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  Since there’s been a resurgence lately of the “mastodon is mostly just for folks who use Linux” thing … … i’m now curious about my community here (i’m offering intentionally crude and ungranular options in this poll) “I use Linux …” (Please boost!)

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  this point -- by @pluralistic@mamot.fr -- is basically all anyone needs to know about the endless openai's-agents-hacked-into-hugging-face discourse https://pluralistic.net/2026/09/12/god-in-the-box/ the whole post is worth reading, go check it out!

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  do you rewatch TV shows? or reread books? rewatch movies, obsessively play the same video game? there's a term for that: "volitional reconsumption" ... and the psychology behind why we find it so pleasant is really interesting item #6 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free to read/subscribe to here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-48-the-mouthpad-volitional-reconsumption/

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  here, @pluralistic@mamot.fr perfectly distils the mechanics of why, to beat back enshittification ... ... we need true competition which, as Cory has pointed out for years now, why we need antitrust enforcement https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/25/gammamax/#felony-contempt-of-business-model

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  I was reading a piece about Lindsey Graham and it mentioned him appearing 63 times on "Meet the Press" ... ... and I realized I've never in my entire life sat down to watch "Meet the Press". What's ... what's it like?

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  the penguins in a japanese zoo have *very* complex romantic lives poly groupings, broken hearts, lots of side-eye and drams so the zoo made a chart of it item #5 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-46-curse-tablets-a-robot-cellist-and-why/

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  Excellent @jasonkoebler@mastodon.social piece in @404mediaco@mastodon.social about the cultural shift in real-world and online flyers ... ... as people start posting AI-generated ones that all have the same bland creepy look https://www.404media.co/we-are-living-in-a-chatgpt-flyer-pandemic/ (unpaywalled just in case: https://archive.is/pNTQh)

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  Doom running on ... ... an array of *e coli* cells (to be clear, the e coli is just the display, not the computation necessary to run the game lol) item #3 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free to read and subscribe to here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-46-curse-tablets-a-robot-cellist-and-why/

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  behold "The Listening Museum" ... ... which has samples of the sounds of 36 famous clicky keyboards you can pick a model, type away, and hear the glorious noise item #2 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-46-curse-tablets-a-robot-cellist-and-why/

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  what could possibly go wrong https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/07/01/science/spudcells-synthetic-cell.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uVA.3u_u.U4--YC2GN8OJ&smid=url-share (gift link)

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  okay people 😀 it's your lucky day 🍀 it's time for "the opposite of doomscrolling" 🌞 the latest edition of my newsletter "The Linkfest" has dropped 📬 free to read and subscribe to here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-46-curse-tablets-a-robot-cellist-and-why/ this issue includes: 🪴 Iphone-case terrarium 🌩️ "Weathergotchi" 🦠 running Doom on e coli cells 🔭 telescope ranchers 🐧 chart of polyamorous penguin relationships 🤖 robot cel...

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  Accenture examined the massive use of AI tokens by its employees and found that a big chunk wasn't coders ... ... it was nontechnical staff using AI to turn PDFs into images and markdown terrific scoop at @404mediaco@mastodon.social: https://www.404media.co/the-tokenpocalypse-is-here-companies-are-scrambling-to-stop-spending-so-much-on-ai/ unpaywalled just in case: https://archive.is/c6DSo

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  back in the beforetimes when I was on Twitter, for years I ran a poetry bot it'd take a huge corpus of lines I'd written -- *very* loosely in emulation of Basho and several lyric poets of antiquity -- and pick three at random, publishing four times a day after I left Twitter in 2022, I turned it off but now I just relaunched the bot ... ... on mastodon! le voila: @clivebot@saturation.social

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  they're sampling the smell of old libraries ... ... so they can preserve it archivally -- and recreate it when needed archival smell-o-vision, more or less item #4 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-44-microchimerism-sonic-boom-duct-tape/

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  btw, NYC area music folks !!🎶 I've been remiss in flacking my gigs here but hey now! 📣 if you're around today ... ... at 6 pm my band Lipstick Driver is throwing it down at Mama Tried, out in Brooklyn come on by, it will be glorious noise 🎸 , we've written a buncha new songs

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  okay people it's your lucky day 🍀 it's time for "the opposite of doomscrolling" my latest Linkfest newsletter just dropped free to read/subscribe to here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-44-hallucinopedia-salmon-on-cocaine-and/ this issue includes: 🎈 tin blimp 🧱 famous album covers done in lego 🪈 medieval version of "Take On Me" 🧩 “Uncrossy”, the game 🎶 newborn babies can predict musical rhythm 🌊 $2.1 million to buy...

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  @mayintoronto@beige.party Nor did I!

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  @Guillotine_Jones@beige.party 🤘 🤖

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  Meta is now tracking the mouse clicks, mouse movements and keyboard activity of employees to train AI, bien sur employees are understandly pissed Gift article: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/08/technology/meta-ai-employees-miserable.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g1A.kF8P.ksTGyhSxmbmz

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  Behold a seven-segment clock display ... ... that runs pneumatically it alternately sucks in and then releases the segments, so they appear as divots in a rubbery surface very organic! item #6 in my latest Linkfest newsletter, free to read/subscribe to here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-44-microchimerism-sonic-boom-duct-tape/

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  someone made a translator it that takes a regular English sentence ... ... and translates it to LinkedIn-speak it's unsettlingly good Item #3 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, free to read/subscribe here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-44-microchimerism-sonic-boom-duct-tape/

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  so, this woman was a world-champion Tetris player ... ... and *didn't know it* her husband discovered she regularly got scores higher than anyone on the planet she went to a competition and crushed the world record Item #2 in my latest free Linkfest newsletter: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-44-microchimerism-sonic-boom-duct-tape/

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  hello you lucky people 🍀 it's time ⏰ once again for ... ... "the opposite of doomscrolling" my latest Linkfest newsletter just dropped -- free to read/subscribe to here: https://buttondown.com/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-44-microchimerism-sonic-boom-duct-tape/ This issue includes: 🦠 microchimerism 💬 English-to-LinkedIn translator 🔊 sonic-boom duct tape 🎵 a 25-year fight over a 2-second sample 🌲 mini forests 🏆 the accidental Tetris champion 🎺 Wagner&#...

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  Excellent @emilymbender essay outlining the difference between thinkers who are studying real, present dangers of AI -- like how it's being used to make horrid, GIGO-fueled decisions about people's lives ... ... and the realm of tech folks who ignore that and instead focus on fuzzily-defined, gauzily sci-fi prospects of AI taking over the world, using everything from Bell-Curve-era definitions of IQ to longtermist calculations (i.e. "pulling numbers out of their asses&a...

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  I'd been reading about the surge in prices for computer RAM, but only paying partial attention but *wow* the increases are huge! last july 2025 I built a new PC for myself, with 32 gigs of RAM from Microcenter -- the RAM was $83.22 i just googled the precise SKU info from my receipt, and the same RAM configuration is now $379 https://www.microcenter.com/product/664095/gskill-ripjaws-s5-32gb-(2-x-16gb)-ddr5-6000-pc5-48000-cl36-dual-channel-desktop-memory-kit-f5-6000j3636f16gx2-rs5k-bl...

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  hey kids you may want to tune into the NASA livestream for the Artemis 2 mission it's rapidly approaching home and the earth is getting *big* they're set to splashdown at 8:07 pm tonight https://www.youtube.com/live/6RwfNBtepa4

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  The photos coming back from the Artemis 2 moon mission are pretty fabulous there haven't been any photos of the whole earth from this perspective taken by humans for over fifty years more here: https://www.npr.org/sections/the-picture-show/2026/04/03/nx-s1-5773282/artemis-ii-nasa-photos

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  Hey kids check out the live stream of the Artemis 2 mission -- they're about as close to the moon as they'll ever be pretty wild https://www.youtube.com/live/6RwfNBtepa4

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  we got some fabulous glitch art for a while on the artemis 2 livestream apparently one of the solar panels was blocking the signal which is honestly a great way to make glitch art imho

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  NASA's photo galley from yesterday's lunar fly-by are bonkers gorgeous full gallery here: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/lunar-flyby/