Reposted by maegulSean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 03/10/2026I do think philosophy as a discipline has dramatically underperformed at answering the question “When would an artificial system qualify as conscious?” Should have nailed that one long before it became a practical issue. 4217916
maegul @maegul.net · 08/09/2026Seeing a bunch of the anti v pro #AI talk, and it feels like both sides just don’t want to address the elephant in the room: the real issues are way bigger than whether they help you be productive right now. And disagreeing about these is also way bigger. We got work to do and are being dumb. 000
Reposted by maegulGlyph @glyf.bsky.social · 07/09/2026truly, spoken like a man who doesn't know what trains or bicycles are 56514
Reposted by maegulBenjamin Riley @benjaminjriley.bsky.social · 20/08/2026So we know AI helped a negligible number of students. But how many did it harm? I've crunched the raw data provided by the lead researcher, and what I've found is that ~9,500 students using AI studied less than even the *least* studious, non-AI using student. This should shock the conscience. 20885460
Reposted by maegulMike Masnick @masnick.com · 20/08/2026So I get that there's (yet again) a big debate going on about AI on Bluesky. I am turning off replies to this post because I don't want to have notifications flooded one way or the other on this one. I just want to share what I've heard multiple times in just the past two weeks. 137387
maegul @maegul.net · 20/08/2026I didn’t know the AI divide was already at the point of driving ppl away from a platform and to another. But I’ve been saying this: AI may lead to a real divide in society that I don’t think we’re ready for. It’s too pervasive to just “get along” and many of us have strong feelings about it. 000
maegul @maegul.net · 16/08/2026I feel like too many anti-AI folks aren’t ready for how much they/we may just become an awkwardly/dismissively/aggressively tolerated minority. Like vegans in 90s or Catholics in UK. Like any minority really, except they’re waiting for the world to realise that they were correct all along. 201
Reposted by maegulLaurens @laurenshof.online · 12/08/2026What if some of our deepest core assumptions are wrong? 4192
Reposted by maegulJennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 03/06/2026Americans Are Starting to Really Hate Data Centers—and It’s Making the Tech Industry Nervous gizmodo.com/americans-ar...gizmodo.comAmericans Are Starting to Really Hate Data Centers—and It's Making the Tech Industry NervousA recent survey shows a dramatic swing against new data center construction. 38187812455
Reposted by maegulSean A. Morgan @memphisbelle1114.bsky.social · 15/05/2026I want to announce that I have recovered. After nearly 8 years of hardly reading at all, I read AN ENTIRE BOOK last night. I'M SO BACK. #Booksky 1624698158
Reposted by maegulLaurens @laurenshof.online · 18/02/2026new from me - Where Does Community Live? A deep dive into how protocols shape what communities can be build on the open social web connectedplaces.online/where-does-c...connectedplaces.onlineWhere Does Community Live?ActivityPub and ATProto both promise to rebuild social life online, but they answer the question of where community actually forms in fundamentally different ways. Protocol design is institutional des... 37825
maegul @maegul.net · 27/11/2025Made me think of @xkcd.com ’s flying with Python “moment” (but now for AI?): xkcd.com/353/ Especially the “fun again” part, true or not. Also how different many people’s outlook on the tech industry likely was in 2007 (yes, the comic is that old).xkcd.comPython 063
maegul @maegul.net · 17/03/2025Anyone else feel Mickey 17 was actually embarrassingly bad? Saw it yesterday, expecting the negative reviews to have missed the point or vibe. But half way through, for me, it was “objectively” bad. Like the director already knew while on set that they were in trouble. 100
Reposted by maegulErin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 14/03/2025I think I say this every year or so but…having been brought up in an apocalyptic doom-prepper destroy-the-evil-globalist-government evangelical movement/cult and then having spent my early adulthood really far from that world, this all feels like the third act of a horror movie. 3777975
Reposted by maegulCarl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 06/03/2025Let's talk about this Nature piece in more detail. I've rarely read something so anti-scientific anywhere short of the National Review. www.nature.com/articles/d41...nature.comThree AI-powered steps to faster, smarter peer reviewTired of spending countless hours on peer reviews? An AI-assisted workflow could help. 621622688
Reposted by maegulLaurens @laurenshof.online · 27/02/2025New: Last Week in the ATmosphere The ATProto tech news: - Sync 1.1 is a proposal to make relays cheaper to run - Multiple PDS browsers now show backlinks, making them a new type of entity in the network - Bluesky has 2 new vacancies to expand their T&S team fediversereport.com/last-week-in...fediversereport.comLast Week in the ATmosphere – 2025feb.dWelcome to the bi-weekly tech-focused update on everything that is happening on Bluesky and the wider ATmosphere. The theme continues to be: “can ATProto scale down“? Next week will be focused again o... 0419
maegul @maegul.net · 21/02/2025Any other non-USians finding this place basically not worth it since Trump 2.0? ( I get it, you’re going through stuff, but the “I gotta post about it” energy seems counterproductive, honestly a little sad, not a good use of microblogging, and strangely not informative/interesting from outside ) 010
Reposted by maegulKath Barbadoro @kathbarbadoro.bsky.social · 21/02/2025There is a type of like pop science journalism geared toward educated liberals (your Kara swishers, your freakonomics, etc) that I think has the potential to rot your brain nearly as much as Joe Rogan type stuff 2660549
Reposted by maegulRoxane Gay @roxanegay.bsky.social · 17/02/2025I keep seeing this. Guys, their literal job is to figure out what to do. They are not helpless even if they are not the majority. I really hope we can stop treating some of the most powerful people in the world as helpless and without sentience. 23892501425
Reposted by maegulneutral @neutral.zone · 17/02/2025Sometimes I feel like there are no words that could adequately describe how to grieve for the future. The complex sense of loss, uncertainty, the weight of what seems not just likely but inevitable. Not simply mourning what’s to come, but mourning what’s already slipping away. 1121142
Reposted by maegulneutral @neutral.zone · 13/02/2025The long game gets even longer, because before you can even teach people to recognize patterns, you have to convince them that there’s something to recognize at all. 282
Reposted by maegulneutral @neutral.zone · 13/02/2025I keep thinking about this post. I'm in this liminal space myself, the last generation with a real memory of an analog world before the internet fully saturated everything. That gives perspective, but it also makes me a witness to a transformation that’s irreversible. 4284
Reposted by maegulLaurens @laurenshof.online · 13/02/2025This week's news about ATProto and the ATmosphere: - @roomy.chat is building a P2P public group chat app on ATProto, now in public alpha - Microcosm is a new selfhostable API that tracks backlinks for the entire network - Tracking all lexicons with Lexidex fediversereport.com/last-week-in...fediversereport.comLast Week in the ATmosphere – 2025feb.bWelcome to this week’s edition of all the news that happens in the wider ATProto ecosystem. This edition is somewhat more technical, next week I’ll focus again on Bluesky and the growing ecosystem of ... 39127
Reposted by maegul🇬🇾🗽Sydette The Dreaded Gorgon🗽🇬🇾 @blackamazon.bsky.social · 13/02/2025I’m at the point where we have to stop saying “Our media must do better” and start talking seriously about why the don’t and how long they haven’t And the reflection necessary isn’t happening 1622774
Reposted by maegulJoseph Howley @illdottore.bsky.social · 12/02/2025you fucked up a perfectly good computer is what you did. look at it. it's got innumeracy 1083161624
Reposted by maegulaustin @aparker.io · 11/02/2025read serce.me/posts/2025-0... this morning and it mostly tracks with my experience.serce.meThe LLM Curve of Impact on Software EngineersIn this article, I share my personal mental model of how LLMs affect software engineers at different levels, and why this leads to both excitement and scepticism. 6385
Reposted by maegulLaurens @laurenshof.online · 11/02/2025Wrote about the different responses to the superbowl and Lamar’s halftime show between fedi and Bluesky, and what that means for people who want to bring the fediverse into the mainstream 3258
maegul @maegul.net · 10/02/2025There’s plenty hurtful/ignorant us non-USians could say about seeing the US from afar ATM. I can’t help but notice how boring all the noise is. All basic/shallow takes like no one can think. And those with thoughts are defensive about sharing, dodging the shitty engagement. Like a party gone bad 010
Reposted by maegulHank Green @hankgreen.bsky.social · 10/02/2025I actually hate the "lol the giant asteroid will deliver us from this suffering" jokes. Are there any other people in the progressive movement who think that humans are actually fucking amazing? 137310274532
Reposted by maegulErin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 10/02/2025The most 101, but: The problem from the ecosystem side isn't that there's not enough information, it's that there's *so much* and of such varied usefulness that it's nearly impossible to tell what to ignore. This me putting a pin in it, not a request for advice. Don't do it. 41537
Reposted by maegulLaurens @laurenshof.online · 09/02/2025but another relay is meaningless without another appview, and another independent appview cannot exist without doing full network moderation layer thats duplicate with pbc's moderation stack 2132
Reposted by maegulVicki @vickiboykis.com · 08/02/2025previous thing I wrote on whether what we do is true software engineering vickiboykis.com/2022/12/05/t... 3345
Reposted by maegulOh, god, nickel! Blood! Blood! @snickettes.bsky.social · 05/02/2025I really really need you guys to make a conscious rejection of generative AI tools part of your ongoing political resistance. Don't use ChatGPT. Turn off Gemini. Don't read the AI results forced upon you at the top of Google search. Don't use AI art generators or support anyone who does. Please. 177107635635
maegul @maegul.net · 06/02/2025Honestly surprised I don’t see more talk of this. I wasn’t an elder here long before the opening. But the vibe seemed to be that many really liked it here before hand. Which means, along with all the other evidence chat apps etc, it’s pretty obvious that (semi-)closed spaces work well. 120
Reposted by maegulNow at @aj@gts.sadauskas.id.au @ajsadauskas.social.vivaldi.net.ap.brid.gy · 06/02/2025Global warming caused by toxic fossil fuel pollution continues to cook the planet. Australia’s sea surface temperatures were the warmest on record last year: theconversation.com/its-official-au… #auspol #ClimateChange 12714
Reposted by maegulErin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 04/02/2025Structurally disciplined collective sense-making for civics is everyone’s problem because it’s been no one’s problem. News orgs can only make things that they can own and get credit for. Great people + small orgs work on pieces of it all the time, but the info environment…is what it is. 311514
Reposted by maegulErin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 04/02/2025Where is the civic disaster dashboard is I guess what I’m saying? There is a *ton* of fantastic specialist reporting on every issue but the mechanics are what matter and they’re buried in the flood. I don’t want to know “what happened today,” I want to see the whole board. 2938783
Reposted by maegulneutral @neutral.zone · 03/02/2025Social media is like talking to a LLM, except it’s 12 guys, all convinced they’ve cracked the code of what you really meant; one’s writing a 15-post callout, one’s quote-posting “this is actually so dangerous” and the rest are frothing at each other over a bad-faith misread they refuse to walk back 0182
Reposted by maegulErin Kissane @kissane.myatproto.social · 02/02/2025I think I forget how much of a civics education I got growing up on the religious far right. We had affinity groups in talking to directly to our reps ALL THE TIME. Pickets at clinics. Massive coalition building. If what you are doing is not working, idk, maybe do more and different things. 124626
Reposted by maegulCommodoreBlog @commodoreblog.uk · 01/02/2025The year is 1999. You've just finished the installation and hit that .exe. You never knew it at the time, but this was destined to be, one of the greatest pc gaming experiences in your life. 1252020169
Reposted by maegulZodiacWars @zodiacwars.bsky.social · 31/01/2025the expressions sydney cole alexander makes on severance deserve to be the subject of a phd dissertation 0607
Reposted by maegulBrian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 29/01/2025This has happened to me with my newsletter as well — a story generating good, if sometimes heated, discussion will just disappear from hackernews. A lot of tech workers are fed up with Silicon Valley's elite, and are willing to push back. Certain gatekeepers don't want that to happen. 2538
Reposted by maegulneutral @neutral.zone · 29/01/2025Sorry, I’m usually better about these things. High-frequency trading. One of the first entry points for bros into tech. HFT was basically proto-crypto: the same mix of aggressive financialization, parasitic extraction and dudes who thought they were the smartest people in the room. 2141
Reposted by maegulTimnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 29/01/2025Friends, for something to be open source, we need to see 1. The data it was trained & evaluated on 2. The code 3. Model architecture 4. Model weights. DeepSeek only gives 3, 4. And I'll see the day that anyone gives us #1 without being forced to do so, because all of them are stealing data. 372883828
Reposted by maegulTimnit Gebru @timnitgebru.blacksky.app · 27/01/2025At Google, I asked why they were fixated on building THE LARGEST model. Why are you going for size? What function are you trying to achieve? Why is the thing you were upset about that you didn't have THE LARGEST model? They responded by firing me 🤷🏼 371718272
Reposted by maeguldaryl "rupert pumpkin" b 🏳️⚧️ @hypercubexl.bsky.social · 27/01/2025not happy about the new "this ai still runs on infinite theft but it's open source and light on resources!" wave coming on, but oh well 813528
