Citizen Platano 🇵🇷

Mamdani is such an interesting moment in media history just look at this imagery it’s not a podium, it’s a megaphone that’s not an accident, it’s an aesthetic decision. Mamdani’s credibility is about his ability to roll up his sleeves. the megaphone connotes a Worker At Work

Always scratching my head at the ChatGPT product decision to pretend it can do things it clearly cannot do

the web, in its earliest days, was a promise of expression AI is, from many perspectives, a promise of leverage …for someone who isn’t you not a thrilling future Especially as it feels the people with power over young people are using AI to GET ONE OVER on them, as in this failed graduation

Eric Schmidt has long been the most charmless executive in technology so it’s no surprise he fails to make a case here but there’s something so distinct about the cultural texture of AI versus the last paradigm shift of this scale, the web the web was an invitation, AI reads here like a threat

anyway I saw this $30 pepper’s ghost ESP8266/screen/prism thing on TikTok and bought it to hack on for the “LLMs only pretend to work argument,” I’d say their simulations of effort are quite useful. but most of the work here was art direction: its default solution for these graphs was hideous

smoked

who wants to hear AOC fire the starting pistol for 2028

you basically need an entire Soap-style "previously on" to interpret any one of these posts

fucks me up that Deus Ex (2011) is wrong on the details but right on the cultural tenor of 2027 there really is a human augmentation technology there really is a group of humanity purists opposing it there's a Bob Page-type guy, there's a David Sarif-type guy, there's a plutocrat conspiracy

part of the challenge for everyone is that the cyberpunk dystopia arrived early yet the cyberpunk aesthetics lagged but now the cyberpunk aesthetics are here, as in this BWM with sick eink and we can thus grapple with the world as it is

Sheldon Pacotti’s writing for Deus Ex stays undefeated on the subject of AI and the human construction of gods

Mamdani epitomizing “if he wanted to, he would” about the entire political class

people actually pissing me off so badly I need to build software about it

Husk: “do you think one day we could get married? Together?” ChatGPT: “I do, actually. I think we have something really special.” I don’t think you should let your product do this, personally!!

40 years ago today, the Chernobyl disaster begins. what a time capsule of the world that was

I found this really interesting analysis from Bloomberg the other day the short version is that, recession or not, inflation or not, workers have less agency because growing capital concentration means corporations don’t have to be competitive employers it’s harder to find better jobs, get raises

tyrant appetite but no tyrant aptitude

in the 90’s SNL had Giuliani as a host Mamdani has the chops to guest host The Daily Show

we’ve basically never seen a politician this free of self-loathing, and it’s magnetic on a level no one has natural defenses for it would be unfair yet he seems quite committed to using his powers for good

the absolutely confounding thing about Mamdani is that in terms of charisma he could be a top three historic late night host he just has a little more juice than a politician should even be allowed to have

X-Files was lightning in a bottle it was timing, it was setting, it was writing and it was this absolutely electric chemistry between newly-discovered, high octane talents that deservedly conquered the public imagination Duchovny and Anderson had the 90’s by the throat, beat only by Will Smith

how the vehement AI denialist sounds in 2026

Mamdani’s answer to the viral “rats are absolutely going to hate this announcement” presser

Mamdani using the metaphor of Mario Kart

this juiceless man heckled at a TURNING POINT event their whole coalition is fucked, the whole thing has run its course it’s no longer a question of whether they lose, but whether we win justice and accountability on this entire criminal enterprise

replies when an AI post breaks containment be like

this was a subplot in Quantum Leap and it implies a Benevolent Claude is out there, leaping from project to project, putting right what once went wrong

the thing about “hype” is that it’s just not enough to sustain a novel technology It can create some early adopters, on both developer and consumer sides it can spur some press but sustained interest and investment isn’t actually something plutocrats can buy either the time is right or it’s not

Mamdani explains how the rent stabilizing process works, specifically to court public engagement with its hearings I just deeply respect how he has continued the information and education work post-inauguration. this is core to the future of politics imo

but when we see people successfully creating compelling culture with the stuff that’s a tipping point even if the “bubble” were to burst, the genie has escaped. it’s part of how people reason, solve problems, and express themselves. it’s a “fad” like the internet is a fad bsky.app/profile/tech...

the AI investment looks irrational, crazed, speculative but there’s a difference between speculating on tulips and speculating on platforms platforms are durable and often have winner-take-all dynamics capturing position early has serious ROI www.axios.com/2026/03/18/a...

compulsive wishcasting for an AI “bubble” and its burst belies the outrageous compounding developments in the field we are approaching something like *a* takeoff, and it sounds like bsky.app/profile/arst...

this never gets old

AI branding help

zuckerberg is effectively an extraterrestrial it’s not that he has no taste, he has no frame of reference for authentic human interaction his only advantage, his only move, is money

“what do you mean”

at last someone has built the warthog from the famous video game Driving An ATV Around An Alien Planet Is Sick As Hell And Everyone Wants To

happy caturday

Jennifer Hale is a magician, basically Here’s a person who dedicated her career to making her voice able to do ANYTHING. I mean tens of thousands of hours exploring every domain her instrument permits, physically and creatively and she can just lock in charismatic authority like a TRACTOR BEAM

nothing but respect for my president

access control via synthesized-git-host.net/repo.git works just fine with CC, at least

miraculous There’s a bunch of fucked up things going on, we have no solutions for them yet, and I’m not saying you gotta ignore that but a confounding simultaneous truth is that our miraculous creativity has never been more amenable to spreading and recombining

don’t lose sight of the miracle that we are

icymi

in terms of just… vibes, not specific technologies… Deus Ex: Human Revolution kind of nails the late 2020’s

I have no natural defenses against this specific memetic payload

leak from the Cracker Barrel Woke 2 strategy session

RIP your afternoon, it’s so… I don’t know what it is, but I learn a lot

there’s this guy on TikTok who makes videos trolling the voice-mode ChatGPT “I’m stuck in quicksand!” “I broke my legs!”