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Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Not the Governor of North Carolina; got the handle first @joshstein.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah; one of the problems with the concepts of "bubbles" in public discussion is that it doesn't explain how they happen. A party over promises (whether that's mortgage brokers or AI C-suites) on a short time frame that allows them to profit before it becomes clear that they can't deliver. Then pop.

JB_AU @jbau.bsky.social · 10d

This whole section really.

Finally: AI cannot do your job, but an AI salesman can 100% convince your boss to fire you and replace you with an AI that can't do your job, and when the bubble bursts, the money-hemorrhaging "foundation models" will be shut off and we'll lose the AI that can't do your job, and you will be long gone, retrained or retired or "discouraged" and out of the labor market, and no one will do your job.
AI is the asbestos we are shoveling into the walls of our society and our descendants will be digging it out for generations:

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Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Joanne Freeman @jbf1755.bsky.social · 3d

Things to consider:

Document the violence & violations--on camera, w/photos, saving images--any way you can. Speaking as a historian- it will matter

Point out violations--w/images & text--even if you think it won't matter. It will. It needs to be called out & exposed

You are a witness.
Expose it.

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · 3d

Some times I feel like the adultiest adult, and other times I wonder how I'm already in my later 30s. I definitely went through my 20s feeling not very adult much of the time, though.

I also realized recently is that part of adulthood is not worrying about "feeling like" or "being" an adult.

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Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Kingfisher & Wombat @tkingfisher.com · 6d

I feel like Smaug and this post is the black arrow.

Laurie Voss @seldo.com · 9d

My personal timeline is full of autistic people trying to explain that there isn't more autism than before, it's just that we're better at detecting it, and there's nothing more autistic than hoping explaining something at length will help matters when nobody is really listening.

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · 7d

An excellent article from @chrisgeidner.bsky.social about a powerful ruling by U.S. District Judge William Young.

This quote from Judge Young's ruling struck me in particular, that even if there is no legal consequence for illegal actions, we should not shy from calling them what they are.

A screenshot of a passage in an article by Chris Geidner, it reads:

Then, however, Young showed that he had a broader scope — that he saw the full picture here — noting, “The fact that the President is, for all practical purposes, totally immune from any consequences for this conduct, Trump v. United States, 603 U.S. 593 (2024), does not relieve this Court of its duty to find the facts.”

In other words, “I see what you’ve done, Mr. Chief Justice, but I will still do my job.”

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · 8d

Hegseth doesn't understand pacifism. He thinks it an unwillingness to fight, a form of cowardice.

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · 10d

If you've ever had to argue with someone about Austism stats; the always insightful @hankgreen.bsky.social has some facts you can use.

And may we all live in less frustrating times.

This Autism Stat Makes No Sense

YouTube video by Hank Green

youtu.be

Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 10d

My dearest wife,

It is week two of the Siege of Portland, and still these barbarians will not yield to our troops. We have severed the cords of their latte machines but they are making cowboy coffee in their camps, where loud ukulele songs of resistance even now drift in on the breeze.

Letter from the Portland War Front (humor about something deadly serious)

My dearest wife, It is week two of the Siege of Portland, and still these barbarians will not yield to our troops. We have severed the cords of their latte machines but they are making cowboy coffee ...

www.meditationsinanemergency.com

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · 18d

I could support generative AI in some uses if it didn't drive ever increasing energy and water usage and it wasn't trained on stolen data.

Given those are unlikely to be resolved...

There's also the hype issue, but presumably that will burst like crypto/NFT hype did before too long

Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 24d

It should be needless to say, but it is perhaps at this moment worth saying, that transgender individuals have the same right as anyone else to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Mehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 25d

I hadn’t seen this. Kirk, the moderate free speech guy who did politics the right way per some liberals (!), called for Biden to be executed.

Meanwhile Joe Biden put out a very strong statement condemning Kirk’s killing.

Both sides!

Charlie Kirk: Joe Biden should be "put in prison and/or given the death penalty for crimes against America"

www.mediamatters.org

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Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Sophie Labelle @assignedmale.bsky.social · 26d

No really, I am s h o c k e d

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Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Seth Cotlar @sethcotlar.bsky.social · 27d

I’m choosing to remember Charlie Kirk’s contribution to American civic life in his own words.

Charlie Kirk v @charliekirk11
Hillary For Prison
11:04 PM • Dec 21, 2015

Jason Campbell & @JasonSCampbell
Charlie Kirk: "If Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, George
Washington, or John Adams saw drag queen story hour, they would mobilize the Minutemen"
CHARLIE KIRK
SHOW
0:54
291K views
10:51 AM • 8/10/21 • Twitter Web App
完

Charlie Kirk @ c@charliekirk11 • 16h
Residents of Springfield, OH are reporting that Haitians are eating their family pets, another gift of the Biden-Harris mass immigration replacement plan. Liberals will soon be lecturing Americans on why they need to be sensitive to Haitian culture and accept this as the new Show more
Springfield Ohio Cri...
BIDEN FLOODS OHIO TOWN WITH 20,000 HAITIAN MIGRANTS: TEN TO A BEDROOM
Warning to all about our beloved pets & those around us!!
My neighbor informed me that her daughters friend had lost her cat. She checked pages, kennels, asked around, etc. One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards a neighbors house, where Haitians live, & saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you'd do a deer for butchering, & they were carving it up to eat. I've been told they are doing this to dogs, they have been doing it at snyder park with the ducks & geese, as I was told that last bit by
on A. Moreno/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images, Pile
Rangers & police. Please keep a close
eve on these animala
@ 2к
179.6K O 22K
ill 2.4M
贝
Elon Musk & @elonmusk
Follow
Apparently, people's pet cats are being eaten

Here's Trump turnout chair, Charlie Kirk, condemning the women who "undermine their husbands" by voting for Harris:
"It's just so nauseating where this wife ... who comes in with her sweet husband who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go and, you know, have a nice life, provides for the family. And then she lies to him, saying, 'Oh yeah I'm going to vote for Trump' and then she votes for Kamala Harris as her little secret in the voting booth."
GO -OTE NOW
The Megyn
Kelly Show
SiriusXM

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Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Santiago Mayer @santiagomayer.com · Sep 7

The reason this ad works is not just that it appeals to a lot of Americans, but that Mallory looks and sounds like someone who genuinely cares about this.

We need more relatable and authentic candidates. Mallory is that.

Mallory McMorrow @mallorymcmorrow.bsky.social · Sep 7

You deserve a break on Sundays that doesn’t break the bank.

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Sep 2

Politics "to the hilt" isn't good for our country, but at the same time, if there is any hope of restoring institutional stability, it might require "extreme" actions such as these.

Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · Sep 2

The next Democratic president should declare that the National Emergencies Act and Article II of the Constitution allow him to:

•admit D.C. and Puerto Rico as states
•abolish ICE
•grant citizenship to any immigrant
•disband the 5th Circuit
•expand the Supreme Court

Seriously: Why the hell not?

Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Paul Cooper @paulmmcooper.com · Sep 1

Some of the most remarkable lost artefacts from the ancient world were the titanic wrecks of the Nemi ships, built for a Roman emperor.

In their first-century heyday they held gardens, palaces and baths in a floating wonderland. But barely a decade after their recovery, they were lost forever.

Onlookers queue up to view the excavations of Caligula's ancient Roman vessels, known as the Nemi ships 1932.

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Aug 30

"Empires sending troops to Boston rarely has worked well"
- @hcrichardson.bsky.social

From www.youtube.com/live/L2-IA04...

Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Aug 30

Likely, you end up with something that appears (for the uninformed) as accurate, but for any but the most represent languages online, is likely riddled with poor grammar or inappropriate Anglicized structure or vocabulary.

At least the "Scots" wiki hoax articles had an intentionality behind them

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Aug 30

The claim that an AI translation of an article will be just as simple and accurate as that. A "1:1 translation" misunderstands translation.

Also, "AI" hardly "speaks all languages". Leaving aside unwritten languages, it depends on sufficient corpus to have anywhere a decent chance of making sense.

The first idea is translation to languages other than English. Those languages often have fewer speakers, and consequently fewer Wikipedia volunteers. But for AI encyclopedia, volunteers are not a bottleneck. The easiest thing it could do is a 1:1 translation from the English version. But it could also add sources written in the other language, optimize the article for a different audience, etc.

We can further expand on these ideas. The AI speaks all languages, so in principle, it could use sources from all languages in all language versions. The problem is that the human reader wouldn’t understand most of them, so the references would be useless for them. However, different people speak different sets of languages, so maybe we could let the reader specify which languages they are comfortable with, display references to sources written in those languages, and hide the rest? So when you read an English article on e.g. Eiffel Tower, by default you only get references to English sources, but if you specify that you also speak French, you also get references to French sources. That could provide extra value if e.g. some detail is not mentioned in the English sources.

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Aug 28

"First, they came for the ..."

For someone to feel comfortable to say this sort of thing openly and publicly is a disgusting and clear indication that they think human rights are not inherent to everyone.

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · Aug 28

They're openly calling to lock up every trans person by force. We need every ally to speak out forcefully against this because trans folks cannot do this on our own.

Alt text: A tweet from Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarinoUS) dated August 27, 2025. The tweet calls for Health and Human Services to violate HIPAA laws and forward information about every transgender and transgender-questioning person to law enforcement for immediate detainment, claiming they are killing children in schools. It describes this as a matter of national security, says transgender people should be locked away and studied, calls for medical professionals who enable transitions to be expelled from the profession, and demands that the federal government treat transgender people as if they were terrorist organizations. The tweet shows it was last edited at 1:11 PM and has 5,049 views.

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Reposted by Christian Paulsen

Heather Cox Richardson (TDPR) @hcrichardson.bsky.social · Aug 28

This. Thread.

George Conway 👊🇺🇸🔥 @gtconway.bsky.social · Aug 28

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Aug 25

@davidgerard.co.uk has great critiques of various "AI" stuff at pivot-to-ai.com

(reposted to get proper tagging)

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Aug 22

Of course! I looked up Russian phonetics so I had the most accurate pronunciation. I love the palatization in Russian. Like you, I find unfamiliar names fascinating

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Aug 22

As a linguistics instructor, on the first day, I always stress to my students the importance for me of pronouncing their names correctly.

It's a simple yet powerful sign of respect and acknowledgement.

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Christian Paulsen @christianspaulsen.bsky.social · Aug 22

"The importance of names is an ancient concept, perhaps even eternal."
- Grigory Lukin /ɡrʲiˈɡorʲɪj ɫʊˈkʲin/

Grigory Lukin ✨️is on sub✨️ @grigorylukin.bsky.social · Aug 21

Something very very weird happened during the Hugos award ceremony... It's been on my mind for days, and so I wrote this blog: "When People Giggle at Your Name, or the 2025 Hugo Awards Incident"

grigorylukin.com/2025/08/21/w...

#Worldcon

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