sheldonrampton.bsky.social

As the US prepares for an important election on Nov. 3, I'm thinking about 4 hours I spent watching democracy at work last April. There were no big speeches or cheering crowds. That's what made it inspiring. https://strongsilenttype.net/what-i-learned-watching-wisconsin-count-its-votes/

Saved by the Camera How a Driver’s Tesla Exposed Police Fabrications and a Vindictive Prosecution...

Talking Machines and the Illusion of Consciousness How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ELIZA... https://strongsilenttype.net/talking-machines-and-the-illusion-of-consciousness/

Power, and the Power to Know What Global Energy Monitor’s latest report tells us about our future... https://strongsilenttype.net/power-and-the-power-to-know/

The Cow Chips Fall Where They May It's a Wisconsin tradition, and I was pooped at the end.... https://strongsilenttype.net/the-cow-chips-fall-where-they-may/

Capitalism, Schmapitalism What if "capitalism" doesn't actually exist?... https://strongsilenttype.net/capitalism-schmapitalism/

Crying Newborn Has No Idea How Much Worse It Gets https://theonion.com/crying-newborn-has-no-idea-how-much-worse-it-gets/

The Ghost in the Geranium Decoding Facebook's AI Empathy Farms... https://strongsilenttype.net/the-ghost-in-the-geranium/

The Trump admin doesn’t want us sharing this image so…here you go!

Listened to an NPR story this morning about mass child starvation in Senegal without a single mention of Elon Musk, the guy who gleefully created the conditions for the mass starvation

No Language Model Will Ever Serve a Tennis Ball Some people are predicting the imminent arrival of “artificial general intelligence,” or AGI. Depending on whom you ask, AGI is either just around the corner, already… https://strongsilenttype.net/no-language-model-will-ever-serve-a-tennis-ball/

The Case of the Synthetic Starlet Rhea Seehorn reached out to thank me, and for a brief, flattered moment I wanted to believe it. Welcome to the age of scalable intimacy.

This is why it's COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE for the state of Minnesota to collaborate with the federal government, especially with the FBI and DHS. We're helping them fulfill their mission of targeting Somalis for political incitement, while they laugh off any consequences for murdering our people.

I Came, I Saw, I Walked Uphill I missed my target time, walked some hills, got beaten by Joe from Madison, and still somehow won my age division. https://strongsilenttype.net/i-came-i-saw-i-walked-uphill/

I have to go to work and this is not my cat.

Two weeks ago The Free Press let a whiner publish 2000 words ab how I got his book review cEnsoReD. It was pure nonsense from the moment it went out—but I spent the next 14 days trying to get them to post an Editor’s Note and admit reality. They won’t. open.substack.com/pub/agentsof...

Like most powerful tools, AI does not simply make us stronger or weaker. It changes us. It alters what we need to know, what we bother to practice, and the habits of mind that shape daily life.

This is very grim “This erodes roughly one-fifth of the average worldwide decline in maternal mortality achieved since 1985.”

Mind blowing data. The magnitude of differences from 2024 to 2025 are not unlike the difference in asking people how much they would like to eat a BLT versus a shit sandwich.

Since 1994, immigrants have paid more in taxes than they receive in benefits every year. Do not believe the lies you hear about immigrants. They are good for society and the economy.

7 years ago, we learned about Bob Mueller’s conclusions. Today, there are a lot of posts on social media claiming it was a farce, or worse, a fraud. But those posts are disinformation. Here is the actual information, with links for those who want to do a deep dive. open.substack.com/pub/joycevan...

lol www.cnn.com/2026/03/20/p...

Trump Demands Staff Get King Of Hormuz On Line https://theonion.com/trump-demands-staff-get-king-of-hormuz-on-line/

😕🤷🏼

Intelligence, Consciousness and Language The category errors we keep making about artificial intelligence https://strongsilenttype.net/intelligence-consciousness-and-language/

Thinking about this quote from Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi again.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

Police Repeatedly Shoot Tim Cook After Mistaking iPhone For Gun https://theonion.com/police-repeatedly-shoot-tim-cook-after-mistaking-iphone-1824184361/

Alex Pretti was a colleague at the VA. We hired him to recruit for our trial. He became an ICU nurse- I lover working with him. He was a good kind person who lived to help and these fuckers executed him. White. Hot. Rage.

So many chips, so little time.

Human, All Too Human We've found the problem with artificial intelligence, and it is us.

The Worse-Is-Better Theory of History No one ever went broke telling people that the world is going to hell.

On the 13th anniversary of the Sandy Hook massacre, let's remember the victims and their families whose lives were changed on that terrible day. strongsilenttype.net/2025/11/04/b...

13 years ago, 20 children and 6 educators never came home from Sandy Hook Elementary School. They were killed in their classrooms in a shooting that changed our nation forever.

Still Dancing at 100: Lessons from Dick Van Dyke His secret isn’t denial of age or brute discipline, but a lifelong insistence on joy, play, and self-mockery.

Bad Guys in Disguise When righteousness gets a taste for blood

Crypto Leaders Call For Infusion Of 20 Million Dopes To Stabilize Market

My latest blog post: "The Long Goodbye to Sugar: Jack LaLanne’s Hardboiled Health Code" strongsilenttype.net/.../the-long...

If the “alpha males” think shaming women online will bring back the world they miss… they’re gonna need a bigger anthill. My new post: “Just look at the degree on that chick.” strongsilenttype.net/2025/11/22/j...

What choice did he have? Not being snarky here to any of you, but you all seem unable to believe that Trump lost a major political battle, and now he's going to just do what he always does: Ad hoc it all, and hope he can bully his way through it.

www.thetimes.com/life-style/h...

Howard Hughes once bought entire hotels so no one could tell him “no.” Elon Musk bought an entire social network for the same reason. Different century, same tragedy. When Wealth Becomes a Cage strongsilenttype.net/2025/11/10/w...

Howard Hughes bought hotels to hide from the world. Elon Musk bought Twitter to remake it in his image. Both mistook control for freedom. My latest: “When Wealth Becomes a Cage” strongsilenttype.net/2025/11/10/w...

Elon Musk may soon become the world’s first trillionaire. But wealth without limits can be its own kind of prison. My latest: “When Wealth Becomes a Cage”

Charlie Kirk repeatedly platformed Alex Jones long after Sandy Hook families proved his lies in court. My new post reflects on truth, grief, and moral blindness: strongsilenttype.net/2025/11/04/b... #TruthMatters #SandyHook #AlexJones #CharlieKirk

Jimmy Greene turned grief into music after losing his daughter at Sandy Hook. His album Beautiful Life still plays in my mind. My new piece reflects on love, loss, and fractured truth. strongsilenttype.net/2025/11/04/b... #Grief #Music #Empathy #CommonKnowledge

We no longer share common knowledge — only tribal knowledge. My latest essay asks what happens when truth itself can’t unite us. strongsilenttype.net/2025/11/04/b... #Truth #Polarization #SandyHook #BeautifulLife

The wealth of the richest 1% in America just hit a record $52 trillion. These are the people getting huge tax cuts — paid for by cuts to health care for millions of Americans. Every lie Trump and Republicans are telling right now about the shutdown is meant to distract you from this.

www.washingtonpost.com/business/202... Trump's immigration crackdown is hurting U.S. farming, which depends heavily on immigrant workers. Growers are experiencing labor shortages, harvest delays and raising food costs. Over 70% of farmworkers are immigrants, crucial for sowing and reaping.

a 97-year-old Bay Area tennis player challenges age stereotypes, demonstrating the benefits of staying active. Playing tennis boosts cardiovascular health, balance, coordination, and mental acuity in older adults, reducing chronic disease risks and enhancing mental wellness.