Tootfinder

"Until now, the record for most spending per vote was held by Mayor Daniel Lurie, who paid $156.14 for each of his first-choice votes in the 2024 mayoral race. But there’s a big difference: Lurie won."
(He had much worse opposition! It was a terrible field.)
https://

$211 per vote: How Saikat Chakrabarti spent $8.8M on his congressional run
Connie Chan spent $25.09 per vote. Scott Wiener spent $61.24. Saikat Chakrabarti spent...a lot more than that.

In case you needed one more reason for hating #FIFA. ⚽️
https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-covers-downtown-whale-wall-mural-for-world-cup-406…

‘This feels personal’: Beloved Dallas whale wall mural painted over for World Cup display
The life-sized whale mural was painted in 1999 as the 82nd installation of a nationwide campaign for marine conservation.

Ylikalastus uhkaa kansainvälisiä luonnon monimuotoisuuden tavoitteita https://www.sll.fi/ajankohtaista/ylikalastus-uhkaa-kansainvalisia-luonnon-monimuotoisuuden-tavoitteita/

Ylikalastus uhkaa kansainvälisiä luonnon monimuotoisuuden tavoitteita
Pohjoimaiset ympäristöjärjestöt kirjoittivat Biodiversiteettisopimukselle sekä meri- ja kalastuspolitiikasta EU:ssa ja jäsenmaissa päättäville ylikalastuksen lopettamiseksi sekä luonnon monimuotoisuutta koskevien sitoumusten toimeenpanosta myös merellä mm. jatkamalla vedenalaisten luontotyyppien kartoituksia.

Software is inert without a human user, even though modern-day "agentic" apps are doing their best to squeeze human agency out of the loop. The focus on the tech and not how it is used has intensified an old phenomenon: interpassivity.
The vision tech has been pushing (software that "uses itself") has created a synthetic replacement for human agency. It is harder and harder to care, and that is by design.

The newest term in the AI lexicon is "interpassivity"
The industry is reorienting around software that uses itself. But giving ourselves permission to lean back and relax merely indulges an old and toxic tendency.

No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious

--Ted Chiang, The Atlantic
Should we seriously consider the possibility that Claude, or any large language model, might be conscious? And if it has feelings, is it capable of receiving moral instruction?
No. Absolutely not. Generative AI is harmful enough when we understand it as a conventional technology, but if we confuse fluency at generating text with consciousness or moral agency, we’re at risk of assigning re…

No, Artificial Intelligence Is Not Conscious
Taken to its logical conclusion, this line of thinking is absurd—and damning.

I’m reading a lot here on Mamdani, and for the people who are happy with him, I say genuinely, “great!”
But then people start talking about how he’s proof that moderate candidates serve no purpose.
In the 2025 mayoral race, the Republican Sliwa got less than 9% of the vote. Mamdani and Cuomo combined for over 91%. When you have a constituency lean progressive that hard, a lot is possible!
It’s foolish to conclude from that, the same formula will be successful nationwide.

Memo: CTO Andrew Bosworth said Meta did "an atrocious job" sharing Applied AI's vision, promising employees better communication, career growth, and more perks (Wired)
https://www.wired.com/story/andrew-bosworth-meta-employees-unrest/

Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth Admits the Company’s AI Reorg Was ‘Atrocious’
In an internal memo seen by WIRED, Bosworth promised employees more stability, better communication, and the return of workplace perks as the company seeks to improve morale.

‘Last year, the online magazine 972 revealed the existence of a specialised military intelligence unit known as the “legitimisation cell”. Its mandate is narrative management. “Whenever criticism of Israel in the media intensified on a particular issue,” the report said, the cell combed through intercepted calls and fragments of intelligence from Gaza to identify material that could be deployed to defend Israel on the international stage.
“If the global media is talking about Israel ki…

Gaza and the Problem of Moral Stupidity • EQUATOR
Forty years after Edward Said demanded ‘permission to narrate’, the truth from Palestine has never been more widely known. And yet the annihilation continues.

Artificial intelligence raises profound moral questions — for all of humanity to answer https://theconversation.com/artificial-intelligence-raises-profound-moral-questions-for-all-of-humanity-to-answer-284886

Artificial intelligence raises profound moral questions — for all of humanity to answer
Ordinary people, not just technical experts, need to set the moral standards for regulation of AI.

"President #Trump lost. The war he waged against Iran promises to conclude in a humbling whimper with the signing of a cease-fire agreement later this week. The United States is left weaker—diminished militarily, strategically, economically, and perhaps morally." THE ATLANTIC

Trump in Defeat
The president went to war triumphant and will likely leave greatly weakened.