Dale Markowitz
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dalequark.bsky.social
Dale Markowitz
@dalequark.bsky.social
Now: writing, running theaustinsalon.com
Past: Google, OkCupid
Words in The Atlantic, WaPo, Nautilus, NYMag, and beyond

Learn more: dalemarkowitz.com
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
two years of The Austin Salon ✨ with @dalequark.bsky.social
10 evenings spent discussing psychology, neuroscience, food equity, primatology, friendship, ai, and most of all community 🤍
April 9, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
MAGICIANS+INCEPTION
Felix is an inept psychic who’s unable to maintain physical touch with anyone. His loner days end when he joins a lucid dreams based campus sleep study. Here, he meets an odd crew of coed psychics who protect the dream realm from a soul-stealing rogue. #LuckyPit #PopUpPit #SF #A
Tom Hardy Inception GIF
ALT: Tom Hardy Inception GIF
media.tenor.com
March 17, 2025 at 8:07 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
TREASURE PLANET×THE EXPANSE
A bookworm dreams of escape from a pirate-run space station. With his friend, a tech genius, he finds an ancient wrist computer tied to his family and a legendary lost starship. As they seek answers, so does a notorious captain.
#LuckyPit #PopUpPit #PopUpPitA #YA #SF #M
March 17, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
Grim Portents

HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE X CONSTANTINE

A man is murdered by a demon on his wedding day. With the help of the reaper who collected his soul, he must uncover who is releasing monsters from Hell if he wants to return to the life he was robbed of

#luckypit #popuppit #popuppita #A #F #Hu #H
March 17, 2025 at 12:20 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
💫 CROWNED IN LIGHT 💫

NICK AND NORAH'S INFINITE PLAYLIST X RAVEN CYCLE SERIES

🌹Romance/Romantasy
👨‍👨‍👧Polyamory
❤️‍🔥Slow Burn
👨‍👨‍👦‍👦Found Family
⚖️Gods & Goddesses
🎵Music!
♿Diversity
🏳️‍🌈LGBTQIA+
💖Soul Mates
✨Magical Realism
Agent's guide included 📖

#WSPit #WSPitQ #WSPitS #A #F #R #bipoc #spec #magicalrealism
February 26, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Well look what just came in the mail @mitpress.bsky.social 🧠🤖🦠
March 12, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Curious about AI's impact on the future of humanity? Will you be in Austin, TX on March 25? Join me, @nikitanamjoshi.bsky.social, and The Austin Salon for evening of learning, drinks and discussion.

www.eventbrite.com/e/the-austin...
The Austin Salon Presents: Is AI good for humanity?
Join us for a night of learning, drinks, and discussion at the Austin Salon, a social club for curious Austinites.
www.eventbrite.com
March 7, 2025 at 6:07 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
A growing body of evidence suggests that decorating our spaces may influence our creativity in subtle ways, acting as a kind of emotional support, regulating our mental states so we can do our best work. 🧪
The Creative Nest
How decorating work spaces supports art making
nautil.us
March 1, 2025 at 8:01 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
Hi, just a reminder that when you use Libro.fm for your audiobooks, you support independent bookshops vs. large corporations that drive them out of business.

We also pay taxes. And so do indie bookshops.
February 27, 2025 at 12:07 AM
I’m obsessive about my office. I want my workspace to inspire me, to act as a creative echo chamber for my inner musings. For @nautil.us, I wrote about the science behind why we curate our creative nests. In celebration, here are some of my favorite famous offices. 🧵

nautil.us/the-creative...
The Creative Nest
How decorating work spaces supports art making
nautil.us
February 27, 2025 at 11:10 PM
Boltzmann Brains are one of the most mind-boggling and influential paradoxes I ever encountered. Who better to explain them than @mariapopova.bsky.social ?
How can you be sure that this "reality" is not a hallucination? Let this haunting thought experiment by Ludwig Boltzmann, born on this day in 1844, dazzle and dizzy you:
The Boltzmann Brain Paradox: An Animated Thought Experiment About the Hallucination of Reality
A pleasingly disorienting foray into the fundamental perplexity of life.
www.themarginalian.org
February 20, 2025 at 11:49 PM
One of my favorite finds: “weapons salve,” a potion applied not to a wound but to the weapon that had inflicted it. This improved medical outcomes because at the time, it was safer to leave a wound untouched than to smother it with whatever weird pulverized-toad-virgin’s-blood “cure” you’d brewed.
For many of the early modern thinkers who laid the foundations of modern science, the world teemed with the uncanny: witches, unicorns, mermaids, metals that could be distilled into elixirs of eternal life. 🧪
How the Occult Gave Birth to Science
For scientists of yore anything—from mermaids to alchemy—was on the table.
nautil.us
January 30, 2025 at 11:41 PM
My brilliant friend wrote for @theatlantic.com about the “McVulnerability Trap.”

www.theatlantic.com/family/archi...
Beware the Weepy Influencers
People crying their hearts out online are selling intimacy—but the emptiest kind.
www.theatlantic.com
January 30, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Wow! This is a BFD.
January 28, 2025 at 9:48 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
As someone who has reported on AI for 7 years and covered China tech as well, I think the biggest lesson to be drawn from DeepSeek is the huge cracks it illustrates with the current dominant paradigm of AI development. A long thread. 1/
January 27, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Three years ago, I filmed a video explaining Transformers, the neural network architecture behind technologies like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini. Today it's at over 1,000,000 views! Woohoo! 🎊

What AI concepts do you need explained in plain English? Let me know!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZor...
Transformers, explained: Understand the model behind GPT, BERT, and T5
YouTube video by Google Cloud Tech
www.youtube.com
January 27, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
June 1625. Brandenburger colonel Wallraven von Gent, apparently employed by the Dutch Republic, takes the Westphalian town of Bielefeld from the Spanish by infiltrating the town gates with soldiers disguised as peasant women.
This was a common ruse during the Thirty Years War.
January 24, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
More people speak English today than any other language in human history. But what do we lose, psychologically and culturally, as a result? For this week's @newyorker.com, I explore how English shapes thought—from our conception of time to how we talk about the senses.
An estimated 1.5 billion people—roughly one in every five human beings—speak English, making it the most widely used language in the history of humanity. Some researchers worry about what we’re losing with its expansion.
How Much Does Our Language Shape Our Thinking?
English continues to expand into diverse regions around the world. The question is whether humanity will be homogenized as a result.
www.newyorker.com
December 23, 2024 at 5:32 PM
Well I’m swooning.
January 22, 2025 at 5:18 AM
Oh look what just arrived! 💕 The Kinship Issue from @nautil.us
January 22, 2025 at 5:13 AM
In the 1600s, “animal cruelty” wasn’t really a thing, and people thought this hammer-powered cat piano was a delightful instrument. 🐈🔨 🎶
#skyhistory
January 17, 2025 at 10:58 PM
I wrote a fun little speculative y2k short story for @reedsy.bsky.social about my favorite childhood place: the mall!

blog.reedsy.com/short-story/...
Food Court – A Fantasy Short Story by Dale Snail – Reedsy Prompts
I remember waking up on the floor of the dressing room with a terrible crick in my neck. I rubbed my eyes and squinted in the mirror. My ironed-str...
blog.reedsy.com
January 17, 2025 at 10:19 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
Nothing to see here, dear #skystorians, except a human skeleton (with a hat and a feather) riding a #unicorn skeleton that is positioned next to two other animal skeletons (of a bear? and a deer?).

Did I mention yet that the 4 skeletons are standing in an #earlymodern library? #LibraryHistory
January 15, 2025 at 8:27 AM
TIL “fox tossing” passed for entertainment in 17th century Europe. “Fuchsprellen” was all fun and games until the fox a) died on impact or b) turned on the players with teeth and claws.
January 16, 2025 at 10:54 PM
Reposted by Dale Markowitz
🌬️ My thoughts on this week's executive order on AI + why AI alone won't solve climate change.
nikitanamjoshi.substack.com/p/why-does-m...
Why does my AI have a carbon footprint?
Just because it's in the metaverse doesn't mean it's not contributing to climate change 🫠
nikitanamjoshi.substack.com
January 16, 2025 at 10:23 PM