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Michael Matthew

@michaelwmatthew.bsky.social
763 followers 1.5K following 880 posts

Another old white man worried about the dark time we're in. Southern New Hampshire.

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Jessica Price @delafina777.bsky.social · 1h
well gosh Elon if you think AI is sentient the right move is to pay it for its labor
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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The announcement that the Pentagon is going to live stream the firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan needs to be understood in the context of the state-sponsored bloodlust for their chief enemies: Muslims and alleged socialists.
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Pocket News 📰 @jeanpocket.bsky.social · 3h
Wow wow wow I said it last year.. Impulse Control Disorder.. yes amongst other things. CONGRESS AND WALTER REED DOCS DO NOTHING. GET YOUR VOTES OUT.
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Rahawa Haile @rahawahaile.bsky.social · 1h
Outstanding article about the nonfiction book market. This is also the biggest shoutout Scratch has received, and I’m grateful for it. www.talkscratch.com
Screenshot from the quote posted article:

Rahawa Haile, in the newsletter Scratch, picks up on this hesitation: "This is rarely the first point mentioned with regards to sagging nonfiction sales, [but] hardcover books grew too expensive in an economic environment where people of all stripes are barely getting by."

Not only that, she continues, but publishers aren't issuing paperback versions nearly as often as they used to.
In a standard royalty structure, the publisher recoups a higher percentage of the hardcover than on paperback; if the former doesn't hit big, the latter is less attractive. In this, publishers' and writers' interests are at odds. Cancelling the paperback ruins a second chance to reach readers through a fresh marketing push, a possible new cover, and-most crucially—a more affordable format.
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Gravel Influencer @gravelinfluencer.bsky.social · 5h
Far too many people simply hate children for existing
Neighbor blasts an ultrasonic device audible and painful only to children whenever they pass on the public sidewalk.

Was riding bikes with my daughter and a friend to school this morning. We passed a house and they both started yelling, "Ow! It hurts my ears." Really strange, right? Then I hear a voice play through a speaker who says, "If it hurts your ears, ride your bikes somewhere else!"

Now I'm angry. Literally doing nothing but riding bikes to school, probably one of the most wholesome activities a person could imagine, and...I can't even get my brain around it. 

It's apparently not loud, but it is tuned to a frequency higher than I can hear. If it's low enough for my children to hear it, it's going to be almost useless as an animal deterrent. It is specifically designed to cause pain to humans and serves no other purpose.

How is this legal?

Location: Minnesota, Twin Cities suburb
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#StupidSuez @diplomatofnight.com · 6h
A good time to remind people that Chris Van Hollen is the only Member of Congress to have ever called for European states to sanction the President and Secretary of State, in this case specifically in response to their attempts to destroy the ICC in order to protect Israel.
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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 14h
Yep. It's been the same pattern, again and again, with these bold, audacious claims from the AI labs. Each and every time it proves to be far less significant than the initial press flurry suggests, but the majority of people only ever see the original story.
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Colin Hoad @colinhoad.com · 15h
Far less fanfare and media panic now that the proofs are proving to be, err... unproven. aiweekly.co/alerts/opena...
aiweekly.co
OpenAI Pulls Three AI-Generated Math Papers Over Sign Error | AI Weekly
OpenAI withdrew three of the 722 AI-generated math manuscripts it released on October 6, after a sign error in one proof collapsed the argument and the…
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 9h
a big part of ossoff's rhetorical success is it doesnt contain the compromise and caveats that are a baked-in part of democratic party rhetoric. theres no pretending that his opponent is just misguided or will be pulled back from the edge by "the good republicans." ossoff is saying "fuck this guy"
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RexLibris @rexlibris.bsky.social · 2h
When they passed the ICE funding bill I suggested that the eventual defunding bill to abolish ICE should also void the pensions of anyone who worked for them, including police and prison guards who switched federal service positions. No retired Gestapo.
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Dr. Sarah Parcak @indyfromspace.bsky.social · 12h
Y'all denied her tenure
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Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani @mayor.nyc.gov · 20h
I am angry tonight. Because tonight ICE shot a New Yorker. They shot a New Yorker while his five year old child was in the car. ICE makes this city less safe. We want them out. Now.
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Kari Maaren @angrykem.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
This Is Just to Say I have trained the AI to read to our baby the one you were probably expecting me to interact with Calm down AI is awesome so sweet and so cold
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 13h
Whatever else, you can rest assured that Donald Trump is feeling absolutely outraged that a brown woman like Navi Pillay received the Nobel Peace Prize, and he was clearly snubbed. Have a gorgeous day, people. www.bbc.com/news/live/ck...
Originally from Durban in South Africa, Pillay was president of the international tribunal on Rwanda's genocide between the late 1990s and early 2000s

More recently, she was part of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, created by the UN Human Rights Council in 2021
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Oliver Willis @owillis.bsky.social · 8h
every senate democrat voted to confirm marco rubio.
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Brian Phillips @brianphillips.lol · 9h
I wrote about Jim Bakker, whose parasocial style of grifter evangelism seemed freakish to mainstream society in the 80s and is now the machinery by which mainstream society operates
theringer.com
The Death and Afterlife of an American Con Man
Jim Bakker’s vision of the future came to pass. Just not in the way the disgraced televangelist imagined.
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Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 12h
Fascinating world of ancient #glass: a stunning Egyptian glass vessel in the shape of a #fish, it was probably used to hold ointments. Found in El-Amarna, #Egypt, 14th century BC. 📷 British Museum
Colorful ancient glass vessel in the shape of a fish, shown in profile on a neutral gray background, with wavy blue, white, and yellow stripes forming its scales, fins, and tail, and a small round eye and protruding lips at the right end.
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Colette Delawalla, PhD @cdelawalla.bsky.social · 11h
It’s notable to me that TWO of the most recent women who have won a NoBel Prize were denied tenure from their institutions: Anne Carson and Katalin Karikó
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Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 7h
Arthur C. Clarke said long ago, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
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Jamie Piscitelli @jamie-piscitelli.bsky.social · 8h
A former Army company commander once asked me a rhetorical(? maybe) question, and I'm still chewing on it: "In 2003, when our battalion commander called for sniper volunteers, virtually nobody raised their hands. In 2009, everyone did. What does that tell you about who we're recruiting now?"
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Hillary Rodham Clinton @hillaryclinton.bsky.social · 10h
A barbaric idea, beneath our dignity as a country. Push back on this.
Trump admin wants to televise an execution
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 10h
Hello computer, Decompile and distill Middlemarch Make the game set in my hometown though, not Middlemarch Make the main character me. When I'm not around, the other characters should be asking "where is he?" and "what is he up to?" Review my chat memory for zingers to help me to seduce Rosamund
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Bill McKibben @billmckibben.bsky.social · 10h
Figuring out why Ossoff is so effective is an interesting task. I think he's mastering a kind of stern dignity that is uniquely compelling in contrast to the clownish cruelty of the other side. I think the other person who's kind of hit on the same thing is AOC, though in a different register
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Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 8h
Whiteness is being equated with incompetence, irrationality, laziness, arrogance, unattractiveness, and abusive rage. And Trump is responsible for it. White people who don't have those attributes want him GONE. Yesterday. Before these stereotypes gain permanence.
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Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 8h
He's an attractive, competent cishet white man with morals and assertiveness. The political landscape has been bereft of that very thing and white Americans are tired of national (and international) humiliation.
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Scott Horton @robertscotthorton.bsky.social · 10h
The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.
—Joseph Heller, Catch-22, ch xxiv: “Thanksgiving” (1961)
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John Ganz @lioneltrolling.bsky.social · 10h
Marco Rubio's Athens speech reduced the patrimony of Western civilization to grindset motivational quotes. www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-greeks...
unpopularfront.news
The Greeks Without Tragedy
On Marco Rubio’s Athens Speech
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Graphic Garbage @graphic-garbage.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Diane and Leo Dillon, book covers for Ace Science Fiction 1968–1971
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Vituperative Erb @vituperativeerb.bsky.social · 10h
I love how this guy’s dream removes both the possibility of friction/challenge and also the possibility of a shared experience
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DeSmog @desmog.com · 10h
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently stated that "in a matter of days" it will announce a new oil and gas proposal. This has serious implications for methane rules. DeSmog has been tracking this story closely.
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I Scare You Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 12h
Tucker on NPR, similar to Steve Bannon as unremarkable conservative, and the lamenting essays on the betrayal of colorblind meritocracy all serve as a negotiation of what white reconciliation will look like , settled on what grounds essentially.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 09/10/2026
i am genuinely shocked by the psychotic bloodthirst on display with hegseth
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Liz Szabo @lizszabo.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Read more about this study widely condemned as unethical. CIDRAP News broke the news last December. Follow us for continuing coverage. www.cidrap.umn.edu/hepatitis/he...
cidrap.umn.edu
Hepatitis B vaccine study condemned as unethical wins approval from Danish university
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I Scare You Like Sound Dog @chadstanton.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026
“One source told the outlet that officers were “told to go after anybody, they can pick up anybody.” newrepublic.com/post/216405/...
newrepublic.com
“Go After Anybody”: ICE Gets Terrifying Marching Orders in California
ICE has launched a new crackdown just weeks before the midterms.
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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 08/10/2026
this is honestly one of the worst and most irresponsible things he has ever posted, and that's really saying something
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Bat 🦇 Borus @matthewborus.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Once again, an AI booster confuses output with process. You don’t read to your baby so they can hear a disembodied voice. You read to your baby because in doing so, you build what can be one of the most sacred and meaningful bonds in both of your lives. Unless you outsource it to a line of code.
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Lupita Nihongo @otsumamiboy.blacksky.app · 08/10/2026
Running out of hard drive space & just looked up the price of external hard drives right now & the same one I got several years ago is double the price it was when it got it so yeah man I’m pretty fuckin’ far from OK
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John Scalzi @scalzi.com · 08/10/2026
Vote early and in person, folks. If you're in a "vote by mail" state and can deliver your mail-in vote directly rather than relying on USPS this year, do it. Otherwise get it into the mail at the earliest possible date. www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/...
democracydocket.com
The Postal Service is slowing delivery. Will your mail ballot be affected?
Democracy Docket mapped the affected zip codes.
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Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
static.klipy.com
Princess Bride: You Keep Using That Word
ALT: Princess Bride: You Keep Using That Word
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Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
The American white collar workforce started working from home three days a week for like six months a year into COVID and executives so thoroughly lost their minds over this that they installed Trump II. If anything, AI will create the 7-day workweek.
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Matthew Buckley @physicsmatt.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Hi, scientist in America here. Science in America is dying right now and this administration is killing it.
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Jessica Ellis @baddestmamajama.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Yeah so that’s attempted murder.
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digby @digby56.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Trump won't be able to do anything about Guilfoyle. She was on the inside for years. In the *family.* She knows where all the bodies are buried.
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Michael Matthew @michaelwmatthew.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Aren't most dads already Wire Dads? Maybe now we have a Barbed-Wire Dad.
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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
US policy is: if you’re smart, don’t come, and if you’re already here, leave.
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Ben Allen @evodynamics.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Add to this that AI agents have a well-known tendency to reward-hack (as is reinforced in their training). So if there is any ambiguity to exploit in arriving at a Lean-verified result without actually proving the intended theorem, the AI agents are likely to find it.
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Ben Allen @evodynamics.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I don't believe any open math problem should be considered "solved" on the basis of AI-generated machine-language proofs alone. This is why: arxiv.org/abs/2610.08144
arxiv.org
Navier-Stokes lost in translation: Why Lean verification of AI autoformalisation does not guarantee correct natural language proofs
Autoformalisation is increasingly used to verify mathematical texts, including those generated by AI, as in OpenAI's announced proof of blow-up of solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations. In this pro...
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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 08/10/2026
"the AI agent can make restaurant reservations" is a really weird use case I always see pop up in writing about the personal assistant programs because this is something already very easily solved by "a website". why does it need to call anyone. all the restaurants are already on the website
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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 08/10/2026
MOST CRITICALLY THIS.
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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 08/10/2026
If you have ever read a book to a baby, you will realize it's not a linear experience. The baby wants to turn pages backward, wants to ask questions (if they're old enough), wants to examine the pages and get really excited if they can say "bear!" even if the word "bear!" is not on the page.
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