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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 3h

This is FUCKING AWESOME.

Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 14h

GOOD NEWS! Researchers have discovered a powerful antibody, known as 04_A06, that is able to neutralize 98.5% of MORE THAN 300 different HIV strains AND permanently reduce HIV viral load to undetectable levels, making it one of the broadest-acting antibodies against HIV identified to date.

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 3h

So, what y'all got for how long it takes to go from pepper balls to actual bullets?

Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 9h

Man I guess I missed all that when we spent a couple days in Portland on our honeymoon. Sure looked like glass in the windows all over, but I’m no glass-ologist.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 10h

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."

Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 17h

One of the best things about having a mug warmer is that I can use the glass mug that I love but didn't use often because it cools too fast.

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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 23h

doomscroll break

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Cranky Bitch Sedai @totallydonna.kitrocha.com · 17h

THESE BOOKS ARE MEDICINAL

NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 23h

doomscroll break

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Arkady Martine | Dr. AnnaLinden Weller @byzantienne.bsky.social · 1d

you could buy a book about the horrors of an actual embodied artificial intelligence (as opposed to the horrors of "artificial intelligence", for a change!) and support local bookshops

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

That's an agenda we can all get behind.

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

Alrighty, someone else who is more knowledgeable than I am with a good thread on the issue. I'm leaving my previous thread up, but I'm going to say that I feel OK posting photos again here. Training for the purpose you're using the service for is, well, necessary. Not training for gen AI.

rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 1d

This is going around again and it is not true. Like every site on the internet, Bluesky uses machine learning to do a first-pass approximation of image classification to detect and label content. They have repeatedly confirmed outside services do not use Bluesky user data to train their models.

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

Dr. Williams is far more knowledgeable than I am about these things, and it does look like Hive doesn't use customer data (this is key - BSky is their customer in this case) to build stuff for external use. Buuuuut, well, there are other issues. Dr. Williams is a good follow on these matters.

Dr. Damien P. Williams Wants A Better Sociotechnical Paradigm @wolvendamien.bsky.social · 1d

Hive's Terms of Use expressly forbids using their service for facial recognition and identification, and they say they'll never use any Customer data to build generative models for external use, and that's all well and actually very good, but if bsky don't have *any* input on refining these models?…

Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

Something something speed run something something. 5/4

Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

of pictures, but now it's zero. 4/4

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

reasonable course of action.

So, until this clears up one way or another I'm not going to post any more images here.

Sigh. I just wanna show pretty, interesting, or funny pictures to my followers on here, not wonder if my stuff is going to training generative AI tools. I didn't post a LOT 3/

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

seems to know for sure.

It'd be super if the BSky Trust and Safety folks would actually be explicit about this point, because I totally get why people are suddenly very concerned about posting images to BSky.

Recent tech history - shoot, recent SITE history - makes assuming the worst a very 2/

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

I'm seeing a lot of back and forth over BSky's use of hive dot ai's tools to classify images as part of moderation. Public facing TOS for the service says everything submitted is used for training. It's possible that BSky has a contract that exempts that traffic from training, but nobody 1/

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Mikki Kendall @karnythia.bsky.social · 1d

You could just talk about Jim Crow. I promise you, there's no need to leave America's shores to talk about life in a fascist state

Mother Jones @motherjones.com · 1d

Under the Third Reich, most Germans generally lived in the law-bound normative state, while Jews and other disfavored people were victims of the arbitrary and violent prerogative state.

The dual state is characterized by the facade of normalcy obscuring the fact of an authoritarian state.

The “dual state” theory was invented to describe Nazis. The Supreme Court could take us there.

Authoritarianism—but make it look like the rule of law.

www.motherjones.com

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 1d

A colleague of mine had ChatGPT do some basic math to convert bytes into gigabytes. It got it wrong. I love how the tech sector has spent a ridiculous amount of money to make computers BAD at MATH.

OK, sure, the Pentium FDIV bug, but that was a HARDWARE fault (link for you young'uns).

Pentium FDIV bug - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

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alwayscomingback.bsky.social @alwayscomingback.bsky.social · 2d

Thrawn would study Gungan art, encounter Jar Jar Binks, and wonder if he was hallucinating.

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Esther Schindler @estherschindler.bsky.social · 2d

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 2d

I can't imagine MORE coherent thought than that went into it, for sure.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 2d

suspending Jews for criticizing some of the most virulent anti-semites on the planet is ANTI-SEMITIC @support.bsky.team

Rick Caruso’s Private Fire Crew @amandasmith.bsky.social · 2d

The all-knowing bsky mods gave Erin Biba a 24 hour suspension for a months-old skeet about Christian Zionism, and I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that this happened when she’s been vocally criticizing Jay

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 2d

Friend of mine got someone to take down their whole-ass BBS back in the late 80s. It was really something back then.

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 2d

Friend of mine got someone to take down their whole-ass BBS in the late 80s.

buxtonaut.bsky.social @buxtonaut.bsky.social · 2d

Kids these days don't know what it's like to troll the owner of the site so hard they delete the entire forum.

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Hillary Monahan @hillarymonahan.bsky.social · 2d

Hey, @jay.bsky.team.

As a disabled person, it's disheartening to see one of the foundational pushers of alt text, a Black STEM voice, a queer advocate, and a huge voice for the disabled community gone over a poor taste joke.

Having Link here is good for so many people.

Please reconsider?

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Tim Weigel @timweigel.bsky.social · 2d

Oh lord that kitten story was like mainlining goodness and purity. Definitely worth the read. Thanks for including it in the newsletter!