James Gleick

Author.
Chaos, Genius, The Information, Time Travel

he/him

Website: https://around.com
Searchable:

Last Notes

2025-10-03 19:12:04 UTC

The fatal blow to constitutional government came when the Roberts Supreme Court told Donald Trump that, as president, he could break any law with impunity: election fraud, bribery, and even murder. He heard them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/03/us/politics/hegseth-military-boat-venezuela.html?unlocked_article_code=1.qk8.teRH.UOs74v5PSzLh&smid=url-share

2025-09-17 03:19:38 UTC

There was no “ideology,” leftist or otherwise. What if he was just a kid in love, who saw a man spreading hatred that endangered the person he loved. And he broke.

2025-09-13 01:14:39 UTC

It is an undeniable fact that Charlie Kirk “spewed hate and racism on his show.” That was his brand. Apparently a Secret Service employee has been suspended for saying so.
That is very different from celebrating his murder. Is this distinction too subtle for the NY Times?
We need to be able to condemn his murder without celebrating his life.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/us/politics/charlie-kirk-shooting-firings-celebration.html?unlocked_article_code=1.lk8.UAVT.j3Bl-Nfgieff&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

2025-09-07 13:47:46 UTC

- reply

But at the NY Times, everything has two side. “Tensions escalated." As if Illinois leaders share the blame.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/115/163/323/815/469/247/original/6a7cde8573069e38.png

2025-09-07 13:43:35 UTC

Surely the lead story in every newspaper right now should be the President declaring war on a major American city—the White House posting violent imagery of the Chicago skyline in flames.
Here's a historian with news judgment.
https://open.substack.com/pub/heathercoxrichardson/p/september-6-2025?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

2025-08-07 21:01:56 UTC

Americans have been slammed with an 18 percent tax on everything from overseas. Food, clothing, toys—everything. American consumers must shoulder that burden.
https://apnews.com/live/trump-tariff-news-updates-8-7-2025

2025-07-25 19:11:55 UTC

Official U.S. Government email from Medicare.gov promotes quack cure TV huckster. The grifters are in charge now.
https://media.mas.to/media_attachments/files/114/915/456/765/779/673/original/09f28b4de243899e.png

2025-06-09 18:00:07 UTC

- reply

Also: “Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million, it wastes $4 million.”
And: “ NIH trials are being halted without regard to participant safety, abruptly stopping medications or leaving participants with unmonitored device implants.” (3/3)

2025-05-26 17:06:08 UTC

This idea that Elon Musk has now "lost interest" in politics and governance misses the point. Those were never his interests. He has achieved the final deregulation of all his operations, a flurry of new government business, and an extra boost to his ego.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/elon-pledges-to-be-super-focused-on-x-tesla-247-is-he-done-with-doge

2024-12-24 23:21:37 UTC

Wikipedia is a problem for Musk/Trump. Not, as Musk says, because it's "woke." Because it's one of our last reliable tethers to a consensus reality. Therefore, an antidote to disinformation.
It's not making anyone money. It's not enshittified. Of course it's not perfect—it's an endeavor of imperfect cooperating humans. But it needs protection and support.
https://www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-takes-aim-wikipedia-fund-raising-editing-political-woke-2005742
#wikipedia

2024-12-01 23:18:47 UTC

This seems so science-fictiony that most people won't take it seriously. That would be a bad mistake.
Not only are we messing up the planet, we're also inadvertently shutting our door to space. When we're shut in, we're probably shut in for ever.
And when I say "we" are shutting that door, I mean mainly Musk.
https://robertvanwey.substack.com/p/the-imminence-of-the-destruction

2024-10-30 19:30:47 UTC

- reply

change. It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says, but – he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they're in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.” (5/5)

2024-10-30 19:30:46 UTC

Reminder that Hillary Clinton’s “deplorables” remark eight years ago was thoughtful, eloquent, and correct. The mainstream press, also hyping non-stories about her emails and her health, pretended it was a gaffe and made it a weeks-long story.
Here’s what she said: (1/5)

2024-10-18 22:37:08 UTC

Item for the next administration:
Nationalize SpaceX. The future of space exploration is too important to be left to the private sector. Furthermore, technologies critical to our national security must not be under the sole control of a mercurial, self-absorbed plutocrat who cares nothing for American interests or values. https://mastodon.social/@kcarruthers/113330496348418607

2024-09-04 19:36:53 UTC

This unanimous decision is correct and inevitable. @InternetArchive does so many wonderful things—but copying in-print books and distributing them online is a crime.
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/internet-archive-digital-lending-isnt-fair-use-2nd-cir-says

2024-08-31 20:34:17 UTC

- reply

“It is very easy to get ChatGPT to emit a series of words such as ‘I am happy to see you.’ There are many things we don’t understand about how large language models work, but one thing we can be sure of is that ChatGPT is not happy to see you. A dog can communicate that it is happy to see you, and so can a prelinguistic child, even though both lack the capability to use words. ChatGPT feels nothing and desires nothing, and this lack of intention is why ChatGPT is not actually using language.”

2024-08-31 20:32:50 UTC

When he’s not busy being one of our best fiction writers, Ted Chiang has become our best critic of generative AI:
“The programmer Simon Willison has described the training for large language models as ‘money laundering for copyrighted data,’ which I find a useful way to think about the appeal of generative-A.I. programs: they let you engage in something like plagiarism, but there’s no guilt associated with it because it’s not clear even to you that you’re copying.”
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art

2024-08-25 15:42:57 UTC

I’m an author and journalist especially interested in science and technology and their cultural effects. My books include Chaos, The Information, and Time Travel, as well as biographies of Richard Feynman and Isaac Newton.
I’m working on a history of the telephone.
#Introduction #authors #science #chaos #books #information #timetravel #telephone