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Reposted by Matt Weiner

noam chompers @noamchompers.bsky.social · 2h

on the eve of october 15th, about time for my yearly sad musing where i try to add up all the wasted time and energy by all the super talented people who could be writing cool stuff and are instead writing a bunch of cover letters yet again

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

(at least from the couple pages of Ready Player One that people post. those seem like enough for me to judge on)

Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

oh right, my unhinged literary take is that Sarah Dessen was right to feel annoyed, though for the reasons stated below she should have kept her complaints private

(Dessen writes good books; one of the books previously chosen for the summer reading was Ready Player One, which is *not* good)

Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

that's what happened in the Sarah Dessen blowup, where she complained about a student dissing her, and she redacted the name of the student--but that still started blowback that resulted in that person being forced to apologize.

with great power comes great responsibility and all that

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

that's what happened in the Sarah Dessen blowup, where she complained about a student dissing her, and she redacted the name of the student--but that still started blowback that resulted in that person being forced to apologize.

with great power comes great responsibility and all that

Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

and your follower count (and the kind of follower) does matter! some accounts are big enough that if they screenshot dunk someone, enough of their followers will go after that person that it'll start a dogpile. (idk if that's what happened this time). even an anonymized screenshot!

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

the recent blow-up involved someone who was replying to a post that screenshotted someone. in my opinion that is far enough removed that you should pretend you did not see it (if *you* aren't being dogpiled for it). for the same reason that people find namesearching generally dishonorable

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

but this is a public site, and people can talk about what you post. especially if you're a big account. sometimes going after someone who is talking about your post gets to the yelling-at-reviewers end of the spectrum, especially if your account is big enough to start a dogpile

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

like if someone replies rudely to you, you can certainly reply back, even if the size of your account means that they will get unwelcome attention. and usually even quote them. ditto if they quote you, since they are bringing you into the conversation

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 3h

really think this is important for how you calibrate online responses and boundaries

there is a spectrum from
"if someone is yelling in your face, you can yell back and bring your friends"
to
"coming after someone for giving you a bad review on goodreads is psycho behavior"

Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 24d

the argument aside, I think there is something approximately like this:
replying to someone is addressing them
quoting them is like talking in their presence but not addressing them
screenshotting is like talking about them when they're not there

Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 26d

she's explicitly making it to anyone thinking of signing up for the protest, and he's also talking to those people IMO

(think the screenshot vs. quote post distinction is doing legitimate work here, in that when you screenshot you're not by default addressing the author of the post)

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Reposted by Matt Weiner

Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 4h

As another Jewish woman in the industry, I can clear this up: It's due to her being an asshole.

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 4h

Fox News host Emily Compagno claims that the backlash to Bari Weiss being named CBS News editor-in-chief is due to her being Jewish:

"This kind of thing would make me laugh if there was not an antisemitic thread in there."

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 5h

indeed, the wedding reception storyline featured Rex and June skedaddling before all the stars of roots country played

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 5h

KSA, as far as I know which is not far, has nothing else besides whatever it has accumulated through its oil profits

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 5h

yeah I think I want to agree that the culture war is downstream from the incentives of many Texas moneymen, but disagree that the post-fossil fuel economy is an existential threat to Texas itself, as opposed to those moneymen

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 6h

a classic West Texas song about sources of renewable energy
youtu.be/UXNyyI8JSPo?...

Because of the Wind

YouTube video by Jimmie Dale Gilmore - Topic

youtu.be

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 6h

*slaps the roof of Dickens County, Texas* this bad boy can fit so many solar farms in it

satellite view of Dickens County, Texas. It is a flat nothingness. There is a marker for the town of Dickens and one somewhere south of it for Anderson's Fort Historical Marker

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 6h

disagree about Texas. Texas could easily transition to a post-fossil fuel economy if it wanted to, it is as rich in sources of renewable energy as it is in oil

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 8h

somehow when I got to "Bertie shows us how it's done" I thought this was going to be Wooster informing Spode that he knows all about Eulalie

Chris Kendall 👊🇪🇺🧶 @ottocr.at · 8h

For some reason I had laboured under the misapprehension that Moseley disappeared from politics after the 1930s. But he was still at it in the 60s. I did not realise that there was a direct unbroken line of continuity from him to Farage via the National Front. Anyway, Bertie shows us how it’s done.

In December 1961, the British fascist, Oswald Mosley, sent Bertrand Russell two of his books. Mosley wrote of ‘the two root differences between us' in international politics, and subsequently invited Russell to lunch. On 22 January 1962, Russell declined the invitation in these terms.

Dear Sir Oswald,

Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one's own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.

I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.

I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.

Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 8h

about the piece, can also report that a lot of students skipped classes in 1992

Nicole Holliday @mixedlinguist.bsky.social · 8h

This is just another higher ed hit piece, but I was dinged in my tenure case for not recording my classes. I don't record them for pedagogical reasons, but also because I don't want to go viral & receive death threats for saying that black people also deserve rights. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...

College lectures may not always be engaging, but in the past, students still had to go (or borrow notes from a classmate). Now that many lectures are available to view remotely, Dr. Wolf-Wendel added, professors have to try harder to draw students into the classroom.

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 9h

only 1/10 on the Quiet Desperation Units for whatever Hi was making excuses for, but the true darkness is the final admission that there are no print newspapers left for Hi and Lois to run in

Trixie looking out the window, concerned: I heard dad say that things aren't always black and white...

Long shot of Trixie smiling out the window at a lawn with a tree with red foliage, purple bushes, a front door of a different shade of red that she can't see, green lawn: So true! I see lots of color out there!

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 9h

though my position on Rex Morgan's roots country turn is "at least it's not golf"

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 9h

and the non-roots-country character I was thinking of, Jordan, reemerged with all the panache of the guy at your college reunion who sat silently in the back of three of your classes and who you hadn't thought about since

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Reposted by Matt Weiner

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 17h

Basically my entire politics. I am interested in your liberalism if it's liberalism that takes liberalism seriously but I can't consider it to be such a thing if there is some racial exemptions made simply for the benefit of your preferred group in MENA. This is what liberalism in the US does.

Emissary Of Night | ليلى @diplomatofnight.com · 17h

I do not oppose liberalism as a camp per se I oppose their exceptionalization vis a vis Israel

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 19h

he was the only guy on the set of O Brother Where Art Thou? who'd read the Odyssey

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 19h

yes!
xkcd.com/927/

Standards

xkcd.com

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Matt Weiner @mattweiner19.bsky.social · 19h

situation: there are twenty endings

"twenty? ridiculous! we need to develop one final action sequence that breaks up all the endings."
"yeah!"

situation: there are twenty-one endings

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