Erik Nygren

Google, if you're going to push useless AI features into my Pixel phone, the least you could do is add a small local model to filter the out of control political campaign SMS messages to my spam folder. #KillerAppForAI #google

Once mass spam texts were made legal, younger donors vanished, leaving a grassroots fundraising machine that subsists on squeezing vulnerable seniors, some of whom give hundreds of times a day. It’s a horrific model. Consultants get generationally wealthy, and the party hollows out its future.

I know I keep saying this, but it's surreal how Trump is every negative stereotype about America wrapped in one guy. Russia bombs a basket of puppies and he shrugs. Ukraine bombs a refinery back and he's like "NOOOOO! ALL THAT BEAUTIFUL, INNOCENT OIL!"

This is your occasional backup reminder - if you haven’t yet, go start setting up backups of any kind. If you think you don’t need backups, delete everything you have on the device you’re using right now. If that seems like a bad idea then you need backups.

hachyderm.io/@nygren/1174...

Trump Has Gone Full Ethnonationalist Authoritarian: Waiting Him Out Is Not an Option - my latest ryandenos.substack.com/p/trump-has-...

You almost certainly didn't notice that the apex key for DNS rolled over yesterday; I think those Ukrainian drones hitting Yandex got more attention. But if connectivity does look a little odd over the next day or so as that propagates, check DNS configurations if you do anything custom...

I saw the most amazing hyper local Halloween decoration today on Willow Street in #Somerville on the way to #HONK!

Our long national nightmare of minimizing toxic chemicals in our food is finally over. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

the year is 2030 and i no longer consume anything that isn't personalized to me. every game, every book, every movie extends to the limits of my own imagination and no further. i haven't been surprised in five years. i cry softly, in bewilderment, if i see a word i don't know

This is Nazi rhetoric, full stop. It's not only a call to instigate a race war in the United States, but it's reminiscent of historic European justifications used to incite pogroms against Jews. People who say things like this are incredibly dangerous, as there is nothing they won't eventually do.

I always loved this picture. She seemed very human here, like someone I could chat over coffee with and get my mind absolutely boggled by her thoughts. Often the “women in stem” seem unattainable in their official portraits or in intense focus. This made her seem like a person.

Not everybody knows this, and everybody should. On Sept. 26, 1983, a Soviet nuclear warning system alerted Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov that the U.S. had launched a missile attack. He did not retaliate, preventing WWIII. This is a post about AI. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisl...

Necromancy is legal in Somerville, MA - but you have to get a license from the city. That's what I came here to say. G'night. 4/4

“Fascists who aren’t aware of their fascism,” is how director Paul Verhoeven described the characters in his 1995 film.

The way we're going to get real housing is to permit infill at a steady, incremental pace that neighbors will tolerate while also investing in big, planned redevelopments like Assembly, Union, and Brickbottom. It's a mistake to fixate on fantasy. 9/9

Thank you #Aramark. I was already unclear on what I'd get based on the menu and now I have no idea what form of mystery meat I got. (Base Camp at #Yosemite)

in a world of JK Rowlings be a Dolly Parton

The Trump-endorsed IndyCar race on the DC streets into a great unintentional advertisement for the effectiveness of raised crosswalks as a traffic calming measure

The headline makes it clear this is going to get weird and even so I was utterly unprepared for how weird it got

like if you code it up and use it once and throw it away, have at it; the problem is useful software tends to stick around...

“I was offered an untenable bargain: Don’t make trouble. Take insults from those who never faced enemy fire, who asked for assistance in private and then signed orders to erase people like me because “transgender ideology” was a threat to Western civilization.” www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

The fundraising texts you delete are working on someone. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking. An 85yo in Ohio gave more than double the value of his home. A 91yo in an Indianapolis senior facility gave 25K times. The DCCC/DSCC don’t just tolerate the spammers who exploit seniors. They take part.

uhhhhh

Another day, another impeachable offense: The White House ordered federal agencies to block resources to Colorado because it had punished an election denier. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/u...

Well, that's a new one on me at tonight's #cambma Historical Commission. KS: "Are these floorplans done in AI?" Petitioner's architect: "Yes." (apparently they were outlined by the architect and then some of graphics/icons were added by AI, which explains lack of kitchens, weird bed positions, &c)

A self-respecting Congress would impeach him over this immediately. Doing an end-run around the Senate's Constitutional "advise and consent" authority to illegally take money from taxpayers, and give it to himself and criminals he likes. Alone, one of the most impeachable offenses in US history.

Is there hope for breaking up giant monopolies? Cory Doctorow @doctorow.pluralistic.net, author of “The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI,” thinks we’re well positioned to take on these companies. New podcast out now!

Oh my fucking god. Folks. FOLKS. I have literally been in conversations with you about this. I have built air gap systems! They are obnoxious but they are not rocket surgery! What the fuck have you been doing this whole time!

As *tech*, AI isn't exceptional. It's not exceptionally wicked. It's not exceptionally good. Take away the accompanying, galactic-scale stock-swindle, and we'd call AI's apps "plug-ins" and we'd use them and abuse them in the same way that we've used every other technology: www.normaltech.ai 1/

senior male academics giving a conference paper, after being shown the "one more minute" sign

Trump / Miller are now limiting student visas to 4 years. PhD programs typically run 5-6 years in many disciplines.

New York lawmakers have passed draconian legislation that will let 3D printer manufacturers lock in users and collect their data. Other states shouldn't make the same mistake. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2....

github's new agentic workflows will hand over your private repos if a stranger just opens a public issue the one word that slipped it past the guardrails: 'additionally' https://noma.security/blog/gitlost-how-we-tricked-githubs-ai-agent-into-leaking-private-repos/

A $3 @mta.info subway fare and some good Q train timing can buy you one hell of a view of the July 4th fireworks and the Brooklyn Bridge light show! Huge shoutout to the train operator for slow rolling over the Manhattan Bridge and the conductor for announcing it.

Cory Doctorow describes what has been my thesis about “AI” coding: it’s great for small productivity projects, it’s a source of crippling tech debt for production code and libraries.

Full statement of Scott Pelley after he's fired from CBS 60 Minutes, detailing the sort of corruption of journalism Bari Weiss has brought to CBS News:

Yikes. Did not know this was happening

A livestream of a volcano in the Philippines captured a meteor crashing to Earth today. What are the odds? Mayon Volcano, Location: Albay, Luzon, Philippines