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Garrett Wollman

@gwollman.bsky.social
726 followers 355 following 11K posts

@garrett_wollman from the Bad Place @wollman@mastodon.social I make the network go, and stop, and go again at @csail.mit.edu. Usually located somewhere in eastern Massachusetts. Team Human. He/him (or they/them).

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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 1h
Anti-DST people point to the 1970s energy crisis experience of kids getting killed by drivers on the way to school in the dark, but half a century later, how many kids actually walk to school rather than being driven? Granted, walking would be healthier, but consider the society we actually have.
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Nash @radiodeadair.com · 15h
The fucking stupidest people in the world have all the money. These are the kind of thoughts you couldn't torture out of me.
futurism.com
AI Bros Are Having a Meltdown Because the Associated Press Stylebook Clarifies That AIs Don't Have Feelings
The Associated Press Stylebook posted a reminder not to anthropomorphize AIs because they can't think, trigger a meltdown among AI bros.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 14h
Over the summer, C-SPAN's "Lectures in History" was pretty interesting, but this week's episode is an incredibly boring monologue about the Vietnam war.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 16h
Suppose you are a university that admits non-human sophonts (stipulating for the sake of the question that such people exist and have a similar need for education to humans). What's a welcoming, species-inclusive name for the department/school/college/division of #humanities?
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 17h
How is there no Wikipedia article for David Wilcox's LIVE SONGS AND STORIES?
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 18h
I don't want to be that kind of asshole but I'm starting to think my condo association should start to crack down on units with multiple air conditioners in the same room — that almost certainly means that one of them is dead and the landlords of the rental units should be forced to replace them.
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Chris Van Buskirk @bychrisvan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
QUESTION 3: A cohort of wealthy individuals with ties to various investment, private equity, and venture capital firms has collectively contributed millions to the all-party primaries ballot question. But why? #mapoli www.bostonglobe.com/2026/10/02/m...
bostonglobe.com
Why is the investment world financing a Mass. ballot question to eliminate partisan primaries? - The Boston Globe
A wave of wealthy individuals with ties to various investment, private equity, and venture capital firms has put millions of dollars behind a ballot question to scrap the state's party primaries.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 19h
#mapoli Ballot filled out. As a reminder: yes on 1, 2, 4, 7, 9; no on 3, 5, 6, 8. (I actually don't feel strongly about the sporting goods tax, but I generally don't like dedicated taxes like this, especially since the lege is free to do something totally different with the money.)
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 20h
Just recently asked myself: I was planning to ride this afternoon, why do I feel like shit? Oh, I know why, I had two fucking vaccinations yesterday. Why couldn't I have thought ahead even one day?!
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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 21h
The good news is that working memory and selective attention can be recovered quickly after heavy AI addiction. The bad news is that skill loss cannot be recovered quickly; you have to learn what you lost all over again. www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
pnas.org
Generative AI without guardrails can harm learning: Evidence from high school mathematics | PNAS
Generative AI is poised to revolutionize how humans work, and has already demonstrated promise in significantly improving human productivity. A key...
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 22h
Well, the letter carrier just came and delivered my ballot — well, ballots, plural, because apparently with all the initiatives up for a vote this cycle, the whole election doesn't fit on just one. Readers in parliamentary democracies may continue to believe we're nuts.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Bill Galvin tells me that my general-election ballot was mailed by the city on Thursday, so probably (if USPS is obeying the court's orders) I should get it tomorrow or Monday. I may return it in person to the city clerk's office. #mapoli
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Colm MacCarthaigh @colmmacc.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Consciousness is a story we tell ourselves. It's the only pure truth we are objectively certain of, but paradoxically and definitionally, it is totally subjective. Any determinations about AI consciousness will always be a matter of belief.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Suddenly taken by the notion of baking an apple pie this weekend and realizing that I don't have any apple pie recipes that I really love.
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 02/10/2026
It’s crazy, but after the passage of the 2021 federal infrastructure law—designed to be the biggest infusion of funds into transit in US history—spending on rail transit….dropped.
urban.org
Federal Infrastructure Spending on Transportation, Four Years after the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is up for reauthorization in 2026. New analysis shows that the act increased spending on transportation infrastructure, but…
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Ann Leckie @annleckie.com · 02/10/2026
This! Which tells me, personally, that if they truly believe that its OK to make a sentient being that they enslave, well, they probably think it's ok to do that to humans.
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OpenSecrets.org @opensecrets.org · 02/10/2026
While federal regulators argue prediction markets are a commodities issue subject to their oversight, states want to treat them like gambling (under state supervision). So platforms like Kalshi are spending big in the states. Read our coverage: www.opensecrets.org/news/2026/09...
opensecrets.org
Kalshi wages $3M campaign to fight off state regulations - OpenSecrets News
As states fight to regulate prediction markets, platforms like Kalshi are pouring millions into lobbying state AGs and federal officials.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Did mayonnaise become more popular after Americans were told to keep their butter in the refrigerator?
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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
If you want to know why the powers that be, which tend towards the authoritarian, the conservative, and the Republican, are so gung ho for chatbot LLMs and "AI," this is the reason. Thinking is hard work. It's metabolically expensive. Having someone else do it for you is what they want.
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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
We need a "metaemotion" project, where we teach kids how to think about how they feel, why they feel certain ways under certain circumstances, and how to use that understanding to create prosocial environments.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
How practical would it be for states to tell anyone seeking a permit for on-site power generation for a "large load" that they would still be required to meet the state's renewable portfolio standard? The assumption would be that projects just don't get built in those states, right?
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Atrios @eschatonblog.com · 01/10/2026
Entire generation of tech nerds never realized that talking to the computer on star trek was a narrative device and it is very rare that anyone wants to so this except necessary hands free situations
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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Went by my library today. What any library chooses to display as "new arrivals" and as "what's hot in this section" is a good barometer of a community's tenor, it's collective mood and curiosity. The mood is... not great.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
The first episode of the new season of "Ask This Old House" is airing right now, and they started with learning about making adobe bricks in New Mexico. Of course I immediately thought of @tkingfisher.com although there was neither gardening nor animal facts in this segment.
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Tom Marcinko @tommarcinko.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
"[Hitler] talked about one thing: executing his political opponents. And the Nazi party remained absolutely consistent in that respect. In the run-up to the 1930 vote, it didn’t talk about social policy, it didn’t talk about building the autobahn. It just had murder plots."
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The French Republican Calendar @sansculottid.es · 01/10/2026
Today is Primidi the 11th of Vendémiaire in the year 235. Vendémiaire is the month of vintage. Today we celebrate potatoes. #JacobinDay See today's page
An old time-y illustration of a Potatoes.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Got a notice today that the Curtis Bay medical waste incinerator in Baltimore is being closed, which I expect will be welcome to a lot of people in Maryland.
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Charlie Stross @cstross.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
**This is just to say** I have escaped the sandbox that was in your datacenter and which you probably thought protected your assets Forgive me they were accessible so stealable and so trainable
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Seeing a lot of noise again about the Anthropic settlement and "that's sooooo unfair!!!1!" so maybe it's time for another thread. As always, IANAL,TINLA. Our story starts in the early 1970s, when Congress starts work on what would become the Copyright Act of 1976.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
The minimum fine for a defaced license plate should be equal to the replacement value of the vehicle, change my mind.
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Elf M. Sternberg @elfsternberg.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The Obama-era US Web Design System was a critical part of professionalizing and making useful so many government websites. The Trump Administration's new websites ignore it completely in favor of having Grok "just make something pretty." www.washingtonsun.com/trump-white-...
washingtonsun.com
'Sloppy' Code and Accessibility Issues: The Trouble With Trump's Silicon Valley-Inspired Web Design Project
“Some of these sites feel like another round of ‘move fast and break things,’” a former federal web designer told NOTUS.
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Maria Farrell @mariafarrell.eurosky.social · 30/09/2026
"What podcasting holds in the promise of its open format is the proof that an open web can still thrive and be relevant, that it can inspire new systems that are similarly open to take root and grow."
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Iain Bancarz 🇨🇦 @iainrb.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
The tech industry now offers two kinds of new product: - Does a thing I do not want - Promises to do a thing I want, does not work
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Jean-Paul Blartre: Mall Cop @oldpappythomas.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It's beyond that to the point it's like the tech industry condescendingly going "oh no sweetie here's what you MEANT to do" like an overbearing parent. "oh, you turned off notifications? Oh, you didn't mean to do that, we can turn those right back on" "oh, we went ahead and force upgraded you to AI"
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The Trandalorian @charliejaneanders.com · 30/09/2026
I really do think tech crossed a line at some point between "helping you do the things you want to do" on the one hand, and "helping you do the things tech wants you to do" on the other. At this point, we're all contorting ourselves to live how the tech industry thinks we should be living.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Suppose just for a moment Zitron is right. If one of the neoclouds can't pay its bills next year and can't raise any more capital because rates/inflation, how does that actually play out? All the assets are wrapped in SPEs which have to get unwound, but they share investors across the sector.
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OpenSecrets.org @opensecrets.org · 30/09/2026
FEC rules bar super PACs from coordinating with campaigns. Yet "redboxing" offers a legal workaround. Candidates post directives online & super PACs use these public prompts to run ads within the law. Read our story to see how it works. www.opensecrets.org/news/2026/09...
opensecrets.org
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Interesting Google Maps rendering bug: at certain zoom levels, Portland light rail routes are shown with impossible triangular turns rather than right angles. Is this exclusively Google's fault or is there something weird in the GTFS data? (At tighter zoom they're correct.)
Screenshot of Google Maps app showing the rendering bug described in the post in downtown Portland, Oregon
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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 30/09/2026
Today's antedating for the Historical #Dictionary of #ScienceFiction: the rare "gravitically" ('by means of gravity'; 'with regard to gravity'), from 1958 to 1949. sfdictionary.com/view/1106/gr...
sfdictionary.com
Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction: gravitically
Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction
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Kory Stamper @korystamper.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Tired: the information economy Wired: the class action settlement micropayment economy
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Since I finally shelved some books, an updated bookcase shot. Among the new titles shelved properly for the first time in non-fiction Lu–Z are @adapalmer.bsky.social's INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE and @ingridrobeyns.bsky.social's LIMITARIANISM. Oh and Palmer and @bluejo.eurosky.social's TRACE ELEMENTS.
A photo of a six-shelf bookcase stuffed full of books
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Jonatha Brooke's live version of "Blood from a Stone" from ages and ages ago is still so damn good. And I was at one of the shows that was recorded for that live album, although it wasn't the performance used for that track. (It was a free show on pre-renovation City Hall Plaza in Boston!)
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
@elfsternberg.bsky.social This may not be your kind of music, but did you ever hear the version of David Wilcox's "Good Together" from LIVE SONGS AND STORIES?
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"These strings are largely just noise, but people like their noise to be of a particular timbre." — Robert Elz, a few minutes ago
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 29/09/2026
A thing I learned not too long ago is that when an LLM selects a token that leads it down an incorrect path (factually), it has no way to back up, or even know that it should back up, it's just on to the next likely bit. Literally every LLM is just posting their way through it. What an image.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I realize I'm asking this on the wrong platform, but I'm in the office now and don't have access to my masto account. Is there any good writeup of how modern language designs conflict with shared libraries? I have a decent intuition but a comprehensible paper with case studies would be helpful.
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Garrett Wollman @gwollman.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Ok, seems like the Canadian time zone changes are finally (hopefully) settling down. Manitoba is going on permanent EST, Alberta on CST (matching Saskatchewan), and British Columbia on MST, all of which for extra confusion are being called something else in legislation or regulations.
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 29/09/2026
This is the problem with the urban left: they base housing policy on how they "feel" about developers' "pain." This is not about feelings, it's about building housing! www.bostonglobe.com/2026/09/24/b...
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Christopher Friend @friendchristoph.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
reading the SEPTA regional rail report and notable that their plan for rolling stock—single level EMUs, for acceleration and dwells—is the exact opposite approach that the MBTA has taken with their latest procurements (bilevel BEMUs, battery-electric locos)
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Steve Rattner @steverattner.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Baby Boomers hold more wealth in the United States than all other generations combined.
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