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The U.S. military carried out an attack on a “drug vessel” in the Caribbean. It could mark the first shots of a new war.

The post Trump Boasts of Strike on “Drug-Carrying Boat” From Venezuela appeared first on The Intercept.

When I received the email, I was holding a piece of toast. Dry, no butter. I remember this vividly because it was the last thing in my life with a clearly defined purpose.

“You got tenure!” my partner said, beaming.

“Oh! That’s… great,” I replied. “I think?”

And so it began.

In the weeks since, I’ve found myself unable to commit—grammatically, affectively, institutionally. Where once I might have said, “I teach,” I now say, “There are moments in which I find myself adjacent to pedagogy.” Friends have grown concerned. My dog, unfed.

I went to text my partner: “Be home soon.” Instead, I wrote, “Circling back into the infrastructural imaginary of shared dwelling—if, indeed, dwelling can be shared.” They replied with a thumbs up, which I interpret as either affirmation or resignation. Or both. Or neither.

Soon, everyday phrases became impossible. “I’m hungry” became “There emerges, within this organismal enclosure, a not-unfamiliar sense of lack—interpretable, perhaps, as nutritional, though not necessarily limited to metabolic vectors.”

I have begun chewing paper.

Big Tech seeks every advantage to convince users that computing is revolutionized by the latest fad. When the tipping point of Large Language Models (LLMs) was reached a few years ago, generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems quickly became that latest snake oil for sale on the carnival podium.

There's so much to criticize about generative AI, but I focus now merely on the pseudo-scientific rhetoric adopted to describe the LLM-backed user-interactive systems in common use today. “Ugh, what a convoluted phrase”, you may ask, “why not call them ‘chat bots’ like everyone else?” Because “chat bot” exemplifies the very anthropomorphic hyperbole of concern.

Dear Families,

When you enter the classroom, you will notice Sharpies hanging at eye level above every cubby. PLEASE use them to label your child’s belongings AND your child. Unfortunately, if we must give more than a couple of reminders, there will be logical consequences. We will:

Thirty years ago, nanotech was about to change everything. Let’s not get tricked again by Silicon Valley’s magical thinking

- by Philip Ball

Read on Psyche

NYC, Seattle, and more paid millions for Axon Fusus software after speaking to an Atlanta officer — who sat on Fusus’s board.

The post “Duped”: How One Atlanta Cop Secretly Shilled for Police Tech appeared first on The Intercept.

The appointment of James Cleverley to oppose Angela Rayner as Shadow Housing Minister confirms that, finally, housing has reached near the top of the domestic political agenda and for the first time since the post-war period, the two main parties are going to compete on the housing terrain. Both are doomed to fail. They remain […]

Leaked documents reveal how a shadowy BBC unit is “embedding” staff in foreign media outlets to “contest the information space” and generate “behaviour change” in favor of London’s geopolitical objectives. Though BBC Media Action (BBCMA) portrays itself as the “international charity” of the British state broadcaster, files show the group frequently carries out politically-charged projects overseas with government funding. Furthermore, the group consistently trades upon the BBC’s reputation and its intimate “links” with the British state broadcaster when pitching for […]

The post BBC Media Action: Britain’s overseas info warfare unit first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post BBC Media Action: Britain’s overseas info warfare unit appeared first on The Grayzone.

We at McSweeney’s mourn the loss of one of publishing’s great and large-hearted figures, Malcolm Margolin. The founder of Heyday Books in Berkeley, he published hundreds of important titles that told the story of California. He was also a mentor to so many Bay Area publishers, and advised McSweeney’s at a key moment in our history. About ten years ago, when we were contemplating our existence — our very ability to survive — we reached out to Malcolm for advice, and he laid out the roadmap that helped us transition to our current nonprofit status. Without his guidance and encouragement, we shudder to think where we’d be today. Malcolm made the impossible seem practical, and he cheered on everyone around him. We will miss him dearly.