Kevin Slavin
slavin-fpo.bsky.social
Kevin Slavin
@slavin-fpo.bsky.social
Across culture, technology and science, making a mess or cleaning one up. I relied on the em-dash long before your AI did.
The magical @jerthorp.bsky.social created this visualization of the feathers of every bird (or at least about 10,000+ we have documented) and I can't wait to have some version of this in our home
Looking at pricing for these I could probably do:

18"x24" (45cm x 60cm) posters at $15 + shipping
32"x32" (80cm x 80cm) posters at $25 + shipping

Hit that ❤️ button if you'd order one?
November 4, 2025 at 6:04 PM
July 15, 2025 at 5:53 PM
post your on-screen leadership idols
June 20, 2025 at 4:28 PM
Tried (and failed) to get some fundamental customer support from #amazon today via chat.

I was chatting with one rep who suddenly dropped, and was immediately replaced by another.

That’s it, that’s the whole story.
June 18, 2025 at 9:09 PM
when all this is over and done, a new version of the Prisoners Dilemma will have to formalized, in which both of the accused can tweet
June 6, 2025 at 10:56 AM
Someone on Reddit asked “what’s dangerously close to collapse” so I dumped a bunch of thoughts I’d compiled about what’s about to happen to higher ed in the US:

www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/...
slavin_fpo's comment on "Whats a thing that is dangerously close to collapse that you know about?"
Explore this conversation and more from the AskReddit community
www.reddit.com
June 4, 2025 at 1:04 PM
samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium
May 16, 2025 at 1:20 PM
It’s not 2025 unless we also get an antipope, and it leads to war and higher social media DAUs
May 8, 2025 at 6:27 AM
Putting aside debates about macroeconomics for a moment

In a way, everything you need to know about why tariffs and why not is right here in this trading chart from this afternoon.
April 9, 2025 at 8:56 PM
Reposted by Kevin Slavin
Petabytes of critical government research that is marked for possible deletion cannot be archived because of technical and legal restrictions, meaning it is very likely to be lost forever:

www.404media.co/nih-archives...
Massive, Unarchivable Datasets of Cancer, Covid, and Alzheimer's Research Could Be Lost Forever
Days before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that 10,000 HHS staffers would lose their jobs, a message appeared on NIH research repository sites saying they were "under review."
www.404media.co
April 4, 2025 at 3:50 PM
HODL VIX
April 3, 2025 at 2:10 PM
It was 14 years ago that I told the audience at TED that the future is bright, if you’re an algorithm

For the next 4 years at a bare minimum, I’ll say that the future is bright, if you’re a pathogen
February 28, 2025 at 8:38 PM
Reposted by Kevin Slavin
Wait are you telling me we had people researching existential risks this whole time
February 11, 2025 at 5:11 AM
I can’t think of any innovation that a Apple could come up for the iPhone that would effectively restore the 10 minutes per day I spend trying to unlock it with my face.
February 3, 2025 at 6:23 PM
Ermächtigungsgesetz
January 30, 2025 at 4:03 PM
I feel bad asking a banal question in the most extreme timeline

but can anyone recommend a service or a means by which I can just receive one fucking fax, without subscribing to some service I’ll never use?
January 29, 2025 at 12:15 AM
We lost our home and the majority of everything I cared about six years ago (because of a roofer who was an idiot, who’s been ducking legal efforts for recovery since years.)

Doesn’t make me an expert on the subject, but I have some thoughts if they are helpful to anyone who just experienced this.
January 10, 2025 at 12:12 AM
Worked on this relatively close up for a year and would endorse every word of this summary

There was plenty that could have been done, that wasn’t done

But the danger is in what’s about to be undone

truthout.org/articles/big...
Big Agriculture Is Leading Us Into the Bird Flu Abyss
The federal government’s deference to agriculture industry interests has put the US at risk of a public health crisis.
truthout.org
January 7, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Trying to imagine the meeting at Goldman Sachs where they reviewed this as the cover for the “Goldman Sachs Wealth Management Outlook” and said, yeah, perfect, hit send
January 6, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Meta’s introduction of AI creators is misguided and dystopian in a way that makes you wonder if anyone there has talked to humans recently.

That said, the idea that AI will displace *social media influencers* was not on my 2025 bingo card but
January 6, 2025 at 3:42 PM
Former Sgt Aquilino Gonnell (Capitol Police on Jan 6) has an essay in the NYT about the facts — and his first hand experience — of the day and those that came after.

I have nothing to add except a gift link to the essay

www.nytimes.com/2025/01/05/o...
Opinion | What I Saw on Jan. 6 Still Haunts Me (Gift Article)
Donald Trump is promising to pardon Jan. 6 rioters. But we can’t let him rewrite history.
www.nytimes.com
January 6, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Now that Bluesky seems to have basically restored the premise and dynamics of Twitter, can someone build the thing that does the same for Instagram?

All I’m asking is to see the photos from my friends (as opposed to ads and accounts I don’t follow.)
January 4, 2025 at 7:05 PM
Reposted by Kevin Slavin
“Scientists are not big spheres of rationality. They are spiky and make use of intuition and aesthetics.” open.substack.com/pub/erikhoel...
Great scientists follow intuition and beauty, not rationality
The unreasonable effectiveness of aesthetics in science
open.substack.com
December 30, 2024 at 6:50 PM
Reposted by Kevin Slavin
Carter passing brings to mind a work by the late, great Sascha Pohflepp. The Golden Institute, a work of speculative design imagines Carter beats Reagan in '80 and govt backed alternative energy research flourishes in the US. we-make-money-not-art.com/rca_summer_s...
www.flickr.com/photos/sasch...
The Golden Institute
What logic lies behind major technological pushes of the past and how could it apply to future projects and what could we learn from the visions of an American past that never happened?
we-make-money-not-art.com
December 30, 2024 at 8:41 AM
Jimmy Carter, back to the stars. A good day to be off twitter.

I was a kid when he installed these solar panels on top of the White House in 1979.

I remember looking at the announcement with my dad in the NYT. It was amazing.
December 30, 2024 at 1:43 PM