Clive Thompson

Writer, musician/songwriter, hobbyist coder. Contributing writer to New York Times Magazine and Wired. Author of "Coders". Blogging at clivethompson.medium.com, archive of writing at www.authory.com/clivethompson -- email: clive@clivethompson.net; Signal: @clivethompson.98 -- #science #technology #coding #software #writing #literature #poetry clive@clivethompson.net

Clive Thompson boosted:
Martijn van Exelmvexel@en.osm.town
2025-05-30

@osm_tech I'm going to resist the urge to say something really unpleasant but I will say this.

It's the open internet that suffers from the VC-backed LLM / AI bubble. They could *not* care less.

"If you think these crawlers respect robots.txt then you are several assumptions of good faith removed from reality." - Drew DeVault, drewdevault.com/2025/03/17/202

Clive Thompson boosted:
Ruben Bolling 🪲rubenbolling
2025-05-30

TODAY ONLY!*
Sign up for the Tom the Dancing Bug Review newsletter TODAY, and tomorrow you'll get an email with links to this week's comic, plus many other comics, ABSOLUTELY FREE.
AND every Friday thereafter (but can cancel any time), ALSO FREE!
tomthedancingbug.substack.com/
-
*plus every day

2025-05-29

@BillBraine

so cool and great

Clive Thompson boosted:
Valerie Aurora 🇺🇦vaurora@mstdn.social
2025-05-29
The trolly meme, but with the trolley halfway across the fork in the tracks. The switch person is giving a thumbs up. The text reads:

IWW IU 520 (Railroad Workers) PRESENTS:
TROLLEY PROBLEM SOLUTION
"Slip the switch" by flipping it while the trolley's front wheels have passed through, but before the back wheels do. This will cause a controlled derailment bringing the trolley to a safe halt.
Thank a rail worker today!
Clive Thompson boosted:
nixCraft 🐧nixCraft
2025-05-29

10 MB hard disk from the 1960's

A man in a blue shirt holds up a very large, vintage hard disk platter that is 10MB in size in a office setting.
Clive Thompson boosted:
OpenStreetMap Ops Teamosm_tech@en.osm.town
2025-05-29

Unfortunately the #OpenStreetMap wiki is very slow today. We are fighting an aggressive web scraper bot. 10,000 of IPs involved. Randomised User-Agent. Ignoring robots.txt #aibot #ddos

Update: Fixed. We've been able to mitigate the bot traffic. #fail2ban

Clive Thompson boosted:
John Mark OckerbloomJMarkOckerbloom
2025-05-29

The White House's "Make America Healthy Again" report cites papers that appear not to exist:

"Epidemiologist Katherine Keyes is listed... as the first author of a study on anxiety in adolescents. When NOTUS reached out to her... she was surprised to hear of the citation. She does study mental health and substance use, she said. But she didn’t write the paper listed."

NOTUS couldn't find the paper in the cited journal, and I've verified the claimed DOI doesn't resolve: notus.org/health-science/make-

Clive Thompson boosted:
2025-05-29

JHC 🤦🏻‍♀️ #ProLifeMyAss 💉

“The Department of Health and Human Services has notified Moderna that it is canceling a nearly $600 million contract with the company to develop, test, and license #vaccines for flu strains that could trigger future pandemics, including the dangerous H5N1 bird flu virus.”
statnews.com/2025/05/28/modern

Clive Thompson boosted:
Jeff Jarvisjeffjarvis
2025-05-29

When will these fools learn: bend the knee; get kneecapped. It's not negotiation. It's blackmail. CBS is losing many millions more in equity value.
Paramount Has Offered $15 Million to Settle CBS Lawsuit. Trump Wants More. wsj.com/business/media/paramou

Clive Thompson boosted:
2025-05-29

So, whether the software is named for the band or for the critter, it's likely one of ours was the vector.

I mention it because one of our local mastodons, Sugar, needs restoration, and I think Mastodon-the-federated-platform would be an ideal place to find generous contributors to the effort:

sunyorangefoundation.betterwor

This first-step fundraiser is for seed money to scope everything and design the restoration and move. Help Sugar!

#mastodon #mastodonhelp #mastodons #HelpSugar

2025-05-29

@BillBraine

lol precisely

Clive Thompson boosted:
2025-05-29

Mastodon is likely named for a fossil local to me: Bill Kelliher, raised in NY, chose the name for the band, and @Gargron invented the software a couple hours away from the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt.

The Warren Mastodon (found 1845) is at AMNH in New York, and Peale's Mastodon (1799) is in Darmstadt; both found in/near Newburgh NY, and both responsible for worldwide knowledge of and scientific interest in the creatures.

Orange County: highest density of mastodon finds anywhere. 1/2

2025-05-28

@Kitone

Yep, that’s exactly right

2025-05-28

@BillBraine

very true

2025-05-28

@TobyBartels

Nah go for it! Share far and wide

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@phil

basically yeah

2025-05-28

@artcollisions

man i wish

Client Info

Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.04
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst