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Petter Häggholm

@haggholm.bsky.social
281 followers 81 following 1.8K posts

C₈H₁₀N₄O₂ → code Swedish/Canadian. Opinionated. Curmudgeonly hermit.

PostsRepliesMedia
Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
These OpenAI hacks remind me that 'people must still be held responsible for autonomous agents that are not *moral* agents' is not a new idea. See: the fucking *Bible*, Ex 21:28–29…and I’m pretty sure they borrowed it from or based it on other ANE law codes.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Lobelia Sackville-Baggins is one of my favourite minor LotR characters. From Wodehousian auntagonist to redemption with her testamentary charity, she's a surprisingly rich portrait in such few words and a female LotR character with some depth.
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
A rich person can never be held accountable. Therefore, a rich person must never make a societal decision
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I could actually feel a little bad for Ed Sheeran in the first few moments. I could understand wanting to stay publically…not neutral, but silent. I *enjoy* the luxury of not having my opinions scrutinised by the world and risk massive backlash and even serious threats. Insignificance has upsides.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I think I’m the only person I’m aware of who regularly footnotes¹ their messages in Slack and on social media. ¹ Thus.² ² Obviously, setting up a Compose Key to easily type ¹, ², ³, &c.—or for that matter ₄, ₅, ₆, or ⅓—makes it easier.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Once told this joke to some coworkers as we were heading back from lunch, though I may not have mentioned Discworld, just the joke itself. When I finished the bit about carefully torturing small kings, one of them asked me if it was true. Only time I can recall *actually* doubling up laughing.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
It would be very funny if the toxic tech bro problem were solved by 2,400-year-old means from the classics/humanities: Lysistrata-method Palantir’s workforce out of existence. I’m not saying that’s a realistic hope, but it’s at least entertaining to imagine Aristophanes vs. Alex Karp.
wired.com
Why No One Wants to Date Tech Bros
Once seen as nerdy but harmless innovators, men in tech are now widely regarded as red pilled Elon Musk wannabes. It’s made getting laid a whole lot harder.
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Taniel @taniel.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Tens of thousands of voter registrations have gone unprocessed in Texas. Affecting large areas deeply. If you’re in Texas, check your registration is up to date and accurate ASAP. www.texastribune.org/2026/09/22/t...
texastribune.org
DPS voter registration applications weren’t sent to counties
Counties will start receiving a surge of applications less than two weeks before the Oct. 5 registration deadline, adding work at one of the busiest points in the election calendar.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I want Bluesky to be the platform where I keep a lid on the worst of my anger and snarky retorts, but constant existential dread and a lack of other outlets keep tripping me up. I know my mental health would improve if I spent more time and energy on my life offline, but I don’t have one.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Only now realised I assumed that Tsushima meant something like ‘harbour island’, though that analysis may just be a coincidence; but hearing an American drop the leading T and pronounce it Sushima (‘distance to a kind of seafood’?) was plain weird.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Everything the pro-Trump billionaire Ellison family will now own: Paramount+ CBS CNN Showtime HBO Warner Bros TNT TBS MTV DC Studios Nickelodeon Comedy Central And more... With this comes the power to decide which stories get told, but more importantly, which stories DON'T get told. Shameful.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The only things I hate more than putting my dog through the ordeal of my clumsily injecting his arthritis medication are (a) unnecessarily putting him through the stress of a vet visit and (b) watching his discomfort on walks when it's wearing off. (Once every few weeks; shows when he's due.)
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
With 45 days until the midterms, I urge you all to: 1) Help get out the vote. 2) Protect our electoral machinery from interference. 3) Not succumb to complacency, defeatism, or cynicism. We are the only ones who can end this nightmare. We are the leaders we’ve been waiting for.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Sometimes I have an idea that I think *might* be good, but could also be (a) stupid or (b) reinventing the wheel, only square. And I'm the wrong person to have the idea, and I don't have anyone to bounce it off. This is my possibly bad idea for a distributed co-op journalism platform.
github.com
throwaway-platform-brainstorm/README.md at main · haggholm/throwaway-platform-brainstorm
Contribute to haggholm/throwaway-platform-brainstorm development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The 400 richest Americans are now worth a record $8 trillion. The entire bottom 50% of American households is worth just $4.27 trillion. Read that back. Remember: Wealth can’t be separated from power. Power begets wealth and wealth begets power.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
If there's a nuclear/AI apocalypse in our near future, it’ll be a stupid one for stupid reasons, not because the computers launch the missiles directly. Launch systems being inaccessible to AIs is, therefore, at best very partial protection. Human hands act out digital paranoia.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
When a character in visual media has been petrified by just turning to stone and turns back with the outer layer flaking off, they'll have lost their skin, their corneas...
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Thor Benson @thorbenson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Democratic strategists: Ahhh! What's the right message!!?? Where do we moderate!?!? Jon Ossoff: This administration is horrible. I hate these people. We should put them in jail. I'm pissed Voters: This guy is cool Strategists: I can't figure it out!!!!!
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Chris Ingraham @cingraham.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
"Careful - don't want to get on the 80 side of an 80-20 issue"
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Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 13/09/2026
Here is AOC and Mamdani laughing at the solemn 9/11 commemoration. Oh wait…
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Greg Egan @gregegansf.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
While the Fields Medal celebrates the under-40s, the mathematician Joan Birman has, at the age of 99, solved a major open problem in representations of the Braid groups, a topic she has worked on for more than 60 years.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I'm sure I'm not the first to note that Trump's truthful slogan would be "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for me as the boss of the country", but it weighs on my mind some evenings.
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Ezra Levin ❌👑 @ezralevin.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Fun fact: in our polling of battleground states, about 60% of voters said it is a “top” or “high” priority for Congress to investigate and hold Musk accountable. Lean into it Dems. He’s a cartoon villain - treat him like one.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Very funny to me that his Norwegian(?!) thinks there’s a language called “Scandinavian”. In Swedish, ‘spiserør’ would…not be a possible word, though you could do ‘spisrör’. That would not mean “esophagus”, though, but “stove pipe”. Roligt.
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Ron Filipkowski @ronfilipkowski.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
This is what Trump did on 9/11.
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#BruceSterling @bruces.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
*It'll be especially strange and different to have orbital high-bandwidth AI available pole-to-pole, and under that, a formerly-natural world that's been torn to pieces *GrayZones and Involuntary Parks, but very heavily surveilled and monitored by platforms and models
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I’m kind of annoyed that nobody mentions the very reasonable defence of the Mercator projection: it has genuine advantages for navigation. I think this is a good change! We don’t have 16th c. navigator constraints. But the Mercator projection isn’t evil, just optimised for an obsolete purpose.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Henges are named for Stonehenge, which isn't strictly a true henge. The Bayeux Tapestry is not a tapestry, which has its pattern woven into the fabric, but rather a giant piece of embroidery. It took the English a while to figure out how to properly name their cultural achievements.
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Robert Evans (the Only Robert Evans) @iwriteok.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
the best thing a new administration could do to cut Big Tech down to size is offer a bounty and immunity to employees who provide evidence of crimes committed by their bosses.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Just saw the White House arcade website. Wow. Trump is not satisfied with stealing all the money from the bottom 99% of Americans by wealth and the public space right down to the wall studs, but every last shred of the country’s dignity, as well.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
It’s weird that capitalisation can be performatively fascistic (or as they might say, ‘performatively Fascistic’); and yet here we are: the internet is full of people typing like they only just learned what a capital letter is but not yet what it’s for, all as a form of vice signalling.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
After Trump gutted the IRS workforce — including the unit tasked with auditing billionaires — the agency's annual audit revenue plunged by 35%. Trump's attacks on the IRS were never about "efficiency." They were about making it easier for the wealthy and powerful to skirt what they owe.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
I’m always rather pleased when I find myself naturally reaching for a word I rarely use. Today may be the first time that “propinquitously” seemed like the natural choice.
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
In January 2025, DOGE cut funding for USAID's Project SERVIR-Hindu Kush Himalaya, which identified and monitored landslide and climate disaster hotspots in Nepal. Now a Himalayan glacier landslide has killed over 1,200 in Nepal.
cnn.com
The Trump administration cut funds for natural hazards monitoring in Nepal | CNN
In January 2025, the Trump administration cut off funding for a program to identify and monitor landslide hotspots in Ne
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Mike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
BLS this morning, with revised 2Q data: "The labor share, which is the percentage of output that accrues to workers in the form of compensation, was 52.8 percent in the second quarter of 2026, the lowest level in the series, which begins in the first quarter of 1947."
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Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Never forget this: The forces rigging our economy, undermining our democracy, polluting our planet, and stoking hatred are counting on you to give up. Cynicism is how they win. Stay clear-eyed and ready for the fight ahead.
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Matt Novak @paleofuture.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
This is pretty fucking wild. I had assumed in a worst case scenario he would target blue zip codes and toss ballots based on technicalities but this is even worse than I imagined.
Not only is this system astonishingly untested, USPS has simultaneously implemented an
impracticable zero percent failure rate.
13 When ballots are submitted to USPS in large-volume
batches, if any one ballot in the batch cannot be verified against the Portal, all ballots in that
batch will be rejected. For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to
USPS and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the Portal – because, for
example, someone has recently changed their name after marriage or they’ve moved – then
USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,999 ballots as well. As the whistleblower notes,
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Forbes @forbes.com · 31/08/2026
The court will hear oral arguments as part of a dispute over whether fossil fuel companies can be held liable for their role in exacerbating climate change.
forbes.com
Samuel Alito Holds More Than $175,000 In Fossil Fuel Investments Ahead Of Hearing Exxon Case, Disclosure Shows
The court will hear oral arguments as part of a dispute over whether fossil fuel companies can be held liable for their role in exacerbating climate change.
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Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
There’s lots of empty land in and near Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster, and for that matter at the very spacious estates of the tech oligarchs and the nice campuses of the tech companies. Those seem like easy places to put data centers.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
In a time travel story, the inventor can’t possibly do anything they would know about, because no such thing happened on the timeline that led to the invention: there’s no way into the time loop.
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
It's like a parody, but it's deadly serious; the Commerce Department (which includes Census, NOAA, and others) has outright deleted "don't alter or suppress scientific findings for political reasons" from its scientific integrity rules. Seriously.
Protecting against "inappropriate influence" is no longer a "hallmark" of scientific integrity

The Commerce Department updated its policy for promoting a "culture of scientific integrity" in January 2025, days before Trump's second inauguration.

A new Trump administration order bans the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Economic Analysis from using statistical “noise,” or data for fuzzing survey results, to protect people’s privacy in their statistics.

The 2025 version included bans on attempts to shape or interfere in data collection, statistical analysis and other scientific activities "against well-accepted scientific methods and theories or without scientific justification."

The department's policy, the 2025 version said, involves ensuring scientific findings at its agencies "are not suppressed, delayed, or altered for political purposes and are not subjected to inappropriate influence," as well as making sure there's "independent review of facilities, methodologies, and other scientific activities as appropriate to ensure scientific integrity."

That language is missing, however, in the Trump administration's revision of the policy, according to an NPR analysis of text posted on the Commerce Department's website.

And while the revision adopts a definition for "scientific integrity" that is similar to the previous version, it no longer says that "protection from inappropriate influence" is among the "hallmarks of scientific integrity."
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SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID-19) @covid19disease.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
🚨 BREAKTHROUGH: After 40 years of research, Brazilian scientist Dr. Mariangela Hungria wins the World Food Prize for pioneering a $2 nitrogen-fixing bacteria treatment that replaces costly fertilizers, saves farmers $25 billion annually, and cuts 230 million tons of CO₂ emissions.
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
I think story first, worldbuilding only to flesh it out along the way is fundamentally wrong. If you go on a trip to Australia, you want to see kangaroos, not cows. You don't travel around the world to see something you can see at home. Likewise also fantasy worlds.
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Serge Egelman @v0max.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
It would be hilarious if they did this while citing the fact that the US government used Comey's Instagram post of sea shells as evidence of a violent threat.
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Rachel Maddow @maddow.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
newrepublic.com/post/214770/...
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The Joy of Tech @joyoftech.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Meta's Celebration www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/jo...
A 4-panel Joy of Tech comic showing Meta, Instagram, Threads, the Thumbs Up icon, and Facebook personified as party-going characters celebrating the child harm lawsuit settlement.

Panel 1: The characters wear party hats and hold champagne, celebrating. Meta says “Woohoo! We settled the child harm case!”  Instagram says “And all it cost us was the thing we have the most of… money!” The Thumbs Up adds “I love that it was just a slap on my wrist.”

Panel 2: Meta: “We have to pay 17 billion, so that’ll only cost us about ten days of profit annually!”
Instagram: “Even less! Our stock jumped almost 14 billion in value on news of the settlement!”
Threads: “LOL! So the punishment made us richer!”

Panel 3: A banner behind them reads “We won the child harm case.” 

Facebook: “But you know what’s even better than getting richer? They are forcing us to do age verification.”
Threads: “Omg! Birthdates! Government IDs! Face scans!”

Panel 4: Meta: “So to prove they’re a kid, we get to collect even more of their data!”
Facebook: “This is fantastic! Who can we harm next?”
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I think I struggle with the debate about trans women in sports because, on one hand, I’m not a raving bigot, but on the other hand I simply cannot understand why people take sports so seriously as to get so worked up about exclusion. (I mean this literally; I’m not saying they *shouldn’t* care.)
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Petter Häggholm @haggholm.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Not-even-quarter-baked thought re. the Meta settlement: I think the harm is real but that age gates &c. are also very harmful. I wonder if it would be possible, in principle (not necessarily US reality…) to simply legislate against toxic engagement optimisation. Default chronological by law…
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marina grlica 🌱 @dovesplants.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
see you space cowboy tim curry
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