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Mari Silbey

@msilbey.bsky.social
184 followers 127 following 172 posts

Telecom, musicals, still a journalist at heart.

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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Bookshop.org @bookshop.org · 17h
Anti-Prime Day starts…NOW! 🥳 Today through midnight on 10/7, enjoy free shipping site-wide, all while supporting local, independent bookstores.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
Still feel like a superhero every time I get shot up with both
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
You know what's funny? Seeing the Philadelphia skyline in a tv show with the building i can only refer to as the big flash drive in the sky. Such a fixture now, but easy to remember when it wasn't there. -- This many years later, I'm still unnerved that the twin towers are gone from the NYC skyline
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
I freaking love bending the spines and reading the shit out of my books. Just part of how I enjoy them
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The hair as yellow as corn
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
U.S. Scientists Losing Their Funding: The NSF Data 🧪 “The National Scinece Foundation is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.” www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Exclusive: NSF set to issue lowest number of new grants in four decades
The US science-funding agency is withholding $1 billion of its budget so that the money can go to a special White House project.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
What?! What is this nonsense? I was planning to find her half time show online. Know now to lower my expectations
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Yep.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Joe Overalls. Kind of love it.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
What, and I cannot express this strongly enough, the fuck variety.com/2026/film/ne...
Quite from Andy Serkis on his new LOTR movie:
“Tolkien himself was influenced a lot by Norse mythology, there’s a lot of that feeling,” Serkis explained about the lack of the diversity. “The Shire feels very, very much like a very, a very white, you know… They’re not very concerned about what goes on beyond the borders of The Shire, but they know they don’t want people coming in.”
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
New: The National Science Foundation is preparing to claw back some $500 million in funds from some of its core science programs in physics, math, computer science, and engineering in order to fund a project from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
nature.com
NSF plans cuts to core science programmes to fund White House initiative
A proposed clawback of already distributed research funds comes as the US agency’s budget is already squeezed and it struggling to clear a backlog of grant applications.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
The numbers in this report are astounding. The conclusion seems blindingly obvious. "If 'AI infrastructure buildout is currently accelerating faster than the grid is decarbonising' then Google shouldn’t be building AI infrastructure."
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
Not gonna lie. I read this as Wine Commander and got kind of excited for a moment
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Adam Bonin @adambonin.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
ICE out of Washington DC.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
On Om Malik runtimewire.com/article/om-m...
A screenshot of text from an article that reads:
The early biography matters because Malik did not enter technology as a cheerleader. He came through telecom, broadband and infrastructure, the unglamorous substrate under the consumer internet. His 2003 book, Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist, examined the excesses and fraud around the telecom bubble. That made his later enthusiasm for networks more useful. He understood that every platform story had a bill attached, and usually a creditor somewhere in the frame.

Source: RuntimeWire — https://runtimewire.com/article/om-malik-taught-silicon-valley-to-read-itself
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
This is terrible news. And I know it's been many years, but I will never stop missing GigaOm.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Really interesting thread. In part because of the fact that the speaker didn't offer up that he had used AI, but also because of how the speaker hadn't thought through the questions the audience posed. He appears to have offloaded all the thinking to AI and missed critical points of debate.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
It's about 5-10 years later (more?) than promised, but I think we're getting close to the era of private cellular networks.
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Cynthia Brumfield @metacurity.com · 15/06/2026
Not since the days of Colonial Pipeline and SolarWinds have I felt the need to write a special report for Metacurity. 1/3 www.metacurity.com/special-repo...
metacurity.com
Special report: Anthropic and the first great AI cyber showdown — a timeline
Over the past few days, a dispute over AI safety guardrails escalated into a White House crackdown, a global sovereignty debate, and the first major clash between frontier AI cyber capabilities and go...
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
Never let the facts get in the way of a good con.
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
This is happening about a mile from my house in DC. Tempted to walk/bike down there, but afraid I'd miss the crucial moments. Check it out: www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAhm...
youtube.com
LIVE: See Donald Trump’s name come off the Kennedy Center as it happens
YouTube video by MS NOW
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Happening now! www.youtube.com/watch?v=icQV...
youtube.com
🔴LIVE | Crews set to remove Trump's name from Kennedy Center
YouTube video by ABC 7 News - WJLA
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Cynthia Brumfield @metacurity.com · 12/06/2026
Just brutal AI Economics for Dummies www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/ai-...
mcsweeneys.net
AI Economics for Dummies
“Xavier owns an apartment that he rents out at a loss of $1 billion/month. Seeing this success, he decides to make financial commitments to construct $850 bi...
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
My daughter's flight home is delayed because of air show activity in DC and I am not okay with it.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
takomatorch.com/index.php/20...
takomatorch.com
Takoma Junction Parking Lot Resurfaced as Memorial Reflection Pool For Co-Op
TAKOMA PARK, MD – Following a week-long repaving project, city officials confirmed that the Junction parking lot will no longer function primarily as a parking lot, but instead as a community…
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Given the cost of the war on Iran, it's probably time to start wondering what budgets are going to be moved around to keep funding it. If you've got government money and don't want to lose it, you might consider spending it as quickly as possible.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Given the cost of the war on Iran, it's probably time to start wondering what budgets are going to be moved around to keep funding it. If you've got government money and don't want to lose it, you might consider spending it as quickly as possible.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 08/06/2026
Watching high quality (high'ish-res, not grainy) dance performances on YouTube on the big TV screen in my living room. Not to sound old or anything, but damn it's downright magical
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Unread flags. Terrible for us OCD people. Right up there with holiday decorations that are never straight
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
He will always be Giles to me. RIP :(
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
As the product of a liberal arts and theatre education, I never thought I'd be so worried about the government attacking funding for science
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
A spokesman for NSF said the decision “aligns with N.S.F.’s wider strategy to have a nimbler approach to prioritizing support for evolving scientific priorities and emerging technologies as well as a deliberate approach to smart life cycle management within its portfolio of research infrastructure.”
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
This seems not great.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Agency Heads Can Exempt Grant Competitions from Public Notice
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
"Senior political appointees, rather than career scientists or program officers, would now be required to conduct a “pre-issuance review” of every discretionary grant before it is awarded. These appointees are explicitly forbidden from deferring to peer reviewers..."
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
"[New] rule prohibits the use of any federal funds...with 'covered foreign countries'... This provision is sweeping enough to severely disrupt international partnerships that have been foundational to U.S. leadership in fields from climate science and astrophysics to genomics and epidemiology."
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 28/05/2026
But luckily we have CMMC 2.0 cybersecurity policies in place. Highest digital security strategery.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 27/05/2026
Can't in good conscience go to the MJ movie and support the sanitizing of his life or the denial of his victims. But I can't help enjoying the dance videos it's inspired. Reel after reel of incredible artists dancing to incredible songs
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Jonathan Edward Durham @thisone0verhere.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Never forget that YOU are a data center. Drink some water ffs.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
"Among these ideologies, I consider particularly insidious the one that suggests that every person must earn or justify his or her own worth, to the point of attributing greater value to those who are more efficient or effective."
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
Remarkable to see a pope articulate the issues of quantification, software brain, determinism. "We must, then, avoid the 'Babel syndrome,' ... the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance."
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Twitter and blogging are the only places I experienced that. And certainly it's no longer relevant to current Twitter. Wouldn't argue that
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
True. But for the rest of us, it surfaced interesting things & let us engage directly with people who knew a lot about those things. In early days, it also made me think carefully about how to share my own specialized knowledge or carefully informed opinions because people i respected paid attention
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Sean Hecker @sean-hecker.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
We are going to savor this one. Our client, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, is freed of these outrageous, vindictive charges. It’s a good day.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
😂
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
COLD DEAD HANDS! Approach my sertraline with extreme caution.
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Charlie Warzel @cwarzel.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
this 2-3 year reporting fellowship for the paper in Martha's Vineyard (comes with a furnished 2-bedroom guesthouse!) looks like it ruuuules vineyardgazette.com/henry-beetle...
vineyardgazette.com
Henry Beetle Hough Enterprise Fellowship Reporter
The Vineyard Gazette, an award-winning newspaper on Martha’s Vineyard with a reputation for rigorous, in-depth reporting, is seeking an experienced journalist for a newly created fellowship. Working w...
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
Nope. I worried about this in Trump 1. Turns out I was not addicted to the chaos. Life was much better in the Biden era. I now know the anxiety of clicking on what-has-Trump-done-now is not a thing I need. Rather something with which I can live way better without.
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Reposted by Mari Silbey
Ben Collins @bencollins.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
With the help of the Sandy Hook families, The Onion has reached a long-awaited deal to take over InfoWars. We've enlisted the help of @timheidecker.bsky.social, who will be InfoWars' Creative Director. Please stand by for more.
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Mari Silbey @msilbey.bsky.social · 07/04/2026
The hope of Artemis II against the backdrop of devastation and derangement here at home.
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