Will Beason
@willbeason.bsky.social
🏳️🌈 Serial Google software developer: Firebase, Cloud, and now Gemini. Advocate for sustainable, robust, and reliable AI. Gay as the sun breaking through rainclouds. I also read, run, cook, game, and make art. Views expressed are my own.
Not yet far into The Midnight Library yet. It's making me think of how we often comfort ourselves about regrets with "If I had done differently I'd be worse off, likely in some ironic way." That the happiness we imagine in alternative lives is illusory.
It's too Candide for me.
It's too Candide for me.
November 12, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Not yet far into The Midnight Library yet. It's making me think of how we often comfort ourselves about regrets with "If I had done differently I'd be worse off, likely in some ironic way." That the happiness we imagine in alternative lives is illusory.
It's too Candide for me.
It's too Candide for me.
Reposted by Will Beason
When I'm not reading 500+ page books, turns out I can finish them in a day. The Lathe of Heaven was excellent.
For a brief moment near the end I thought I'd dislike it for the reasons I dislike Childhood's End, but I do like how Le Guin ends it.
For a brief moment near the end I thought I'd dislike it for the reasons I dislike Childhood's End, but I do like how Le Guin ends it.
November 12, 2025 at 3:08 AM
When I'm not reading 500+ page books, turns out I can finish them in a day. The Lathe of Heaven was excellent.
For a brief moment near the end I thought I'd dislike it for the reasons I dislike Childhood's End, but I do like how Le Guin ends it.
For a brief moment near the end I thought I'd dislike it for the reasons I dislike Childhood's End, but I do like how Le Guin ends it.
Reading Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven and it keeps reminding me of Greg Egan's Permutation City and The Infinite Assassin, as well as Blake Crouch's Recursion.
November 11, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Reading Ursula K. Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven and it keeps reminding me of Greg Egan's Permutation City and The Infinite Assassin, as well as Blake Crouch's Recursion.
Reposted by Will Beason
SEATTLE!!!
We’ve now taken the lead by 91 votes! 🤯 This thing is certainly not over! Over 1,000 ballots have been challenged, so if you haven’t tracked your ballot yet get on it! Our trusty volunteers have been working hard to "cure" ballots so they count! We're so close!
We’ve now taken the lead by 91 votes! 🤯 This thing is certainly not over! Over 1,000 ballots have been challenged, so if you haven’t tracked your ballot yet get on it! Our trusty volunteers have been working hard to "cure" ballots so they count! We're so close!
November 11, 2025 at 12:16 AM
SEATTLE!!!
We’ve now taken the lead by 91 votes! 🤯 This thing is certainly not over! Over 1,000 ballots have been challenged, so if you haven’t tracked your ballot yet get on it! Our trusty volunteers have been working hard to "cure" ballots so they count! We're so close!
We’ve now taken the lead by 91 votes! 🤯 This thing is certainly not over! Over 1,000 ballots have been challenged, so if you haven’t tracked your ballot yet get on it! Our trusty volunteers have been working hard to "cure" ballots so they count! We're so close!
Includes math bangers like "siderabola", "squequal", "noverlapping", and "donkeymptote"
youtu.be/P9ApmHdPZeI
youtu.be/P9ApmHdPZeI
What if i = √-i
YouTube video by TheGrayCuber
youtu.be
November 8, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Includes math bangers like "siderabola", "squequal", "noverlapping", and "donkeymptote"
youtu.be/P9ApmHdPZeI
youtu.be/P9ApmHdPZeI
Continuing to keep up my walking. Just hit over 1,200 miles walked/run in the past year! I'm closing in on the 10k average steps daily milestone!
November 7, 2025 at 8:48 PM
Continuing to keep up my walking. Just hit over 1,200 miles walked/run in the past year! I'm closing in on the 10k average steps daily milestone!
Reposted by Will Beason
NYT just called it for Mamdani
November 5, 2025 at 2:36 AM
NYT just called it for Mamdani
Reposted by Will Beason
As I regularly note, "AI" at this point is an umbrella marketing term for a bunch or generative/machine learning/other formerly differently-termed processes that (of course) have no actual intelligence behind them. It means nothing useful for how the underlying computing proceeds. Thus the quotes.
I love how you used quotation marks around "AI." If you've been doing that all along, I'm kicking myself for not noticing. It's a misleading or just lying marketing term and we shouldn't accept and repeat it without pushback. Generative LLMs are not AI.
November 3, 2025 at 5:07 PM
As I regularly note, "AI" at this point is an umbrella marketing term for a bunch or generative/machine learning/other formerly differently-termed processes that (of course) have no actual intelligence behind them. It means nothing useful for how the underlying computing proceeds. Thus the quotes.
I think the thing that makes me upset about most uses of AI is how unimaginative the acts of application are. It's like inventing a gear and using it for woodworking or precision surgery rather than using several as a component in a motorized saw or in a machine that makes surgical instruments.
November 2, 2025 at 2:44 PM
I think the thing that makes me upset about most uses of AI is how unimaginative the acts of application are. It's like inventing a gear and using it for woodworking or precision surgery rather than using several as a component in a motorized saw or in a machine that makes surgical instruments.
Reposted by Will Beason
Wishing MAGA "Christians" a very James 2:14-17 right about now
October 27, 2025 at 5:17 PM
Wishing MAGA "Christians" a very James 2:14-17 right about now
Reposted by Will Beason
Screensnapshot of our times. Corporate pressure to use AI creates bad outcomes with real-life consequences; seeking to unpack the problem yields more pressure to indulge in the very thing causing the problem.
October 26, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Screensnapshot of our times. Corporate pressure to use AI creates bad outcomes with real-life consequences; seeking to unpack the problem yields more pressure to indulge in the very thing causing the problem.
Reposted by Will Beason
New Seattle Poll:
Seattle Wants to Elect Progressives This Fall
In a new Stranger/DHM Poll, progressive challengers are coming out on top across the board. But in the mayoral race, it’s all about voter turnout.
www.thestranger.com/stranger-pol... #SEAelex #WAelex
Seattle Wants to Elect Progressives This Fall
In a new Stranger/DHM Poll, progressive challengers are coming out on top across the board. But in the mayoral race, it’s all about voter turnout.
www.thestranger.com/stranger-pol... #SEAelex #WAelex
October 23, 2025 at 11:19 PM
New Seattle Poll:
Seattle Wants to Elect Progressives This Fall
In a new Stranger/DHM Poll, progressive challengers are coming out on top across the board. But in the mayoral race, it’s all about voter turnout.
www.thestranger.com/stranger-pol... #SEAelex #WAelex
Seattle Wants to Elect Progressives This Fall
In a new Stranger/DHM Poll, progressive challengers are coming out on top across the board. But in the mayoral race, it’s all about voter turnout.
www.thestranger.com/stranger-pol... #SEAelex #WAelex
Reposted by Will Beason
Turns out the real political spectrum is just how people feel about free parking 😂
Tag yourself!
Tag yourself!
October 24, 2025 at 4:44 PM
Turns out the real political spectrum is just how people feel about free parking 😂
Tag yourself!
Tag yourself!
Achievement Unlocked: Played a couple of my original compositions on John Cameron Mitchell's piano.
October 26, 2025 at 6:04 AM
Achievement Unlocked: Played a couple of my original compositions on John Cameron Mitchell's piano.
Reposted by Will Beason
VOTE EARLY, VOTE NOW!
Need to find your ballot dropbox? Check our link in bio.
Need to register to vote? Check our link in bio.
YOU can help us win this race. Join us & volunteer! They have the money, we have the people. Let's win this together! #thisisyourcity
Need to find your ballot dropbox? Check our link in bio.
Need to register to vote? Check our link in bio.
YOU can help us win this race. Join us & volunteer! They have the money, we have the people. Let's win this together! #thisisyourcity
October 22, 2025 at 7:01 PM
VOTE EARLY, VOTE NOW!
Need to find your ballot dropbox? Check our link in bio.
Need to register to vote? Check our link in bio.
YOU can help us win this race. Join us & volunteer! They have the money, we have the people. Let's win this together! #thisisyourcity
Need to find your ballot dropbox? Check our link in bio.
Need to register to vote? Check our link in bio.
YOU can help us win this race. Join us & volunteer! They have the money, we have the people. Let's win this together! #thisisyourcity
@wilsonforseattle.bsky.social made me excited to start voting as a new Seattle resident.
Moving from Texas, it's great to now live in a city/state that seems to *want* me to vote and be aware of what's going on in local politics.
Moving from Texas, it's great to now live in a city/state that seems to *want* me to vote and be aware of what's going on in local politics.
October 23, 2025 at 3:12 AM
@wilsonforseattle.bsky.social made me excited to start voting as a new Seattle resident.
Moving from Texas, it's great to now live in a city/state that seems to *want* me to vote and be aware of what's going on in local politics.
Moving from Texas, it's great to now live in a city/state that seems to *want* me to vote and be aware of what's going on in local politics.
I've now been alive for as many years as there are "topologically distinct heptahedra"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptahe...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptahe...
Heptahedron - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
October 22, 2025 at 8:11 PM
I've now been alive for as many years as there are "topologically distinct heptahedra"
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptahe...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heptahe...
Reposted by Will Beason
In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.
Not a shitpost: #NoKings is feel-good performative activism for comfortable mostly upper and upper middle class white folks and that’s good, actually. Millions of people in the streets protesting a fascist regime is good. It is good for the normie baseline to be massive displays of public dissent.
October 19, 2025 at 1:44 AM
In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.
Reposted by Will Beason
Hello 👋 from the audiobook company that shares profits with 4,000+ independent bookshops across the globe, is an employee-owned Certified B Corp, and really, truly cares about booksellers and readers everywhere 💓
October 20, 2025 at 5:43 PM
Hello 👋 from the audiobook company that shares profits with 4,000+ independent bookshops across the globe, is an employee-owned Certified B Corp, and really, truly cares about booksellers and readers everywhere 💓
Reposted by Will Beason
T-75 Days
Somber Saturday. I've said before that @willbeason.bsky.social and I are not blind to what is happening in our country. I keep this countdown going to show that we will not be bullied into giving up joy. 290 days ago, people urged us to get married early - while we still could. 1/7
Somber Saturday. I've said before that @willbeason.bsky.social and I are not blind to what is happening in our country. I keep this countdown going to show that we will not be bullied into giving up joy. 290 days ago, people urged us to get married early - while we still could. 1/7
October 19, 2025 at 3:20 AM
T-75 Days
Somber Saturday. I've said before that @willbeason.bsky.social and I are not blind to what is happening in our country. I keep this countdown going to show that we will not be bullied into giving up joy. 290 days ago, people urged us to get married early - while we still could. 1/7
Somber Saturday. I've said before that @willbeason.bsky.social and I are not blind to what is happening in our country. I keep this countdown going to show that we will not be bullied into giving up joy. 290 days ago, people urged us to get married early - while we still could. 1/7
On the bus and it's filled with people on their way to the Seattle No Kings protest!
October 18, 2025 at 6:25 PM
On the bus and it's filled with people on their way to the Seattle No Kings protest!
Nice to be starting to get involved with a local queer running group - the Seattle Frontrunners
October 18, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Nice to be starting to get involved with a local queer running group - the Seattle Frontrunners
Reposted by Will Beason
If you are in the board games industry, I wish you luck in this crazy chaotic tariff world, and if I can help you in any way please let me know.
Also if you vote for MAGA this November or next, you are dumb
Also if you vote for MAGA this November or next, you are dumb
October 17, 2025 at 8:07 PM
If you are in the board games industry, I wish you luck in this crazy chaotic tariff world, and if I can help you in any way please let me know.
Also if you vote for MAGA this November or next, you are dumb
Also if you vote for MAGA this November or next, you are dumb