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Paul Ford

@ftrain.bsky.social
26K followers 2K following 1.3K posts

Aboard.com and Ftrain.com. Not steadily here. If you need me: ford@ftrain.com.

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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 28/09/2026
“There is a lot of malnutrition going on in these raccoons due to a diet that is very, very high in tortilla chips,” said Nessie O’Neil, a raccoon biologist and lead author of the study. —https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/science/raccoons-toys-cozumel-mexico-research.html
nytimes.com
On This Mexican Island, Raccoons Make and Play With Toys (and Also Sip Margaritas)
Scientists observed a family of pygmy raccoons near a Cozumel beach club learning from one another how to craft balls from paper, an indication that the animals have a culture.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 26/09/2026
whatever is going on inside large language models I no longer want to know about it
Claude output: I found the causes: the hand job's visibility was flickering based on momentary input backlog, and stored items weren't persisting on reload, while the wagon never retired because cheap old buildings always beat newer ones on output-per-dollar. Now I'll check what the test asserts about hiding before changing the logic.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 25/09/2026
@jolivingstone.bsky.social is such a spectacular writer. I read half of this and realized I wanted to save it for later and start over really pay attention to it. feeld.co/magazine/ple...
feeld.co
Contemptus Mundi by Jo Livingstone
The writer Jo Livingstone on self-repression and the cell.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 24/09/2026
Just a heads up if this applies to you, Rick Wakeman from Yes is playing piano for 150 rescued Vietnamese moon bears www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Rick Wakeman performs piano concert to 150 rescued moon bears in Vietnam
Former Yes musician plays at sanctuary to raise awareness of animals that remain stuck in cages at ‘bile farms’
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Reposted by Paul Ford
Tim Carmody @tcarmody.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It’s our time friends
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Reposted by Paul Ford
Aram Zucker-Scharff @chronotope.aramzs.xyz · 23/09/2026
Yes! Build a website today! aramzs.github.io/build-a-webs...
aramzs.github.io
Single Serving, Portfolio, and Blog Sites; Fast
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 23/09/2026
I’m muting “polls” on here because I am tired of the Pavlovian humiliation of hope that occurs whenever I see blue dots.
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Reposted by Paul Ford
nolen @itseieio.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I built this for Rhizome's 30th anniversary! It's on display this week in NYC! See websiteswebsiteswebsites.net for some more details :)
websiteswebsiteswebsites.net
WEBSITES WEBSITES WEBSITES!
A group exhibition celebrating the website as an artistic medium. Armory Week, New York City, September 21–27, 2026. Presented by ARTXCODE and Rhizome.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 20/09/2026
I’ve been trying to read more local news from not-for-profit newsrooms (also LGBTQIA+ and black-owned newsrooms) so I’ve been vibing away at a site that aggregates them. Just sharing it out idly in case folks want anything like this. givemesomegood.news
givemesomegood.news
Give Me Some Good News
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 19/09/2026
people constantly confuse being smart with being right and it’s killing us all
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 19/09/2026
Every now and then I just really want to not get off the train at my stop, which is about twenty seconds from where I am now, but instead stay on until Coney Island and sit on a bench and watch a family dance to bluetooth while the ocean comes across in scalloped glimmers.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 17/09/2026
Unsolicited recommendation: The @beta.nyc Civic Tech newsletter is a really good news roundup—if you live here and work around the sector you definitely want to look into it. www.beta.nyc/category/new...
beta.nyc
Newsletter - BetaNYC
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 16/09/2026
hey I heard you like sankey diagrams that show huge populations making terrible decisions
A very complicated Sankey diagram showing the usage of electricity in the United States. Or the left are sources of energy and on the right are consumers, so, for example, nuclear is on the left and residential is on the right. Petroleum dominates.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 16/09/2026
R train late night trifecta: guy going home with a double bass, guy on here with a whole CitiBike, and someone pulled the emergency brake.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 15/09/2026
if I had this I could finish so many songs www.roland.com/global/produ...
roland.com
Roland - GO:KEYS 3 Minion | Music Creation Keyboard
GO:KEYS 3 Minion: Music Creation Keyboard - Start Your Musical Journey with the Minions
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 12/09/2026
Huh. I've been thinking about what makes great software for a while. medium.com/message/the-...
medium.com
The Great Works of Software
Is it possible to propose a software canon? To enumerate great works of software that are deeply influential—that changed the nature of the code that followed? Canons emerge over time, as certain …
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 12/09/2026
I feel like I am constantly inventing new ways to convince my kids to do the laundry, eat lunch, or leave the house, endless variations on the same things like some sort of stochastic parent.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 12/09/2026
You know the Milgram experiment where people hit a button and heard people screaming in the other room but they kept doing it because they felt they had to? That’s actually how posting works on here.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 12/09/2026
Everyone else is worried about the AI apocalypse but I’ve been hearing about that for 30 years and I can’t get very worked up any more. For me the question is: If these things can code (and they can!) then why aren’t we seeing any great software? www.nytimes.com/2026/09/12/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | A.I. Was Supposed to Give Us New Killer Apps. What Happened? (Gift Article)
Just because A.I. is revolutionizing coding, doesn’t mean it will automatically revolutionize our apps.
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Reposted by Paul Ford
Ryan Godfrey @ryangodfrey.com · 11/09/2026
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 11/09/2026
looks like the singularity is here folks
A terminal transcript from Claude Code. It reads:

Ran 1 shell command

Monitor event: "Wait for the in-flight crawl, then take the final dump"
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 11/09/2026
I wish David Bowie was alive to narrate this moment back to us. I just think he'd have it nailed.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 11/09/2026
On the bright side, if the robots kill us all, it means that your sworn enemies are in for it too.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 09/09/2026
I vibed up a weird music screensaver a month ago, but I kept thinking, “What if it was an imaginary failed 90s arranger keyboard called the Stellate that generated music in 500 genres?” So this is an imaginary web port of that. It's a mess, but I keep laughing at it. Exports to Ableton. stellate.app
stellate.app
Stellate
Infinite remixable music in many genres for free.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 08/09/2026
The Library Innovation Lab at Harvard University: “Binoc is a command-line tool and library that, given two snapshots of a dataset, efficiently summarizes the differences between the two snapshots in a human-readable changelog.” lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2026/07...
lil.law.harvard.edu
Binoc: A Field Guide | Library Innovation Lab
The Library Innovation Lab is growing knowledge and community by bringing library principles to technological frontiers.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 05/09/2026
Bluesky provides a mobile web view that runs great on my four-year-old phone and never pushes me to download an app. That is special and appreciated and I hope it continues.
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Reposted by Paul Ford
Maureen Flaherty @maureenflaherty.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Feel free to message me: the vibes at this are so delightful and friendly and I learn a lot from nice people and meet more neighbors.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 05/09/2026
If you’re a Flatbush-area mutual aid type, this self-organizing distro happens every Friday at 5PM across the street from Kings Theatre. If you want to help show up and hand out food or clothes, or just donate via Venmo. Or cook!
FLATBUSH FOOD and
CLOTHING
DISTRIBUTION
Every Friday 5 - 6 p.m.
Outside 1024 Flatbush Ave 
Join us for free hot meals, drinks, clothing, toys, hygiene products, and more! Feel free to bring stuff to share!
DONATE: @Flatbush-Neighbors on VenmoDISTRIBUCIÓN DE
COMIDA Y ROPA EN
FLATBUSH

Cada viernes desde 5 a 6 de la tarde
Afuera de 1024 Flatbush Ave ¡Únete a nosotres para comida caliente preparada, bebidas, ropita, juguetes, productos higiénicos y más! ¡También siempre se aceptan donaciones
para compartir con otros!

DONAR:
@Flatbush-Neighbors Venmo
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 04/09/2026
We're doing an event September 15 with the brilliant Julia Stoyanovich of NYU, who is trying to get all these bots under control. NYC, free, snacks! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julia_S... luma.com/aboard-qmfz
luma.com
Who’s Responsible for AI? A conversation with Julia Stoyanovich and Paul Ford · Luma
Join Aboard for a conversation with Dr. Julia Stoyanovich, NYU professor and director of the Center for Responsible AI, about what it means to build and use AI…
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 03/09/2026
A neat project at work: We built an archive for Lapham's Quarterly as part of its (gradual, ongoing) relaunch—full access if you subscribe. It's been nice to see and read it again. Ping if you find bugs. archive.laphamsquarterly.org (they relaunched temporarily at laphamsquarterly.substack.com).
A PDF viewer showing the cover of Lapham's Quarterly with a trading vessel, and a Greco-Roman sculpture on the next page. Tons of issues above, typical web nav. It's supposed to be a very accessible site but it's tricky working with PDFs so we did the best we could.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 03/09/2026
I firmly believe all online discourse reduces to this Perry Bible Fellowship comic. pbfcomics.com/comics/weeab...
Cartoon. 

Man standing at a chart: If we waste anymore time on "weeaboo," we'll be bankrupt by the end of the
month! 

Random other guy: Did someone
just say "Weeaboo?" (Now holding a paddle.) Cause I think I just heard Someone say "Weeaboo"

Now and crowd is lined up with paddles chanting “WEE-A-BOO! WEE-A-BOO!” And the original speaker is tied to a pipe with his pants down about to get smacked.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 02/09/2026
The humans do this ceremony where they enter a dark room and are forced to account to some sort of priest for their past transgressions, and every time they speak they must eat a poison meat that causes them incredible pain. That is how I think an alien would see Hot Ones.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 28/08/2026
Not seeing much mention in the discourse of Hard Candy Christmas, a modern holiday classic. youtu.be/bvK1F6bUrzU?...
youtu.be
Dolly Parton - Hard Candy Christmas
YouTube video by CharmedHourHauntedSong25
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 14/08/2026
“Contentbeheerder” is much better job title than “Content Manager.” Once again the Dutch have beat us at words. To anglophone ears it's got a mix of: Herding things; buzzing bees; and comically-mispronounced beheading (“if you miss your deadline I will beherd you”) which makes it accurate.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 14/08/2026
I'm at work emailing people who downloaded a white paper, in order to introduce our company. I'm working through a tranche of publishers so I keep going to their websites and then end up buying books. I'm basically doing marketing backwards.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 12/08/2026
Wrote meta about Meta in the Aboard newsletter aboard.com/the-shapeshi...
aboard.com
The shapeshifter’s little brother
On Mark Zuckerberg’s AI manifesto—aka nine blog posts in a trenchcoat.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 08/08/2026
worst chili peppers album ever
A small gas station named “Mobilubrication”
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 06/08/2026
Person inventing the bread slicer: “This is superb. This is the best thing since...I actually can't think of anything else.” Toaster creator: “You absolute AMATEUR.”
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Reposted by Paul Ford
Shannon Mattern @shannonmattern.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
"In 2022, Wiley removed over 1,300 ebooks from academic library collections; [they said] perpetual access is not an option for subscribed content. In 2025, Clarivate,... announced they would stop offering libraries perpetual access licenses for ebooks and primary-source digital collections."
arl.org
Consumers Are Worried About the Loss of Physical Media Ownership. Libraries Are Leading the Conversation. — Association of Research Libraries
Sally Sax is head, Collection Strategy and Partnerships, MacOdrum Library, Carleton University. In a recent Atlantic Monthly article about Sony’s plan to end physical sales of PlayStation console game...
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 05/08/2026
In our workplace newsletter I was permitted to write about how the new AI, LLM, might be a trojan horse filled with the old AI, RDF triplestores. aboard.com/triple-threat/
aboard.com
Triple Threat: Has the new AI made the old AI relevant again?
Semantic Web friends, we did it.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 05/08/2026
Museum/library/metadata peeps—we're doing an “AI Comes to the Museum” event at our office in NYC August 18—nice folks and snacks, all talking about: The cultural commons, approaching things carefully, projects that work, things to watch out for, subjects of that nature. luma.com/aboard-77hq
luma.com
AI comes to the museum · Luma
Join Aboard for a conversation with Hélène Alonso of WonderWay, Spencer Kiser of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Danny Reynolds of the Museum of Modern Art…
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Reposted by Paul Ford
Anil Dash @anildash.com · 05/08/2026
So, I am writing a post about "why Bending Spoons picking up Airtable is everything bad in tech right now" — which questions do you want to make sure I answer in the piece?
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 03/08/2026
oh gas town didn't work you say yegge.ai/essays/the-s...
yegge.ai
The Shape of Things to Come, Part 1: The Continuous Thunderdome — Steve Yegge
Part 1: The Continuous Thunderdome. Loops and graphs, Wheelhouse and Beads, the end of human code review, the Land Rush that replaces CI/CD, and the Wish Factory — a field report from 12 months in the...
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 03/08/2026
I kicked over a hornet’s nest today and can confirm that expression is spot on.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 02/08/2026
Queens Night Market!
People in the grass at night with food stalls behind
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 31/07/2026
“I actually like it.” —Spencer Tweedy on Stellate. spencertweedy.com (I cannot currently figure out how to make the monkey stop shrieking.)
spencertweedy.com
Spencer Tweedy's Blog
Hi! I play drums.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 29/07/2026
I've done a lot of dumb programming in my life but I'm proud to say that stellate.app might be the dumbest.
stellate.app
STELLATE — draw a path through genre space
A generative music instrument. Draw a path across a star map of 274 genres and hear the music of wherever you are — rendered live in your browser, deterministic from a seed. By Paul Ford at Aboard.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 23/07/2026
It’s only on Thursdays, when I warm up at home before walking to my piano teacher‘s apartment for a lesson, when I realize just how badly I’ve been lying to myself all week.
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Paul Ford @ftrain.com · 23/07/2026
Despite how it sounds, superfluous is actually the worst kind of fluous.
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Reposted by Paul Ford
Robert Stribley @stribs.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
I’ve been helping with this project and it really hammers home the ongoing oppression this administration is still enacting across the country. It’s brutal and unrelenting. We can’t turn away.
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