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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 4h

The eager and naive stupidity with which culture broadly (businesses, schools, universities, people in their private lives) is adopting AI is shocking.

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 9h

Kafka.
He would have *loved* this

Laurent Pech 🇺🇦 @profpech.bsky.social · 9h

I mean how can such a body be considered a court within the meaning of EU law...?

cc @kimlanelaw.bsky.social @rdanielkelemen.bsky.social @profkochenov.bsky.social @grabowskamoroz.bsky.social
@tjmcintyre.com

Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 9h

So much of the internet (while not great before) begins to read like badly written first year or high school student essays.
People are using AI more and more.
I cannot read about gardening, or hi-fi systems, or movies, or *anything* now, without listening to a machine.
Have you all gone insane.

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 1d

The rise of Trump/MAGA in the US, Reform UK in Britain, AfD in Germany, RN in France, I could go on… 😭
Is the number of bastards in the world increasing… or is that number stable throughout the ages, and they’re just showing themselves again, out in the open?

East Anglia Bylines @eastangliabylines.co.uk · 1d

Reform UK’s rise isn’t just bad news for the right.

It’s an existential test for Labour – and they’re failing it.

Analysis by Dr Seth Thévoz

On the Reform problem, Labour faces a serious strategic dilemma

Labour has long been divided. But these are not normal times, and arguments between factions may hand power to Farage

eastangliabylines.co.uk

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 1d

I don’t know what your video production standards are, but this is not “superbly done.” (subject matter aside) Probably a cheap AI hack job

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 1d

I so wish this were true. But unfortunately Tiananmen Square happened, and then there were 35 more years of tyranny.
I wish Georgia all the best. Perhaps the conditions for Democrat are better there than in China.

Anonymous @youranoncentral.bsky.social · 1d

Those who have tasted freedom will never surrender to tyranny, Georgia will oust all the fascists. #3E #GeorgiaProtests

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 1d

I abstain and it's not hard at all

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Science 😍

Robert “The Bobby Yaga” McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 2d

VAR!

In the early morning hours #OTD in 1923, Edwin Hubble took a photo plate of M31 that showed a Cepheid variable star.

Using Henrietta Swan Leavitt’s distance-luminosity relationship, Hubble concluded that M31 is another galaxy outside the Milky Way. 🧪 🔭 ⚛️

Image: Carnegie Observatories

Photo plate of Hubble's famous "VAR!" discovery. This is a photonegative plate of an image of the Andromeda Galaxy, with several small annotations made in grease pencil. One of them was previously marked "N" for "nova," but the N has been crossed out and replaced with an excited "VAR!" to indicate a Cepheid Variable.

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

👍 Replace

“country case study”

with “case” or “instance”, and

*generalized actor/institution*

with “drug/principle/cause…”

Darin Self @darinself.com · 2d

Your single country case study doesn't actually tell us what *generalized actor/institution* does.

Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Tendentious headlines such as these which don’t augur quality journalism are what make me unfollow/unsubscribe/disengage from the screaming lefty media.
And I am a lefty

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Reposted by Robert Kowalenko

Cristian Farias @cristianfarias.com · 3d

This video of Chicagoans intervening to save a man from being abducted off the streets by ICE is making the rounds on Instagram.

Community action works.

Source: www.instagram.com/reel/DPZL2AL...

3.5K 16K 44K

Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Yes. The depressing truth is that ½ of the US electorate appears to have made peace with the possibility that the President is a pedophile. It seems to be a price worth paying for having a president who gives expression to its racist priorities and impulses. The same goes for inflation, jobs, etc.

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Today's South Africa unfortunately needs to introduce a new category of 'struggle hero', of those who died fighting the corrupt African National Congress
😕
mg.co.za/editorial/20...

Editorial: Babita’s spirit must haunt them all

Deokaran will forever be remembered as a hero, a patriot who, in life as in death, has refused to be silenced. She died for the truth, not with it

mg.co.za

Reposted by Robert Kowalenko

Alexander Douglas @axdouglas.bsky.social · 2d

I’m a strong advocate of ancient languages, but it seems dangerous to overpromise…

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

If social media are the new town square or commons, then like town squares or commons they must be under public, not private, control.
Let’s have *public* social media

Jeremy Cliffe @jeremycliffe.bsky.social · 3d

Macron: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies"

defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

"Europeans, let's wake up!" — Defend Democracy

“We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.” President Macron on the occasion of German Unity Day, 3 October 2025.

defenddemocracy.eu

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Yes, yes. And no.
We’ve been promised “the greatest Presidential scandal in history” with the Russia investigation. It fizzled out.
I fully expect the Epstein scandal to fizzle out, too, because people in power will protect other people in power.

Jason Kander @jasonkander.bsky.social · 2d

I was a skeptic about the import of the Epstein files.

But 3 invasions of cities, one military buildup outside Venezuela, a government shutdown, and so many other things meant to distract have me convinced whatever’s in there is the biggest presidential scandal in U.S. history.

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

yes but capitalism was already alive and well and doing its thing 50, 100, even 150 years ago.

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Well, let’s hope Goscinny did his historical homework…. But I know what you mean: Swiss and Austrian flavours of neutrality have flavours so distinct, they require different words.

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Well to be fair to Synthese, this story makes it worse. But I’ve had bad experiences with proofreaders from any Springer journal. It’s not just academic publishing, either. Something is happening to our civilisation. Is that how people felt at the end of the Roman Empire? Or am I just getting old

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Am I the only one out there judging people by their dumb tattoos?

Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

I thought sovrinty was sufficient justification for #brexit ?
And that it has brought. Therefore, #brexit was a success.

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

No, the phenomenon is culture-wide

Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

So, a particularly Austrian species of neutrality?
Although I think deep down the Swiss also tacitly hope to be bailed out by their NATO neighbours when push comes to shove…

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

Standards are falling everywhere.
I recently came across an article in Synthese, a previously highly respectable journal in analytic philosophy, with an abstract so ungrammatical, it was barely intelligible. No competent English speaker had proofread it..
I wonder what the ultimate cause is of this

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Robert Kowalenko @rob-kowa.bsky.social · 2d

What is neutralism … as opposed to neutrality?

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