Nicholas Weaver

@ncweaver.skerry-tech.com

1555

Posts

Lecturer, Computer Science, UC Davis
Researcher, Computer Security, ICSI
Chief Mad Scientest, Skerry Technologies
Digital, Explainable, and (usually) Adversarial Systems

Posts Replies Media

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Yes, I absolutely do think over half the country cares about having their basic human rights taken away by a bunch of authoritarian freaks. For Christ’s sake, Project 2025 calls for banning PORN. We can get voters mad about this.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

That’s how ML works. Yup. 👍🏻

Saw this on mastodon and it is fantastic. AI in medicine

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Lessons I've learned from the LLM era (list to be expanded, probably): 1. Sufficiently advanced autocomplete is indistinguishable from an impossibly well-read toddler on peyote. 2. Almost any decision has the potential to be a life-or-death decision, if you're bad enough at it.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

If you're worried about brevity in your writing, don't. It took Project 2025 nine hundred pages to say fourteen words.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

genuinely hopeful sign that every big name GOP garbage monster is frantically trying to distance themselves from Project Say The Quiet Part Loud In an Easily-Digestible Bullet Point Format About Which There Can Be No Confusion. this means we should all absolutely continue never shutting up about it

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

oh yeah, the other thing about pivot-to-ai.com is that we're doing it cos it's fun but we're also in it for the money, so send us some, links right there on the page WRITING TIP: send me money. eight rationalists wedgied for each dollar donated!

Pivot to AIpivot-to-ai.com It can't be that stupid, you must be prompting it wrong

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Kathryn Tewson

That sounds a lot less like an “inappropriate relationship” and a lot more like “human trafficking” to me!

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Kathryn Tewson

So, we have: 1. A vulnerable young woman, estranged from her family, newly unemployed 2. Who is made an offer of live-in domestic employment at a reasonable wage 3. Upon arriving at her place of work, she is coerced into performing unwanted sexual acts 4. While her pay is withheld

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Kathryn Tewson

The only part about his story I care about is that ALONE it is enough to go “yeet him into the sun” Pitty I liked his work, but “separate art from a badly behaving artist” doesn’t work for me

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Charlie Stross

I'm pretty sure his creative process was, "what would that dirty rotten scoundrel from my year at Eton do if he was put in charge of a crime syndicate? And was in a position to get his hands on a couple of H-bombs? Ah, yes." (Type-tappity-type.)

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

The scary bit is when you realize that Bond villains were invented by Ian Fleming—former journalist, secretary to the Chief of Naval Intelligence during WW2, and UPPER CLASS NOB WHO KNEW THESE PEOPLE IRL. (By "these people" I mean rich entitled bastards with hench-thugs.)

if we ever thought Bond villainy was exaggerated, the last few years have shown us it is totally realistic

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

The Chillennial

bsky, like its predecessor, is at its best just to see folks come and chat with friends and discuss whatever's on their mind. At least for me, anyway.

I'll just note here what I said to Angus on the other site: it's also that one camp is furious at the media (and NYT in particular) for being relentless on what they deem to be a non-story; the other camp is furious at the Dem establishment for circling the wagons and not speaking to reality.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

*chef's kiss*

The bartender at my local pub is from Cork. His response to anyone ordering an Irish Car Bomb: "Can't make you that, but I can make a 9/11. It's just two kamikazes dropped in a Manhattan."

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

New York Times, July 5, 2025: “Biden’s Stumbles And Gaffes During His Criticism of President Trump’s Internment Camps Vindicate Age Concerns”

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

I wish someone kept a list of all the imbeciles who said Elon Musk is a free speech hero so I could waggle a middle finger in their insipid faces until it fell off

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Very Very Common Mike Dunford

That's the difference that I think is easily missed here. JKR doesn't care about her reputation. She wants to shut up people and hurt them. Her threats don't do anything to keep her from trashing her own legacy and reputation; anything but.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

those arguing that taylor swift can't be a role model because she is an unmarried and childless woman at 34 are doing a great job of arguing that children need more women role models who are unmarried and childless at 34

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Faine Greenwood

Literally every Democratic campaign ad now just needs to be "here's a list of things that the Republicans themselves say that they are going to do"

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Tory party's strategy of having their entire talent pipeline just be being rich and having had your empathy beaten out of you as a child by the South England Boarding School For Making Monstrous Children apparently not helping them connect with voters

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Midsomer Norton’s MP is found thoroughly defeated…. #UKpol

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Pwnallthethings

also "if/when you lose, there's no lame duck season, the next guy arrives tomorrow at 10am" is a big UK W vs the US system, we should totes get rid of that

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Zoomer Antimillenarian

I'm incredibly bullish on America's future. I get it's a bit hard to see these days--the death throes of unpopular authoritarianism is pretty scary and there are real problems in the immediate term--but I definitely think America's best days are still very much ahead.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Good to see @nytimes.com keeping up its stellar record of letting the far-right use them to launder lies into circulation without even the barest oversight to ensure the dude writing “I don’t vote” does not, in fact, consistently vote All the news that’s fit to print, and some propaganda for flavor

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Suprise: unwashed fascist ghoul Matthew Walther - who wrote a column that the New York Times just published advising Americans not to vote - did in fact vote in 2020 and 2022. It’s time for us to stop tolerating these ratfucking liars.

he voted in 2020 and 2022 voteref.com/voters/MI/vi...

Voter Referencevoteref.com VoteRef.com is dedicated to ensuring transparent, accurate and fair elections in the United States of America.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

seosamh.bsky.social

It’s so weird that the usual array of conspiracy theorists love to harp on the NYT for distracting away from Epstein, and now they’re all really interested in the editorial boards thoughts on Biden instead.

Why isn't this all over attack ads in swing states?

This story hits a little harder now that the jury documents for Epstein's case have been released (and Trump's name is ALLLLLL over those documents). Again, mainstream media is burying this story for Trump. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...

Jeffrey Epstein introduced me to Trump at 14, Ghislaine Maxwell accuser sayswww.nbcnews.com Testifying at Maxwell’s trial in New York City, the woman, identified by the pseudonym Jane, said she met the former president in the 1990s at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

Reply to

Faine Greenwood

honestly feel like this is the thing to campaign on more than any legislative success or viral clips. just "Elizabeth Warren gives out full-size candy bars on Halloween" and bam— 90% of the vote, even in a general election. add "and she makes bank executives cry" and you get most of the way to 99%

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

It’s true, if we could only go back in time Biden would be younger and Trump wouldn’t have raped those children. But here we are.

Reposted by

Nicholas Weaver

THIS IS WHAT I’M SCREAMING! I assess that more USAians than I am comfortable with don’t realize how close we came to a nuclear war with North Korea in 2017.

In which I note that presidential sole authority to launch nuclear missiles is pretty much like a monarchy already. The question is in whose hands you want that authority. #nukesky