Bijan
LightNews LightNews
banner
godzilla.bsky.social
Bijan
@godzilla.bsky.social
280 followers 340 following 260 posts
Film librarian, curator at Urban Dictionary.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
godzilla.bsky.social
Bijan @godzilla.bsky.social · Feb 7
One of the joys of working in a film library is the break room giveaway book cart, where I scored this incredible text this morning!
Reposted by Bijan
olivia.science
so it begins
scholar now has AI
December 3, 2025 at 11:14 AM
godzilla.bsky.social
I work for urban dictionary and I still don’t know what it is. We need our Secrets
gregpak.net Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 11d
i googled that thing that people said not to google and i do not know what i was expecting but sometimes you actually really should listen to your internet friends
November 27, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Reposted by Bijan
frankpasquale.bsky.social
“When we can no longer immediately assume any of the media we encounter was made by a human, the act of using social media or browsing the web is transformed into a never-ending procession of existential double-takes.”
www.404media.co/slop-evader-...
'Slop Evader' Lets You Surf the Web Like It’s 2022
Artist Tega Brain is fighting the internet’s enshittification by turning back the clock to before ChatGPT existed.
www.404media.co
November 26, 2025 at 11:20 PM
godzilla.bsky.social
I’m reading again! Oh, but what is this? I’m fixated on fiction about the consequences of nuclear weapons? Winter is coming, I guess…
September 30, 2025 at 11:29 PM
godzilla.bsky.social
I wouldn’t call them my “favorite” works I’ve watched this year but scenes and lines from Eddington, One Battle After Another and The Lowdown (FX/Hulu) still swirl in my brain…I’m all in for the modern western. We live in a world of guns and bitchslaps
September 30, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by Bijan
jonathanfriedman.com
“Is everyone in Hollywood just okay with whatever OpenAI prefers?”

☎️ @mattbelloni.bsky.social trying to give the town a (necessary) wake-up call re: AI cos trampling on IP rights

“…the AI ship is going to sail… with Hollywood staying well behind—and eventually wondering where its business went.”
Who Won the Week: Sam Altman With today's announcement that OpenAl's latest Sora video tool will require copyright holders to opt out of inclusion, the company's C.E.O. steps up his effort to trample all over Holly-wood—without much significant pushback at all. A little more on this...: I don't think people in town realize how fast the entertainment industry's collective grasp over its key assets is slipping away. Altman is now taking the few copyright guardrails off his marquee video product, attempting to graft onto the Section 230 protections afforded to social media companies and forcing studios and other I.P. owners to explicitly ask OpenAl not to include their assets in videos the tool cre-ates. That potentially means anyone can make Minions clips that compete with the actual Minions content... every kid can input their own lyrics for a Taylor Swift song and instantly create a music video with Swift's actual voice. And the onus would be on the I.P. owners to play Whack-a-Mole on steroids with every single piece of infringing content. Where was the outrage today? The guilds and talent agencies are silent. The studios, some of which want deals with OpenAI and its potential $500 billion valuation, have been slow to respond, despite knowing about this at least a week in advance. (I heard about it this weekend, and when I contacted a major agency source, he responded, "Yeah, we're adding it to the list.") Today, when I asked for a reaction from the Motion Picture Association, which now counts Amazon as a member, I was directed to a years-old statement noting that "if the fair use defense does not excuse the exercise of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, the use of the owners' works for training requires affirmative, i.e., opt-in, consent." Okay, and dozens of A.I.-related lawsuits are pending, including from Disney, Comcast, and other major copyright owners. But it's clear that OpenAl and the others are seeking to define the legal and policy rules of the A.I. road on their terms, and they seem to be winning. For example: Sora won't generate images of real people, just other I.P.-protected materials, because "our general approach has been to treat likeness and copyright distinctly," Jason Kwon, the company's chief strategy officer, told the Journal. Our general approach? Is everyone in Hollywood just okay with whatever OpenAl prefers? Puck's A.I. expert, lan Krietzberg, whose newsletter you should definitely be reading (sign up here), had this to say when I asked his reaction to the Sora news: I've often heard A.I. described as a sort of social media 2.0-all the engagement and hyper-targeting of your X feed raised to the power of on-demand, personalized, and human-like conversations. But the latest rumblings from both Meta (surprise, surprise) and OpenAl are even less subtle than that. First, there's "Vibes," a Meta platform for the creation and publication of shortform A.I.-gener-ated videos. Now, OpenAl is reportedly preparing to launch a TikTok-esque app whose entire pitch, similarly, revolves around the sharing of 10-second A.I.-generated videos. The rub is that these videos will feature copyrighted material—-unless, that is, the I.P. holder opts their copyrighted content out. The move is sure to bring about even more legal tension between Hollywood-and the creative industry writ large-and Big Tech. There are currently more than 51 A.I.-related copyright lawsuits in existence (just in the U.S.); I expect we'll see a bunch of new ones shortly after OpenAl's new app goes live. I would hope so. Otherwise, the A.L. ship is going to sail for the New World with Hollywood staying well behind and eventually wondering where its business went.
September 30, 2025 at 9:04 AM
Reposted by Bijan
kateconger.com
I think AI is acceptable right now because the underlying information is still discoverable, with people able to trace back to truth and discover AI's mistakes. but we're building towards an information ecosystem of liquefaction zones, where there is no foundation of truth under the slop.
September 30, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Bijan
radobrien.myatproto.social
ok this breakdown of AI writing indicators is incredible. Huge shout-out to the Wikipedia community for this
Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
September 28, 2025 at 2:41 PM
Reposted by Bijan
resnikoff.bsky.social
I continue to think that one of the reasons this country is falling apart is the wholesale abandonment of public virtue as a broadly shared aspiration. Or even something people should be embarrassed about if they don’t have it.
charlespulliam.bsky.social Charles PM @charlespulliam.bsky.social · Sep 30
Fuckin yikes, man
September 30, 2025 at 4:34 PM
godzilla.bsky.social
Hahahahahah
danrosen.xyz Dan Rosen @danrosen.xyz · Sep 30
Gay I. Thanks, I hate it.
A screenshot of a terms of service: AI for Personalization & Connection Grindr may use your personal information for features powered by generative AI and machine learning (together, "AI") to help personalize the user experience and support more authentic, meaningful connections. These AI features are integrated across the Grindr platform to enhance the quality, timing, and relevance of your interactions. We may refer to our Al-powered features and our use of AI as "gAIT™» (pronounced "gay I"). You control whether your personal information is used to (1) develop and train Al technology or (2) power Al features in your Privacy Settings. Even if you opt out of training uses, your information
September 30, 2025 at 5:16 PM
Reposted by Bijan
oddthisday.bsky.social
It’s 63 years to the day since a desperate Bette Davis put an advert in Variety’s situations wanted pages, resulting in her being cast in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and resuming her decades-long feud with Joan Crawford. Well, that’s the legend, anyway... 🧵
Situation Wanted, Women. Artists. MOTHER OF THREE-10, 11 & 15-DIVORCÉE. AMERICAN. THIRTY YEARS EXPERIENCE AS AN ACTRESS IN MOTION PICTURES. MOBILE STILL AND MORE AFFABLE THAN RUMOR WOULD HAVE IT. WANTS STEADY EM-PLOYMENT IN HOLLYWOOD. (HAS HAD BROADWAY.) Bette Davis, c/o Martin Baum, G. A. C. REFERENCES UPON REQUEST. [accompanied by a headshot of a smiling Davis]
September 24, 2025 at 12:26 PM
godzilla.bsky.social
Friend texted me this morning to share that she watched this crazy movie last night (In the Realm of the Senses) and it gave me an opportunity to share passages from one of my favorite “directors share their thoughts” books. Always in awe at how transgressive Oshima was for his time
September 24, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Reposted by Bijan
bobbyallyn.bsky.social
"The Ellison family is cornering the market on attention and data the way the Vanderbilts did railroads and the Rockefellers did oil."
jakelahut.bsky.social Jake Lahut @jakelahut.bsky.social · Sep 24
"He does a brilliant job of being, let’s call it the anti-Elon. He’s not kind of feared directly, but people in the know in Washington know he has some tremendous pull.” - a Trumpworld source in the AI industry
www.wired.com/story/larry-...
Larry Ellison Is a ‘Shadow President’ in Donald Trump’s America
The Ellison family is cornering the market on attention and data the same way the Vanderbilts did railroads and the Rockefellers did oil.
www.wired.com
September 24, 2025 at 9:00 PM
godzilla.bsky.social
Me doing my physical therapy exercises to get back to running away from my problems faster
moremovies.co.uk More Movies @moremovies.co.uk · Sep 23
The Dude abides 🎳🎬
#filmsky #moviesky #cinema
Jeff Bridges as Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski in the movie The Big Lebowski (1998). He is dressed in a dressing gown and training shoes, doing a tai chi pose on a large rug, holding a glass of white russian in his right hand.
September 24, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Bijan
kenjennings.bsky.social
LIBRARY HAND!
September 23, 2025 at 9:05 PM
godzilla.bsky.social
I can’t stop thinking about a documentary film that my coworker recommended offhandedly this week: TRAINS (2024; Maciej J. Drygas). If you have the opportunity, please see it. Comprised of only archival footage and no dialogue, collected from over 40 archives. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKE_...
IDFA 2024 | Trailer | Trains
YouTube video by IDFA
www.youtube.com
September 19, 2025 at 6:29 PM
godzilla.bsky.social
Omg www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
September 19, 2025 at 6:00 PM
godzilla.bsky.social
I’m an adult. I’m listening to the new @nin.com Tron: Ares soundtrack in bed, lights dimmed, while completing a crossword puzzle
September 19, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Bijan
davelevitan.bsky.social
I wrote about Robert Redford's environmentalism and, obviously, Sneakers.
Robert Redford, Environmentalism, and the Most Prescient Movie Ever Made
Hello, welcome to my relaunched newsletter, read more about the deal here and please subscribe! Robert Redford died on Tuesday, at 89. You can head literally anywhere else to read full obituaries abo...
www.gravityisgone.com
September 16, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Bijan
marisakabas.bsky.social
I think it’s worth noting this piece generated the most unsubscribes I’ve seen in a while, and the newsletter version had the lowest open rate in many months. These horrors persist in part because too many people go to great pains to avoid them.
July 24, 2025 at 2:32 AM
godzilla.bsky.social
Breaking news: the world is ending and funding for essential climate change research is being cut in the US but at least Kinder Eggs with the toys inside of them might get a comeback
July 23, 2025 at 8:54 PM
Reposted by Bijan
lizaledwards.bsky.social
shout out to this crow who just dunked what seems to be a whole churro in the bird bath
Crow standing on a balcony railing with a churro
July 20, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Bijan
merriam-webster.com
This might be the absolute greatest reply we have ever received.

Thank you, Cookie Monster 📕🍪💙
Merriam-Webster Tweet: Any dictionary can be a pocket dictionary with big enough pants. Cookie Monster's reply to the tweet: Me no wear pants.
June 5, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Reposted by Bijan
shakespeare.lol
O Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.
June 5, 2025 at 7:01 PM