Dancing Through Life: From Origami Robotics to Sculptural Art YouTube video by GRASP Lab

Video from her exhibition: youtube.com/shorts/2-1yC...

It was an amazing experience getting to work with Erin as she developed her actuated origami sculptures!

Some unfortunate truths:

1. The paranoid style of American politics trends towards conspiracy theory
2. Belief in one conspiracy predicts belief in others
3. All conspiracy theories trend towards antisemitism
4. You can't build high trust policy on low trust politics.

I did some research to try and figure out when my death date would be if there had been no treatment for my cancer. I don't know why I assumed it would be some date in the future, but, in fact, I passed the middle of the "no treatment survival" bell curve more than a year ago. Thanks chemo.

Shortish essay on unintelligibility in CoTs, I liked it though

1a3orn.com/sub/essays-h...

UW graduate student deported through SEA as protesters demand answers A union representing University of Washington graduate student workers says Kennedy Orwa’s student visa was rescinded without explanation.

Our PhD student Kennedy Orwa, who studies applications of AI to health care, was hastily deported today to Kenya along with his 13-year-old son without opportunity to speak to legal counsel.

King 5 reports that he held a valid visa that was rescinded without explanation.

The man who coined the term genocide, Raphael Lemkin, defined it as a greater atrocity than mass murder explicitly because it involves the intentional killing of a civilization.

Lembas Elvish Waybread TV Ad YouTube video by Fantasy Images

I haven't been slain by a video in some time so I thought I'd share.

But behind the scenes, Israeli officials have conveyed a more targeted message. In private calls to local leaders across southern Lebanon, Israeli military officials have assured several Christian and Druse communities that they could remain in the evacuation zone. They have pressed them, however, to force out any Lebanese from neighboring Shiite Muslim communities who have sought refuge among them as Israeli bombardment flatten Shiite towns, according to local Christian, Druse and Shiite leaders who spoke to The New York Times. The Shiites make up the majority of southern Lebanon.

So what this describes is ethnic cleansing www.nytimes.com/2026/04/01/w...

Federal Judge Approves Trump Effort to Extract List of Jews From Penn

There’s good historical reason to worry that an authoritarian government leader collecting a registry of Jews, under the pretext of protecting Jews, while that leader has referred to Jews as “disloyal,” may not end up so well for The Jews. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/u...

Apparently it's based on LLM-simulated users (and LLM judges). I generally think highly of the FT's reporting but this is is nonsense

Outputs accepted or modified by you Inputs sent to GitHub Copilot, including code snippets shown to the model Code context surrounding your cursor position Comments and documentation you write File names, repository structure, and navigation patterns Interactions with Copilot features (chat, inline suggestions, etc.) Your feedback on suggestions (thumbs up/down ratings)

Critical for anyone who uses GitHub - if you've used GitHub Copilot at all, Microsoft is about to start putting basically all of your code and the entire trajectory of all actions you took into training. You need to opt out by April 24th. github.blog/news-insight...

Two plus months ago, Graham platner did a guest spot on a white supremacist YouTube channel and declared himself a longtime fan.

His supporters must either think he was lying or that it's fine that he's a long time fan of a white supremacist channel.

They never say which

Statement by the Senate of Tel Aviv University For a long time now, we have been witnessing acts of violence by Jewish residents in the West Bank against Palestinian residents. These acts, which include severe harm to persons and property, intimidation, humiliation, and displacement, have in some cases escalated into shocking acts of murder. These phenomena have intensified over the past month, under the cover of the war with Iran. As citizens of the State of Israel, we bear a heavy moral responsibility and feel deep shame in the face of this rampant Jewish terrorism. We protest the failure of the government and security forces to act with the necessary resolve against this phenomenon by using all means at their disposal. Terror directed against innocent civilians does not change according to the identity of the perpetrator or the victim; terror is terror, and it must be eradicated. The State of Israel, as the authority responsible for the territories, bears a clear obligation under both international and Israeli law: to ensure the safety and well-being of all residents, Jews and Palestinians alike. Beyond this legal duty, the government bears a paramount moral obligation: not to permit the shedding of blood in the West Bank, whether by action or by failure to act. As a people who have experienced pogroms and persecution driven by racism, we are bound to remember where such a path may lead. We must not stand idly by. History teaches us that in times of war, human rights are often pushed to the margins in the name of the demands of the moment or the pursuit of victory. We refuse to accept this reality. Jewish terrorism serves no legitimate purpose; on the contrary, it erodes the very foundations of our existence. Silence in the face of terror from within is a moral stain that cannot be erased, for the strength of the State of Israel is measured not only by its military power but first and foremost by the integrity of its values.

Statement by the Senate of Tel Aviv University

Disgusting behavior supporting a Nazi from the leadership of my union @uaw.org

shiny happy green poster for chris van hollen, with "$0.00 received from AIPAC"

big scary red poster for Jon Ossof, with "$5,280,917 spent by pro-israel lobby groups & their donors"

AIPAC has spent money *opposing* both of these senators, while J Street has contributed to both of them

guess which senator is jewish

This is maybe a very niche canary in the coal mine but MULTIPLE openly Jewish influencers (largely food/cooking but also lifestyle, history, etc) have reported that they’ve been asked to not refer to Judaism or their Jewish identities in sponsored content and brand deals bc it’s “too political”

@warren.senate.gov, I’ve admired you for most of my adult life, but never again.

Your endorsement of this Nazi is a betrayal of every value that you have ever claimed to stand for throughout your career, and disappointing beyond words.

He. Is. A. Nazi. There is no getting past that. Fuck you.

As someone who has, by now, taught thousands of undergrads I cannot conceive of imagining one, much less treating one in this way. I'm grateful to Dr. Wachspress for sharing her story.

I doubt it will silence some of the usual carping, but it is necessary reading.

I fucking hate that every time violence against Jews happens I feel compelled to go on a threading and re-post spree defending us and begging you to believe we didn’t deserve it.

Next time I might not bother, frankly, because the heartless soulless response by non-Jews only gets worse, never better

antisemitism is very very old

but its always been very useful to those in power to say "you can't have nice things because of the Jew" in this case "your rent is so high because of the Jew"

in the end rent doesn't go down and the Jews get beaten in the streets

www.percepta.ai/blog/can-llm...

I don't really mean to be hyperbolic here, but I think this might be a generational breakthrough

This is astonishing

The Gluten Free Bakery Challah Loaves Shop The Gluten Free Bakery Challah Loaf at The Gluten Free Palace. Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Peanut Free, and Kosher Breads and Bakery. www.glutenfreepalace.com

Update: I’m delighted to have found a vaguely challah-adjacent texture! (Heat it in the oven for like half an hour and make sure to avoid squishing it, it’s very delicate) It’s a product, not a recipe, but means the search for a good recipe may not be futile. www.glutenfreepalace.com/collections/...

Update I FINALLY FOUND THEM AND THEY’RE AMAZING THANK YOU

Finding a new psychologist is so much worse now with the internet, there's so much I can know

I'm kinda being constantly tortured online bc I both think

1. It's extremely unlikely current AI models are conscious.
2. Almost every argument I scroll by for my side is insane and is just steamrolling decades of philosophy of mind work.

This thread should be the death-knell for Platner's claim that the army didn't ban him for the Nazi tattoo and for his defenders' claims that he didn't know it was a Nazi tattoo.

It's the reason he was barred from re-enlistment, and he knew it.

He's a liar who deliberately kept a Nazi tattoo.

Can AI Replace Social Science Researchers? No. No it can't. Come on, now.

Fantastic work from @davekarpf.bsky.social putting some perspective on the notion that AI can do social science research. It can generate passable journal articles, which is not necessarily the same thing. It's a chance to consider what we should be valuing. davekarpf.beehiiv.com/p/can-ai-rep...