Tom Scocca
@tomscocca.bsky.social
Executive editor, features, CNN. Serial fiction and archives of nonfiction at Indignity.net. This Bluesky is about the Machines.
There's this guy, he's the most famous clown in the world, called the Great Pagliacci, right? So: the Great Pagliacci goes to the doctor one day.
indignity.net/the-clown-joke/?ref=indignity-newsletter&attribution_id=698a3cd4653fe5000118210c&attribution_type=post
indignity.net/the-clown-joke/?ref=indignity-newsletter&attribution_id=698a3cd4653fe5000118210c&attribution_type=post
The Clown Joke
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 13
indignity.net
February 10, 2026 at 12:04 AM
There's this guy, he's the most famous clown in the world, called the Great Pagliacci, right? So: the Great Pagliacci goes to the doctor one day.
indignity.net/the-clown-joke/?ref=indignity-newsletter&attribution_id=698a3cd4653fe5000118210c&attribution_type=post
indignity.net/the-clown-joke/?ref=indignity-newsletter&attribution_id=698a3cd4653fe5000118210c&attribution_type=post
"All the crackheads, the critics, the cynics / And all my heroes in the methadone clinics"
Honestly the most theologically Christian lyric in the whole TPUSA show was "Get in the pit and try to love someone"
February 9, 2026 at 3:17 PM
"All the crackheads, the critics, the cynics / And all my heroes in the methadone clinics"
Honestly the most theologically Christian lyric in the whole TPUSA show was "Get in the pit and try to love someone"
February 9, 2026 at 3:15 PM
Honestly the most theologically Christian lyric in the whole TPUSA show was "Get in the pit and try to love someone"
Pats now 52 points underwater in Super Bowls
New England needs to win by 37 points to come away with a positive scoring margin in Super Bowls
February 9, 2026 at 3:24 AM
Pats now 52 points underwater in Super Bowls
Reposted by Tom Scocca
happy Super Bowl Sunday! for all you commercials sickos, I make the case that this game's ad blitz will be to A.I. what 2022's was to crypto and 2000's was to the dot-com boom—with all attendant implications for our broader economy and the celebrity-promotion complex: slate.com/technology/2...
The Biggest Star of the Super Bowl Isn’t an Athlete—or Bad Bunny
We’ve seen this game before, and it doesn’t end well for anyone.
slate.com
February 8, 2026 at 3:56 PM
happy Super Bowl Sunday! for all you commercials sickos, I make the case that this game's ad blitz will be to A.I. what 2022's was to crypto and 2000's was to the dot-com boom—with all attendant implications for our broader economy and the celebrity-promotion complex: slate.com/technology/2...
New England needs to win by 37 points to come away with a positive scoring margin in Super Bowls
February 6, 2026 at 11:20 PM
New England needs to win by 37 points to come away with a positive scoring margin in Super Bowls
"Natalia Bonanno’s family owns 200 apartment units"
In a city packed with mighty real estate titans, they are the small ones.
New York landlords say they are at their breaking point as Mayor Zohran Mamdani begins to implement even more aggressive tenant-friendly policies.
New York landlords say they are at their breaking point as Mayor Zohran Mamdani begins to implement even more aggressive tenant-friendly policies.
NYC’s small landlords say they won’t survive Mamdani plan to freeze rent
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani has criticized landlords and vowed to freeze what tenants in rent-stabilized apartments pay monthly.
www.washingtonpost.com
February 6, 2026 at 8:22 PM
"Natalia Bonanno’s family owns 200 apartment units"
In addition to being a valuable and heroic hitter, he was a genuine, actual backstop: subpar at throwing out runners, but when it came to preventing wild pitches and passed balls, he was more than 50 percent better than Pudge Rodriguez
Chris Hoiles
Catcher-DH
Debut: 1989 - Retired: 1998
BAL
Catcher-DH
Debut: 1989 - Retired: 1998
BAL
Chris Hoiles at baseball-reference.com
Career stats of Chris Hoiles
baseball-reference.com
February 5, 2026 at 11:15 PM
In addition to being a valuable and heroic hitter, he was a genuine, actual backstop: subpar at throwing out runners, but when it came to preventing wild pitches and passed balls, he was more than 50 percent better than Pudge Rodriguez
NBA trade deadline in Olympics/Super Bowl week is extremely Mods Are Asleep
February 4, 2026 at 11:54 PM
NBA trade deadline in Olympics/Super Bowl week is extremely Mods Are Asleep
The entire annual operating losses of the Washington Post amount to a single-digit percentage of the everyday noise in the signal of its owner's finances
For scale, Bloomberg lists the most recent daily market fluctuation in Jeff Bezos' net worth as -$3.71 billion
February 4, 2026 at 11:21 PM
The entire annual operating losses of the Washington Post amount to a single-digit percentage of the everyday noise in the signal of its owner's finances
For scale, Bloomberg lists the most recent daily market fluctuation in Jeff Bezos' net worth as -$3.71 billion
February 4, 2026 at 11:06 PM
For scale, Bloomberg lists the most recent daily market fluctuation in Jeff Bezos' net worth as -$3.71 billion
February 3, 2026 at 10:37 PM
February 3, 2026 at 10:37 PM
Reposted by Tom Scocca
Johnny Dee flaminghydra.com/johnny-dee/
Johnny Dee
For some reason I keep thinking about Johnny Dee, so I’m going to tell you a little bit about this guy and his effect on me, and maybe that will give his shade some rest in my mind.
I knew this gent...
flaminghydra.com
February 3, 2026 at 10:22 PM
Johnny Dee flaminghydra.com/johnny-dee/
Reposted by Tom Scocca
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 10, Indignity Image Roundup: FROZEN www.indignity.net/indignity-image-roundup-frozen/
Indignity Image Roundup: FROZEN
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 10
www.indignity.net
February 3, 2026 at 4:22 AM
Indignity Vol. 6, No. 10, Indignity Image Roundup: FROZEN www.indignity.net/indignity-image-roundup-frozen/
Reposted by Tom Scocca
The other tell? It works the same way.
February 2, 2026 at 10:00 PM
The other tell? It works the same way.
So the machine dash basically lands like a rimshot on a failed joke. The machine repeats itself—and it says the same thing over again.
A human writer uses a dash to set off a relatively abrupt jump in thought. But the machines are constantly calculating the most predictable next thing to say, plodding around the same area. So the machine dash looks like it's gesturing toward something new, only to always land on something obvious.
At first I didn't understand why people were holding forth about how an em dash—a totally normal and human piece of punctuation—was an obvious tell that an AI wrote something. But eventually I figured it out.
February 2, 2026 at 10:04 PM
So the machine dash basically lands like a rimshot on a failed joke. The machine repeats itself—and it says the same thing over again.
A human writer uses a dash to set off a relatively abrupt jump in thought. But the machines are constantly calculating the most predictable next thing to say, plodding around the same area. So the machine dash looks like it's gesturing toward something new, only to always land on something obvious.
At first I didn't understand why people were holding forth about how an em dash—a totally normal and human piece of punctuation—was an obvious tell that an AI wrote something. But eventually I figured it out.
That's not just an em dash—it's the AI Voice em dash
February 2, 2026 at 9:58 PM
A human writer uses a dash to set off a relatively abrupt jump in thought. But the machines are constantly calculating the most predictable next thing to say, plodding around the same area. So the machine dash looks like it's gesturing toward something new, only to always land on something obvious.
At first I didn't understand why people were holding forth about how an em dash—a totally normal and human piece of punctuation—was an obvious tell that an AI wrote something. But eventually I figured it out.
That's not just an em dash—it's the AI Voice em dash
If I'm running an NFL team, my first question during the interview process is whether this was AI generated. If you're not writing your own LinkedIn Taco Bell sponcon, then can we really trust you with the keys?
February 2, 2026 at 9:48 PM
At first I didn't understand why people were holding forth about how an em dash—a totally normal and human piece of punctuation—was an obvious tell that an AI wrote something. But eventually I figured it out.
Woody Allen popping up again and again around various famous or notorious figures involved in seemingly disparate major events
February 2, 2026 at 9:44 PM
Woody Allen popping up again and again around various famous or notorious figures involved in seemingly disparate major events
That's not just an em dash—it's the AI Voice em dash
If I'm running an NFL team, my first question during the interview process is whether this was AI generated. If you're not writing your own LinkedIn Taco Bell sponcon, then can we really trust you with the keys?
QB1
February 2, 2026 at 9:42 PM
That's not just an em dash—it's the AI Voice em dash
"My weekend following the Epstein Files via the website controlled by Elon Musk confirmed to me that rich and powerful people eagerly continuing to try to party with a convicted sex offender and then lying about it in public is not real news" is certainly a take! www.semafor.com/article/01/3...
View: The humans are chasing conspiracies. What will the bots think?
Maybe the Reddit-trained bots on Moltbook will prove me wrong, and unearth something in the Epstein files. But for now, the evidence for a conspiracy is thin.
www.semafor.com
February 2, 2026 at 3:56 PM
"My weekend following the Epstein Files via the website controlled by Elon Musk confirmed to me that rich and powerful people eagerly continuing to try to party with a convicted sex offender and then lying about it in public is not real news" is certainly a take! www.semafor.com/article/01/3...
Reposted by Tom Scocca
FYI the CM-8M can integrate with a Camelbak for on-the-go hydration. You really get what you pay for!
www.theverge.com/policy/86857...
www.theverge.com/policy/86857...
Best gas masks
“How did these people go out and get gas masks?” AG Bondi asked.
www.theverge.com
February 1, 2026 at 8:17 PM
FYI the CM-8M can integrate with a Camelbak for on-the-go hydration. You really get what you pay for!
www.theverge.com/policy/86857...
www.theverge.com/policy/86857...
Reposted by Tom Scocca
on the right's new pantheon of heroes: "sky king," killdozer, and that penguin maxread.substack.com/p/suicide-ri...
January 30, 2026 at 7:20 PM
on the right's new pantheon of heroes: "sky king," killdozer, and that penguin maxread.substack.com/p/suicide-ri...