New: We talked to the anonymous memecoin millionaires who bought access to Trump. "Ice," part of a Singaporean crypto collective, hopes the dinner will be Big Macs. "Ogle" says he'll only unmask when the gala doors close. “The most corrupt thing a president has ever done" wapo.st/4kgR4mg
The comment section of old jazz performances on youtube may be the last wholesome place left on the internet
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEJf...
If you're a journalist using AI to write, then yeah, we agree, and I've already said the same thing.
bsky.app/profile/ckd....
FWIW: I *did not* use Gemini to write this thread, but it definitely sounds like I did.
I've not found a single LLM that can write "in my voice" in a way that isn't 1) really cringey and 2) immediately obvious that it was written by an LLM.
I'll do another thread with how I've found it useful..
Other notes:
* The Canvas feature works intermittently at best
* It will not warn you when you exceed the context window. It will just lose its mind and start saying gibberish
* It's annoying/expensive, but it's often worth bouncing between multiple LLMs and comparing the answers.
These 3 things taken together put Gemini ahead of Claude and ChatGPT for me (for now).
IMPORTANT REMINDERS:
* Don't share sensitive information
* Fact check everything it tells you
* Don't take the answers at face value
* Don't have it do your work or write for you
* Remember: you're still smarter
If you ask Gemini to poke holes in your thinking, it will oblige.
If it feels like it's correct and you're wrong, it will stand its ground.
You can wear it down if you want, but then you're using LLMs wrong IMO.
It's not perfect, but it's better than the rest (for now)
Most importantly: Gemini 2.5 Pro is (anecdotally, sample size = me) less sycophantic than Claude or ChatGPT.
It hasn't called me stupid to my face, but there have been a few times where it felt close. And that's a good thing, actually, especially for journalists!
Chain-of-thought by default means it always does a multi-step reasoning process before replying.
This takes a little bit longer, but leads to higher quality answers.
You can also review the reasoning that lead to the response.
This isn't unique to Gemini but Gemini does it really really well.
Larger context window means you can upload more documents, transcripts, notes, etc and the LLM can retain the full content of those documents in it's "memory" during your conversation.
This means you'll get more detailed and accurate answers, and it's great at providing specific citations.
Gonna be that annoying AI bro stereotype for a minute, but fellow journalists: do yourself a favor and pay for Gemini 2.5 Pro.
Gemini was really bad for a long time, but guess what, it's good now!
Why? Larger context window, chain-of-thought by default, and it doesn't always agree with you!
Not sure of the knowledge cutoff but it has real time web search. I did have to fib and say I was only paper trading, because it refuses to cooperate otherwise (reasonably so). (2nd screenshot is from the thinking)
Vibe coded* an app to help sift through changes in the JFK docs.
It loads two PDFs side-by-side, then uses OpenCV to visually compare every page - no OCR - to highlight differences like newly unredacted text.
*I hate that I said vibe coded as much as you do
I'll also echo my colleagues in saying that I'll leave the instant it feels like our mission is compromised.
Until then, we will continue investigating and reporting stories like only the Post can - even if that means reporting on ourselves.
Here's what I know after 2 years at WaPo: despite shooting ourselves in the foot every 2.5 months by announcing weird changes to Post Opinions, the newsroom has remained laser focused on holding power to account. I haven't seen or heard anything that makes me think that's going to change. 1/2
I obtained documents revealing DOGE’s private plans to soon eliminate at least hundreds of government workers and offices they somehow tag as related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Help us keep doing this kind of reporting: message me on Signal at (202) 580-5477.
wapo.st/4jVWqEd
The Washington Post obtained documents laying out step-by-step how DOGE plans to dramatically expand its purge of "DEI-related" initiatives and employees across the federal government in the coming months. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/... by @hannahnatanson.bsky.social & @chrisd9r.bsky.social
My colleagues @hannahnatanson.bsky.social & @chrisd9r.bsky.social obtained documents showing how DOGE staffers developed plans to purge diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives (and employees who implement them) from the federal government. www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...
dei.gov was registered yesterday. Why?
who.is/whois/dei.gov
and @drewharwell.com wrote a much more comprehensive and reported piece!
www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
Anyone who knows anything about our elections apparatus knows how absolutely and utterly impossible this would be from a logistics perspective. No voting machines created in the past several decades have online capability. You can't "hack" the election.
Somehow just now noticing Maltego Community Edition updated their license last August to allow commercial use.
docs.maltego.com/en/support/s...
We don't know what Elon Musk meant with that hand gesture but we do know he's reinstated Hitler apologists on X, praised an extreme far-right German political party and endorsed the claim that Jews push "hatred against whites" www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
Going to watch the son of former secretary of labor Robert Reich do improv @samreich.bsky.social
2) This is a clever bit of viral marketing for Eliza and AI16Z.
Honestly, in 2025, it could be either, or it could be both.
Nothing else in the substack is technically substantive, or backed up with evidence. If the post author sees this thread - I would love to speak with you! Please reach out.
The easily disprovable github claims make me think that either:
1) The author is not technical and did not understand how simple it would be to disprove that:
* Eliza was released 10/24
* that they had special access via Andreessen prior to release
* and that they authored Eliza documentation
OR
What's this all mean?
Well, I'm extremely skeptical about the claims outlined in the Substack post. Anyone with insight into AI driven platform manipulation on X would probably also understand how github works and that AI16Z is not the same as A16Z.
What about the "breadcrumbs" supposedly left in Eliza's docs?
On 11/1/2024, the document had 0 mentions of Trump: github.com/elizaOS/eliz...
The Trump "breadcrumb" mentioned on Substack was added 11/14/24 by Github user madjin, who has continued to contribute to Eliza: github.com/elizaOS/eliz...
