parker higgins

how it feels taking public transit rn

your place is lindy!

"taking my headphones out (sometimes)" is one thing I decided to do after reading @chrislhayes.bsky.social's excellent "the sirens' call"

I have for years had my headphones in constantly, and I've been independently coming around to this point of view

bust out Take The A Train

idk I feel like this could be tighter

Plum, Stewart raise concerns over WNBPA's handling of CBA talks WNBPA executive committee members Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart wrote a three-page letter Monday to players' union executive director Terri Jackson expressing "serious concerns about how the PA is h...

this is a sports labor bombshell www.espn.com/wnba/story/_...

book IV coming in April! now's a great time!

sambert avocados, painted by royal charles steadman, 1916

sambert avocados, painted by royal charles steadman, 1916

each of the past two days i've walked to the bookstore, purchased an "on the calculation of volume" book, and then sat down and read it in its entirety. especially funny given the subject matter

A collection of 25 tiles that each hold 2-4 letters

I made today's Quartiles puzzle! Apple News subscribers, solve it here: apple.news/JvikgmLfrQFy...

perfect hire! congrats to everyone involved

in england, instead of "canny" they say "lavish"

the trick is to surrender to the floe

after Gatz at the Public I think I will see every ERS production I can (including Ulysses, and I agree!)

rothko's no. 5

a cake resembling rothko's no. 5

see the rothko, eat the rothko

What this does to military A.I. capabilities is beyond the brief of this newsletter, except to say that I think it’s “bad” for Grok, the pedophile mechahitler A.I., to be involved with weapons in really any way. What I am interested in, here, is what this reveals about the state of politics in Silicon Valley. In a sentence, I think what’s happening is (1) basic (i.e. normal) cutthroat competition between rival firms for government contracts, which is both driving and being driven by (2) an open and ongoing political-ideological dispute between two factions of Silicon Valley capital, which is in turn informing and being informed by (3) an almost religious disagreement about the nature of the god being built on the computer.

To start, it seems quite obvious that the Tech Right--a bloc of right-wing, Trump-aligned executives, investors, podcasters, Twitter personalities, firms, and companies, among them Palantir’s Joe Lonsdale and Alex Karp, Anduril’s Palmer Luckey, and, of course, xAI’s Elon Musk--with its extensive links to the administration, has been exerting behind-the-scenes pressure on Hegseth and the Pentagon to sever ties with or otherwise punish Anthropic. It was a Palantir executive, after all, who snitched on Anthropic to the D.o.D., and Hegseth’s speech in January about “objectively truthful AI capabilities” was a close echo of Musk’s ramblings about his “maximally truth-seeking” model Grok. The Tech Right’s contempt for Anthropic is first and foremost financial in nature. Musk, obviously, would like xAI to be first in line for any government contracts. (Indeed, Hegseth announced a deal with xAI this week to use Grok under the Pentagon’s preferred “all lawful use” terms.) And I suspect Palantir, Anthropic client though it may be, has the same existential fear of Claude as McKinsey or Salesforce or any other consultancy or software-as-a-service provider. If Anthropic is aggressively courting the D.o.D. to contract directly, and if Claude is as good as every thinks, what does Palantir’s future as a data-analytics-in-camo platform actually look like?

This doesn’t necessarily separate him from any other Silicon Valley liberal. But I think it’s good to attend to the valence of his liberalism. Amodei, like most of the Anthropic executives and many people in the A.I. in general, has long been associated with the worlds of Bay Area Rationalism and Effective Altruism--wonkily utilitarian philosophical and philanthropic practices focused on self-described rationalist inquiry and self-improvement. Bay Area Rationalism is a loose and diverse movement, containing a host of political perspectives, but it’s always had a particular concern with moral philosophy as it relates to the expected development of artificial superintelligence. To be a Rationalist liberal democrat (small-L small-D), e.g., might mean orienting your liberal democrat-ness toward its practical applications around the eschatological scenario of hard-takeoff A.G.I.

I don’t mean to suggest that Amodei’s commitments to liberal democracy are inauthentic. More that, as far he is concerned the stakes of this commitment go well beyond his own moral or ethical culpability. The decisions he makes now, and his consistent practice to his espoused beliefs, could mean the difference between a benevolent computer god and a wrathful one. X avatar for @hlntnr Helen Toner @hlntnr One thing the Pentagon is very likely underestimating: how much Anthropic cares about what *future Claudes* will make of this situation. Because of how Claude is trained, what principles/values/priorities the company demonstrate here could shape its "character" for a long time. Andrew Curran @AndrewCurran_ Update on the meeting; according to Axios Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave Dario Amodei until Friday night to give the military unfettered access to Claude or face the consequences, which may even include invoking the Defense Production Act to force the training of a WarClaude 4:26 PM · Feb 25, 2026 · 227K Views 41 Replies · 122 Reposts · 1.96K Likes And this has placed him, and Anthropic, on a collision course with the Tech Right. Musk, too, believes he is bringing superintelligence into existence at xAI. But for him the urgenct imp

one way of seeing anthropic vs. the pentagon is as a fissure between the two silicon valley tribes most enthusiastic about ai: "rationalists" and "accelerationists"

maxread.substack.com/p/what-anthr...

Time for the JSON creator to do the funniest thing ever www.json.org/license.html

endless summer, ocean city, maryland, 1985

endless summer, ocean city, maryland, 1985

hotel mathes, fleischmanns, new york, 1978

hotel mathes, fleischmanns, new york, 1978

⠀⠀☀️⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀


🚂🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃

🌊🐳🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🐳🌊

Wow they really did it shop.metro.net/products/rid...

Metro D Line subway extension to Beverly Hills will open on Friday May 8 2026. Four new miles of heavy rail subway. Three new stations on Wilshire: La Brea, Fairfax, La Cienega. Ride from Beverly Hills to DTLA in 20 minutes!

if any person in your life had somebody arrested for throwing a snowball at them, you would surmise that person is the softest and most entitled person imaginable

Queens Clinic Escort Interest Survey Thank you for your interest! Please fill out this form and we will be back in touch with you by email to let you know of training and volunteer opportunities for clinic escorting. For any questions,...

hi nyc friends! do you like hi-vis vests and protecting your neighbors' reproductive freedom?

get both PLUS the sweet satisfaction of knowing you're pissing off some of the worst people in the world by training to be a 🧚clinic escort🧚for an independent clinic in Queens!

SOON IT WILL BE THEIR TIME

A row of parked Mister Softee trucks covered in snow

inordinately charmed by the hibernating mister softees

this just in from new york city: we’re hearing that mayor mamdani just signed an executive order making it illegal to NOT stand at your window and fold your arms and say “wow, it’s really coming down out there”

There are certain queer times in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke

A very large and sweaty and not very clothed man from wrestling

I took lots of pictures mostly because i'm still playing with my new phone's camera, and reviewing them today i'm like... this might literally not be appropriate to have on my camera roll!