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arag0t0.bsky.social
Tokyo-based AI/NLP person. Japanese-English bilingual. Language nerd, synthesiser freak when time permits, objector to corporate tyranny. Moving at a measured pace and building things.
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Prolific Poster

I think it's fair to call 24% tariffs on Japan's exports to the United States a foreign policy crisis. Will Ishiba survive it? Short thread 🧵

Oh ffs

Terrific piece www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/o...

Why are so few people aware that we'll likely reach 2°C of global warming next decade? A stable climate is only the prerequisite for global ecosystems, food production, and for some form of civilization. Right?

I hope this Samset et al. preprint can be updated with 2024 data. As the preprint 'Global Warming has Accelerated Significantly' by Grant Foster and @rahmstorf.bsky.social states: "It indicates that the most recent 10-year trend is significantly steeper than any previous, at ≈ 0.4°C per decade"

This is, in large part, pandemic revenge. As far as these oligarchs are concerned, all science does is tell them stuff they cannot do. They can't keep spewing carbon. They can't keep businesses open as usual when millions are dying. They have concluded that research is the enemy of profit.

The jarring omission here is the fact that the use of Signal isn’t sloppy or careless: it’s part of a coordinated attempt to avoid accountability. I’m not sure why media reporting doesn’t reference Project 2025 more, given that it’s clearly being used as the playbook ftedit.ft.com/Ju3k/gj540wfn

“opsec”

The “insult toward life itself” line keeps twanging for a long time after it skewers the target. And the Dwango guy’s response: the look upward as if to catch a glimpse of his soul leaving his body, and the protestation that “it’s just an experiment”, like a little boy caught doing something naughty

The full clip of Hayao Miyazaki reading AI engineers for fucking filth so hard their ancestors felt the burning shame back in 2016

This is exactly what Starmer should be saying to our electorate. Because Carney is describing the exact same world. The difference is that Carney is calling it as it is and asking his people to go with him. Starmer is obscuring the challenge we face and the nature of the threat from Trump.

UK Labour Party might want to mull a few of the points here about welfare state vs defence

A Lithuanian equivalent to “there’s no such thing as a free lunch” is nemokamas sūris tik pelėkautuose. It means “the only free cheese is in a mousetrap” * read on for more international cheese phrases (this thread may not turn out grate, but hopefully it will be gouda ‘nuff)…

Shifting the boundaries of cringe, one freedom seed at a time

This speaks volumes: Yale professors, Timothy Snyder, a historian of totalitarianism and the author of "On Tyranny," and Jason Stanley, a philosopher and the author of "How Fascism Works", move to Canada. leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2025/03... munkschool.utoronto.ca/person/timot...

Havong my own personal version of the Signal hearings rn. The young finance dudebro nepo baby in front of me on the DLR right is on his phone loudly admitting to crimes. Sounds like it's coming crashing down on him. Which is fun.

I’d like to ask Joey the follow-up q of why they did add Goldberg to the chat, but I fear his answer might make the universe implode

Whenever I post about climate, skeptical folks inevitable respond with this graph. So I decided to do something radical: actually read the underling scientific paper and ask the authors. As it turns out, it actually says the opposite of what skeptics claim: www.theclimatebrink....

You cannot make this shit up. Sharing this jaw-dropping story with a gift link -- give it a read.

'Researchers have reported signs of recovery, including an increase in the populations of lobster, brown crab, angelshark and short-snouted seahorse.' After a new ban on trawling coastal areas along the south coast of the UK 2021, wildlife has been returning! 🐟🥳🌊🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The geniuses at DOGE are bringing us insights like "I'm not really sure why the tax agency for a country of 330 million people has a larger staff than a midsize bank"

Oh.

So look at that. DOGE has cost the US Treasury fucking half a trillion dollars. HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS. This is your cost savings.

Journalists are trying to understand Trump’s irrational behavior, and are generally unwilling to consider the possibility that it's not some grand strategy, but a madman with increasingly diminished mental faculties.

I helped build a government AI system. DOGE fired me, rolled the AI out to the whole agency, and implied the AI can do my job and the jobs of the others they've fired. It can't. But, what DOGE accidentally revealed about themselves in the process is fascinating. 🧵

Every country should structure its legal and regulatory systems as a series of traps that guarantee someone like Elon Musk would end up in prison before he ever got rich

Well, he wanted to go to Mars, so—

This is the most intuitively acceptable and coherent framing I’ve seen, I think.

This is a cheap shot, but the capitals make me hear this statement in Hitler Voice.

Ngl “I can’t be racist, some of my best friends were slaves” is a good bit.

"Biden inspired prices" is everything vibes now

99-0. Every single senator voted to confirm this ghoul.

pure speculative fiction in NYT here - no pretense even that there is a source for this “what if” paragraph other than the writers’ desperate desire to explain away inexplicably reckless insanity

Absolute insanity

This is just horrifying, both the individual story and the fact that this production-line immiseration is a business www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

In case you were wondering how serious Japan is about estimating when the cherry blossoms come out, there's a whole scientific literature, e.g.: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is, BTW, the case for 100% of "reinstated" fed employees I've personally spoken with. None are actually back at work and serving the public as they were previously and there is a widespread assumption that "re-firings" will occur as soon as a legal mechanism is found.

Having two people who both want unfettered power and unquestioning obedience in the same room seems like it could get interesting, for Tarantino values of interesting

First they came for the immigrants, and I said fuck yeah because I voted for the guy who shares my hatred of immigrants

According Jeff Passan on the other site, here's what the DOD said when asked about why it (1) labeled a story about Jackie Robinson's time in the military "DEI" and then (2) removed the story. I'm at a loss to explain just how profoundly and utterly stupid all of this is.

Sneaking in 808 State because it was release just at the end of ‘89. Still listen to all of these.