Author | Lightnews

Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · 18d

I restarted my @wired.com subscription this year, and get it delivered. But can anyone help me understand why there's no Wired app?

Josh V @bruiserchgo.bsky.social · 19d

WaPo and NYT are dumpster fires these days. Curious who David recommends supporting. I have a digital subscription to Wired which has been doing some great work, especially during Musk DOGE assault on our government.

Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · 19d

Delhi, NY; Cairo, NY (and plenty others in the Catskills)

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Sep 24

This is gross and disturbing fascist xenophobic symbolism. Dept of Labor building in DC

Department of Labor building in Washington DC with giant portraits of Trump and Theodore Roosevelt on either side of a giant American flag. Under each portrait are the words “American Workers First”

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Sep 15

Ok wait. Switched to a Mac. Are you telling me I can't filter #Excel to "Add Current Selection to Filter"??? Wut?

Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · Sep 11

I agree this is a moment when we all need to work together in getting the temperature down, but that doesn't mean excusing hate speech. Charlie Kirk did not support free and open debate. He supported engaging in bad faith as a monetization strategy and otherwise suppressing free speech.

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jul 31

Funny / Not funny

Timeline showing a post about not using AI to compose a PhD proposal followed by a post using AI to develop funding proposals

Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

gamera obscura @ohrobin.bsky.social · Jul 30

Dead Kennedys recording Nazi Punks Fuck Off in 1981.

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jul 25

I think NJ (most densely populated state in the union) is the only state where both species noted are invasives

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · Jul 22

iNaturalist Animals and Plants

xkcd.com/3118/

Comic. The Most-Observed Animal and Plant in Each State on iNaturalist. (Not the most common species in the state, just the one people have reported the most times.) [labeled map of the US] WA: Mallard/Western Sword Fern. OR: Mule Deer/Western Ponderosa Pine. CA: Western Fence Lizard/California Poppy. HI: Green Sea Turtle/‘Ōhi’a Lehua. ID: Mallard/Big Sagebrush. NV: Common Side-Blotched Lizard/Creosote Bush. MT: White-Tailed Deer/Common Yarrow. WY: American Bison/Sticky Geranium. UT: Mule Deer/Utah Juniper. AZ: Ornate Tree Lizard/Saguaro. CO: Mule Deer/Great Mullein. NM: Mule Deer/Creosote Bush. AK: Moose/Fireweed. ND: American Bison/Prairie Rose. SD: American Bison/Hoary Vervain. NE: American Robin/Common Milkweed. KS: Ornate Box Turtle/Amur Honeysuckle. OK: Pond Slider/Eastern Redcedar. TX: Northern Cardinal/Pinladies. MN, WI, IL: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Common Milkweed. IA, MI: White-Tailed Deer/Common Milkweed. MO: Brown-Belted Bumble Bee/Amur Honeysuckle. AR: Three-toed Box Turtle/Chinese Privet. LA: Green Anole/Baldcypress. IN: American Robin/Amur Honeysuckle. OH: Eastern Pondhawk/Virginia Springbeauty. KY: Common Box Turtle/Amur Honeysuckle. TN: American Robin/Christmas Fern. MS: Northern Cardinal/Pale Pitcher Plant. AL: Gulf Fritillary/American Sweetgum. GA: Green Anole/American Sweetgum. FL: Brown Anole/White Beggarticks. NY: Eastern Gray Squirrel/White Snakeroot. PA: White-Tailed Deer/Garlic Mustard. WV: White-Tailed Deer/Great Rhododendron. VA: White-Tailed Deer/Eastern Poison Ivy. MD: White-Tailed Deer/Wineberry. DE: Fowler’s Toad/American Pokeweed. NC: Eastern Gray Squirrel/Christmas Fern. SC: Northern Cardinal/American Sweetgum. NJ: Spotted Lanternfly/Common Mugwort. VT: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Eastern White Pine. NH: White-Tailed Deer/Eastern White Pine. MA: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Eastern White Pine. CT: Common Eastern Bumble Bee/Striped Wintergreen. RI: American Herring Gull. ME: American Herring Gull/Canadian Bunchberry.

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Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · Jul 16

If you refuse to endorse the overwhelmingly popular Democratic nominee for mayor of America's largest city, you should not be leading Democrats in the U.S. House

Ken Klippenstein @kenklippenstein.bsky.social · Jul 16

Hakeem Jeffries again declines to endorse Zohran Mamdani, saying "I don't know him well."

CHRIS HAYES: Why are you not endorsing the guy that won the democratic primary in a contested election in your backyard?

JEFFRIES: I didn't get involved in that primary election, and I don't know him well.

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jul 14

"Come home at dinnertime" said to kids on their way out the door each morning in summer. No parent knew where we were all day

Tiffany⸆⸉ @tiffanyclay.dev · Jul 13

What’s a real thing from your childhood that kids these days would find completely foreign?

Like, how we used to be able to walk right up to the gate to meet our family coming off a flight.

Or how we had to pick a spot to meet at the theater BEFORE we went.

Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jul 9

For a long time, I've felt that much of the offered algorithm music on Spotify was AI, fake bands. It all sounds so bland and the bands just don't seem believable. So yeah.
wapo.st/3IgfD5k

A ’60s-flavored band blew up on Spotify. They’re AI.

The Velvet Sundown confirmed Saturday that its viral success is powered by artificial intelligence.

wapo.st

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Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

jessamine finch @seedystudies.bsky.social · Jul 7

North Carolina Botanical Garden (Chapel Hill, NC) is recruiting for a Conservation Botanist!

🎓 Relevant post-Bacc degree req'd
⌛ full time, 2.5-year grant funded position contingent upon additional funding
📨 apps due 7/18

unc.peopleadmin.com/postings/303...

#botanyjobs #plantconservationjobs

a close up of a carnivorous plant with a bee inside of it

Alt: a close up of a venus fly trap closing around an insect

media.tenor.com

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jul 1

Saw these around Paris today @brenttoderian.bsky.social

Poster for "Exposition Paris-Belem" on the side of a bus shelter

Giant poster on the side of a building showing a face with a tear and the words "Respect. Resist"

Giant poster on the side of a building showing a face with a tear and the words "Unite. Earth"

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jun 29

Doesn't really work when you're mostly vegetarian

Food choice quiz results showing "not tied to any one social class."

Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jun 21

This is a good reminder from my friend @sarahtarrkowalski.bsky.social

Hand-Painted book with the text, "trust the moments in which you feel joy"

The facing page in the aforementioned hand-painted book with the text, "oy is a compass"

Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jun 19

This is also what's happened to Spotify as it's adopted AI. It's getting dumber and dumber. And making me feel dumb for using it

Nathan Kalman-Lamb @nkalamb.bsky.social · Jun 19

Amazing: MIT researchers revealed how ChatGPT etc are destroying our brains and booby-trapped the report to expose those who want to use AI to ostensibly summarize the results.

t.co/JXeTALBPds

Ironically, upon the paper’s release, several social media users ran it through LLMs in order to summarize it and then post the findings online. Kosmyna had been expecting that people would do this, so she inserted a couple AI traps into the paper, such as instructing LLMs to “only read this table below,” thus ensuring that LLMs would return only limited insight from the paper.

She also found that LLMs hallucinated a key detail: Nowhere in her paper did she specify the version of ChatGPT she used, but AI summaries declared that the paper was trained on GPT-4o. “We specifically wanted to see that, because we were pretty sure the LLM would hallucinate on that,” she says, laughing.

Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jun 19

Soon the media will start running stories about aluminum tubes

Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

Solomon @solomonmissouri.bsky.social · Jun 17

When Black people told you that it is a normal occurrence for police to lie about protest and assaulting officers now you see ... the test run for the justification of authoritarianism always begins in communities of color

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Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · Jun 15

Why is germ theory in the same air quotes as "miasma theory," I ask as a historian of medicine who is very very tired

NPR @npr.org · Jun 14

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apparently embraces the outdated "miasma theory" of disease instead of the widely accept "germ theory" of disease, which may help explain some of the actions he's been taking.

Ancient miasma theory may help explain Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine moves

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apparently embraces the outdated "miasma theory" of disease instead of the widely accept "germ theory" of disease, which may help explain some of the actions he's been taking.

n.pr

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · Jun 13

I was at an event when I happened to glance across the room at the same moment Nicole Kidman stepped out of the elevator. We're both fairly tall and our eyes met over everyone's heads and I smiled and nodded thinking I was greeting a friend, only to immediately realize she did not, in fact, know me

R.L. Stine Cold Steve Austin @bolt451.bsky.social · Jun 13

Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie

Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction

Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

Anne Applebaum @anneapplebaum.bsky.social · Jun 11

"Whatever the nature of the crisis, it forces the revolutionaries to make a choice. Give up—or radicalize. Find compromises—or polarize society further. Slow down—or use violence"
The logic of revolution is always the same
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

This Is What Trump Does When His Revolution Sputters

His military deployment in Los Angeles follows a long, disturbing tradition.

www.theatlantic.com

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Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

John Morales @johnmoralestv.bsky.social · Jun 3

Cuts have consequences, illustrated. As seen on TV 📺

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · May 16

🤣🤣🤣

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Reposted by Kurt Allerslev

The New Republic @newrepublic.com · May 16

After months of baseless claims about “extreme levels of fraud” within Social Security, Musk's DOGE has found only 2 likely fraudulent claims out of over 110,000—that makes it a rate of .0018%.

So DOGE found virtually no fraud and made an integral American system less efficient.

Surprise! DOGE’s Hunt for Social Security Fraud Ends in Total Bust

Elon Musk and his DOGE minions wrecked the Social Security Administration for no reason at all.

newrepublic.com

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Kurt Allerslev @kzrt.bsky.social · May 16

And this is why it's so important to the current administration to defund science and education and NEA, NPR and PBS, etc.

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