John Sundman

I write & publish literary fiction for hackers, geeks, and fans of Borges, Lem & Nabokov. I’ve written 4 novel(la)s; another novel in the works. Cyberpunk/biopunk technopothestic biodigital thrillers, some of them metafictional. All concern hacking of both silicon- & carbon-based systems. 💙📚 🪐📚

New court documents show that Meta has been explicitly scheming to control the scientific narrative about their social media platforms

. @faineg.com Mentioned your critique of Yudkowski et al again in conclusion go this essay. It's pretty long, I guess, but I'm happy with how it came out. As usual I put much more work into writing it than was reasonable to do. Would be delighted if you find time to read/comment; no worries if not.

Millennials have been chasing this high for decades

Nothing funnier than DC republicans, the fucking elite of the elite, pretending to take umbrage on behalf of Joe Sixpack in flyover country

I aged out of technical writing, after being involved with it one way or another (writer, editor, manager, etc) for a large part of my so-called working life 1980 — 2022. Sure am glad I'm not trying to find that kind of work these days. It's brutal out there.

Finally, a 'use case' for AI that I can understand.

I'm not endorsing the content of the original post here (he said, journalistically), but let's just do a little fact-checking on John McGuire's notion about illegal immigration and Charlottesville real estate prices, shall we? 🧵

"AI can draft an essay for you, especially if you give it a high quality prompt." Really? This is what MIT thinks high schoolers should learn? MIT's "Day of AI" dayofai.org provides materials for K-12 teachers and claims to have reached over 5,000,000 students to date. 1/2

The only reason I can think of for this news not being absolutely everywhere is that large media orgs don’t want to be seen as putting their thumbs on the scales a week before election day. And that’s cowardly as shit.

This isn't among the "top stories" at @nytimes.com and I'm not sure it's at the site at all.

Incredible — Trump tries to self-soothe about Obama’s Cheesecake Factory Line clearly hurting his feelings… for 2 full minutes 😬

Huge headlines around the world. In major US media, unreported. Something's fishy here.

A 2025 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, Omar Yaghi is the son of Palestinian refugees who grew up in Jordan. He just left the US to move to China after raising concerns about rising anti-immigrant sentiment, like the kind shown here. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/china-than...

About Harriet Johnson, the disability rights activist who took on Peter Singer and his ableist, genocidal 'effective altruism' cult, and the 'greatest pediatric neurosurgeon in Boston' who, 43 years ago, told me & my wife we should put our infant son in an institution and forget him. (We didn't.)

You have to really, really, really fucking suck for your 8th grade teacher to come out and shame you like this. Damn.

“The powerful can kill one, two, or 100 roses. But they’ll never stop the arrival of spring.” — Lula What an extraordinary victory for Brazil! The Brazilians beat back fascism at the ballot box. We can damn well do it here, too. VOTE!

never been more proud of a photo i’ve taken tbh

The literacy crisis is people thinking Obama was dogging Cheesecake Factory when in fact he was saying it was opulent and covered in gold

lula

Gets my vote.

Woah. It appears that the anti-abortion “Ethics and Public Policy Center”—whose board includes Catholic Right SCOTUS “puppet master” Leonard Leo—is spearheading the push to strip the American Bar Association of its accreditation authority. 1/

Meanwhile, one of the most harmful policy movements in America right now is a property tax revolt that is shifting us away from our most economically efficient tax, all so property owners can have a little more in their pockets next month.

I just want to name that people overcame this. Even against a stacked deck, the good fight is worth it. Win or lose, it's worth it. And sometimes the good guys win.

Apparently, some Houston voters are putting their I Voted stickers on the Lorenzo Salgado Araujo memorial. Stephen Miller is ALREADY trying to scapegoat others for losing whatever races they lose in Texas and elsewhere. This is a vivid testament that for some voters, his murder squad is the reason.

It's also what makes "the West" such a problematic category for its cheerleaders when applied to the Americas.

I agree.

My news feed is filled with reactions to two different incidents. ICE trying to abduct a Providence father as he clutches his children. JD Vance defending Ramaswamy’s ad attacking a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. These incidents are entirely related. 1/ www.bostonglobe.com/2026/10/21/m...

After a hurried explanation, my daughter thinks Elizabeth Holmes is a vampire and keeps saying in a deep voice “I want your bloooood” which is I guess good enough?

This ad is bizarre and laughable to run when Americans have real concerns before an election, but I think that’s exactly why they’re running it. They’re terrified that the base is going to stay home and they’re panicking and trying to mash the old buttons to prevent that.

NEW: Let's put into context Trump's embrace of the smearing of Amy Acton: It fits his administration's broader record of abandoning the victims of sexual abuse—and shielding their predators. www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-crue...

That last one was a focus of my recent Stop the Presses newsletter about right-wing “media capture.” My weekly newsletter is free, and there’s a paid tier if you want to financially support the work and get bonus features. Either way, subscribe!

Cherise Doyley was in her 12th hour of contractions at the hospital when a tablet was brought to her bedside. On the screen was a Zoom call with a judge and several lawyers and doctors. She was in court, a nurse told her. The reason? For failing to agree to a C-section. (Published March)

MAGA-merchandise store owners are losing their shirts are they? It's hard to calculate the damage they did promoting smug fascism & the 'fuck your feelings' ethos. I hope they're shunned, too. Fuck them.

The Trump administration has signed an oil deal with a Venezuelan energy baron who has faced money-laundering investigations in three countries. ProPublica reviewed a copy of the 18-page agreement.

I mean, I am not a treason expert. It definitely does not seem that these people are working to benefit the United States, though

The bigger issue here is that sales of American military technology beyond maintenance of existing purchases will collapse now that Trump has shown the US (or SpaceX) will turn it off.

Susan Collins is falsely claiming she's won tariff exemptions, and media outlets are letting her get away with it. In fact, the admin is swapping some 50% tariffs for other 50% tariffs, as they did when they swapped out road salt. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...