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Eric Sipple

@ericsipple.com

1.1K followers 910 following 4.6K posts

Author of BROKEN MAGIC, MIMESIS. Head of Engineering at Hey Jane. My brain is a beautiful rain of frogs. https://linktr.ee/saalon

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · Sep 5

On September 24th, I'll be releasing a piece with one of my bolder theses: That Glen Morgan and James Wong are the innovators of what we consider Modern Television. Their work from The X-Files, to Space: Above and Beyond, through Millennium represents the most influential-on-writers work of the era.

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Reposted by Eric Sipple

ProPublica @propublica.org · 5h

After signing up for self-deportation, Emily and Deybis sold their car and moved to an unfinished basement. But DHS never sent them the promised plane tickets.

Now they worry about surviving winter. Weeks ago, they sold their daughter’s bed to pay rent.

➡️ Read more: https://propub.li/4ohnDm6

Article excerpt: Emily said she made clear the family didn’t have Venezuelan passports but was told that wouldn’t be a problem; the U.S. government would procure any necessary documents for them. They said the operator gave them an Aug. 1 departure date and told them to expect their plane tickets by email.

Emily and Deybis sold their car and moved with their children to Columbus, Ohio, where Deybis’ nephew let them stay in his unfinished basement apartment until their departure. The plane tickets never came.

Then the nephew was detained in a traffic stop and deported. Panicked, Emily and Deybis said they called the toll-free number again and again, leaving messages that went unanswered. Emily submitted a new application and sent more emails.

Article excerpt: ...They found travel agencies that offer to procure travel documents at a cost but said they were told the Venezuelan government requires an arrival date and proof that plane tickets have been purchased. Emily and Deybis can’t afford them.

“Thank you so much for your patience and we understand your frustration,” they heard back in another email. “Wait for new instructions from DHS.”

As they wait, they worry about how they’ll survive when winter comes. Most days, Deybis visits local food pantries and looks for discarded items in alleys and on street corners that they can resell. A few weeks ago, they sold their daughter’s bed to help pay the rent.

“We’d rather be in Venezuela with our family than suffer here,” he said.

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 11h

Going to Hollywood and realizing too late that my HEROES SUCKED sign is out of place at the protest I'd misread the name of as "No Krings".

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Reposted by Eric Sipple

Kendra, regular version @kendrawcandraw.bsky.social · 1d

You can't logic your way out of being burnt out. Unless you're me. Who should be able to do it and it's a personal failing that I can't

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 11h

Tonight, in "Things That Totally Happened"...

Toronto Star @thestar.com · 11h

Premier Doug Ford said he personally stopped a shoplifter at a Home Depot in July and warned him he would “kick your ass all over the parking lot” if he tried to flee.

Doug Ford says he threatened Home Depot shoplifter with ‘a beating’

Premie claimed he personally warned a shoplifter that he would "kick your ass all over the parking lot" if he tried to flee.

www.thestar.com

Reposted by Eric Sipple

karl rove knausgård @uhactually.bsky.social · 13h

You might think Ryan is exaggerating but I used to go to a regular dinner that gradually got taken over by young Republican staffers and I promise you he is not.

ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · 13h

every young Republican staffer is a Nazi, it's that simple www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat

Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.

www.politico.com

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 11h

😂😂😂

Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 12h

If you'll turn to Marx 4:15-20, there is the account of the Edomites attempt to institute Communism...

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Reposted by Eric Sipple

io9 @io9dotcom.bsky.social · 15h

Drew Struzan, the King of the Movie Poster, Has Died

The beloved artist, who illustrated iconic posters for 'Star Wars', 'Indiana Jones', 'Back to the Future', and more, was 78.

gizmodo.com

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The Ass is the father of the legs @internethippo.bsky.social · 12h

You pay taxes so he can illegally weaponize that money against you and your community

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 12h

Trump and Bessent clarify that they will only help out Argentina as long as Milei is in power. Trump adds that the same thing goes with NYC, where the White House will hold up funds if Mamdani wins.

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 12h

Communist policies have been proven for "thousands of years" not to work, guys. It's just facts.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 12h

Trump and Bessent clarify that they will only help out Argentina as long as Milei is in power. Trump adds that the same thing goes with NYC, where the White House will hold up funds if Mamdani wins.

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 12h

Why is this worded like this is some kind of geopolitical BDSM play?

FinTwitter @fintwitter.bsky.social · 12h

TRUMP: THINKING ABOUT GIVING SPAIN TRADE PUNISHEMENT

Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 13h

It’s a bummer that our two best things got torn into corporate recreations (Reddit and discord).

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 13h

The problem with something like microblogging is that you are always in *both* a discovery *and* community space. On something like IRC or Usenet, you can swim through options, dip in, find stuff, but when you engage, the engagement is contained to the community.

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 13h

Totally -- this is why I call out things like this place or twitter or to a lesser degree Mastadon as being discovery-optimized, but not community-building-optimized. I think there are limits to both. Something like IRC or Usenet were honestly the best we've had -- both discovery *and* depth.

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 14h

I was saying this to another friend, but the ideal use of a microblogging platform is that it's oriented to discovery and keeping up with people who are not your friends. But actual community happens elsewhere, into places you invite people into.

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 14h

Twitter proved one novel use case that we may not have another model for, which is immediate feeds of things going on Right Then. No other mass social media platform optimized that way, and I think it made a lot of difference in times like the 2020 protests and Covid. Otherwise? ehhhhh

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Reposted by Eric Sipple

eric shamow @botmatrix.myatproto.social · 14h

People keep looking for the replacement for Twitter, but it's possible that the era of mass social media was a phase we'll look back on like dial-up internet.

I do not think every human is meant to be point-to-point connected to every other human with no surrounding context.

Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 16h

There really is no solution to the problem of toxic community and gatekeeping patterns in mass social media. The surface area is incompatible with the scale and diversity of uses. You cannot serve EVERY community without either biasing towards some or making it insufficient for all, or both.

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Micah @rincewind.run · 15h

I just think that fundamentally people are talking about this a little too much like the race is already won

yes obviously in the abstract it’s better to have a 41 year old than a 77 year old in the seat (assuming he doesn’t turn into another Fetterman anyway) but you have to win the seat first

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Micah @rincewind.run · 15h

I’m not thrilled about Mills running for Senate at 77 either but getting Collins out is no joke and if Platner can’t win the primary he didn’t have the juice for the general anyway

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 15h

Wait, what? Their complaints were disingenuous in such obvious ways that anyone who took them seriously should be ashamed? No way!

Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 15h

I'm sorry, is the Trump Administration talking to a tech platform?

Is it...requesting content moderation?

Today following outreach from @thejusticedept, Facebook removed a large group page that was being used to dox and target @ICEgov agents in Chicago.
The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs. The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.

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Reposted by Eric Sipple

Simon Lester @simonlester.com · 15h

It's a strange state of affairs where world leaders have to consider whether public support of Trump's Nobel Prize quest can get them, say, a tariff reduction of 5 percentage points.

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 16h

Johnson: "Together with my friend Speaker Ohana of the Israeli Knesset we're going to rally speakers and presidents of parliaments around the world so we will jointly nominate President Donald J Trump for next year's Nobel Prize. No one has ever deserved that prize more & that is an objective fact."

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 15h

Agreed -- my main concern with Discord is, well, Tech Companies. But it's the right model and I think our ideal is something like Bluesky/Mastadon/Whatever for discovery, and discord for actual community.

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 15h

Yeah, it's *not* easy and honestly doesn't have a ton of value because you don't gain all that much over joining a larger instance. It's kind of Middle Scale, but also you can't easily do what you could on something like IRC and join different channels. it's still all One Feed (or curated lists)

Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 16h

But! Mastodon *is* closer to something to solve for fostering smaller, more target communities, which was ultimately its goal, so I think it does work for that! It's more a discord/twitter midpoint than a replacement for either.

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Eric Sipple @ericsipple.com · 16h

Mastodon is a great example of something that does solve for some of the issues, but in doing so, has made the platform barely sufficient for what few things mass social media are good for.

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