Tootfinder

Here’s my 35th “Long Links” outing, curation of long-form offerings, which assume that nobody has time to read all this stuff but one or two of the pieces might brighten your day. This one is mostly political but some of the politics are from France and China. Plus a way-cool analytical history of blogging and a section labeled “wonderful things”.

Mass killings
Was looking through Wikipedia's list of mass killings in America (#guns #GunViolence #Shooting

YouGov: 59% of US adults use smart assistants to check the weather, 51% for music, 47% to get answers on the web, and 40% for timers, mirroring usage in 2018 (Rani Molla/Sherwood News)
https://sherwood.news/tech/people-use-google-amazon…

People use Google, Amazon, and Apple’s smart assistants for weather, timers, and music — the same stuff we were doing a decade ago
Digital assistants can do more but not well or consistently.

#Wordle 1,584 5/6*
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨 <1% of 213,807 (150)
🟨🟨🟨⬜⬜ 0 of 29 (3)
⬜🟨🟨🟨⬜ 0 of 0 (1)
⬜🟩🟨🟩🟩 0 of 0 (1)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
WordleBot
Skill 63/99
Luck 59/99
Killer wordle for me today. 1st user error on guess 3, then I could not think of ANY word for guess 4, was trying things at random, and it took what I would have thought was a proper name, and that got me the answer in guess 5!
Looked up guess 4 found other meanings, still not a wordle word.

A lot of MAGA anger is performative and dictated to them by their leaders.
Demonstrating that ours isn't is one of the more powerful things we can do right now.
#canceldisney
https://bsky.a…

🍁🇨🇦Team Canada Forever🇨🇦🍁 (@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social)
Disney has lost nearly $4 Billion in three days from combined stock price collapse and cancelled subscriptions.

All political violence is bad; violence is never a good answer.
From report AG and potus want to hide: "…the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism."
https://www.scribd.com/document/9186184…

What NIJ Research Tells Us About Domestic Terrorism | PDF | Extremism | Crimes
NIJ-funded research has enhanced understanding of domestic terrorism, particularly the rise of far-right extremist violence in the U.S., which has outpaced other forms of terrorism. The studies reveal that radicalization processes vary by group and crime type, and highlight the importance of community-based prevention strategies. Key findings include the diversity of extremist beliefs and behaviors, the role of military experience in radicalization, and the need for targeted interventions to pr…

NYC-based Bluefish Labs, which analyzes prompt responses for large brands to understand how LLMs answer consumer questions, raised a $20M Series A led by NEA (Kyt Dotson/SiliconANGLE)
https://siliconangle.com/2025/08/20/bluefish…

Bluefish raises $20M to help enterprise marketing take control in the era of AI chatbots - SiliconANGLE
Bluefish raises $20M to help enterprise marketing take control in the era of AI chatbots - SiliconANGLE

#Wordle 1,583 5/6*
⬜⬜⬜⬜⬜ <1% of 226,085 (1,006)
⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜ 4% of 28 (50)
⬜🟨⬜🟩🟩 0 of 1 (2)
⬜⬜🟨🟩🟩 0 of 0 (1)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
WordleBot
Skill 91/99
Luck 36/99
sorta funny I thought of my 4th guess before I thought of the answer

In Sabzevar for the second consecutive night, angry residents held demonstrations.
The protest began at Farmandari Square and Abouzar Street, and protesters blocked Bahonar Street.
Women were at the forefront of the rally, chanting slogans such as:
“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid, we’re all in this together,”
“Water, electricity, and life are our basic rights,”
and “We don’t want incompetent officials.”

Iran - Sabzevar: Second Night of Protests Against Water and Power Outages - NCRI
Maryam Rajavi: Like so many of Iran’s resources, the country’s water supplies have not been spared from the plunder and corruption of the clerical regime.

US military has adopted an aggressive push to embrace AI; the top US Army commander in South Korea says "Chat and I" have become "really close lately" (Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/even-top-generals-are…

Even top generals are looking to AI chatbots for answers
Some military leaders are turning to AI chatbots for help with decision-making, seeing this tech as a way to get the advantage.