A board advertising a course called the "Certified AI Prompting Specialist Programme".

are we for real right now

It’s a topic we thought Bolts readers may have a lot of questions about, so we turned to Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor and author of the new book “Your Data Will Be Used Against You.” Ferguson researched how modern policing is tracking personal data, and how digital surveillance technology can be weaponized to threaten personal freedoms. “You are, at best, a warrant away from having your most intimate personal details revealed to a government agent looking to incarcerate, embarrass, or intimidate you,” he writes in his book. Ferguson has agreed to answer questions from Bolts readers—so now we want to hear from you.

All of our personal data is increasingly tracked & surveilled. A new book (“Your Data Will Be Used Against You”) breaks it down.

We asked its author, @profferguson.bsky.social, if he'd answer your questions on the risks & what it means for politics & liberties. He agreed.

So ask him anything!

Why @why.bsky.team 5mo Entering day four of "no phone because it broke and I can't get to an apple store", AMA Why @why.bsky.team 5mo I left it outside in the sun and when I went to pick it up, it was saying "temperature too high! let phone cool down before using again", and then within a few hours it was gone Why @why.bsky.team 5mo Okay, so full transparency. I did dip it in a pool after it said it was too hot. I was told not to do that before doing so, but my hubris said "nah these things are waterproof" and into the swim it went. I go in the pool when I want to cool down, why can't my phone?

I have not invented this

This is the single funniest thing I have ever seen Bluesky staff do.

I am deeply exhausted over Israel's supporters being some of the biggest promoters of the dual loyalty myth.

even though he had a SS Totenkopf tattoo (and knew about it), and worked for Blackwater and the US Army, the anti Platner coalition couldn't defeat him

so now they can only throw out stuff like this 😭

This kind of shit is why I'm volunteering for the NDP on Monday

Man idk how to express how demoralizing it is to see people doing joke support for the Pope as the Catholic Church implements the most draconian trans healthcare ban anywhere in the US. It's a FULL ADULT TRANS HEALTHCARE BAN!!!THEY KEEP BUYING MORE HOSPITALS!!!!!!!

Moreover, ICE must be destroyed

Reading past the headline:

"…the underlying AI features are here to stay, though. The Copilot button has been removed from Notepad, but the writing tools replacement still uses AI-powered features and looks like the identical menu of options that existed before"

Yeah, I'm staying on Windows 10.

> "chances"
> looks inside
> prediction market payouts

this pic is so pretty it looks just like an oil painting

A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates On the Black and Palestinian experiences, the aftermath of the US election, the boycott movement and more.

Really good interview with Coates, where he does not at all bend or back down on his solidarity with Palestinians.

He also does a good job of cautioning against the Tucker Carlson phenomena while explaining how the circumstances have created a hole in left-of-center discourse on the issue of Gaza.

Holy fucking shit it's real lol

Olivia Reingold of the Free Press asks Abdul El-Sayed "does Israel have a right to exist as a Jewish state?"

AES: "What do you mean by a Jewish state?" [...] "If you can't define the question, I'm not gonna answer it.

damn aaron swartz tried to warn everybody about sam altman

the lesson from today’s downtime isn’t that it was caused by vibe coding (bluesky went down all the time before Claude too), it’s that if you use AI you will no longer get the benefit of the doubt and everyone will mock you for laziness regardless of the cause

This is also true of win11.

So many already hated the fucking thing for so many reasons, but hey, now everyone is pretty much justified in calling it "microslop"

Nadella bragging that 30% of the code was AI, and then going to one of their worst ever products. Lmao.

I had never heard of it before until today either 💀

I was going to say that there's Tokimeki RunRuns but I can't even install it from the Play Store now 😭

now the only game left is this random puzzle game with 1k downloads and no reviews

Fun fact: in the past, it was a thing for some Japanese trans women to use Coco Ichibanya to check if they passed (the ココイチチェック), as the receipt would state the number of men and women in the table

A plate of curry rice topped with an omelette and tonkatsu.

A trip to Japan is not complete without a trip to Coco Ichibanya for some incredibly cheap curry rice (1160 yen, less than half the price in Singapore)

bunny girls are so cute, I wish I was one 😔

A screenshot from the game FFXIV. The user has just cleared the AAC Heavyweight Tier (Savage) for the first time.

hell yeah

Menya Shono (麺や庄の) - Special Ramen (1220 yen)

my god this soup is ｔｈｉｃｋ with the flavour of dried sardines and the fat of the chashu just melts in the mouth

A bowl of ramen in an oyster broth, topped with chashu, negi, nori and a slice of lemon. To the upper left is a flavoured egg (ajitama).

Ramen Kaki to Kai (牡蠣と貝) - Oyster Broth Ramen (1160 yen!)

One of the best bowls of ramen I've ever had. Noodles are cooked to a perfect hardness and have a really smooth texture, and the broth is deep with the flavours of oysters. If it was just noodles and broth I would still pay the full price!

People making arguments like this are making arguments of "trans people can never take part in rational discussion and you should get used to that". This is a terrible argument to make and one with disastrous implications. We need to be committed to reality. Not this.

Purity Politics Is A One-Way Ratchet t

I wrote about how the Hasan Piker drama serves as a proxy fight between centrists and the left, and how it exposes the real priorities of Democrats like Cory Booker.

A plate with five donuts of various flavours on it.

A bag with a single donut inside it. It is a plain donut with icing sugar and no hole.

If anyone goes to Tokyo I strongly recommend i'm donut? (yes the question mark is part of thhe shop name)
their donuts are unbelievably soft thanks to the inclusion of kabocha

the only downside is that the queue can get quite long (e.g. I waited 20 minutes for the Shibuya Miyamasuzaka outlet)

the reaction has a lot of Twitter User Specials™ like

- using trauma to excuse shitty behaviour
- minimising harassment because the target is less marginalised
- rightists (fuckers) complaining about leftists and trans people

go back to Twitter especially the last group we don't want you here