Alison Smaalders
@vividwings.bsky.social
Archaeology major, currently working in P&C insurance. Gamer, LARPer, general nerd, cat lover. Occasionally known as Fun Fact. She/her.
This is amazing. The funny thing is there are redaction tools! In adobe, in word, in lots of places! You redact things and then run it and it deletes the underlying information. There may be ways to recover it but they're not as straightforward as "copy and paste into notepad", that's for sure.
Y'all they really just fucking highlighted the text black in word on the redacted Epstein files. At least for the digital text files anyway. You can just fucking copy and paste it elsewhere to read it LMAO. I just tried it because I was like there's no fucking way and shit worked flawless.
December 23, 2025 at 6:03 PM
This is amazing. The funny thing is there are redaction tools! In adobe, in word, in lots of places! You redact things and then run it and it deletes the underlying information. There may be ways to recover it but they're not as straightforward as "copy and paste into notepad", that's for sure.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Not now, haunted Victorian shoes
Mystery as hundreds of Victorian shoes wash up on Ogmore beach
Mystery as hundreds of Victorian shoes wash up on Ogmore beach
More than 400 leather hobnailed boots, thought to date back to the 19th Century, have been found.
www.bbc.com
December 23, 2025 at 3:29 PM
Not now, haunted Victorian shoes
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
When I teaching the Holocaust I note the Holocaust museum’s definition of a concentration camp is a prison whose inmates are denied due process. These are by definition concentration camps.
These are concentration camps. No other way to describe them. Truly horrific, and none of it surprising in the least.
30 minutes. Some deportees described sexual assault. Detainee describes the guard sexually assaulting most detainees. Lights left on all day. Prisoners not given clean water.
Now the DHS tour. Nobody spoke to the detainees. Noem's video was in a different area of the prison.
Now the DHS tour. Nobody spoke to the detainees. Noem's video was in a different area of the prison.
December 23, 2025 at 12:39 AM
When I teaching the Holocaust I note the Holocaust museum’s definition of a concentration camp is a prison whose inmates are denied due process. These are by definition concentration camps.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Thanks! 😀 You may already have noticed this one, about digging around in the British Library basement as a grad student:
buttondown.com/surekhadavie...
buttondown.com/surekhadavie...
Basement adventures showed me why ChatGPT can only ever be garbage.
In The British Library. Photo by Surekha Davies. Hallo readers, First, a news flash: Join me for a virtual book launch for HUMANS: A MONSTROUS HISTORY...
buttondown.com
December 22, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Thanks! 😀 You may already have noticed this one, about digging around in the British Library basement as a grad student:
buttondown.com/surekhadavie...
buttondown.com/surekhadavie...
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
I think we need a mega thread of everyone's craziest archive stories.
December 22, 2025 at 3:38 PM
I think we need a mega thread of everyone's craziest archive stories.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNOW show has 2 Epstein survivors blasting DOJ for failing to properly redact names, leaving some survivors‘ identities newly revealed. They suspect DOJ’s top priority is to protect other people — not the survivors. “We’re being re-traumatized by our government.”
December 23, 2025 at 3:26 AM
Lawrence O’Donnell’s MSNOW show has 2 Epstein survivors blasting DOJ for failing to properly redact names, leaving some survivors‘ identities newly revealed. They suspect DOJ’s top priority is to protect other people — not the survivors. “We’re being re-traumatized by our government.”
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Digital files also corrupt, linkrot sets in because a server or page is not properly kept up, Gizmo gets lost amongst the server racks, licensing agreements sunset. Maintaining the effort would be as big, if not bigger, than effort itself. This would be a whole shebang larger than AI to effect.
When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.
Seems like it's worth posting this one again.
December 22, 2025 at 5:34 AM
Digital files also corrupt, linkrot sets in because a server or page is not properly kept up, Gizmo gets lost amongst the server racks, licensing agreements sunset. Maintaining the effort would be as big, if not bigger, than effort itself. This would be a whole shebang larger than AI to effect.
I have a meta-theory that all conspiracy theories are placed somewhere in a triangle between the points "just weird (cryptids mostly)", "blood libel", and "things the CIA actually did".
December 23, 2025 at 7:23 AM
I have a meta-theory that all conspiracy theories are placed somewhere in a triangle between the points "just weird (cryptids mostly)", "blood libel", and "things the CIA actually did".
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Like come on y’all. I need you to have a single standard other than Trump Bad. You can elect an actual Democrat in NY 12.
December 23, 2025 at 5:06 AM
Like come on y’all. I need you to have a single standard other than Trump Bad. You can elect an actual Democrat in NY 12.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
You might question her methods, but credit to Bari Weiss: her leadership has pushed 60 Minutes into new formats and attracted a bunch of new viewership outside the normal broadcast audience.
here's the 60 minutes cecot video part 1 of 5 - recorded/uploaded by and all credit to @jasonparis.bsky.social
I just reduced background noise, chopped the 14 minutes into 3 minute segments each compressed under 100 mb for bsky's limits, cropped and rotated a few degrees for easier viewing on here
I just reduced background noise, chopped the 14 minutes into 3 minute segments each compressed under 100 mb for bsky's limits, cropped and rotated a few degrees for easier viewing on here
December 22, 2025 at 11:42 PM
You might question her methods, but credit to Bari Weiss: her leadership has pushed 60 Minutes into new formats and attracted a bunch of new viewership outside the normal broadcast audience.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Objectively funny that Trumpists have used the foregone conclusion that Bill Clinton is implicated in the files as an excuse for not releasing them and then Bill just rolls up like “If I die I die”
Bill Clinton Spokesman: “Someone or something is being protected. We need no such protection. Produce the full and complete record.” #TrumpEpsteinCoverup
December 22, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Objectively funny that Trumpists have used the foregone conclusion that Bill Clinton is implicated in the files as an excuse for not releasing them and then Bill just rolls up like “If I die I die”
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
lol at Bari not knowing about the distribution process for foreign markets and not asking and no one volunteering the information.
December 22, 2025 at 10:38 PM
lol at Bari not knowing about the distribution process for foreign markets and not asking and no one volunteering the information.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
You can very clearly see why someone whose job it is to protect war criminals would need this pulled from the airwaves: It’s visible proof the Trump administration is operating concentration camps.
I just uploaded @jasonparis.bsky.social 's recording of the segment CBS News pulled from "60 Minutes" to YouTube:
WATCH: Segment CBS News Pulled From "60 Minutes"
YouTube video by Phil Lewis
www.youtube.com
December 22, 2025 at 11:22 PM
You can very clearly see why someone whose job it is to protect war criminals would need this pulled from the airwaves: It’s visible proof the Trump administration is operating concentration camps.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
CBS NEWS: “We can’t report on the current murdering spree until we get the serial killer’s side of the story.”
December 22, 2025 at 8:39 PM
CBS NEWS: “We can’t report on the current murdering spree until we get the serial killer’s side of the story.”
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
CBS paid the president of the United States millions in bribe money and now they censor news reports so it does not annoy him. I don’t know how much plainer we can put this.
December 22, 2025 at 12:14 PM
CBS paid the president of the United States millions in bribe money and now they censor news reports so it does not annoy him. I don’t know how much plainer we can put this.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
This has been made available, so for purposes of commenting on Bari Weiss's decision to spike the story, here's a live-post of that segment.
It begins with a "you may recall" summary of the deportation to el Salvador. Describes the admin's claim that it could deport the men without due process
It begins with a "you may recall" summary of the deportation to el Salvador. Describes the admin's claim that it could deport the men without due process
December 22, 2025 at 10:16 PM
This has been made available, so for purposes of commenting on Bari Weiss's decision to spike the story, here's a live-post of that segment.
It begins with a "you may recall" summary of the deportation to el Salvador. Describes the admin's claim that it could deport the men without due process
It begins with a "you may recall" summary of the deportation to el Salvador. Describes the admin's claim that it could deport the men without due process
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Maine Coons are great because they're cats the size of human toddlers and when they stomp around you WILL become convinced that someone has broken into your house and is coming to get you, only it's a three-year-old caliby with no thumbs who is dragging your bra around like a dead rat.
December 22, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Maine Coons are great because they're cats the size of human toddlers and when they stomp around you WILL become convinced that someone has broken into your house and is coming to get you, only it's a three-year-old caliby with no thumbs who is dragging your bra around like a dead rat.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
I'm going to tell a story about why AI is utterly useless in writing briefs in law. It's a story of a 20 year journey I made to revive a dormant common law cause of action in NY, which AI simply never could have done no matter how well you crafted the algorithm. 1/x
suspect a big reason why many academics and others who work in areas where getting facts RIGHT is key are disinterested in using LLMs for research:
they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.
they’ve tried it, they keep noticing major errors in output, and they conclude that having to verify all that doesn’t actually save them time.
December 22, 2025 at 4:22 PM
I'm going to tell a story about why AI is utterly useless in writing briefs in law. It's a story of a 20 year journey I made to revive a dormant common law cause of action in NY, which AI simply never could have done no matter how well you crafted the algorithm. 1/x
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
there is an absolutely vast amount of useful information and current happenings that are not visible to digital systems
it is terrifying that a lot of people seem to have forgotten this
it is terrifying that a lot of people seem to have forgotten this
all of generative AI is a project of hoping that some humans are still big enough suckers to keep producing feedstock for it
even if you consider it equivalent to a human, it's a human in a sealed box with only an Internet connection, unable to perceive anything that has not already been perceived
even if you consider it equivalent to a human, it's a human in a sealed box with only an Internet connection, unable to perceive anything that has not already been perceived
December 22, 2025 at 5:29 PM
there is an absolutely vast amount of useful information and current happenings that are not visible to digital systems
it is terrifying that a lot of people seem to have forgotten this
it is terrifying that a lot of people seem to have forgotten this
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Doesn't help, though I admit that this is likely a *me* thing, that it came immediately after a wave of "EVERYTHING will be NFTs! Get on board or get ready to be broke!" nonsense from the same an/or similar genius minds of the tech world.
I strongly suspect many people would be a lot less aggressively anti-AI at this point if they hadn’t just spent two years feeling constantly pressured, often by very unpleasant people and actors, to use it Or Else
As a lawyer I’m getting a daily machine gun of come-ons to use AI in legal research, have AI draft my documents, let AI suggest my arguments, AI can take a flying fuck at a rolling seven-fingered doughnut
December 21, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Doesn't help, though I admit that this is likely a *me* thing, that it came immediately after a wave of "EVERYTHING will be NFTs! Get on board or get ready to be broke!" nonsense from the same an/or similar genius minds of the tech world.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
There seems to be some sort of logical fallacy at work here. I'm going to call it "transcriptionism"... it's as if some people think all the knowledge is already out there in some sort of grand transcript and all that's needed is better indexing and reading tools to look it all up.
December 22, 2025 at 4:48 PM
There seems to be some sort of logical fallacy at work here. I'm going to call it "transcriptionism"... it's as if some people think all the knowledge is already out there in some sort of grand transcript and all that's needed is better indexing and reading tools to look it all up.
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
THREAD.
My parents' cat Bridget vanished. As the weeks dragged on they became ever more worried, so to distract himself my dad began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up at some of art & music's most important moments.
I've collected his work here...
My parents' cat Bridget vanished. As the weeks dragged on they became ever more worried, so to distract himself my dad began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up at some of art & music's most important moments.
I've collected his work here...
December 20, 2025 at 9:21 AM
THREAD.
My parents' cat Bridget vanished. As the weeks dragged on they became ever more worried, so to distract himself my dad began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up at some of art & music's most important moments.
I've collected his work here...
My parents' cat Bridget vanished. As the weeks dragged on they became ever more worried, so to distract himself my dad began to paint Bridget's adventures, imagining her travelling through time and popping up at some of art & music's most important moments.
I've collected his work here...
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
Hey, if your library has Kanopy (we just accessed it last night for the first time, holy molee, it's like the Criterion Collection in there, SO many excellent and classic films), they've got James Goldman's Christmas classic THE LION IN WINTER, which is essentially SUCCESSION, at Christmas, in 1187
November 28, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Hey, if your library has Kanopy (we just accessed it last night for the first time, holy molee, it's like the Criterion Collection in there, SO many excellent and classic films), they've got James Goldman's Christmas classic THE LION IN WINTER, which is essentially SUCCESSION, at Christmas, in 1187
Reposted by Alison Smaalders
It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans.
🧵 1 of 9
🧵 1 of 9
December 21, 2025 at 2:51 AM
It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans.
🧵 1 of 9
🧵 1 of 9