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The Birdbassador

@Birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy

438 followers 3 following 724 posts

enthusiast of things you like, detester of the things you don't like, but not in a mean way so i don't seem off-putting. just generally a solid follow [bridged from jorts.horse/@Birdbassador on the fediverse by fed.brid.gy ]

Posts Replies Media

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

it's been a while since i've done any non-professional writing (other than the goodreads reviews that nobody reads). currently leading the docket: 1) another lacanian anime review (it's gonna be either shoushimin or ikoku nikki) 2) ~10k words about camus and anne frank 3) dystopian short story […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 13/10/2026

when i am stressed i read fewer books but the rest of my life carries on as normal including the number of books i buy/take out from the library so anyway it turns out i have like five books to read in the next week

Reposted by The Birdbassador

Eleanor Saitta @dymaxion.infosec.exchange.ap.brid.gy · 08/10/2026

Abstraction is the original sin of technology. It's essential to do anything and we have taught two generations to treat abstractions as real, but not what's beneath the ones they use nor the implications of this lie, and we wonder why no one can see the impact the lie has on their work and world.

Reposted by The Birdbassador

highly praised and little read @hannah.posts.rat.pictures.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

Some of yall

A stuffed worm reading a book called worms in stem

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 11/10/2026

video games can be divided into five overlapping eras of annoying game mechanics: 1. the insert coin to continue era 2. the you've run out of lives, enter checkpoint code era 3. the collect all 100 coconuts to unlock the secret level era 4. the you have unassigned talent points in your skill […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

this is of course not the fault of the prospective students and i do not judge or blame them for cold emailing anybody with a recent paper with an AI keyword (cold emailing profs is how i got a gig, after all). it is sort of on me to better communicate that the main impact i want to have in the […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 07/10/2026

i am a co-author on a paper that's about explainable AI (the paper is mostly about how it doesn't work). it was a huge pain to get it accepted for various reasons (including "we sort of assumed reviewers would read and understand multiple papers not in their field") but now even after it is […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 06/10/2026

i think there is an assumption of a conversation of assery w/r/t labor. that is, that if you half-ass two things, it is the same productivity as if you whole-assed one thing. but this principles excludes both non-elastic administrative overhead and the stress of having multiple things to […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 04/10/2026

image of that ridiculous my9albums engagement bait where you're supposed to put the 9 albums that are "the sound that made me" but i have filled it all with halloween soundtrack albums. number 1 is "spooky scare sounds for halloween" put out by Martha Stewart Living and features martha stewart with sinister red eyes

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2026

is there a new england ego-boosting equivalent to when a person from the us south calls you "hon", "boss", or "darlin" or when a british person says that your suggestion is "a good shout" maybe that is the dopamine i am missing closest i can think of is "wicked" but that's less applicable to […]

Original post on jorts.horse

Reposted by The Birdbassador

SpookJ 👻 @snoopj.hachyderm.io.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2026

Happy "Charles Darwin is poorly today" Day to those who celebrate 165 years ago today, Charles Darwin was having a rough one

Photo of Charles Darwin's hand-written journal entry from 1 Oct 1861 and digitized text of same

"But I am very poorly today and very stupid and hate everybody and everything."

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2026

exclusively wearing black, purple, and/or flannel for the past 20 years means that i am essentially a guided missile pointed directly at autumn

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

[re: us pol technically] fdddrr Franklin Dark'ness Dementia Raven Roosevelt

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 29/09/2026

[us pol technically] how come us presidents have such clownshow middle names "robinette" "delano" "milhous" "birchard" "gamaliel" harry truman's was just the initial "s." grant's real first name was "hiram", "ulysses" was his middle name, and "s" was just a nickname. a nickname middle name! […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

who even says I /want/ to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality, anyway? sounds like a "you" problem

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 28/09/2026

had a vivid dream that a bunch of people were upset with me at karaoke because i chose phoebe bridgers followed by mountain goats (it was specifically "i can't wait" and "bell swamp connection", respectively) and everybody else was doing madonna/cher/abba etc and i was messing with the vibe.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 26/09/2026

they should make a piece of media where there's a child and their drawings aren't creepy and prophetic, they are just regular kid drawings and the other characters try to be complimentary but internally they are thinking "guess they can't all be winners"

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 25/09/2026

in seattle i would prep for weather by: a) choosing a different warmth/weight of hoodie to wear b) being smug that i had brought an actual snow shovel with me from wisconsin for the single day a year that mattered c) knowing which public places had a/c

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 25/09/2026

i'm sure i've said this before but it still bothers my extremely not-from-the-northeast brain that i now have to periodically "prep for a nor'easter". grizzled ship captain language.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

i normally do a duolingo lesson or two as a way to wind down before bed but there was some issue with syncing and it was just making me trace the kanji for meat (肉) over and over again for like 10 minutes straight. going file this under the category "nothing to worry about"

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 24/09/2026

"Gentlemen, imagine someone playing your puzzle game for the mobile phone. But they are playing it incorrectly. Rules so simple you can get the idea across in a sentence, but they repeatedly make elementary errors. Maybe even the same error twice. Wouldn't you be […] [Original post on jorts.horse]

don draper from mad men giving a slide presentation to some clients

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 21/09/2026

every current video game is a linear combination of features present in either: a) some flash game called "poke the possum!" that was made by a single teen in 2001 b) some triple a game called "Dustshadow: Revenant Echos" made by 200 people who were all laid off immediately after finishing […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 20/09/2026

people talk about how the apollo 11 navigation computer was 36kb or whatever but i think i would rather use that to go to the moon than, like, any piece of modern software. spinning up a react webpage to show me my navigation options and then three unskippable ads (including one for premium […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

i was telling someone that it feels good in a catharsis sort of way to write a mean blog post that then you don't publish, before realizing that i was really just describing "keeping a diary"

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

which bird has the most plaintive cry? common loon obvi a front runner but don't count out the mourning dove or, heck, even our quotidian friend the herring gull

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

still trapped in the 50s, i mention how, much as leopold bloom is a reduced to a passive observer, so too are we immersed in a bloomsian "society of the spectacle". the room doesn't know what smart bombs or cable tv is so this observation falls flat. "I guess you guys aren't ready for that yet […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 19/09/2026

"jacques, jacques! it's martin! your cousin, martin lacan! you know that new form of psychoanalysis you were looking for? well listen to THIS:" (martin holds the phone up to me anachronistically mentioning how, in attempting to fulfill my desire, i am seeking an unobtainable surplus of enjoyment […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 18/09/2026

there are certain nerd concepts that i make an effort not to remember because people take such joy in explaining them to me. e.g. minecraft redstone circuits THAC0 from d&d essentially all mechanics from guilty gear but esp. roman cancel

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 17/09/2026

letting down the side today (was asked by two people for what a discworld reading order would be and just froze for 20-30 seconds rather than responding)

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2026

RIP Annie Dillard, i am frightfully sorry that you were subjected to the ultimate punishment of all authors: you were assigned to me in school. "The mind wants the world to return its love, or its awareness; the mind wants to know all the world, and all eternity, and God. The mind’s sidekick […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

saw a "eat the rich" patch but it was kirby with a guy's arm sticking out (pinstripe suit sleeve, rings, etc.) but, while i appreciate the sentiment this would turn kirby into bourgeoisie kirby and give him class traitor powers and i don't wish that for him.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2026

oof, blog post went so poorly that it had <100 views and created -1 followers. nobody read it, but one person did and it reminded them to unsubscribe.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2026

mcorrell.medium.com/advanced-virtue… hello. here is a blog post about some recent work in data ethics in which i am more polite than usual and don't call for industrial sabotage although perhaps you can read between the lines.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026

i think it's a marker of how cool names used to be that you can go "paracelsus, what a cool name" and then remember that his real name was "theophrastus bombast von hohenheim"

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 12/09/2026

this differs from my backup plan only in that my writing would be much more boring

Screenshot of a news article reading:
"Deng Yu, the 37-year-old Chinese mathematician who won the 2026 Fields Medal, has a backup plan if artificial intelligence puts him out of a job.

On Tuesday, he wrote on social media that "if AI can solve all maths problems, I'll go home and write my yuri novel".

Deng is known to be a big fan of yuri, a genre of Japanese novels and comics that depicts intimate friendships and romantic relationships between women.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 09/09/2026

they should invent some kind of new whizbang gizmo that lights up

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 09/09/2026

[re: ai] "you claim a lot of people are getting food poisoning from our food. well, sure, the old food we made was riddled with bacteria. but have you haven't even tried the new food, which is really great. plus, a lot of those complainers are just Picky Eaters; can't argue with irrational […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 09/09/2026

[re: ai] "our new taco bell quesadilla is just too delicious! some of our employees think it's dangerous to even release it. it's lucky we have such talented chefs who think about food alignment. but we do need government regulation to stop our competitors who just aren't as moral as us, alas."

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 09/09/2026

[ai] a bit i've been rolling around in my head all morning is "what if fast food companies advertised like ai companies"

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2026

looking for a term/additional instances of the following phenomenon: a) the text of humpty dumpty doesn't explicitly describe him as an egg b) santa claus is not explicitly said to dress all in red (until the coca cola commercial era) c) the tricia lockwood "you kick miette like the football?" […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2026

had to learn about the ongoing linux-related drama from someone who is not even on mastodon. seems like a violation of the mastodon tos.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026

i think this, and then the perfidious coup of 18 brumaire in november, and then the rest is all zoom meetings.

screenshot of my apple calendar for today showing i have an all-day event labeled "pigmon's death" and nothing else.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 04/09/2026

i put this on my work calendar so i wouldn't forget. mourn ya til i join ya, good buddy.

image of heroic kaiju pigmon from ultraman lying dead amongst the rocks of tatara island. the subtitles read "september 4, 1966, Pigmon, who was popular among the girls, died.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

:goosesiren::goosesiren::goosesiren:GOOSE MAP:goosesiren::goosesiren::goosesiren: src: www.irbc.ie/notes/cackling/cackling…

Map of 11 taxa by Michael O'Keefe of Canada Geese and Cackling Geese across North America. Other than differences in size and some minor difference in bill shape, they look almost identical. Per the creator, "given the still relative lack of solid criteria for identification, this diagram really serves little purpose other than to illustrate the general trend towards larger birds to the south, smaller birds to the north and darker birds to the north west"

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

You Must Never Perform the Russell Rumba

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2026

the cha cha slide and the time warp are songs self-referentially about their own dances that also specifically describe how to do the dance in question. the twist and the monster mash are vague. la bamba is not specific but does describe the qualities that assist in doing the dance. i propose […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

having trouble writing a story? portend the arrival of inspector of dubious, but assumed total, authenticity and authority: it just works™

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

they should write more stories where somebody pretending to be the grand inspector comes to town or wherever and the mere promise of their arrival throws everything into disarray and reveals hitherto tacit disfunction and there is a big climax of disorder after which, uh oh, the real inspector […]

Original post on jorts.horse

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 02/09/2026

VOLITION [Easy: Failure]: You're full, but If you put the leftovers away, it would be less than a full serving, which would be pointless. A surrender. Instead, why don't you finish the rest? Plus, reheated risotto will never taste right. You can do this.

The Birdbassador @birdbassador.jorts.horse.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2026

🍎📅👨‍⚕️🙅