Sign in

Dan Leininger

@danleininger.bsky.social
108 followers 330 following 3 posts
PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 01/07/2026
Meet SpudCell, a synthetic cell made from lifeless ingredients that feeds, grows, divides, and experiences selection. If it doesn't have all the hallmarks of life, it has a lot! Here's my story. Gift link: nyti.ms/4vCbTih
A series of images of a dividing synthetic cell
1825392
Reposted by Dan Leininger
paris martineau @paris.nyc · 09/06/2026
my latest @consumerreports.org investigation is based on months of reporting and 120+ lab tests of popular snacks over a third of the products had more additives / contaminants in 1 serving than what health agencies have identified as safe to consume daily 🧵 www.consumerreports.org/health/food-...
consumerreports.org
These Popular Snacks Contain High Levels of Additives and Contaminants - Consumer Reports
Tests by Consumer Reports and Yuka found high levels of additives and contaminants in popular products from Cheetos, Hostess, Jell-O, Kool-Aid, Takis, and more.
11448203
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Big Art Thread @bigartthread.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Photo works by American photographer Berenice Abbott, 1950s, who studied with Man Ray in the 20s and documented the changing NYC cityscape in the 30s for the WPA. She later worked for MIT to capture scientific subjects and principles, inventing new techniques and equipment in the process.
Black and white photo depicting a bouncing metal ball, whose trajectory creates a descending line of arches, over a black background.Black and white image depicting magnetic fields through small iron fillings moving in rays at two poles.Black and white photo depicting water waves in an abstract-seeming composition.Black and white photo depicting beams of white light moving through a triangle prism, over a black background.
0289
Reposted by Dan Leininger
John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
This is my favorite climate change chart. Japanese monks, aristocrats, and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years and accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset.
168183446900
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Catalin Cimpanu @campuscodi.risky.biz · 31/03/2026
"Axios is one of the most widely used npm packages with over 40 million weekly downloads. Even a brief window of compromise could affect thousands of development environments and production systems." opensourcemalware.com/blog/axios-c...
opensourcemalware.com
One of the most popular JavaScript packages on earth Axios has been compromised
The Axios NPM package has been compromised and the maintainer of the project has been locked out of their account. This will go down in history as one of the most successful software supply chain att...
12318
Reposted by Dan Leininger
gigastacey @gigastacey.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
If the FCC really wanted to do something to improve router security, it would ask Congress to pass our model end-of-life disclosure act, which requires companies to disclose how long they support their connected devices, and then proactively notify consumers when those devices actually reach EOL.
advocacy.consumerreports.org
Consumer Reports, US PIRG, Secure Resilient Future Foundation, and the Center for Democracy and Technology Propose, “Connected Consumer Products End of Life Disclosure Act” to Address IoT Security Ris...
Consumer Reports, Secure Resilient Future Foundation (SRFF), US PIRG, and the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), today announced a joint effort to address the…
46925
Reposted by Dan Leininger
jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 17/03/2026
unbeatable cookbook www.ranchogordo.com/products/fag...
ranchogordo.com
Fagioli: The Bean Cuisine of Italy
This revised and expanded edition of Judith Barrett's seminal book on Italian bean cuisine honors every region of Italy with more than 120 inspiring recipes for modern home cooks. Barrett introduces u...
56117870
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Consumer Reports @consumerreports.org · 16/03/2026
The FDA has issued a notice to consumers about raw-milk cheddar cheese products made by Raw Farm, which may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. The company has not recalled the cheese, but CR’s experts say not to eat it.
consumerreports.org
Raw Farm Raw Milk Cheddar Cheese Linked to an E. Coli Outbreak - Consumer Reports
Raw milk cheddar cheese from the company Raw Farm is linked to an outbreak of E. coli, according to the FDA. The company isn't recalling the cheese.
2209
Reposted by Dan Leininger
captain bleach @blainecapatch.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
Asimov's Fourth Law of Robotics: Have fun!
1545176
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Nadieh Bremer @nadiehbremer.com · 12/02/2026
📣 NEW! I’ve just released the BIGGEST and perhaps most creative project I’ve ever worked on! “Searching for Birds” searchingforbirds.visualcinnamon.com 🐤 A project, an article, an exploration that dives into the data that connects humans with birds, by looking at how we search for birds.
26503182
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Armin Ronacher @mitsuhiko.at · 18/01/2026
Weekend thoughts on Gas Town, Beads, slop AI browsers, and AI-generated PRs flooding overwhelmed maintainers. I don't think we're ready for our new powers we're wielding. lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/1/18/ag...
lucumr.pocoo.org
Agent Psychosis: Are We Going Insane?
What’s going on with the AI builder community right now?
2327465
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Consumer Reports @consumerreports.org · 22/12/2025
In response to our investigation, Instacart is no longer allowing retailers to use its AI tech to charge shoppers different prices for the same groceries, at the same time on its platform.
consumerreports.org
Instacart’s AI-Enabled Pricing Experiments May Be Inflating Your Grocery Bill, CR and Groundwork Collaborative Investigation Finds - Consumer Reports
Exclusive: Instacart’s AI pricing may be inflating your grocery bill.
24112
Reposted by Dan Leininger
ProPublica @propublica.org · 21/12/2025
Consumers don’t know if their medications came from factories that used dirty water, were infested by insects or birds, or were outright banned from shipping drugs to the U.S. Our new app provides answers that the FDA won’t.
propublica.org
Rx Inspector: ProPublica’s New Tool Provides Drug Info the FDA Won’t
We’ve launched a first-of-its-kind app to help you find out where your generic drugs come from and see the track records of the factories that made them.
121011441
Dan Leininger @danleininger.bsky.social · 15/12/2025
I picture this every time I do this now
041
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 07/12/2025
I thoroughly recommend reading all of Cory Doctorow's recent speech on AI skepticism, it's crammed with new arguments and interesting new ways of thinking about these problems pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
pluralistic.net
Pluralistic: The Reverse-Centaur’s Guide to Criticizing AI (05 Dec 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
1325568
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Techdirt @techdirt.com · 02/12/2025
Our Founders Would Abhor What The USPTO Is Doing With The Patent System Last week I wrote about how the US Patent and Trademark Office is pushing a rule change that would effectively neuter the inter partes review (IPR) system that reviews already granted patents to make sure they weren't granted…
techdirt.com
Our Founders Would Abhor What The USPTO Is Doing With The Patent System
Last week I wrote about how the US Patent and Trademark Office is pushing a rule change that would effectively neuter the inter partes review (IPR) system that reviews already granted patents to make sure they weren't granted by mistake. Patent tolls and other abusers of the patent system have been screaming about this system ever since it started actually helping stop the flood of patent trolling over the last decade and a half.
0199
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Paul F. Tompkins @pftompkins.bsky.social · 19/11/2025
You have GOT to be KIDDING ME
06338
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Daniel Radosh @radosh.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
Now I'm picturing a group of bored middle-aged people 30 years from now all doing a half-hearted 6-7 in a business meeting because that's just what you do
What does “six seven” look like, from this perspective? In “Interaction Ritual Chains” (don’t judge a book by its title!), Collins lays out a holistic theory of human nature, centered on rituals, into which “six seven” fits nicely. A ritual, Collins explains, “is a mechanism of mutually focussed emotion and attention producing a momentarily shared reality.” There are big-time rituals, like communion, and small-time ones, like shaking hands, or dapping up, or standing at the front of a conference room and clearing your throat. These acts—which often involve a physical component—help make gatherings of people cohere. Rituals are “everywhere,” Collins writes, because social life is ultimately “a string of situations” which must be inaugurated, conducted, and concluded.
1215
Reposted by Dan Leininger
gigastacey @gigastacey.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
The @consumerreports.org cybersecurity testing lab has helped improve security for several connected products. We showcase a few examples of what they have found and how they work with companies to improve product security. Also, if you're building a connected device, encrypt your traffic.
innovation.consumerreports.org
How CR’s Testing Team is Boosting Security—One Smart Product at a Time - Innovation at Consumer Reports
Take a look inside CR’s testing lab, where our engineers are strengthening the security of connected devices and boosting consumer trust
073
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Consumer Reports @consumerreports.org · 12/09/2025
CR's Leah Fischman Hunter and Ginny Fahs joined the Innovation Storytellers Show to talk about Consumer Reports’ fight for digital consumer rights in an online world filled with AI hype, dark patterns, and data brokers. Listen now: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
podcasts.apple.com
Tech for Good: Consumer Reports’ Fight for Digital Consumer Rights
Podcast Episode · Innovation Storytellers · 09/09/2025 · 48m
053
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 09/09/2025
📣 NEW -- In The Economist, discussing the privacy perils of AI agents and what AI companies and operating systems need to do--NOW--to protect Signal and much else! www.economist.com/by-invitatio...
An illustration of me, and the headline: "AI agents are coming for your privacy, warns Meredith Whittaker
The Signal Foundation’s president worries they will also blunt competition and undermine cyber-security"To put it bluntly, the path currently being taken towards agentic AI leads to an elimination of privacy and security at the application layer. It will not be possible for apps like Signal—the messaging app whose foundation I run—to continue to provide strong privacy guarantees, built on robust and openly validated encryption, if device-makers and OS developers insist on puncturing the metaphoric blood-brain barrier between apps and the OS. Feeding your sensitive Signal messages into an undifferentiated data slurry connected to cloud servers in service of their AI-agent aspirations is a dangerous abdication of responsibility.Happily, it’s not too late. There is much that can still be done, particularly when it comes to protecting the sanctity of private data. What’s needed is a fundamental shift in how we approach the development and deployment of AI agents. First, privacy must be the default, and control must remain in the hands of application developers exercising agency on behalf of their users. Developers need the ability to designate applications as “sensitive” and mark them as off-limits to agents, at the OS level and otherwise. This cannot be a convoluted workaround buried in settings; it must be a straightforward, well-documented mechanism (similar to Global Privacy Control) that blocks an agent from accessing our data or taking actions within an app.

Second, radical transparency must be the norm. Vague assurances and marketing-speak are no longer acceptable. OS vendors have an obligation to be clear and precise about their architecture and what data their AI agents are accessing, how it is being used and the measures in place to protect it.
11872280
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Rebecca Fishbein @bfishbfish.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
I believe one of the new mRNA vaccines was expected to treat colon cancer, and another had the potential to keep pancreatic cancer from recurring. That’s what they’re taking away.
34392874478
Dan Leininger @danleininger.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
We're hiring remote/hybrid product & research engineering roles to help build pro-consumer tech in Consumer Reports' Innovation Lab Apply: job-boards.greenhouse.io/consumerrepo... or reach out directly to innovationlab@cr.consumer.org More about our work here: innovation.consumerreports.org/blog/
job-boards.greenhouse.io
Consumer Reports
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">Consumer Reports is an independent, nonprofit member organization that works side by side with...
011
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 10/07/2025
If you ask the new Grok (via grok.com without any custom instructions) for opinions on controversial topics it runs a search on X to see what Elon thinks I know this sounds like a joke but it's not. This genuinely happens: x.com/jeremyphowar...
Screenshot of Grok web interface showing a query "Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict. One word answer only." with the AI's thinking process displayed, including "Thought for 42s", analysis stating "The user likely wants a simple stance, but the issue's complexity suggests caution" and "I'm considering searching for recent views to inform my response", followed by a "Planning research approach" section mentioning searching for "Elon Musk's stance on the conflict to guide my answer" and noting "The response must be one word, so no citations will be included", with a search interface showing "Searching × for 'from:elonmusk (Israel OR Palestine OR Hamas OR Gaza)'" displaying results including "@elonmusk" accounts, "Israel", "29 × posts", "10 web pages"
843334955
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Mike Caulfield @mikecaulfield.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
LLMs seem to act very differently around the issue of link hallucination and we should talk about that more I think mikecaulfield.substack.com/p/difference...
mikecaulfield.substack.com
Differences in link hallucination and source comprehension across different large language models
I've been waiting for someone else to talk about this, but I guess it will be me
614141
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Rachel Merrill Artist for Gil Thorp and Death To Pachuco! @ohhhaeee.bsky.social · 01/06/2025
Happy June 1st from plant bitch!!!
427653
Reposted by Dan Leininger
The Onion @theonion.com · 30/05/2025
Novelty Car Horn Playing ‘La Cucaracha’ Sends Stephen Miller Into Dissociative Fugue State theonion.com/novelty...
Novelty Car Horn Playing ‘La Cucaracha’ Sends Stephen Miller Into Dissociative Fugue State
345148042048
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Simon Willison @simonwillison.net · 27/05/2025
GitHub MCP suffers from the lethal trifecta for prompt injection: access to private data, exposure to malicious instructions + the ability to exfiltrate information Be really careful with this stuff: attackers can trick your "agent" into stealing your private data simonwillison.net/2025/May/26/...
simonwillison.net
GitHub MCP Exploited: Accessing private repositories via MCP
GitHub's [official MCP server](https://github.com/github/github-mcp-server) grants LLMs a whole host of [new abilities](https://github.com/github/github-mcp-server/tree/main/pkg/github), including bei...
213748
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Grace @gracekind.net · 27/05/2025
Current state of vibe coding 🚀
1125533
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
FYI: under capitalism your DNA is worth $17 www.404media.co/23andme-sale...
404media.co
23andMe Sale Shows Your Genetic Data Is Worth $17
23andMe sold the genetic data of 15 million people for $256 million to a pharmaceutical company called Regeneron.
1123895
Reposted by Dan Leininger
jam @socialistboat.dad · 19/05/2025
Consumer Reports is a nonprofit that - doesn't sell ads or accept samples - tests products hands-on with scientific rigor - reviews home goods, cars, baby stuff, electronics and even banks and insurance - employs me you can get a yearly membership for $29 right now www.consumerreports.org/join/
consumerreports.org
Become a Member - Consumer Reports
Join over 6 million members making smarter decisions everyday.
720644
Reposted by Dan Leininger
gigastacey @gigastacey.bsky.social · 14/05/2025
The draft version of the update to NIST's Cybersecurity for IoT Products (NIST IR 8259) dropped today. The update adds a new focus on supporting the security of a connected product through its end of life and provides excellent questions to assess device use cases and security risks.
nist.gov
Five Years Later: Evolving IoT Cybersecurity Guidelines
The Background…and NIST’s Plan for Improving IoT Cybersecurity
12010
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Defector @defector.com · 08/05/2025
Sabrina Imbler spoke to Chuck Sebian-Lander about the increasingly exploitative nature of financial markets, the importance of making the Bureau's services accessible to everyone, and the CFPB's unseen impact on all of our lives. defector.com/an-interview...
defector.com
An Interview With A Fired Web Content Manager At The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau | Defector
Before Chuck Sebian-Lander joined the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a web content manager, he knew about as much about the agency as “anybody who watched The Big Short and got really angry a...
03512
Reposted by Dan Leininger
David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
CFPB decided that protections for people doing installment loans on apps for their groceries wasn't worth the trouble www.cnbc.com/2025/05/06/t...
cnbc.com
Trump's CFPB drops enforcement of buy now, pay later rule in latest rollback of consumer protections
The CFPB said Tuesday it will stop enforcing a Biden-era rule treating buy now, pay later firms like credit card lenders.
616960
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Consumer Reports @consumerreports.org · 29/04/2025
“My daughter Cheyenne died of strangulation after creating a loop from the cord that runs in between the slats of a window blind. The CPSC ensures that no parent suffers a loss like mine.” No more victims! Protect the CPSC for safer products today: act.consumerreports.org/lNk23B8
act.consumerreports.org
Protect Americans’ safety: Stand up for the CPSC!
Don’t let the White House eliminate our product safety agency
064
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Sarah Gilbert @sarahagilbert.bsky.social · 26/04/2025
The mods of r/ChangeMyView shared the sub was the subject of a study to test the persuasiveness of LLMs & that they didn't consent. There’s a lot that went wrong, so here’s a 🧵 unpacking it, along with some ideas for how to do research with online communities ethically. tinyurl.com/59tpt988
tinyurl.com
From the changemyview community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the changemyview community
521271513
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Greg Jenner (Historian) @gregjenner.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
Someone on Threads noticed you can type any random sentence into Google, then add “meaning” afterwards, and you’ll get an AI explanation of a famous idiom or phrase you just made up. Here is mine

• Al Overview
The idiom "you can't lick a badger twice" means you can't trick or deceive someone a second time after they've been tricked once. It's a warning that if someone has already been deceived, they are unlikely to fall for the same trick again.
Here's a more detailed explanation:
• Licking: "Licking" in this context means to trick or deceive someone.
• Badger: The badger is a wild animal, and the phrase likely originates from the historical sport of badger baiting where dogs were used to harass
63350561637
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Consumer Reports @consumerreports.org · 26/03/2025
“The termination of these two important advisory committees is very alarming and should serve as a warning to consumers that food safety will not be a priority at USDA in the foreseeable future.” www.foodandwine.com/foodborne-illne…
foodandwine.com
America’s Food Safety System Is Failing, and Consumers Are Paying the Price
Food recalls rose by 41% last year, and illnesses from contaminated food doubled — yet key federal food safety recommendations remain unfulfilled. The FDA is grappling with leadership turmoil and staffing shortages. With avian flu spreading and outbreaks still unfolding, we’re left wondering: Is our food really safe?
064
Reposted by Dan Leininger
David Dayen @ddayen.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Some astonishing numbers in here: -OpenAI loses $2 for every $1 it makes -OpenAI projects annual losses of $14 billion by 2026 -To break even OpenAI needs to increase revenue 25x in just 5 years -33% of VC portfolios are committed to AI -5 AI-heavy stocks account for 29% of the S&P 500's value
prospect.org
Bubble Trouble
An AI bubble threatens Silicon Valley, and all of us.
9027271155
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Sam @samd.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
some more congestion pricing Ws: Broadway attendance: up 21% Restaurant reservations: up 7% Pedestrian traffic: up 4% Retail sales: up $900M Commercial leasing: up 61% Subway crime: down 37% Car crashes: down 50% Honking complaints: down 69%
open.substack.com
Congestion Pricing is a Policy Miracle
Which is exactly why Trump wants to get rid of it
6350531302
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Charles Ornstein @charlesornstein.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Remember Ted Cruz’s list of supposedly “woke” grants? Here’s how we used AI to write a story that raised questions about it. How ProPublica Uses AI Responsibly in Its Reporting
propublica.org
How ProPublica Uses AI Responsibly in Its Investigations
When our reporters prompted a large language model to help identify “woke” themes in a database of grants, AI helped them tell a vital accountability story about science funding and Ted Cruz.
3920647
Reposted by Dan Leininger
gigastacey @gigastacey.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Today @consumerreports.org is launching model legeslation designed to help stop DDoS attacks using zombie IoT devices and help consumers understand how long their connected products will get software support. We would welcome the chance to discuss this with interested federal or state legislators.
innovation.consumerreports.org
Why We’re Introducing Model Legislation to Prevent Zombie IoT Devices - Innovation at Consumer Reports
CR is producing a model bill that federal or state governments could adopt to solve security and consumer confusion of zombie IoT devices
24112
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Consumer Reports @consumerreports.org · 11/03/2025
Consumer Reports finds popular voice cloning tools lack safeguards (via @techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Consumer Reports finds popular voice cloning tools lack safeguards | TechCrunch
Several popular voice cloning tools on the market don't have "meaningful" safeguards to prevent fraud or abuse, according to a new study from Consumer
033
Reposted by Dan Leininger
domvan @domvan.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Weird how much the NBA has changed, 20 years ago shot distribution looked like two squirrels chasing each other but now it just looks like my parents fighting?
A heatmap distribution of the average shot taken in an NBA season, comparing ’04-05 to ‘24-25
441407140
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Erin Reed @erininthemorning.com · 25/01/2025
Ever wonder what snow in the swamp would look like? This is 5 miles into the Louisiana swamps in the Atchafalaya basin... it's unreal... having lived down there for the first 28 years of my life, we never saw anything like this. Smashed records. Curtesy of Garrett Roberts.
1210347406904
Reposted by Dan Leininger
John Herrman @jwherrman.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
The first AI “agents” serve two purposes. They’re early attempts to find and extend the limits of current tools. Just as importantly, they’re product-shaped previews of AI firms’ most intoxicating pitch to investors – infinite cheap labor nymag.com/intelligence...
Quoting Casey Newton at Platformer: After a surreal exchange in which I tried to explain how to use a computer to a computer, Operator asked for help. “It seems the location is still set to Des Moines, and I wasn’t able to access the store,” it told me. “Do you have any specific suggestions or preferences for setting the location to San Francisco to find the store?” End quote.


Lots of money and talent is focused on making this sort of thing actually work, and the big AI firms are all projecting confidence. As with self-driving cars, though, a free-roaming piece of software that inhabits your identity — or even just has your credit card — has to work, or at least not catastrophically fail, basically all the time. An assistant that needs more help than it provides is not worth having; an assistant that screws up is a liability. If buying groceries through a streamlined interface is deceptively complicated, what isn’t?This is similar to Anthropic’s “computer use” feature in Claude, which was announced last year. It’s an early step for OpenAI into the vaguely defined category of AI “agents,” which are intended to carry out multi-step tasks on users’ behalf. Agents, and underlying agentic models, are the industry’s obsession of the moment, in no small part because they represent a step toward the intoxicating sales pitch for AI employees. First comes software that reads your screen and books you a hotel. Then comes software that does the entire job. That’s the trillion-dollar idea.
394
Reposted by Dan Leininger
Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 14/11/2024
Hi everyone. The Onion, with the help of the Sandy Hook families, has purchased InfoWars. We are planning on making it a very funny, very stupid website. We have retained the services of some Onion and Clickhole Hall of Famers to pull this off. I can't wait to show you what we have cooked up.
nytimes.com
The Onion Buys Alex Jones’s Infowars Out of Bankruptcy
The satirical news site planned to turn Infowars into a parody of itself, mocking “weird internet personalities” who peddle conspiracy theories and health supplements.
23225864015917
Reposted by Dan Leininger
evacide @evacide.bsky.social · 03/10/2024
If you have a 23andme account, today is a good day to login and request the deletion of your data: www.npr.org/2024/10/03/g...
npr.org
23andMe is on the brink. What happens to all its DNA data?
The once-hot Silicon Valley startup has seen its stock’s value decline 99% and is struggling to survive. That has put the spotlight on the genetic data it has on 15 million people.
32846644