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Reposted by Heather Bryant

JA Westenberg @joanwestenberg.com · 11h

If I genuinely believed I was 18 months away from superintelligence that could solve cancer, I would probably not be pivoting to horny chatbots, but that's just me (a person with priorities)

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 9h

While Land Before Time was certainly emotionally devastating as a child, I didn't clock it as a horror film.

Screenshots are from the results of searching "horror" on Netflix.

Screenshot of results from searching "horror" on Netflix that includes The Land Before Time and Knocked Up.

Screenshot of results from searching "horror" on Netflix that includes Beverly Hills Cop.

Screenshot of results from searching "horror" on Netflix that includes Despicable Me 3.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 2d

If you're confident that you can tell the difference between AI and real media, do you have that same confidence in your local police, courts, social services, school administrators, employers, and community? Because they all also have to be capable of that for you to not be harmed by false media.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 3d

What is your favorite positive adjective and what do you like about it?

Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 6d

Reading Sam Altman interviews in chronological order and taking them at face value is watching a tech bro with under-thought out ideas and an alarming lack of awareness just constantly discovering that other people have already thought about those ideas with far more depth, rigor, and analysis.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 6d

So they are even dumber than we already thought then. Cool. Or they're just lying. Like they do about everything else.

The Verge @theverge.com · 7d

OpenAI wasn’t expecting Sora’s copyright drama

It felt “more different to images than people expected.”

buff.ly

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 7d

If you have to steal from others in order for your business to be viable, you are not running a business, you are running a scheme.

Literally any and every industry would be easier to prop up if the participants were allowed to steal their essential components from others.

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

www.theverge.com

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Reposted by Heather Bryant

Julia Métraux @juliametraux.bsky.social · 8d

For National Disability Employment Awareness Month at @motherjones.com, I spoke to four disabled federal workers who were laid off about how their old jobs were very accessible—and what the federal government loses out on by having fewer disabled employees. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

The human costs of Trump's war on government

For many disabled workers, federal jobs were decent, human, and accommodating: everything the president hates.

www.motherjones.com

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 8d

According to this administration, Portland is burning to the ground. Can someone point that out in any of the live webcams around the city?

katu.com/weather/came...
portlandweather.com/all-cameras
www.skylinewebcams.com/en/webcam/un...
www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/w...
www.windy.com/-Webcams-Pie...

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 9d

It feels like the amount of spam and grift attempts, especially through phone calls and SMS, have skyrocketed this year. And the messaging has gotten creepier and more offensive from the standpoint of the psychology and manipulation they are using to attempt to get people to take the bait.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 12d

That feeling when the USPS is asking for us to help fund cancer research while this administration has cut numerous programs and grants for cancer research.

USPS homepage with Breast Cancer stamps and a call to action to "Help Fund the Fight: Purchase the Breast Cancer Research semipostal stamp and help fund research to fund a cure for breast cancer."

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Reposted by Heather Bryant

Damon Kiesow @damon.kiesow.net · 19d

Most of the news media is still fighting the last war: production and distribution, instead of the current war: defending truth.

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Reposted by Heather Bryant

michael röbbins @alienvsrobbins.bsky.social · 19d

repeating the phrase "full books" as I slam my head against my desk until I pass out

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 21d

The latter can get someone farther than ever before, but the former is a critical function and check against errors, manipulation, control over the tools, attempts to constrain free speech, expression, education, communication and other civil rights.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 21d

It is actually important societally to be able to differentiate between someone who possesses actual skills, abilities and expertise versus the technology-aided appearance of skills, abilities and expertise.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 27d

Hey, remember that time the Washington Post killed their already planned election endorsement at the behest of Bezos who was cozying up to Trump and then a bunch of people lectured everyone to not cancel their subscriptions as a means of expressing that they didn't approve of the capitulation?

Screenshot of Washington Post homepage filled with stories about Jimmy Kimmel

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 27d

Non-profit news organizations should really be operating under the assumption that their 501(c)(3) status could be yanked at any time. All it's going to take is one significant investigation or viral story before their attention turns that way.

Plan proactively. Don't count on norms or bureaucracy.

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Reposted by Heather Bryant

Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · 28d

Freelance illustration gigs drying up. Ad agencies using Midjourney instead of hiring human artists. Costume design turned over to AI wholesale. Good work vanishing.

These are the stories of working visual artists, who describe losing jobs, wages, and hope as their clients and bosses embrace AI.

Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI

Visual artists, illustrators and graphic designers share their stories about how AI is being used to lower wages, degrade work and even replace it altogether, in this installment of AI Killed My Job.

www.bloodinthemachine.com

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 29d

I'm taking a class about information communities and information-seeking behavior and models and every time I read a new assigned reading I end up whispering under my breath "why the f--- wasn't this taught in j-school" repeatedly. I hope it's being taught now.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 29d

First time reading this person and, maybe I'm jaded, but I was floored by this sentence. This is just recklessly, almost painfully, naive. The post, while making some good points, falls apart trying to create equivalences when there is significant asymmetry both contemporarily and historically.

Screenshot of text: One would hope that, now that both parties have been touched by political violence many times over, the experience would make both more likely to respond to acts against the other side with open hearts (or to feel regret for past responses), since everyone has been here and knows how awful it is.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · 29d

It's gone past enraging to comical nihilism to see so many supposedly astute white guy columnist types still trying to make it a both sides are equally bad situation.

On the one hand: a bonfire. The other: an entire apartment building on fire. Those guys: Well, both sides started a fire so

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Reposted by Heather Bryant

Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · Sep 15

This is out-Sovieting the Soviet Union. "You are free to express any opinion at all as long as it's the right one, and the consequences for all the others will be severe, and ratting out is an important part of our free society."

Matt Binder @mattbinder.bsky.social · Sep 15

they're going around and documenting flags that aren't at half-mast for Charlie Kirk

Vance Patrick
@vance_gop

Hey @Chase, why isn't your Barclay Circle Branch
in Rochester Hills, MI complying with federal and
state orders to lower the flag in honor of Charlie
Kirk? You've had since Wednesday to lower it...

Adam Gillen
@Adam_M_Gillen

I went on a personal crusade around Hastings
and got several flags lowered. Had to have others
join me in getting the Hastings ACE Hardware to
lower theirs, they said "Lowering the flag would be
making a political statement." Before they finally
caved under the pressure.
7:58 PM • 9/14/25

Donna Harvey
@DonnaHarve55152

This is a Shell gas station in Goldsboro NC. Who
didn't bother to lower the flag...

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · Sep 15

When the only lever of accountability the audience has for a news organization is to cancel their subscription, they should not be discouraged or prevented from doing so. If the desire is feedback in another form, that form must exist beyond social media posts.

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Reposted by Heather Bryant

Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · Sep 13

The fact that Matthew Dowd lost his job for pointing out Charlie Kirk’s hate speech, while Brian Kilmeade openly suggests we should euthanize the homeless and there is zero outrage, shows exactly what is terribly wrong with today’s political mainstream media.

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Heather Bryant @hbcompass.bsky.social · Sep 11

If you look at the publish date and descriptions, some of these were up before his death was even confirmed. One "book" includes in its description: "If you've been asking yourself did Charlie Kirk get shot, is Charlie Kirk dead...this book is for you."

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