by Ben Novack
I would rather have a world where we all trust each other and accept that a few people will take advantage of it than a world where folks have to perform disability constantly in order to get the help they need. Let kids have an extra 30 minutes on the test, jesus fucking christ
December 2, 2025 at 8:32 PM
I would rather have a world where we all trust each other and accept that a few people will take advantage of it than a world where folks have to perform disability constantly in order to get the help they need. Let kids have an extra 30 minutes on the test, jesus fucking christ
Reposted by Ben Novack
sabrina carpenter more clear in her "messaging" than most dem members of congress
December 2, 2025 at 5:01 PM
sabrina carpenter more clear in her "messaging" than most dem members of congress
Reposted by Ben Novack
HBOMax has started showing a 'remastered' 4K Mad Men and they’ve messed things up so during Roger’s oyster vomit scene you can now see the crew men with the vomit hose on the right
December 2, 2025 at 11:28 AM
HBOMax has started showing a 'remastered' 4K Mad Men and they’ve messed things up so during Roger’s oyster vomit scene you can now see the crew men with the vomit hose on the right
We already say "pod" for "podcast" which is etymologically unhinged (the "pod" in question was... an iPod). And "I wrote a blog" which is translated from "I wrote a web log post." Compared to these, using tweet for "shortform social media post" is pedestrian and unremarkable. Let's do it.
Call them tweets. It’s almost a generic term meaning “short social media post” already. Finish the job. Twitter isn’t even called Twitter anymore. People will know what you mean. Or they won’t, whatever. Just call them tweets.
December 2, 2025 at 2:40 PM
We already say "pod" for "podcast" which is etymologically unhinged (the "pod" in question was... an iPod). And "I wrote a blog" which is translated from "I wrote a web log post." Compared to these, using tweet for "shortform social media post" is pedestrian and unremarkable. Let's do it.