Clive Thompson
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clivethompson.bsky.social
Clive Thompson
@clivethompson.bsky.social
7.3K followers 1.2K following 1.1K posts
Writer, musician, hobbyist coder. Journalist with Wired / New York Times Magazine / Mother Jones, author of "Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World". Blog at clivethompson.medium.com. Built https://www.weirdoldbookfinder.net/
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clivethompson.bsky.social
are you working?

you should procrastinate more

i've got you covered

behold "Tiled Words", which is like a crossword mixed with ...

... Tetris

item #2 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free to read/subscribe to here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A digital crossword puzzle titled “Worm” is shown with several partially completed answers. Words like “WOOD,” “BOOK,” “MEAL,” and “HOOK” appear on the grid, color-coded in blue or orange. To the right, the clues and notes display hints and feedback such as “Right word, built wrong!” and “Wrong direction!,” suggesting this is an interactive word puzzle game that checks answers in real time.
November 13, 2025 at 1:55 AM
clivethompson.bsky.social
I really never use ChatGPT to generate text, but I have to say, this worked far better than I expected
A screenshot of me asking ChatGPT to "Write a description of how to use git, in the style of the 18th century poet Alexander Pope." The poem begins: “The Git Epistle: or, How to Commit with Grace” (In the Style of Alexander Pope) Know, gentle coder, when thy work’s begun, Each file must live beneath the ruling Sun Of Git—whose care preserves the mortal line ’Twixt chaos’ flux and order’s calm divine. First, init call’d, the temple’s stones arise, And folders breathe beneath creation’s skies. Then add, to mark thy children of the code, Lest wayward edits wander unbestow’d. With commit seal the record, pure and tight, And fix thy message, brief, yet keenly right. So doth the chronic hand of time enroll Thy mortal keystrokes in immortal scroll. Yet pride not o’er thy local store confined— Push upward, friend, to realms of cloud enshrined! There GitHub’s ether, boundless as the blue, Awaits to mirror all thy labours true. When others clone, or branch, or merge in turn, Let patience rule, and temper’d wisdom learn; For oft when minds or merges clash in pain, The sage resolves with rebase—clear again. Thus work with grace, in version’s measured art: Keep order near, and hubris far apart.
November 11, 2025 at 12:57 AM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Interestingly, younger Americans are significantly more likely to dislike data centers than older ones

and dislike is bipartisan

This from a Heatmap story (paywalled): heatmap.news/energy/data-...
An infographic titled “Younger People Really Don’t Like Data Centers” presents survey results showing attitudes toward data centers being built nearby, broken down by age group. A brief description explains that data centers house servers for the internet, apps, and artificial intelligence, and respondents were asked if they would support or oppose one being built near where they live. The results are displayed in horizontal bar charts with three colors: red for “Total support,” yellow for “Not sure,” and blue for “Total oppose.” Among 18- to 34-year-olds, 36% support, 16% are unsure, and 48% oppose. For ages 35 to 49, 37% support, 12% are unsure, and 51% oppose. For ages 50 to 64, 47% support, 14% are unsure, and 40% oppose. For those 65 and older, 51% support, 17% are unsure, and 32% oppose. A caption notes that the poll was of 3,741 registered American voters, conducted August 22–29, 2025, by Heatmap Pro and Embold Research, with a margin of error of ±1.7 percentage points. The Heatmap logo appears at the bottom right. A screenshot of a paragraph from a Heatmap article discussing public opposition to data centers. The text explains that Heatmap Pro conducted polling to understand why Americans are resistant to nearby data centers despite the billions spent on cloud computing and AI development. The article notes that fewer than half of Americans support having a data center near them and that dislike is widespread. A highlighted section reads: “The hostility crosses party lines, with Republicans nearly as likely to express disdain towards these projects as Democrats.” The passage concludes that frustration with data centers increases among younger generations, especially those aged 18 to 49, who are more familiar with AI.
November 10, 2025 at 10:16 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
A Google paper ponders the viability of hosting an AI data-center ...

... in orbit: Fleets of interlinked satellites powered by the 8x-more-powerful-solar up there

if launch costs go below $200/kg, it'd be cheaper than a data-center on earth, they figure

wild

services.google.com/fh/files/mis...
Screenshot of the first page of an academic-style paper from Google, with the Google logo at the top left and a short URL at the top right reading “https://goo.gle/project-suncatcher-paper.” The centered title reads “Towards a future space-based, highly scalable AI infrastructure system design.” Below it is a list of authors: “Blaise Agüera y Arcas¹, Travis Beals¹, Maria Biggs¹, Jessica V. Bloom¹, Thomas Fischbacher¹, Konstantin Gromov¹, Urs Köster¹, Rishiraj Pravahan¹ and James Manyika¹,” followed by “¹Equal contributions, ¹Google.” The abstract appears in a single-column layout before the text splits into two columns, and reads: “If AI is a foundational general-purpose technology, we should anticipate that demand for AI compute — and energy — will continue to grow. The Sun is by far the largest energy source in our solar system, and thus it warrants consideration how future AI infrastructure could most efficiently tap into that power. This work explores a scalable compute system for machine learning in space, using fleets of satellites equipped with solar arrays, inter-satellite links using free-space optics, and Google tensor processing unit (TPU) accelerator chips. To facilitate high-bandwidth, low-latency inter-satellite communication, the satellites would be flown in close proximity. We illustrate the basic approach to formation flight via a 81-satellite cluster of 1 km radius, and describe an approach for using high-precision ML-based models to control large-scale constellations. Trillium TPUs are radiation tested. They survive a total ionizing dose equivalent to a 5 year mission life without permanent failures, and are characterized for bit-flip errors. Launch costs are a critical part of overall system cost; a learning curve analysis suggests launch to low-Earth orbit (LEO) may reach ≲$200/kg by the mid-2030s.”
November 10, 2025 at 4:22 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
it turns out that if you videotape mathematicians working on hard problems at the chalkboard ...

... you can see their bodies give off a "tell" just before they have an "aha" breakthrough moment

super cool research

item #7 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
This image shows a chalkboard covered with mathematical diagrams and trigonometric equations written in white chalk. On the left are sketches of right triangles labeled with sides A and B, alongside trigonometric identities such as sin(300°) = cos(30°). In the center, a large circle encloses a right triangle with an angle marked α, radius r, and arc-related labels. To the right, several equations involve fractions with π, r, and α, representing formulas for arc length and sector area. The board has a dense, slightly chaotic look, typical of an active math or geometry lecture.
September 24, 2025 at 3:58 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
This particular point is really key

one benefit of "people sharing their thoughts online" is the promise of dispelling pluralistic ignorance -- i.e. not knowing what your neighbors/others think about something

the problem is, corporate social media algorithms are very hijack-able ...

1/x
Screenshot with the following text. Two sentences are highlighted in blue; I have put them in square brackets: The bad news is that the opposition is much more disorganized than it ought to be. Coordination is bolstered by shared knowledge that others will coordinate too. We don’t have that, in part because of lack of leadership, in part because of a media landscape that makes it difficult to generate such shared knowledge. Remember Hume’s phrase about the “presumed opinion of others.” [ Our presumptions about what other people think can play an extraordinarily powerful role in shaping how we ourselves think, and what we are prepared to do. And in a country where such presumptions can be grossly skewed, it can be very hard to generate coordinated action. ] Finally, exactly because the opposition is disorganized, and because humans are human, it faces its own collective version of Trump’s temptation to humiliate and subjugate defectors from the other side, rather than welcoming them in.
September 18, 2025 at 4:11 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Excellent @himself.bsky.social essay begins by noting the problems Trump causes himself by being untrustworthy and reneging on promises ...

... then shifts to the coordinational challenges of the opposition

www.programmablemutter.com/p/repost-abs...

worth reading in full, as with all his pieces
Screenshot reading: "This then, gives us a simplified but useful understanding of where we are right now. The good news is that the Trump administration is playing its hand very badly. If Trump had been more willing to accept defectors into his camp, by sticking to deals that gave them something worth having, he would be in a much stronger situation than he is at the moment. Furthermore, and somewhat less obviously, this may also disrupt his own existing coalition. Wall Street, for example, may worry that it is next for the chopping block. Silicon Valley the same. The bad news is that the opposition is much more disorganized than it ought to be. Coordination is bolstered by shared knowledge that others will coordinate too. We don’t have that, in part because of lack of leadership, in part because of a media landscape that makes it difficult to generate such shared knowledge. Remember Hume’s phrase about the “presumed opinion of others.” Our presumptions about what other people think can play an extraordinarily powerful role in shaping how we ourselves think, and what we are prepared to do. And in a country where such presumptions can be grossly skewed, it can be very hard to generate coordinated action. Finally, exactly because the opposition is disorganized, and because humans are human, it faces its own collective version of Trump’s temptation to humiliate and subjugate defectors from the other side, rather than welcoming them in. The strategic implications for what to do are not surprising. Leadership is crucial. It is really, really hard to make a coalition cohere if the plausible leaders abdicate. More generally, figure out how to generate common knowledge that will enable coordination. Protests - especially if they are widespread, and especially if they happen in unusual places, or involve surprising coalitions can help generate information cascades. But getting media coverage and broader conversation is important. Welcome in the strayed sheep, and work o…
September 18, 2025 at 4:02 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Here's a witty prototype by some MIT students

it's an AI kitchen robot that looks at your leftovers ...

... and gives you a recipe you could make from them

lots of cool buttons/sliders to specify cuisine

Item #3 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
This image shows a quirky orange robot-like machine on the left, with a boxy body, cylindrical base, and a hinged panel that resembles a head looking down. On the right sits an orange tray holding a jar of Jif peanut butter, two limes, a potato, an apple, and a red onion. The setup is against a plain white background, giving it a clean, minimalist, almost surreal look that contrasts the bright orange device with the everyday groceries. This close-up shows the control panel of the orange-red machine, featuring a series of toggle switches, dials, and sliders. Labels on the panel include categories like “Meat,” “Eggs,” “Dairy,” and “Gluten,” as well as terms such as “Skill,” “Inter,” “Advnc.,” “Gourm.,” “Spectacle,” “Gather,” and “Nostalgic.” The panel has a retro, analog aesthetic, with shiny metal knobs and levers contrasting against the bright painted casing. The overall look evokes a playful mix of vintage appliance and whimsical invention.
September 17, 2025 at 5:17 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
"in defense of the em-dash"

that punctuation mark has become rather *sus*, given its association with chatbot output ...

... but Brian Phillips mounts a ringing defense

Item #5 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A rectangular beige panel filled with rows of symbols that resemble a mix of punctuation marks—commas, quotation marks, parentheses, dashes, slashes, and question marks—arranged in patterns similar to coded text or Morse code.
September 15, 2025 at 6:59 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Behold a lovely stamp sheet by Chris Ware ...

... where each stamp shows a moment in the day of a postwoman

apparently it's the first time anyone has tried to tell a story with a stamp sheet

item #1 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
sheet of stamps in a 5 by 4 grid. Each shows a female postal deliverer walking her route and delivering mail, through the grid of a small town's streets. Each panel includes her interacting with different residents of the town, including children on the way to school, people shopping, and more. Different parts of the town show each of the four seasons
September 13, 2025 at 5:57 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
#3 👎 A list of things that Jane Austen disliked --- lithub.com/an-incomplet...

3/3
An illustration of Jane Austen surrounded by thumbs-down icons
September 4, 2025 at 1:58 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
#2 💻 "Recto", a programming language where the commands are written in nested rectangles onscreen -- masatohagiwara.net/recto.html

2/3
A screenshot of what looks like a code editor. The backgound is black. There are characters onscreen that look like the corners of rectangles -- /- for the top left corner, -\ for the top right, \- for the bottom left, and -/ for the bottom right. There's a rectangle named "matmul" that contains a samller rectangle with the numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4. It suggests the idea of lists or arrays contained in rectangles, almost like mathematical vector mathematics.
September 4, 2025 at 1:58 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Here's your reading for this morning, all links sourced from my latest "Linkfest" newsletter (free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...)

#1: 🐦 Storing data in birdsong -- flowingdata.com/2025/07/30/s...

1/3
A screenshot of a page divided in two horizontally. Above is a dark region with the crude image of a smiling duck drawn in ghostly grey lines. Below is the same image, but rendered in a screen of red lines on a purple background -- it almost looks like an infrared image crossed with the data you'd see on a graphical calculator plotter
September 4, 2025 at 1:58 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
an exhibition of ...

... wedge cars of the 1970s!

item #8 in my latest "Linkfest", here here here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A sideways view of a red sports car. It has a dramatic "wedge" or diamond-shape in profile -- the rear of the car is very narrow from top to bottom, and the shape widen to the point where the driver sits, then it narrows again to a sharp point. The tires are big and thick, like race-car tires. The trunk is propped open -- it has a triangular shape and just up over the rear of the car like a fish's fin. The front trunk is open, so the front of the car looks -- in profile -- like it has a mouth
September 3, 2025 at 2:33 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
mixing a cocktail, didn't have a jigger handy; wondered what the ratio was of a quarter-cup to a jigger shot

I googled it and the "AI overview" answer went utterly off the rails

"a jigger shot equals six quarter cups"

man this Old Fashioned is gonna be STRONG but it's what the AI says so *cheers*
A screenshot reading: "Here's the breakdown: Standard Jigger Volume: A standard jigger holds 1.5 fluid ounces (fl oz). Quarter Cup Volume: A quarter cup is equal to 2 fluid ounces. Calculating: To find how many quarter cups are in a jigger shot, divide the volume of a jigger by the volume of a quarter cup: 1.5 fl oz / 2 fl oz = 0.75 of a quarter cup. Total Quarter Cups: Therefore, a jigger is 0.75 quarter cups, and you would need to divide it by 0.75 (meaning 6) to get the grand total of 6 quarter cups in one jigger."
September 3, 2025 at 3:33 AM
clivethompson.bsky.social
In 1997, Microsoft quietly released a music-generating app

no fancy neural-net AI, just funky hand-coded rulesets with some randomization

it produces kina fun game-MIDI style music!

Internet Archive hosts a downloadable copy

Item #5 in my "Linkfest" newsletter: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A screenshot of a YouTube video at timestamp 2:19 shows an old Windows-95-style program called “Microsoft Music Producer” open on the desktop. The interface has dropdown menus for “Style,” “Personality,” and “Band,” with options like “50’s Rock,” “Sad,” “Serious,” and “Electronic,” as well as a panel displaying a cartoon drum kit, guitar, and bass in the “Mix” section. Below are controls for tempo, key, song length, and playback with a digital timer reading 00:12.6, along with play, pause, and record buttons. On the right side of the screen, there’s a smaller inset video of a woman with long reddish-blonde hair wearing headphones, speaking animatedly to the camera against a background of bookshelves and recording equipment. The overall scene contrasts retro music software with modern commentary
August 31, 2025 at 6:38 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
In this super-simple web game, you try to weave the green dot through an increasingly cluttered field of smaller red dots that zip by

it's weirdly addictive, and I can't last more than 45 seconds

item #4 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A green dot that is attempting to avoid dozens of smaller red dots, on a black background
August 30, 2025 at 4:44 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Behold a massive archive of photos/images from NASA's Ames research lab

they're all public domain -- use 'em as you will!

via @jonkeegan.com, item #10 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A row of six massive wind-tunnel turbines, each perhaps 50 feet tall and wide. They are arrayed in two rows of three, one atop the other. Two men stand in front of the bottom row -- they are tiny, dwared by the massive turbines. The picture looks like it was taken from a few hundred feet away, and it looks older, like from the 60s A small unusually shaped aircraft, flying high above a desert countryside. It is white and shaped like a stubby little V; the pilot sits in a glass bubble towards the nose, and two stubby fins poke up from the far edges of the V wings. There are three non-retractable wheels on the bottom. It is being pulled along through the air via a cord attached to the nose, though what is pulling it cannot be seen A colorful futuristic illustration of space exploration, showing a collage of technology, astronauts, and celestial bodies. In the center, a figure in a spacesuit with a robotic arm operates a spacecraft control panel, overlaid with geometric shapes and abstract circles suggesting data visualization. Surrounding this are depictions of rockets, satellites, and the International Space Station orbiting Earth, with an astronaut floating in open space nearby. In the foreground, the lunar surface is shown with spacecraft landing modules and instruments, while in the background planets like Mars and Jupiter loom large against a star-speckled sky. A jet aircraft streaks across the left side near a fiery asteroid. It has a very 1970s look to it; honestly it looks like the illustration to a game catridge for the Atari 2600
August 29, 2025 at 3:03 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Garlic is farmed asexually -- you shove a clove in the ground ...

... so the new plants are clones: They don't evolve

to restore biodiversity, DIY garlic hackers are coaxing garlic to make *seeds*

fun, weird scene!

Item #6 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
August 28, 2025 at 8:39 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
apparently people who visit the Petrified Forest National Park often steal chunks of the fossilized wood ...

... and later blame it for years of bad luck

so they return the rock by mail

A collection of their letters, in item #2 of my latest "Linkfest" newsletter: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A scanned typewritten letter on aged paper, dated 8/21/80, stamped “RECEIVED PETRIFIED FOREST” with red ink checkmarks and handwritten annotations, and labeled at the top in pencil “CONSCIENCE LETTER 172.” The letter reads: “8/21/80 To Whom it may Concern: While on vacation this summer we toured through the beautiful Petrified Forest National Park. Upon leaving my husband took these pieces enclosed with him as souvenirs; now after all the bad luck we have had I am returning them where they belong. Upon returning home we first found out that my step mother had kidney failure, then our dog died, our central air conditioning went out and our freezer. I had a really close call in having a bad auto accident, our truck broke down needing major repairs our cat was killed and last night close by our home a gas well blew out a cap causing us to be evacuated from our home a while. So Please take these pieces back before we have any more bad luck and except our deepest apologize. Thanks, No name Please.” The document is typed in monospaced font with some words underlined or struck through and includes bureaucratic stamps and annotations A piece of petrified wood. It looks like a quartz stone, roughly rectagular and standing on end, like an apartment building. The stone is a mix of white, grey, and rust-orange. It sits on a featureless white background
August 27, 2025 at 3:43 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Since "an abundance of em dashes" has become a tell for AI-generated writing ...

... I'm gonna re-up my essay: "In Defense of the Em Dash"

gift link: medium.com/medium-handb...

Just because AI over-uses 'em doesn't mean *we shouldn't too!*

it is a noble piece of punctuation

reason #1 (of 6)...
A screenshot reading: "1. Em dashes feel slightly *anarchic* People have a pretty good sense of the function of the various punctuation marks. The comma gives a short rest, while the semicolon joins two related ideas. The colon often introduces a list. But the em dash? It’s weirdly all-fungible. It can be used in place of all of those punctuation marks I noted above, as the Punctuation Guide notes: “The em dash is perhaps the most versatile punctuation mark. Depending on the context, the em dash can take the place of commas, parentheses, or colons — in each case to slightly different effect.” So it’s a shapeshifter, which makes it hard to pin down. Yet that also makes it exciting for me — because it suggests you can bust out an em dash, for, like, no reason at all except that you feel like it. As Ben Yagoda notes, “It’s the mark that — unlike commas, periods, semicolons and all the others — doesn’t seem to be subject to any rules.” Or as Kate Mooney of the New York Times puts it… […] the em dash is emphatic, agile and still largely undefined. Sometimes it indicates an afterthought. Other times, it’s a fist pump. You might call it the bad boy, or cool girl, of punctuation. A freewheeling scofflaw. A rebel without a clause."
August 26, 2025 at 8:26 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
if you build more housing, will it drive the price of housing down ... or up?

supply and demand theory says "down"

but a survey finds ~50% of Americans don't believe this

they say building more housing drives prices *up*

Item #11 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
An apartment building, viewed from below, against a bright blue sky. It is half white and half reddish material, with curved balconies on the reddish parts
August 25, 2025 at 4:05 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
societal collapse seems bad, right?

but now a new group of historians are questioning that

as they find, collapse may suck for the *elites* ...

... but the hoi polloi? After a collapse they get stronger, healthier

item #3 in my "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A dramatic painting of chaos and destruction in a classical city, with smoke and fire engulfing grand marble buildings and columns along the shoreline. A massive storm churns the dark sky while raging seas crash into a stone bridge crowded with battling figures, many falling into the water as ships burn and sink around them. On the right, a colossal statue of a warrior holding a round shield looms over the scene, towering above the turmoil as if mocking the collapse below. The foreground is filled with fleeing and dying figures, some reaching out in desperation, while the background shows palatial structures consumed by fire and dark smoke. The image conveys a sense of apocalyptic ruin and the violent downfall of a once-great civilization
August 23, 2025 at 3:46 PM
clivethompson.bsky.social
Of all the petty and cruel things about the federal penal system, one of most needlessly petty and cruel is the execrable quality of the food

True of immigration detention as well

from this Q&A with Caitlin Dickerson: www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/arc...

unpaywalled version: archive.is/sMQ8I
Screenshot reading: "Dickerson: I agree with you. Having spent time in these facilities and seeing what people eat—you know, lunch meat that’s frozen, lunch meat that’s moldy, food that’s clearly expired. I spent time at a family-detention facility that was actually finally closed under the Biden administration after a long effort to end family detention. The United States is one of the only countries in the developed world that detains families. I think Australia is the only other. Because it’s really, really difficult to detain kids for long periods of time and to do it in a way that’s considered safe and humane. And so family detention finally ended under Biden, but reopened immediately and is set to expand now under the Trump administration. And at our largest family-detention center in Dilley, Texas, I reported on families there and heard from really every single one of them that the food was unbearable, especially for kids. I had parents tell me that their children would vomit just from the smell of the food before they even entered the cafeteria, and kids would lose really significant weight because they would refuse to eat the food because they found it so disgusting."
August 22, 2025 at 12:12 AM
clivethompson.bsky.social
In 1958, an album of frog sounds was released and ...

... somehow became a hit record

for decades!

sports illustrated called it a “swampland opus”

college radio played it all throughout the 90s

Item #7 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free riiiiiiiight here: buttondown.com/clivethompso...
A vinyl record partially pulled from its sleeve is shown on a white background. The cover is tan with bold white text at the top reading “SOUNDS OF NORTH AMERICAN FROGS,” with smaller text identifying it as “Folkways Records FX 6166.” Beneath, the subtitle reads, “The Biological Significance of Voice in Frogs,” followed by the note, “Conceived, Narrated, and Documented, with Field Recordings by CHARLES M. BOGERT, with the cooperation of the American Museum of Natural History.” The artwork features a detailed black-and-white drawing of a frog in mid-leap beside a series of concentric circles symbolizing sound waves. The record’s black vinyl surface glistens under the light, with a blue center label showing track information. The overall design blends scientific seriousness with mid-20th-century graphic minimalism
August 20, 2025 at 7:16 PM