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Jeff Waugh

@jeffwaugh.bsky.social
86 followers 32 following 157 posts

I build castles* in the sky* made of fairy floss*. 😎⛅️

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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 18h
Strange times make for strange bedfellows. Potential minor precedent on fair use and LLM training in an action brought by… Thomson Reuters. 😬 Strongest voice of moral clarity about big tech and LLMs… the Pope. 😬 Calmly dismantling Tucker Carlson's… well, Tucker Carlson… Jacob Rees-Mogg. 😬
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
“Luca Guadagnino Has Made the Real Sequel to ‘The Social Network’” variety.com/2026/film/re...
variety.com
‘Artificial’ Review: Luca Guadagnino Has Made the Real Sequel to ‘The Social Network’ — a Brain-Spinning Tech-Geek Docudrama, Brilliantly Acted by Andrew Garfield and Yura Borisov
Luca Gaudagnino has made the real sequel to "The Social Network," confronting the cathartically topical question: If we don't control AI, who will?
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
This is an all-too-common misinterpretation of dissent. "It's not as fantastic as it seems" does not mean "It is completely useless". The nuance is hard to hear inside an argument warped to extremes.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
And to bring us around, here's AP, describing very clearly why we should be careful about the language we use when we talk about "artificial intelligence". x.com/APStylebook/...
x.com
APStylebook (@APStylebook) on X
Artificial intelligence systems do not think, feel, want or understand. Avoid language that gives them human characteristics. This is called anthropomorphizing, when we ascribe human traits, emotions or behaviors to non-human things, such as animals or inanimate objects. Instead, explain what a sys…
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
But in spite of all the purported inevitability, the ever-present industry dipshits, and the vacuum of political leadership, I think we're doing okay right now… Growing cultural skepticism. Anger about externalities. Near-universal disgust among creators. Kids think it's dogshit. "Slop." (cont'd)
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Imitative generative techniques exploit our humanity to make us believe they are something they are not. Clear and accurate language can help us think about these things in a healthy way, and defend against misinformation and obfuscation. But yeah, language scolds won't achieve that! (cont'd)
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Anthropomorphising is part of our humanity. When we name (and gender!) a ship, it's a form of respect and endearment. There's no threat or risk. It's a fiction, but it's not false. It's safe to think your dog has the soul of an English professor. These don't enter the uncanny valley. (cont'd)
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Steve's comparison highlights a failure mode when we focus on language: it's easy be consumed by the low-effort "activism" of language policing. When that takes over, it's unlikely or unusual that we're still effectively communicating the ideas behind it. This happens in… so many cases. 😬 (cont'd)
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
This comparison is unfair. But it is funny. Stallman quibbled about attribution and precision, having lost control of a brand. But this convo is about systems that gain trust by exploiting our empathy. How we talk and think about them has psychological and cultural ramifications… (cont'd)
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Regulating how it's built is a feel-good nothing-burger. Regulate how it's used. With gusto. And make it crystal clear that operators will be held legally responsible for the actions of their agents. With gusto. A conga line needs a disincentive at the head and the tail.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
“It doesn’t imitate writing!” [crowd cheers] “It makes decisions!” [crowd boos]
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Etymology is frequently delightful, and deeply human. 🥰 Faced with an astonishingly versatile and hardy tuber from the New World, the French took one look and said, "ground apple", and almost everyone else agreed. Not the Spanish, who stole it in the first place. Or the English, who admire theft.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Arguments can be tiring. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpQl...
youtube.com
Argument Clinic | Monty Python (Official Sketch)
YouTube video by Monty Python
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Once I got to the end, I felt like you'd skipped where passing structs fits into your mental map…
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
or, say, reading it verbatim for a video or podcast…
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
c'mon buddy it pretty much started in the wrong hands www.bbc.com/news/article...
bbc.com
King Charles warns of 'existential danger' of AI falling into wrong hands
The comments were made at a summit in Ayrshire with participants from AI giants including Nvidia, OpenAI and Anthropic.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
yay!
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Fascist-aligned operating system projects will never receive attention from the most powerful limited resource in Linux and open source: trans catgirls.
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steve o’grady @sogrady.org · 11/09/2026
a sportswriter's take on your p/doom available options
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Terence Tao @teorth.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
A group of 25 Fields Medalists, including myself, have made a joint declaration on Math and AI: mathandai.org . We welcome additional signatories. See also this article in the Economist announcing the declaration: www.economist.com/science-and-...
mathandai.org
Declaration — Math and AI
Read the declaration and add your name.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
ha ha saturn hypersystems
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Mx. Fee @mxfee.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Ridiculous. I'm glad they're replacing it but also, the fact it got this far is pathetic and we know it is a VERY common occurrence when it shouldn't be happening at all. Disability aids aren't toys and the airlines need to stop treating them as such.
abc.net.au
Qantas changes tune over broken wheelchair after ABC questions
Qantas has backflipped and says it is now planning to replace an expensive powered wheelchair broken beyond repair on one of its flights, after questions from the ABC.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
[involuntary flashback] damnit steve
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Enjoying Rust projects occasionally means worrying a new tool doesn't work, but it's just That Fast. github.com/bdrung/3cpio
github.com
GitHub - bdrung/3cpio: manage initrd cpio archives
manage initrd cpio archives. Contribute to bdrung/3cpio development by creating an account on GitHub.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Welfare is rarely top of mind in corporate drama, but I hope the board, Matt, and the whole team (current and former) take care of themselves and each other through more uncertainty. Letting go feels awful… but could change one okay future into two great futures. techcrunch.com/2026/09/09/a...
techcrunch.com
Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence | TechCrunch
Mullenweg said in a company Slack message that it was against his will.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
# GRUB lacks write support for lvm, so recordfail support is disabled. ^ use LVM and UEFI on Ubuntu? surprise, you get to wait 30s at the grub menu every time you boot
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
[1] you can look up the source… there’s some disappointing irony involved 😢
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Especially in FLOSS circles, you might’ve heard: “If you didn’t run code written by assholes, your machine wouldn’t boot.” [1] Which is true. And sometimes we have to work with people we don’t like. But questioning your complicity is a worthy exercise.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Florentine AF. Congrats!
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
“Maine man” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it… (meanwhile, Australia’s equivalent of “Florida man” is “Queensland man”)
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
The Third Culture (1998) says a lot about the present moment: LLMs didn’t spend enough time in the lab with scientists; they were pressed upon our world by impatient nerds. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
science.org
The Third Culture
Kevin Kelly is the executive editor of Wired and author of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Amazon’s behaviour is especially disappointing: Once a leader in emissions reduction, now building one of the world’s largest fossil fuel burning and emitting power plants ever.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
It was bad enough when zombie fascism was getting in the way of climate action. Now we’ve got oligarchs and idolators building bigger fossil fuel burning power plants than ever before.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Instagram reckons I should follow the private account of a descendant of a 14th Century noblewoman that I’ve been studying. 🤔😬
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
tfw you have the courage of your convictions
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
👀 whoa ducklabs.com/news/2026/08...
ducklabs.com
DuckLabs to Join AWS, Projects to Remain Open Source
DuckLabs provides services around the DuckDB in-process OLAP data management system directly from its main developers.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Dolly wouldn’t hate ’em. But she’d be very disappointed.
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Nina Metz @ninametz.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
All social science core classes at the University of Chicago will transition to an “analog” approach for the upcoming academic year, restricting in-classroom technology use and banning AI-assisted writing and grading for students and professors
chicagomaroon.com
Sosc Core to Institute AI Ban, Technology-Free Classrooms This Fall
All social science Core classes will transition to an “analog” approach for the upcoming academic year, restricting in-classroom technology use and banning AI-assisted writing and grading for students...
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Strong concur. Bonus: An amusing technical review of Omarchy. It's like bad Linux desktop fan fiction. xn--gckvb8fzb.com/a-word-on-om...
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
A noticeable change in my working lifetime… Friday used to be the "big night", but now pretty much everyone is too exhausted at the end of the working week. So Friday night becomes crash-recovery for Saturday. 😳
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
“it’s inevitable” and “the genie is out of the bottle” are thought-terminating clichés, and boil down to the same thing: hopeless surrender we *can* make better decisions, and fix our mistakes – and we *have*!
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
Racist ideology is not welcome or acceptable. When it’s inconvenient. When they want to join your creative community. When they want to support your project. You gotta hold the line. Racist ideology is not welcome or acceptable. Tell fascists to fuck off.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
“The Singularity happened 8 months ago so we bought an LLM API proxy.” – Shopify’s flavour of AI psychosis (whatever the merits of the acquisition, the rationale is batshit)
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
(not a lot of folks discovering the irony here… the joke within the joke…)
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Ada Palmer @adapalmer.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
In the Renaissance people theorized, since the Aeneid is great, if you wrote poems made only of words & phrases from the Aeneid rearranged they should be great too, since a great source regurgitated should yield greatness. They produced NOTHING we still read. Thinking about that a lot lately.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Good long read… adapted from The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State by Jill Lepore, published by Allen Lane on 25 August. www.theguardian.com/news/2026/au...
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I don't think there's a widely applicable answer to that – it so heavily depends on context.
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
A piece of writing is not merely a product. It is an act. A verb. Consequential writing tends to involve many acts: experience, thought, synthesis, judgement, creation, editing, vulnerability, courage, accountability…
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Jeff Waugh @jeffwaugh.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Gruber wrote a defensive follow-up to his gripes about watermarking, and… it's worse, e.g. "My advice is not to care whether anything was written by an AI or a human." 😳 daringfireball.net/2026/08/foll...
daringfireball.net
Follow-Up Thoughts on Watermarking Schemes for AI-Generated Text
I want the answers that I read to be cogent, lucid, accurate, blessedly terse — and ideally to strike a consistent tone that is pleasant to my reading ear. The genie is not going back in the bottle.
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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
New from 404 Media: we solved which AI company is buying massive shipments of rare books, scanning and destroying them to train AI. We put an Apple AirTag in a rare book, followed it. It ended up at an Amazon facility. Its logo is a dinosaur ripping through a book www.404media.co/we-tracked-a...
404media.co
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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