Jack liked the bsky idea because he thought by turning Twitter into a protocol he would be excused from having to do the messy community work that’s the actual hard part of social media - an ethos that almost destroyed bsky in the beginning and still lies at the root of all their bad decisions.
Forodwaith Systems
Being very clear that the existing structures and patterns of today's tech world mean that we should expect, and are already experiencing, a fast-forward tour of said pitfalls.
Big fan here of DeLong's substitution for "artificial superintelligence" of "Anthology superintelligence"--"humanity’s collective mind present and past stored in and as our information technology capital stock." LLMs? A new interface to All That. With real opportunities and big pitfalls.
choose your friends wisely -- then read their posts
A key challenge, and a huge source of the disconnect between Silicon Valley and the other creative industries is that, for coders, AI eliminates the drudgery so they can focus on the creative/expressive part. In every other creative discipline, it has the exact opposite effect.
This is a great piece on why and how we keep making culture -- looping the thread of "I want to make this" through the needle of careerism, financial needs, self-doubt and The Times We Live In. newsletter.bijanstephen.blog/what-does-it...
For those of you keeping score at home, the actual cut to the Post newsroom was 45%, not the widely reported one third. Remaining journalists are a bit over 400, down from around 1100 four years ago and 580 when Bezos bought the place.
But the whole thing is radically subjective and the subjectivity is something LLMs can't really participate in at all. They will never have something to say about "what it's like to be alive on Feb. 10 2026 as a particular person in a certain place surrounded by certain events and people"
The "good" in "good writing" depends on our hunger to encounter another person's experience of something as they have expressed it. Those experiences and expressions are in constant flux. "Classics" become so because their appeal has some staying power over time.
This is a really interesting discussion, but I feel like it's missing a key point. "Good writing" is hard to quantify because, beyond the more tactical aspects (coherence, concision, suspense, descriptive skill, etc.), what makes writing resonate in the moment is utterly subjective.
This is why domestic "shuffle" flights between ICE detention centers have skyrocketed, much moreso than ICE deportation flights.
When you are moved to a different jurisdiction, you have to refile your habeas petition all over again. They want to wear people down so they'll give up on their cases.
Those good people at @404media.co bought a Super Bowl ad www.404media.co/email/f65911...
The AI industry has been on this precipice before, and maybe it will keep its balance. It is the nature of these moments that you simply don't know. No one in April 2000 really knew that dotcom mania was over. The full extent of the collapse took 18 months to play out.
Every time tech stocks retreat, part of my psyche that bears the scars of 2000-2001 feels the twinge. As with a big Northern California earthquake, we are overdue. This one could be another minor correction. But all it takes is a lineup of random factors to kick off a self-reinforcing rout.
The version I learned in summer camp followed up with "Comet -- it gives you gangrene" -- but it needed another syllable so the counselor said "gang-a-rene" -- I have remembered that for more than half a century
With the awful WaPo layoffs and the state of journalism more broadly, if it's useful for any writers and reporters considering going indy, @molly.wiki, @xoxogossipgita.bsky.social of Aftermath, @jasonkoebler.bsky.social of 404 Media, @edzitron.com and me will do a little workshop next week.
Most of the Washington Post’s tech reporters were laid off today, including me. I have loved my time at the paper, which is where I wanted to work from age 15. I take some consolation in not being among the survivors who will have to work harder with less for fewer readers. On to better things.
That's nuts. Thinking of you!
Yes! It was definitely one of those slightly-late-to-the-party, follow-along efforts by the Atlantic but had some good people. One of many spasms of the "How do we stay in the game now that traffic is migrating to Facebook" era
Yes! It's also true we were having these fucking conversations at the dawn of Twitter itself... and before that, in many other digital social environments. Team viral-engagement always seems to win, probably because platforms are VC-funded and growth-driven. Would be fun to try something different
This is such a classic instance of what happens when a startup with a community of devoted fans gets acquired by a megacorp and then put on life support. www.wired.com/story/metas-...
Since the start of the genAI craze I have been arguing that OpenAI could well turn out to be, not the next Google/Facebook, but rather the next Netscape. Here is one analysis predicting that outcome:
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/o...
Very sad to hear. This is where I first saw @themountaingoats.bsky.social in like 2003 or 3004 and many times thereafter. Such a privilege
When you get the reputation of being the guy with the encouraging words on New Year's Eve, it can start to come through as a little pressure -- what if the situation on the ground is worse than usual? what if people are more scared than they usually are, and with cause? what use are good vibes then?
Thanks for this.
I ran a mimeo as a teen in the 70s. The ink fumes were bracing but wouldn't get you high. Spirit aka ditto was cheaper and common in schools but the output was lower quality and degraded faster. I think future generations will talk about the Web the way we talk about these tools!
One panel comic with one person saying to another: Philip K Dick, Ray Bradbury. Like so many others in tech, I draw inspiration from completely misunderstanding those authors
via The New Yorker, Ellis Rosen cartoon
Thank you! This is truly annoying, suggesting an inability on the user's part to distinguish between the thing itself ("conspiracy") and the fancifully mistaken belief that the thing is real ("theory") -- furthering the very confusion that conspiracy theorists depend on to spread their conjectures
Anyway w/r/t to that thread on The Pitt, I think the show (which I love!) is a flashpoint for a broader argument in TV: Should the medium's new business & technologicial structure be constrained to preserve narrative formats and customs that only exist because of a previous business/tech structure
"Best movie of 1984" -- Scott Rosenberg, third string movie critic for Boston Phoenix at the time. Totally holds up IMHO
