Rob Barry

This is quality content

Imagine an ant walking on a balloon. But it's actually a 768-dimensional manifold whose axes represent learned semantic features, and the ant is really a vector encoding meaning through its distributed position across all these latent dimensions. I mean, so cool, right?

How this year’s Pulitzer awardees used AI in their reporting For a second year, the Pulitzer Prizes required applicants to divulge AI usage — one winner and three finalists disclosed.

Read the @niemanlab.org's interview with @johnwest.bsky.social for a behind-the-scenes take on how the WSJ used AI to analyze Elon Musk's tweets www.niemanlab.org/2025/05/how-...

Silicon Valley’s New Hold on Washington See how allies of four tech titans are staffing the agencies meant to regulate them, raising ethics flags and securing billions.

WSJ analysis: Since January, more than three dozen employees and associates of Elon Musk and fellow tech titans Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen and Palmer Luckey have been tapped for roles at federal agencies critical to their businesses www.wsj.com/politics/tec...

Elon Musk’s Hard Turn to Politics, in 300,000 of His Own Words The billionaire’s social-media feed shows his metamorphosis from a businessman who largely avoided politics to a vocal Trump supporter.

The Money and Drugs That Tie Elon Musk to Some Tesla Directors - wsj.com/tech/elon-mu...

Elon Musk’s Hard Turn to Politics, in 300,000 of His Own Words - www.wsj.com/tech/elon-mu...

So proud of @wsj.com data team member @johnwest.bsky.social and formers @coulterjones.bsky.social @andreafuller.bsky.social for their work "chronicling political and personal shifts of the richest person in the world, Elon Musk, including his turn to conservative politics" pulitzer.org/winners/22641

Exclusive | Trump Family Has Held Deal Talks With Binance Following Crypto Exchange’s Guilty Plea The discussions for a stake in Binance’s U.S. arm come as founder Changpeng Zhao has pushed for the administration to pardon him for his own 2023 guilty plea.

Representatives of President Trump’s family have held talks to take a financial stake in the U.S. arm of crypto exchange Binance, according to people familiar with the matter www.wsj.com/finance/curr... by @ceostroff.bsky.social et al

Interesting chart on the @wsj.com home page right now www.wsj.com/economy/trum...

If people realized how massively complex the data work was for this project, I think they’d question @mcgint.bsky.social’s sanity. Learn more Fri @ 2:15p #nicar25

WSJ is a finalist for Goldsmith Prize in investigative reporting - Talking Biz News The Wall Street Journal is a finalist for the 2025 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting for its coverage of how insurance companies have made billions off of Medicare. The Journal’s investigati...

Congrats @mcgint.bsky.social and team! talkingbiznews.com/media-news/w...

Reupping this new WSJ data journo job for the crew headed to #NICAR25. If you're interested or want to learn more, feel free to hit me up. I'll be there all week!

Want to work with the most amazing data team in journalism? We're hiring (again)! wsj.jobs/new-york-ny/...

Can't wait to be having this debate with the autonomous killer robot stedda ChatGPT!

Passage from Carl Sagan’s A demon-haunted world book.

Some folks are pretty good seeing things coming.

Tracking Putin’s Most Feared Secret Agency—From Inside a Russian Prison and Beyond The spy unit that arrested a Wall Street Journal reporter is leading the biggest campaign of internal repression since the Stalin era.

It's Russia's largest campaign of internal repression since Stalin.

While in prison, Evan Gershkovich never stopped reporting. One discovery? A secretive unit called DKRO turned dating apps into honeypot operations, targeting Americans with security clearances.

www.wsj.com/world/russia...

The WSJ is looking for a statistically minded journalist who can spot clever natural experiments and explain what really makes the world tick. $145K-165K in NYC. Apply by Dec 20. It comes with some pretty sweet perks (like @ceostroff.bsky.social's candy jar) wsj.jobs/new-york-ny/...

‘Brain Rot’ Is Why Your Kids All Sound Like That For Gen Z and Gen Alpha, consuming low-value social media content isn’t a chronic condition—it’s a way of forming a shared language

There's Linear A, Rongorongo, the Voynich Manuscript, and my 10-year-old's friends www.wsj.com/style/brain-...

I'm not ashamed to admit it, @anthropic.com: I really, really miss Golden Gate Claude news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4045...

South Korea Votes to End Martial Law, Hours After President Declared Move Yoon Suk Yeol, the country’s leader, had said the nation was being held hostage by opposition parties he accused of antistate activities.

"The early Wednesday morning vote was 190 to 0. To cast their vote, lawmakers scaled fences and encountered armed guards as they entered the country’s National Assembly building in downtown Seoul." www.wsj.com/world/asia/s...

Insurers Collected Billions From Medicare for Veterans Who Cost Them Almost Nothing Taxpayers paid for their care at the VA—and for Medicare Advantage coverage that many didn’t use. ‘I don’t think I’ve used my Medicare in years,’ said one Air Force veteran.

MEDICARE ADVANTAGE: Private insurers collected billions for veterans' healthcare, while the VA delivered it, by @mcgint.bsky.social and crew. www.wsj.com/health/healt...

A chart showing a clusters of books I read.

I've read ~350 books since I started keeping track in 2020. I tagged every one in my own weird tagging style. I'm starting my yearly project of visualizing my reading life (though I'm not sure why I do it).

Here's a rough cut, which pulls together books with similar tags, authors, and publishers.

it’s like goulash but with a turtleneck

and the reviews are in!
'The Last Broadcast's "Disconnect to Reconnect" fumbles through cyber-dystopian anxieties with the grace of your parents discovering TikTok. Despite moments of genuine intimacy, most of these digital dirges feel like a ChatGPT fever dream about the robot apocalypse. (6.8)'

Reddit - Dive into anything r/MacApps is a one stop shop for all things related to MacOS apps - featuring app showcases, news, updates, sales, discounts and even freebies.

i love these posts i get to waste hours installing apps to be more productive www.reddit.com/r/macapps/co...

The Last Broadcast Play The Last Broadcast on SoundCloud and discover followers on SoundCloud | Stream tracks, albums, playlists on desktop and mobile.

i made an album about the ai apocalypse using ai and i can’t stop listening to it m.soundcloud.com/the-last-bro...

Musk Unleashes Online Army on Federal Workers. ‘A Tough Way to Find Out She’s Losing Her Job.’ As Trump efficiency czar, the billionaire is targeting employees by name on X—sparking pushback.

As Trump efficiency czar, Elon Musk has gone from targeting federal agencies for bloat to going after federal employees by name on X — sparking pushback

Claude ftw on this loving message my 10-year-old sent me yesterday

Sometimes, silence speaks volumes.

Donald Trump Jr. Goes All-In on the Anti-Woke Economy The MAGA surrogate and powerful adviser to the president-elect is joining venture-capital firm 1789 to invest in companies espousing conservative values, bringing new attention to a financial movement...

The MAGA surrogate and powerful adviser to the president-elect is joining venture-capital firm 1789 to invest in companies espousing conservative values, bringing new attention to a financial movement that hasn’t taken off

My latest w/Peter Rudegeair and Alex Leary
www.wsj.com/finance/inve...