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Will Slack

@wslack.bsky.social

264 followers 149 following 283 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 · 14/05/2026

Thank you for correcting me! Deleting my original as its not as clear as what else I'd read.

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

h/t @donmoyn.bsky.social. All of this past year and the reckless spending is still accelerating - and this is adjusted for inflation, so the constant dollar values are worse.

A graph showing five lines on spending from 2021-2025. The 2025 line is consistently higher than the others.

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Grateful tonight for officer David Rose, so sorry for his wife and children, and thankful for everyone who runs into fire if that moment should come. www.decaturish.com/public_safet...

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Some commentary I found smart: www.linkedin.com/posts/mikeyd...

Last week I gave a talk at a Center for Civic Futures conference called "What You Need To Know Now about AI." I wrote it down after the fact as is my custom and will post some version of it somewhere eventually. But for now, a tangential thing I realized after talking to people there: The blockchain feeding frenzy shows us a possible future for "AI."

The fundamental dumbness of blockchain (incredibly slow, expensive, riddled with scams) was never overcome. No one is seriously even trying anymore. Because it didn't matter. Blockchain created a smoke cloud that allowed finance bros to do what they want to do anyway, which is evade 150 years of market regulation and go back to wildcat banks. That's its actual purpose, and it's up and running.

You could have created exactly the same industry if enough podcasters and QVC-quality youtubers and internet clowns suddenly started promoting magic beans or Disney dollars or Monopoly money.

Likewise, "AI" doesn't have to even work on its own terms, let alone solve any actual problem, for it to kick up a smoke cloud that allows the titans of industry to implement the workforce and product enshittification they want to do anyway. That's its actual purpose, and it's up and running. All of the technical criticisms that people like me have can be correct, and not matter.

The purpose of a system is what it does.

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

Text on men feeling isolated and the dismissal of their concerns.

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

Wow. We are creating the perfect "entertainment" that totally removes babies' ability to build their own connections to the world. This is real-life soma, Brave New World style. www.nytimes.com/2022/05/05/a...

Sitting on a sofa in a glass-walled room, a 2-year-old in a blue T-shirt is riveted by an episode of “CoComelon,” an animated cartoon series full of vivid colors, cherubic children and earworm songs like “Miss Polly Had a Dolly” and “Ten Little Duckies.” Three adults stand outside a closed door, watching the toddler watch the television. One studies a computer screen that shows a live feed from a camera pointed at the tyke.

It’s audience research day at Moonbug Entertainment, the London company that produces 29 of the most popular online kids’ shows in the world, found on more than 150 platforms in 32 languages — and with 7.8 billion views on YouTube in March alone. Once a month, children are brought here, one at a time, and shown a handful of episodes to figure out exactly which parts of the shows are engaging and which are tuned out.

For anyone older than 2 years old, the team deploys a whimsically named tool: the Distractatron.

It’s a small TV screen, placed a few feet from the larger one, that plays a continuous loop of banal, real-world scenes — a guy pouring a cup of coffee, someone getting a haircut — each lasting about 20 seconds. Whenever a youngster looks away from the Moonbug show to glimpse the Distractatron, a note is jotted down.

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 14/10/2024

A screenshot of some tweet about brilliant people make very simplistic political takes.

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 07/10/2024

This is an absolutely massive storm surge.

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 04/10/2024

caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/10/02/s...

Quote from the linked article about the SLS launch tower

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 31/01/2024

www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations Pretty stark numbers. We're slipping off the cliff but don't realize it yet.

Graph showing EU and US emissions dropping while worldwide emissions rise

Ocean temperatures rising much higher in 2023

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 10/11/2023

Pocket sizes of jeans marketed to women vs men. Source: www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfu...

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 30/10/2023

Our nostalgic lament for the 90s.

An apartment building with flowers around a street sign below it.

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Will Slack @wslack.bsky.social · 22/09/2023

Went to the YouTube homepage incognito to see the default video recs, of the 8 top videos two were political: one about the dangers of Gary Indiana, the other negative coverage of the President. No content at all that appeared "liberal" in any way - interesting to me that we code YouTube as left.

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