smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 04/08/2025TI re L that Samoyed is Uralic not Finno-Ugric 000
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 27/07/2025So I just read Aristophanes /The Clouds/ and it was a banger, but I really struggle to think how its .. useful perspective could be used in today’s media environment 000
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialLaura Woods @woodsiegirl.bsky.social · 27/07/2025I once read a comment saying something like "if you choose not to laugh at farts, your life will contain less laughter but still the same amount of farts". I think about that a lot. 10556971276
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 27/07/2025It’s too bad there isn’t a reliable way to *only* feed it poison without feeding it anything useful. 000
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialℳatt @matttomic.bsky.social · 24/07/2025I'm muting this because there are only so many hundred times a guy can bear having the words "What in the ACTUAL fuck" in his mentions but I will note the original CTV article is fairly scant on details, this French interview has more details: www.noovo.info/video/je-me-... here's a rough summary: 7852144
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025Can we get a catchier label for LLM skeptics than “neo-luddites” or whatever they’re using today? Maybe- here’s the thing- introduce into LLM input some completely nonsensical label , such that it keeps being produced by LLM output describing LLM critics… 100
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialGareth Watkins @garethwatkins.bsky.social · 24/07/2025I saw somebody on TikTok using the word 'slopper' as a slur for people who use ChatGPT, and that's a thing we should start doing. 5042521114
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialDrawing Doll @mathraptor.bsky.social · 24/07/2025A reminder to any who think they aren't affected by any of these "porn bans" need to read up on history. Purges of purity like this led to the Comics Code Authority, and the demonization of Horror as a genre across all mediums. "Smut" to the fascist is a pretty wide net for anything they dislike. 3773352
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025My original post quote-tweeted a post about recent executive orders ; the post was the lead post in a thread comparing these executive orders to the “Ugly Laws” (en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugly_law) which I was not aware of.en.m.wikipedia.orgUgly law - Wikipedia 000
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025Good suggestion. :) I thoughtlessly replied to OP when I was trying to @mention —to ask you (who retweeted) for clarification. Thanks. 010
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025Leaving this post up, but adding a note to clarify- I had not read the thread that this is the lead post of when I posted the above. 100
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025And you’re right, I should have looked for a thread instead of reacting to a single headline post. 120
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialSara Nović @novicsara.bsky.social · 25/07/2025The Ugly Laws, a series of state laws at the turn of the 20th century, banned disabled, mentally ill and unhoused people from public places. This + other eugenic law like forced sterilization and interracial marriage bans were such comprehensive body of legislation the Nazis studied and cited them. 13211
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025A corner of us history I was not familiar with, thanks. :) 110
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialdarth™️ @darthbluesky.bsky.social · 24/07/2025well how does that admission help anyone now senator 601066102
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025. @lollardfish.bsky.social Is “ugly law” a term of art that I don’t understand? 200
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025Anybody else seeing this? Nominally “liberal” Americans becoming this fragile? 100
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 25/07/2025So here’s a thing. A contact (college friend’s spouse) just blew themself up on Facebook over .. the tone, I guess? .. of how my partner posted a news article. “I’m mad that you said, ‘your house is on fire’ instead of ‘excuse me, may I please tell you your house is on fire’!” Is my best analogy 100
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 24/07/2025Louder for the people in back.. Optimization requires stability, most processes never even get to the stage where they are stable. Even getting a process under control is distressingly rare. 140
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialPopehat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 24/07/2025The leadership of Columbia University is contemptible Vichy scum. To its professors who stay: that’s who you choose to work for, the obeisance to totalitarianism you choose to promote? To students who stay: those are your values? 632878651
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialMax Berger @maxberger.bsky.social · 24/07/2025We’re at the part in the rise of fascism where the official Homeland Security account is posting neo-Nazi propaganda. Update your clocks accordingly! 411883566
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialsoonergrunt @soonergrunt.bsky.social · 24/07/2025YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VERSIONS OF YOU THAT OTHER PEOPLE HAVE CREATED IN THEIR OWN MINDS. 918548
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 24/07/2025Verbs have /types/ it’s the coolest thing. Like, verbs don’t just have direct objects, different verbs have different requirements on their arguments, and we know all of this intuitively. 000
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 24/07/2025When you first non ironically say “oh you sweet summer child…” it hurts a little… 000
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialJan Beta @janbeta.net · 23/07/2025A viewer sent me an email, asking me to look over a schematic for an autofire circuit that he had a generative AI create for him. This is the circuit he sent me. It doesn’t make any sense. I sent him a circuit that works from an old magazine I used before. Don’t fricking trust AI with anything. 159328
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 07/07/2025We are selling our home in Edmonton, Alberta; it’s close to the University of Alberta, so might appeal to faculty escaping the USA.. DM for the listing. 000
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialCraig Gilmore @craiggilmore.bsky.social · 06/07/2025Trump's detention plans depend on ICE leasing (or buying) cages from states or counties. We need to monkeywrench those processes and destroy those cages -- or as @silkys13.bsky.social puts it, "Unbuild Walls" www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2213-u...haymarketbooks.orgUnbuild Walls 215865
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialOsama Dorias @osamadorias.bsky.social · 02/07/2025To everyone affected by the recent Microsoft (and other) layoffs, you didn’t deserve this. Let’s be clear: the state of the industry right now is not your fault. 219536
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 07/07/2025Sentence, full stop, newline. Lather, rinse, repeat. Paragraph break is two newlines. 210
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialSE Gyges @segyges.bsky.social · 02/07/2025current projections: 1) mao 2) stalin 3) hitler 4) roughly a tie between leopold II and elon musk 5) winston churchhill 6) pol pot 7) idi amin 1333353
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialMehdi Hasan @mehdirhasan.bsky.social · 02/07/2025If I had said this last year, that Trump would try and deport US citizens in his first year, all Republicans and a nontrivial number of liberals and centrists would have attacked me for behind hyperbolic, and fear-mongering, and of having Trump Derangement Syndrome. And yet: 23371581742
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 01/07/2025Jonah Goldberg, “Liberal Fascism”, something like 2005?, definitely a very moderate position… argh 020
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 30/06/2025Very good point. Stochastic terrorism will often further the regime’s interests, perhaps not directly, but by inspiring fear and sowing confusion. But, as you point out, *directed* terror, where the regime points to a target, is more serious. 000
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 30/06/2025You’re right. I just wish more people were aware of the villain-victim-hero triangle, and worked to avoid it as a simple political narrative. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman...en.wikipedia.orgKarpman drama triangle - Wikipedia 000
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialPossum Acquainter @possumacquainter.bsky.social · 30/06/2025bad news for Mamdani: i just imagined him shooting at my feet with two revolvers while shouting "dance! dance, ya varmint, dance!!" and then cackling so maniacally that his cowboy hat falls off. When will he go on TV to apologize for doing this 5072541037
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 30/06/2025“…where they found three or four Words together that might make Part of a Sentence, they dictated to the four remaining Boys who were Scribes…. “.. several Volumes in large Folio already collected, of broken Sentences, which he intended to piece together;” - collector 000
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 30/06/2025“These Bits of Wood were covered on every Square with Paper pasted on them; and on these Papers were written all the Words of their Language… giving a sudden Turn, the whole Disposition of the Words was entirely changed.” - randomizer 100
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 30/06/2025Jonathan Swift describing LLMs in Gulliver’s Travels: “by his Contrivance, the most ignorant Person at a reasonable Charge, and with a little bodily Labour, may write Books in Philosophy, Poetry, Politicks, Law, Mathematicks, and Theology, without the least Assistance from Genius or Study.” 110
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialRabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 30/06/2025We have to figure out how to take care of each other and fight alongside one another which means we have to actually, like, listen to each other. 615715
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 30/06/2025I’m not sure I agree about “villain-less” politics.. it seems to me that the dems are okay with making Mamdani a villain, and by extension.. anyone to the left of themselves In their view, the real villains are.. popular socialists..? 100
Reposted by @smikes.bsky.socialZach Rabiroff @zachrabiroff.com · 29/06/2025If you say that America is poised to institutionalize a police state - that the reality of concentration camps and regularized disappearances will become an ongoing facet of life - you'll still receive eye-rolls and clucked tongues. But that is not a possibility of this budget, it is the purpose. 262279767
smikes.bsky.social @smikes.bsky.social · 30/06/2025Of course in America, there would be promotional merchandise for the concentration camp before it is even built. 000
