Mastodawn

“They Would Never Use the Death Star on Us”: Alderaan Residents Reflect on Their Support for the Empire as a Large Imperial Installation Enters the System. “The Senate was ineffective, and the liberal Jedi were out of touch…” https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/they-would-never-use-the-death-star-on-us-alderaan-residents-reflect-on-their-support-for-the-empire-as-a-large-imperial-installation-enters-the-system

“They Would Never Use the Death Star on Us”: Alderaan Residents Reflect on Their Support for the Empire as a Large Imperial Installation Enters the System

“For this focus group, conducted shortly before a sustained green glow began emanating from the station’s superlaser array, we spoke with residents who said ...

McSweeney's Internet Tendency

Phil Wolff 5d ago

Ben Werdmuller 5d ago

Congratulations to every journalism team celebrating a Pulitzer Prize this afternoon. And thank you to every journalist everywhere who is speaking truth to power, bringing injustice to light, and speaking up for people who need their stories to be heard. We need you more than ever.

Phil Wolff Apr 30

After decades Jibot https://lnkd.in/gnCHAc37 happened anew. Depicts a server box humming quietly in a corner of the room, living its life, doing its work, gradually becoming part of human and other communities, with an economic presence of its own.

And it feels like a mortal bot living in the legal shadow of a human. Evokes the legal emancipation of a longlived Bicentennial Man (https://lnkd.in/g2AUmiK2)) and the eventual abandonment of Spielberg's orphaned androids (https://lnkd.in/gr2mR6cx).

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

Phil Wolff Apr 22

Effie Seiberg Apr 22

OMG "Laser Eyes Ain't Everything" is now nominated for a Hugo!!! Thank you so much to everyone who voted and put my story in such amazing company!

https://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2026-hugo-awards/

Read it at: https://www.diabolicalplots.com/dp-fiction-123b-laser-eyes-aint-everything-by-effie-seiberg/

With a 40-year amateur career in fencing and directing, I can follow the action pretty well without this hoo-hah. I hope there's a way to turn it Off?

Phil Wolff Apr 21

Show thread

kianryan ☑️🐙🏳️‍🌈Apr 21

@Natasha_Jay
So, I'm coming from a privileged position, but that's really difficult for me to follow.

I mostly don't care where the point is most of the time, I care about the position of the hand, and the interaction of the blades.

The trails (IMO) make following the important information much more difficult.

Stunning yes. Not sure how they're planning on using this.

Phil Wolff Apr 21

Natasha

🇪🇺Apr 21

The first World Fencing League is happening from April 25th and it will debut this amazing "Sword Tip Visualisation" tracking technology specifically for this event.

Developed by Japanese engineers, and - trust me and watch - it makes fencing simply stunning viewing 🤺

Phil Wolff Apr 14

Twenty years of human centered digital identity evolution may pay founders less than AI-centric KYA (know your agent) exits.

Phil Wolff Apr 13

Thomas Zimmer Apr 13

Why Hungary Matters

Six big-picture conclusions from Orbán’s smashing defeat – and what it all means for the transnational struggle against rightwing authoritarianism.

The most important one: Nothing about rightwing authoritarianism is inevitable.

My new piece:

https://steady.page/en/democracyamericana/posts/84239935-e835-46fe-b97a-24e551c1658c

Why Hungary Matters

Six big-picture conclusions from Orbán’s smashing defeat – and what it all means for the transnational struggle against rightwing authoritarianism

Steady

Phil Wolff Apr 8

All the "how to AI your business analysis and product development work" posts echo "Is Ralph Wiggum the Future of Coding?" Work worth doing, if it's repeatable and can be eval'd? It will be agentic. If it's novel or hard to write an eval for? That's expert work for some definition of expert.

https://www.joshclemm.com/writing/ralph-wiggum-future-of-coding/

Is Ralph Wiggum the Future of Coding?

Autonomous AI coding doesn't fail because models aren't smart enough. It fails because we give them too much context, vague goals, and no hard definition of success. The Ralph Wiggum approach flips that on its head. Short contexts, brutally clear tasks, hard completion signals, and relentless retries. No magic. No new models. Just a process that actually works.

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