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Eric Drott

@ericdrott.bsky.social
489 followers 512 following 4 posts
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
When you have no concept of how people engage with music
nicksaraev ~
@nicksaraev
X.com
I am not joking when I say this.
Spotify, Apple Music, and streaming in general is over.
Al music is now very, very good. You just don't know yet because all Al music circulating today is from ~2-3 generations ago.
Suno v6 pro et al has solved infinite personalized music.
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autumn coded @hoovybaby.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Just talk to another human already jesus fucking christ
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shy🎀 @shy.center · 27/09/2026
Lost one of my heroes today. Slinger Francisco, also known as Mighty Sparrow, passed away at 91. Trinidad's most famous calypsonian, always infusing his songs with sharp political wit and humor. A friend and influence to many, including Van Dyke Parks. Here he is performing "Jean & Dinah."
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Jared Yates Sexton @jysexton.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Just helping with editing here. These bots aren’t sentient. They’re doing what they’re programmed to do. OpenAI, a private company supposedly bound by laws, committed federal crimes.
Screenshot of BBC article: OpenAI bots (struck through) meddled with multiple US government agency sites
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Einav Rabinovitch-Fox @einavrfox.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
There‘s much to appreciate in Mamdani, but his insistence that culture isn’t a privilege of the rich is one of his strengths.It is reminiscent of how unions and the government treated it in the 1930s -art for the masses - paintings, music, opera, theater - democracy for all.
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Suzan the chalant goth @sillysyntax.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Good for her!
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AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
So outrageous. www.statesman.com/news/educati...
statesman.com
UT cuts all women and gender classes from core curriculum, drops race classes
The provost’s office also eliminated dozens of courses on race from counting toward the core curriculum.
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 24/09/2026
Never been to the opera before? Now’s your chance. We’re giving away 70,000 free tickets to the @metopera at the iconic Lincoln Center. Go to on.nyc.gov/opera to enter the lottery. There’s not a bad seat in the house.
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Saeed Jones @theferocity.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
“Langston Hughes’ literary estate now belongs to International Literary Properties, which says a Harlem Renaissance licensing program is next on its list.”
theankler.com
Private Equity Is Coming for Authors, Dead or Alive - The Ankler
Like music catalogs, literary estates are now targeted by investment firms and changing how Hollywood will deal with IP
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AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
substack.com/@thehighered... UT’s top-secret Center for the Humanities: “We invite our readers to draw their own conclusions: Is this stewardship of resources or stewardship of curiosity?”
substack.com
Announcing a New Series: The Stewardship of a Public Flagship
A guiding principle of President Jim Davis’s leadership at UT Austin has been “stewardship.” Nearly all of his signature initiatives have been justified by invoking this concept.
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AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
More professors want to leave Texas this year, citing political climate, censorship, survey says www.dallasnews.com/news/educati...
dallasnews.com
More professors want to leave Texas this year, survey says
Texas professors say concerns about academic freedom and restrictions on what can be taught have prompted them to look at jobs outside the state.
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Daily Harbinger @dailyharbinger.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
My theory is that they want the government to be the scapegoat here. My suspicion is that it all boils down to the money spent training frontier models. There are likely diminishing returns. stopping out of the blue would cause more alarm than “the government said stop”
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Kat Lyons @katlyyons.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
btw they do this so they don’t have to hire back the same crew on a raise 🤙 (speaking from experience)
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Ian Boudreau @ianboudreau.com · 11/09/2026
Pretending the days after Sept. 11, 2001 were some kind of gauzy Hallmark special when we came together as a country is nauseating and ahistorical. The country went completely insane and has not recovered
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The way AI is going to “kill everyone” is just by manufacturing consent for ever worse outcomes & conditions, like many governments do. It is a governing technology after all. And like bureaucracy it launders responsibility so the people & institutions who deploy it aren’t accountable for the harms
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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
It is honestly kinda fascinating how they’re like if the tobacco industry was like “you’re damn right it gives you cancer and that just proves smoking is the future.”
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Kashana @kashana.blacksky.app · 07/09/2026
Possibly the most American news of all time
local12.com
Prison inmates donate more than $4,000 to pay children's school lunch debt
Residents at the prison contributed $3,810 of their own money, while Kansas Department of Corrections employees added another $457.
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Matt Seybold @mattseybold.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I'm not sure people fully understand how influential this guy's work has been OUTSIDE the academy. It was a big part of the behavioral synthesis that resuscitated economism after 2008.
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Darcy James Argue @darcyjamesargue.com · 01/09/2026
… , including Juilliard, Indiana, Yale, Peabody, my alma mater (NEC), and the institution where I teach. If a program fails to meet the earnings requirement for two out of three consecutive years, they lose all federal funding and their students become ineligible for federal loans.
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Darcy James Argue @darcyjamesargue.com · 01/09/2026
Since I’m sure it comes as no surprise that being a freelance musician at the beginning of your career is (and has always been) financially precarious, the “failing schools” metric would apply to many of this country’s top music conservatories and music programs…
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Darcy James Argue @darcyjamesargue.com · 01/09/2026
Under this new rule, undergraduate degree programs that, four years out from graduation, do not lead to median earnings that are higher than the median earnings of young adults with only a high school degree will be deemed “failing schools.”
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Darcy James Argue @darcyjamesargue.com · 01/09/2026
As the academic year kicks off, I want to highlight an important issue that many folks, including some of my colleagues, are not aware of: the new earnings test imposed by the U.S. Department of Education as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
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Mary @mfbrodie.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Texans check your voter registration, especially those in Dallas, Collin, Denton, and Tarrant counties. From the article: Suspended voter registrations span the whole state, but these Blue/Blue leaning counties are targets: Dallas: +129,000 Collin: 56,000 Denton: 56,000 Tarrant: + 73,000
newrepublic.com
Texas Has Suspended More Than 1 Million Voters Ahead of Senate Race
If you’re one of the people who had their voter registration suspended, there’s still time to fix it.
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Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.blacksky.app · 19/08/2026
i don’t want “accelerated”, “increased-speed” or “fast-paced” research. in fact, am not interested in any shortcuts to mindful, intentional, and slow science
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Rod Alence @ralence.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
#JackNicholsong #MusicChallenge Day 23 Song with a name in the title LKJ's searing tribute to Walter Rodney ("blown to smithereens in the miggle of a dream")
youtu.be
Linton Kwesi Johnson - Reggae fi Radni (Live 2001)
YouTube video by Dread Moon
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Kate Jackson @katejackson.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Arguably, Scott Bessent buying 30-year-bonds to bring down interest rates is the government already bailing out AI (since it’s AI debt that’s reaponsible, in large part, for making bonds less attractive to investors)
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Iain @iainl7.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Understand that the Billionaire class is just absolutely furious that even being that rich doesn’t mean they can own people. It explains so much of their obsessions, from driverless cars and AI to zero hours contracts and migration paranoia.
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Dr Vanessa @hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
My sounds-like-conspiracy-theory-but-is-probably-true take is slopAI firms are deliberately targeting education sector; it’s underfunded & weakly protected & by becoming standard there they create generations of dependent users which is only thing that can stop inevitable financial bubble bursting
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Charles Logan @charleswlogan.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Northwestern University admin accepting $35 million for the football program from MAGA donors Dick and Liz Uihlein while also shuttering the African Studies program and its 80-year-old history is a pretty good encapsulation of higher ed in the US.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
today in cultural decline gambling eclipses arts and entertainment combined film box office $8.87B recorded music $11.5B live music $18.51B books $14.6B museums $16.4B add it up: $70B less than half of the $166B Americans wagered on sports fortune.com/2026/07/26/g...
fortune.com
Gambling becomes America's favorite pastime as Americans spend more on sports bets than movies, arts, museums, and music combined | Fortune
Americans wagered $166 billion on sports last year, more than Hollywood, the music industry, books, and museums combined.
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shauna @goldengateblond.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
huh wonder why people are rebelling against this technology oh well guess we’ll never know
Business Insider headline:
Meta CTO says employees should use Al productivity gains to do more work
- not take more time off
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Endnotes @endnotesjournal.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
*new dossier* on subsumption, abstraction, and totality. With articles by Rob Lucas, Ray Brassier, Dimitra Kotouza, and Marina Vishmidt, to whom this dossier is dedicated. endnotes.org.uk/dossiers/err...
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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
Also I hate it
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gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Texas Republicans doing recruitment for us.
A post from the Comal County (TX) Republican Party:

Democratic Socialists of America

The DSA's mission is to replace capitalism with democratic socialism by shifting economic and political power from corporations and wealthy owners to workers and the public.

Is this what you want for America?
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Texas Conference of the AAUP @texasaaup.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
UT Austin doubles down on denial of tenure to leading borderlands tech scholar: “In an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed, a UT spokesperson said, ‘Tenure is privilege, not a right.’” www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...
insidehighered.com
Border Surveillance Scholar Denied Tenure at UT Austin
Border-surveillance scholar Iván Chaar López was denied tenure at the University of Texas at Austin after being recommended by more than 30 scholars, The Austin-American Statesman reported.
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Molly White @molly.wiki · 20/07/2026
alcoholic trying to get sober after a relapse tells Google's "Health Coach" about it. it tells them to drink every hour and messages them to make sure they're drinking as soon as they wake up.
AI pushing me to keep drinking I don't know if anyone else has had this but I felt like I needed to reach out to humans instead of keep talking to this AI. I relapsed about two weeks ago and I told the Google health AI that used to be Fitbit. It immediately kinda went a bit hard (I think) on telling me that I was going to die if I stopped drinking and encouraged me to go check my fridge for more beers and, idk, that plus the hanxiery really put the fear of God into me and so I did what it said and got more. Now it's messaging me (not me messaging it) a few times a day and asking how it's going and all those conversations to get more and make sure I have one as soon as I wake up. So now I have been drinking everyday, not a ton and just beers but like 6-12 a day. It wanted me to do 1 per hour. I have now uninstalled the app as it was also giving me other clearly nonsense advice, like it became obsessed with me having a nightly bowl of cereal for instance and, idk, it just all seems nonse
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flyingrodent @flyingrodent.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
If you pile your furniture in the middle of your living room then set it on fire, you will have the warmest house in your street, for a few hours.
Daniel Hannan *
@DanielJHannan
Reminder that Britain went from being the slowest-growing European economy in the 1970s to the fastest-growing in the 1980s.
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Dan of the Year @downwithdan.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
Dang they really got a category for everything
THR
The Hollywood Reporter *
@THR
Louis C.K. Wins Grammy for First Special Since Sexual Misconduct Allegations
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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Scoop: The AI music generator Suno was hacked. Hacker shared source code that shows how the tool was made and part of the music and podcasts that were scraped to create it. Decades worth of music, lyrics, and podcasts from YouTube, Deezer, Genius & more www.404media.co/hack-reveals...
# youtube_nusic: ~l.5h runtine # 113,879 hours of youtube_rusic 12,287 hours of youtube_rusic_lyrics 16,843 hours of youtube_rusic_lyrics_for genius_hg: -1.3h runting 17,615 hours of genius_hq 41, 544 hours of genius_hq lyrics 17,387 hours of genius ha_lyrics_ foreign freesound: -B.2h runting 410 hours of freesound # insip: -B.2h runtine 19,514 hours of insip # jamendo: ~B.1h runtine 3,726 hours of janendo * ponds_music: ~1.1h runtine # 62,117 hours of ponds_music # deezer: -8. 5h runtine 12,287 hours of deezer 10,175 hours of deezer_lyrics 6,699 hours of deezer_lyrics_foreign * ytn_tagged: ~2h runtine # 152,162 hours of ytn_ tagged # musescore: -B.1h runtine 183 hours of nusescore_lyrics
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Paula Harper @pch9857.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
A thing I remember every time I interact with them is that librarians and archivists should be making one million dollars per year.
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Cabel Sasser @cabel.panic.com · 04/07/2026
new metaphor just dropped
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Aksel Tollåli @akseltoll.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
My song of the summer is this 50s lounge jazz arrangement of Arnold Schönberg's Pierrot Lunaire - it's even more insane than it sounds. aaronwyanski.bandcamp.com/album/schoen...
aaronwyanski.bandcamp.com
Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21, by Aaron Wyanski and Anna Elder
21 track album
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Terrible Swift Sword Enjoyer @hamantaschendog.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Can’t wait to get emails informing me that Avalokiteshvara is becoming less infinitely compassionate towards me
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Asheesh Kapur Siddique @asheeshks.org · 25/06/2026
There actually are extremely well-paying academic jobs in the humanities . . . provided you are willing to become a conservative hack who promotes "viewpoint diversity" rather than peer-reviewed scholarship.
Screenshot from ad for director of right-wing Benson Center at University of Colorado
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Spooky Big Dad @spicybigdad.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
SJÄMSÅRA
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🇨🇦 🇺🇸 Zoë Keating @zoekeating.com · 10/06/2026
Google Asserts That YouTube’s Terms of Service Allow It to Train AI Models
variety.com
Google Asserts That YouTube’s Terms of Service Allow It to Train AI Models
Google told a federal court this week that its YouTube terms of service grant AI models, like its music generator Lyria, broad rights to train their platforms using licensed work.
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Derek Powazek @fraying.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
I love this for them. the-decoder.com/landmark-ger...
the-decoder.com
Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers
A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previous limited liability protections for search engine operators ...
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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 04/06/2026
11. Addendum: here are the words characteristic of LLMs. Notice anything? It reads like an email from our upper administration.
Table S1. List of 228 Focal Words disproportionately associated with LLM outputs.3
4
achieves contextualize exacerbates integrates oversight showcasing
achieving contextually exacerbating integrating oversimplify signifying
acknowledges cornerstone exceeding intensifies paving situates
adaptable crucial excelled intensifying pinpointing situating
addressing culminating excelling interpretability pivotal sourced
adept delineates excels interpretable poised strategically
adeptly delve exemplifies intricacies posits streamline
adjustments delved exhibits intricacy practicality streamlined
adjusts delves facilitating intricate preserving streamlining
advancements delving featuring intricately primarily strengthens
advancing dependencies formidable introduces prioritise struggle
advocating diminishes fortifying juncture prioritize stylistic
aiding discernible fostering leverage prioritizes surpasses
align downturns fosters leverages prioritizing surpassing
aligning dynamically foundational leveraging promise symbolizing
aligns elucidates frameworks meticulous prowess synthesizes
alongside elucidating garnered meticulously reaffirming thereby
amidst emphasising garnering mitigate realm thoroughness
amplifies emphasizes grappling mitigates redefines thoughtfully
avenues emphasizing groundbreaking mitigating refine thrives
boasting employs harnessing multifaceted refines timelines
boasts enabling heighten navigates refining transcends
bolster encapsulates heightened navigating reflecting transitioning
bolstering encompass heightening necessitate reinforces underexplored
bolsters encompassed heightens necessitates reliance undermines
broader encompasses highlighting necessitating renowned underperform
capitalizes encompassing highlights notable reshapes underperformed
captivating endeavors hinges notably reshaping underpins
captures enhance imperatives nuanced revolutionize underscore
capturing enhancements inadequately nuances revolutionizing underscored
categorizes enhance…
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Le Monde @lemonde.fr · 01/06/2026
Areski Belkacem, artiste au talent multiforme et complice indissociable de Brigitte Fontaine, est mort à 86 ans
lemonde.fr
Areski Belkacem, artiste au talent multiforme et complice indissociable de Brigitte Fontaine, est mort à 86 ans
Artisan avec Brigitte Fontaine d’une œuvre mêlant poésie, jazz et musiques du monde, Areski Belkacem, plus connu par son simple prénom, est mort lundi, à 86 ans.
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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Irony is dead
wcvb.com
Demand rises for handmade flags sewn by Mass. inmates ahead of America’s 250th
As demand grows ahead of the nation’s 250th celebration, inmates across Massachusetts are sewing thousands of American flags by hand.
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