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Reposted by Sarah Barrett

tweety fish of innsmouth @sifu.tweety.fish · 3h

this thread gets it right in broad strokes and detail and while it mentions this in passing at the end I think it's also worth highlighting that the concept of "general intelligence" is in conception and for most of its history in practice wildly racist

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 12d

Since it resonated with the audience, I’ll recap my main argument against AGI here. ‘General intelligence’ is like phlogiston, or the aether. It’s an outmoded scientific concept that does not refer to anything real. Any explanatory work it did can be done better by a richer scientific frame. 1/3

Shannon Vallor @shannonvallor.bsky.social · 12d

This was a truly heartening day, with deeply thoughtful challenges to the dominant narrative framed around AGI, coming from across disciplines and perspectives. Felt like the tide might finally be turning a bit, at least among the scientific community. Thanks @royalsociety.org!

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Yvonne Lam @yvonnezlam.bsky.social · 6h

And neoliberal risk shift means that we think workers should exert personal agency to get to a position where they can buy their rights.

mandy brown @aworkinglibrary.com · 7h

Coming around to the notion that the Venn diagram between workers’ rights and civil rights is nearly a perfect circle. Owners can buy their rights; workers cannot.

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Emma Mitchell @silverpebble2.bsky.social · 14h

Autumnal collection, including little owl feather, seedheads & various lovely things that fell off trees.
Zoom in to the details if you’re feeling stressed-the patterns in nature have been shown to help our brains relax🪶:

A collection of seedheads, acorns, sycamore keys, dried flowers, lichen, a little owl feather & a piece of Baltic amber on a white watercolour paper background

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 7h

Oh that would be great, thank you. It’s on the syllabus for early December. I’ll be in touch!

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 19h

Thank you for writing such a great talk!

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 19h

I saw the short version earlier this year and am assigning it for my students this quarter, excited to see the long version myself.

David Dylan Thomas @daviddylanthomas.bsky.social · 1d

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY to get tickets to the full-length "No, Seriously, F*ck Engagement" talk w/ Q&A after. This is what the "short" version looks like. If you see this and you're like, I want more, this is for you. youtu.be/CTmSqxu3kWg?...

Hope to see you there: www.eventbrite.com/e/no-serious...

David Thomas – No, Seriously, F**k Engagement: Building a More Human Web – beyond tellerrand DUS2024

YouTube video by beyond tellerrand

youtu.be

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dan sinker @dansinker.com · 23h

just gonna leave this here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead%E2...

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Fix the L8 @fixthel8.bsky.social · 23h

Thank you for your support, @cmtmosqueda.bsky.social!

Page 1 of letter from Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda in support of bus lanes on Denny Way

Page 2 of letter from Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda in support of bus lanes on Denny Way

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Ryan Packer @typewriteralley.bsky.social · 1d

We have such a robust commitment to maintaining infrastructure that we're spending $1 billion less than we should be spending every single year, and spending that money on highway widening instead.

Gov. Bob Ferguson @governorferguson.bsky.social · 1d

Reopening this bridge reflects our continued commitment to maintaining safe, reliable infrastructure across Washington.

Thank you to the teams who worked hard to quickly restore this vital connection for the region.

SR 169 Green River bridge south of Black Diamond reopens following repairs

The State Route 169 Green River Dan Evans Bridge reopened to two-way traffic Tuesday morning after repairs were completed.

komonews.com

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Will Li @williamlidc.bsky.social · 1d

you do not, under any circumstance "gotta hand it to the conquistadors"

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 1d

"Sapiens" is so normal for the first 70,000 years of human history but then goes absolutely buckwild as soon as it gets to colonialism

Had the Aztecs and Incas shown a bit more interest in the world surrounding them - and had they known what the Spaniards had done to their neighbours - they might have resisted the Spanish conquest more keenly and successfully.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 1d

Well, I'm sold. Grabbing a copy today.

Anna North @annanorth.bsky.social · 1d

BOG QUEEN is out today from @bloomsburybooksus.bsky.social! A literary murder mystery in which the victim is a two-thousand year old bog body. Also a story about the non-human world and who is really in charge here on earth, us or the bogs? geni.us/bogqueen

The cover of BOG QUEEN, featuring moss and mushrooms growing in front of the face of a woman

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 2d

I was trying to find a gif of local treasure Jinkx Monsoon as Judy Garland saying, "Well, I've been dead for quite some time."

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Andrew Middleton @mapcenter.com · 2d

Anyway. I've partnered with @decolonialatlas.bsky.social to distribute their incredible map of North America from an Indigenous perspective with all placenames in the native language. Paper ones sold at cost. www.mapcenter.com/store/p/turt...

Turtle Island Decolonized — The Map Center

Every map instantly creates two types of people: those who make the maps and those that are mapped. Every map represents a world view and a perspective and I’m so delighted to offer this piece that sh...

www.mapcenter.com

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Yvonne Lam @yvonnezlam.bsky.social · 2d

Seattle peeps, the current mayoral incumbent, whom I wasn't going to vote for anyway, has been blathering on about his idea for a 10-ft tall AI simulacrum of MLKJr.

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derek guy @dieworkwear.bsky.social · 2d

It's hard to help Americans left behind because so much of US identity is rooted in individualism. The average American conservative holds all three positions at once:

— Virtue signals about supporting US manufacturing
— Against raising the minimum wage
— Buys foreign imports because they're cheap

HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "I'm willing to pay more for quality products if they are made in America, by Americans, who are paid a decent income." The tweet shows Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech" painting, which is often used to show the tweeter is expressing a brave opinion.

HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "MINIMUM WAGE JOBS WERE NOT MEANT TO BE A CAREER. Why does no one understand this? Entry level jobs are STEPPING STONES to better jobs. No one wants to work towards that though."

HardPass4 on Twitter tweets: "Buy $5 gloves instead of $50 ones. Trust me." The tweet shows a box of "Gorilla Grip" gloves.

The label on Gorilla Grip gloves show they're made in China.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 3d

100%

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 3d

Every single pair of trousers in the thread look like they were made by people who had only had the concept explained to them and were on a project runway style deadline.

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 3d

pants are a lost technology in the male pageant world

Bevis Musson @bevismusson.bsky.social · 4d

Mr France. I am so disappointed. France has given is some of the most ill-thought out and poor taste outfits over the years and this is just *dull*. And also badly fitting. I so expect so much better from France (by which I mean much worse)

A photo of a contestant at Mister Global 2025

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Erika Hall @erikahall.bsky.social · 4d

- Expect everything to take 5x as long, if it works at all
- Always carry a bag in case that thing you're looking for turns up
- Exchange favors/mutual aid instead of official channels en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blat_(f...
- Assume any operational speaker is also a listening device
- Eat tasty ice cream

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Coates is Odd This Day @oddthisday.bsky.social · 4d

It was, if the spirit of Iain Banks will forgive me, the day the pope exploded

Or, to be strictly accurate, today is the 67th anniversary of the day a botched embalming saw Pius XII’s rotting torso break open while he was lying in state

(Yes, sorry*. This thread is disgusting)

(*Well, kind of)

Papal Swiss guards in costumes – and especially helmets – that could have come from the 1980 Flash Gordon film flanking the dead body of Pope Pius XII in a big, posh room in a palace in Rome. The pope is covered in plastic, in a way that suggests he has been inexpertly shrink-wrapped. This will be explained later

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 4d

Public speaking, being in charge, getting up at 4 am, having everybody on campus think you’re kind of cringey, whatever. You can build a career on those things.

Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 4d

I liked this article a lot, and it dovetails into career advice I give frequently: more than figuring out your passions, are there things you are neutral to positive on that other people really hate or fear?

Ron Bronson @ronbronson.com · 4d

This was a great reflection piece both about the inner mechanics of work & motivation for pushing through the dip en route to life milestones

Face it: you're a crazy person

OR: why your brain needs a boxcutter

www.experimental-history.com

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Sarah Barrett @documentalope.bsky.social · 4d

Exquisite!

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jason grinblat @jfg.land · 5d

Anna Tsing really cooked here

(from The Mushroom at the End of the World)

Excerpt from Anna Tsing's "The Mushroom at the End of the World"

"What we have is mushrooms, that is, fruiting bodies of underground fungi. The fungi require the traffic of the commons to flourish; no mushrooms emerge without forest disturbance. The privately owned mushroom is an offshoot from a communally living underground body, a body forged through the possibilities of latent commons, human and not human. That it is possible to cordon off the mushroom as an asset without taking its underground commons into account is both the ordinary way with privatization and a quite extraordinary outrage, when you stop to think about it. The contrast between private mushrooms and fungi-forming forest traffic might be an emblem for commoditization more generally: the continual, never-finished cutting off of entanglement."

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