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Will Slack

@wslack.bsky.social
263 followers 149 following 282 posts

Decatur GA native, prev USDS/18F & hospital tech around the US. Opinions mine; RTs/likes/follows ≠ endorsements. 🆇: @wslack 🐘: wslack@infosec.exchange

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Our public conversation has become dominated by shameless people because the nuance of wisdom can't break through the noise of hyper-optimized engagement algorithms. Nuance is thoughtful, balanced, and boring. It doesn't hold eyeballs. It's also what runs successful organizations.
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Carla Rae @peace1carla.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
Every woman you know has taken a longer route. Has doubled back on herself. Has pretended to dawdle by a shop window. Has held her keys in her hand. Has made a fake phone call. Has rounded a corner and run. Every woman you know has walked home scared. Every woman you know.
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Joe Flynn @chinajoeflynn.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
I work with Afghan immigrants in Virginia. Thousands were promised visa, vetted, and ready to come to America after our military pulled out and the Taliban retook the country. The Trump administration ended this last year. This includes the 1039 Afghans stuck at Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar.
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Annalee @flowerhorne.com · 19/09/2026
Insisting that LLMs are Not People is not an academic argument about the nature of sapience or free will. It's a rejection of accountability laundering. If non-determinism made machines responsible for their own actions then revolvers used in Russian Roulette should be indicted for murder.
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Bryan Cantrill @bcantrill.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
The contagion of fear bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09/13/t...
bcantrill.dtrace.org
The contagion of fear | The Observation Deck
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Raffi Melkonian @rmfifthcircuit.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Random note; since my dad passed away last December, I’ve been handling all of my mom’s mail and accounts. It is incredible. How many scams are aimed at the elderly in this country, including my companies that superficially seem legitimate. Every week her mail is full of this crap.
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Jeremy Sheff @jnsheff.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
The problem with private monitoring is a classic collective action problem: if any one private monitor identifies risks that the target does not want to abate, the target can simply contract for a more pliant monitor.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
We didn‘t need a multi-billion dollar national security state to secure against that mode of attack. Ordinary people did what had to be done in the moment.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
The National Debt has basically doubled since the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...) failed in 2010 to find compromise palatable to the extreme views that dominate our politics. It's all worse now and no one in power is acting responsibly.
en.wikipedia.org
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform - Wikipedia
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Hisham Zerriffi @hishamzerriffi.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Happy Rice Truck Day! Truly one of the best threads from the old site. I remember sitting in my couch waiting for the next instalment of the saga.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Dolly Parton loved her neighbors as herself, and were all the richer for it. She provided good cheer, amusement, and musical artistry, using the revenue to fund band uniforms and books. Her memory is a blessing and an example.
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Bobby Kogan @bbkogan.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
Every time I update this graph it still makes my jaw drop
US and UK real gdp per capita. they basically moved in lockstep until 2007Q4
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dillo saint dillo @dillo.media · 19/08/2026
"we can learn so much from these betting sites"
kalshi screenshot of Dem Senate nominee odds
 showing vindman at 95% for most of it and then it flips to Nixon at the end
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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
This might be the greatest example of "Twitter isn't real life."
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
"I cannot fathom is how readily people trust, “I’m oBsEsSeD with this XYZ,” “my hair/skin/sleep has never been betterrrrr,” delivered in a haze of vocal fry by someone with a financial incentive, whose last obsession was 15 minutes ago and whose next one is already on deck being negotiated. 1/
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
For your consideration, my childhood friend Bea had some grarley healthcare situations in childhood that continue to reverberate, and is seeking support to augment insurance for intensive (and possible residential) mental health treatment. gofund.me/7deb77643
gofund.me
Donate to Help Bea Get Treatment!, organized by Bea Woodworth
Hey. It’s me, Bea. If you don’t know me, I'm a 37-year-old transfeminine non-binary pe… Bea Woodworth needs your support for Help Bea Get Treatment!
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
There's little effect condemning the bad actions of political opponents, but politicians won't win any friends (or will lose support) condemning the bad actions of political allies, so they treat real moral concerns inconsistently and voters rightly see partisanship > morality.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
In 2025: 1,295,857 women earned 59.8% of all bachelor’s degrees. 550,124 women earned 63.6% of master’s degrees. 119,696 women (58.9%) graduated from doctoral or professional programs. Men matriculate less and drop out more. (educationdata.org/number-of-co...) We don't discuss these gaps enough.
educationdata.org
College Graduation Statistics [2026]: Total Graduates per Year
Find college graduation statistics, including the annual number of college graduates by state, degree, discipline, and demographics.
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EMILY WILSON @emilyrcwilson.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
There is a lot to say about the Nolan Odyssey movie. But one point that I think has not been emphasized enough is: this is a film about living in LA, as Nolan, my erstwhile British compatriot and age mate, has done for years. I gather it’s a strange place.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Look the way she translates the opening versus other versions. It's incredible.
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Chris Forster @cforster.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
After trying to use contextualized embeddings for something, I wrote way more than I intended to in an attempt to understand how contextualized embeddings actually work. And then compared them to Cleanth Brooks's description of poetry. cforster.com/2026/07/assa...
cforster.com
Assays of Bias: LLMs and Geometries of Meaning
Trying to understand how LLMs represent meaning by way of a discussion of Cleanth Brooks's account of poetic paradox.
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Chris Kuang @chriskuang.com · 05/07/2026
Every time it’s a jump scare when I see USDC, but it’s actually just the stablecoin
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Be strong enough to be gentle.
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Christopher Whitaker @civicwhitaker.com · 05/05/2026
Civic technology teams have to keep four monsters in their heads at all times: How we think things work (layperson), how the law actually works (lawyer), how the software works (coder) & what that actually looks like in reality (constituent) The art, and something AI is crappy at, is the merge.
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ashley fairbanks @ziibiing.com · 25/04/2026
AI identified her as the suspect in a crime spree in states she had never been to. she was in jail for six months before she even got to speak with an officer and they instantly were shown they had no case. she lost everything—her house, dog, car, and was left stranded in north dakota.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 24/04/2026
We could pass a law ending partisan gerrymandering today - either via proportional representation, algorithmically drawn districts with party vetos, or many other options.
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Kyra Dempsey - Admiral Cloudberg @kyracloudy.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
10/10 trip it was a blast. You know that stupid question "what if you used 100% of your brain," well we used 100% of the car and I have to recommend it
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 16/04/2026
I wish there was a scientific way to measure the human capital of Congress. Not speech-giving or fundraising abilities, more doing (in theory) the actual job of hiring staff, writing laws, passing budgets, etc etc. I suspect that over time, more and more strong people have passed on that job.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
The truth emerges with a whimper after the baseless allegation reverberated round the world: variety.com/2026/music/n...
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
LLMs are not as smart as their strongest public proponents not as empty as their strongest public detractors. We are at the "using leaches as medicine" stage of sophistication in understanding them. Yet social media tends to amplify those extreme takes the most, because they get *engagement." :/
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Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
Not dunking on Zack or this post, I’m just always struck by how easily American journalists will admit that the media shapes public polling and political outcomes when they’re not talking about America.
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Yoz Grahame @yoz.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
if you think software generated by LLMs is inherently worse than code typed by humans, then please sit down, because i'm about to give you some terrible news: you have considerably overestimated how good we, as a species, are at creating reliable software
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
A desperate, addicted gambler won't admit they lost and cash out with their remaining chips. They rebuy (with other's money if they can), bet more, and go huge - obliterating themselves in the small hope of digging themselves out. Redemption is always possible. Would that it happens. Happy Easter.
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Cameron Blevins @cblevins.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
This is so, so well-articulated.
People call this friction "grunt work." Schwartz uses exactly that phrase, and he's right that LLMs can remove it. What he doesn't say, because he already has decades of hard-won intuition and doesn't need the grunt work anymore, is that for someone who doesn't yet have that intuition, the grunt work is the work. The boring parts and the important parts are tangled together in a way that you can't separate in advance. You don't know which afternoon of debugging was the one that taught you something fundamental about your data until three years later, when you're working on a completely different problem and the insight surfaces. Serendipity doesn't come from efficiency. It comes from spending time in the space where the problem lives, getting your hands dirty, making mistakes that nobody asked you to make and learning things nobody assigned you to learn.
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niki grayson @nikigrayson.com · 02/04/2026
right now the astronauts are calling houston because the computer on the spaceship is running two instances of microsoft outlook and they can't figure out why. nasa is about to remote into the computer
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Excellent video on how engine lubrication works from the same creator who taught me everything I know about dishwashers: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmCf...
youtube.com
Oil pressure is the only thing keeping an engine alive
YouTube video by Technology Connections
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
People who despise themselves don't think anyone else cares about their words (because who would ever listen to them when they don't value their own words?), and thus might be more likely to say awful things on the internet. Hrm.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
When the press reports judicial decisions as “judge sides with X“ or “judges back Y” they do a disservice to the judicial process. If judges are simply political actors picking sides, their opinions should not hold the rule of law. Media should say instead “Judge: first amendment sides with X”
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Anupam Chander @anupamchander.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Internal messages of concern about platform decisions were used to great effect by the plaintiffs' attorneys in the social media cases. As @masnick.com observes, this will lead companies to shut down internal dissent channels or internal reviews of risks. www.techdirt.com/2026/03/26/e...
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Drop eight zeros and federal finances look like a household that earns $52,446 and spends $73,378 — running a $20,932 annual deficit. Its total liabilities and unfunded promises amount to $1,361,788 against $60,554 in assets, leaving it $1.3 million in the hole. fortune.com/2026/03/23/u...
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Had no idea of the history of iodized salt and how important it was/is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRcw...
youtube.com
The easiest way to make the world smarter
YouTube video by Rabbit Hole
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
In Heinrich's triangle, there are several unreported incidents/near misses reported for every incident. For every major event not involving a fatality, there are up to 100 incidents that led up to it. And for every fatality, ~10 major events led up to it.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
In Heinrich's triangle, there are several unreported incidents/near misses reported for every incident. For every major event not involving a fatality, there are up to 100 incidents that led up to it. And for every fatality, ~10 major events led up to it.
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Nicholas Grossman @nicholasgrossman.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
They love presenting Election Night(s) like a sports event, where count reports that come in early are like points scored in the first half, so a candidate can "come from behind" or "extend their lead" in the second. It's the highest-rated night of the year, and they won't give it up willingly.
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Cyd Harrell @cydharrell.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
ranked choice is a fundamental shift in the meaning of "a vote" - Dana Chisnell & I were just remembering a 1-day usability study she led, testing ranked choice ballots with Bay Area voters ~2010. people *struggled*. voters do figure it out, but you see some weird results the first couple elections
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
The prices of basic cheap food are just climbing and climbing.
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Dr Lindsey Fitzharris @drlindseyfitz.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
I posted a 1912 photo of a man with smallpox and someone asked if it was AI. That says something about the moment we’re living in: because of vaccination, we’re now so far removed from this virus that real images of it look fake. #medicalhistory #vaccines #vaccineswork #skystorians
A black and white photo of a man suffering from smallpox. His face is riddled with pustules.
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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 14/03/2026
Reminds me of Christians who honestly thought being gay was a choice - as If people in the early 2000s wanted to be bullied. We’re doing a lot of talking about instead of hearing from - and socual media shows us the “others” that most align with our worldviews.
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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 10/03/2026
Both of the options here are human writers. The first option is unprocessed human writing and the second option is human writing run through a language model to reproduce the same outputs with different words If it couldn't have existed without training data, it isn't creating anything at all.
Who’s a Better Writer: A.I. or Humans? Take Our Quiz.
By Kevin Roose and Stuart A. Thompson March 9, 2026
Share full article

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Artificial intelligence is already being used to write romance novels, academic papers and software applications. But how does A.I. stack up against some of the world’s best human writers?

Skeptics have argued that A.I. can never be truly creative, because it lacks the kind of worldly experiences humans have. But several recent studies have suggested that, in blind tests, many readers prefer A.I.-generated writing to human-authored works.

In this quiz, you’ll read five pairs of writing samples, representing a range of styles and genres. We asked A.I. to choose an existing piece of strong writing and then craft its own version using its own voice. For each pair, choose the sample you like better. We’ll show you how many other readers agreed with you and, at the end of the quiz, how your preferences broke down.
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Chris Kuang @chriskuang.com · 09/03/2026
What @saahildesai.bsky.social said www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
theatlantic.com
Insider Trading Is Going to Get People Killed
War markets are a national-security threat.
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