2026-02-12 01:13:52
In China, censorship relates to red lines. You cannot cross some red lines. It’s about state policy and discussions (about) state power. It’s also related to what they would call minority or religious issues, which can be very sensitive, so people would not touch those topics. If touched, it could cause you different levels of damage. But in the West, especially now, you also see censorship everywhere— not necessarily just from the state but from companies, from institutions, from schools or museums.
Anything by or about Ai Weiwei (艾未未) is worth a read. He’s dynamic and nuanced, and I don’t always agree with his views, but his passion, compassion, and willingness to speak truth to power are unimpeachable.
A quick reminder, he’s the artist who dropped a 2,000-year-old urn in a series of black and white photos in the '90s.
Historically speaking, iconoclasm is pretty ugly and makes for some craven, manipulative bedfellows, but those urn drop images are still important and potent today.
2026-02-12 01:13:23
Meanwhile, in China…
This isn’t a “count your blessings” moment. It’s a preview.
Fun FAKE NEWS Fact: During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln curbed freedom of speech by suspending habeaus corpus.
2026-02-11 10:16:13
The last thing I need right now is hope in the Cubs chances…
2026-02-11 08:47:26
The device had already been on the market for about three years. Until then, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had received unconfirmed reports of seven instances in which the device malfunctioned and another report of a patient injury. Since AI was added to the device, the FDA has received unconfirmed reports of at least 100 malfunctions and adverse events.
Medical devices, including those used in surgeries and critical monitoring should never have AI because we know AI hallucinates and will always make avoidable mistakes. It may be useful for research and diagnosis (or secondary monitoring) where a human has time to review and confirm, but when someone’s life is on the line, we don’t need to add additional variables that might ignore critical information or take circuitous routes for no good reason, compounding the potential risk of human error that already exists—which AI is not reducing.
2026-02-10 04:30:27
Of course they’re using bots to play D&D. Who wants to have fun with their own imagination? We’re only on this rock to track metrics, increase productivity, and shape our blobby flesh into copyrighted bionic cogs.
Key phrase in the article: “The simulations focused on combat: players battling monsters as part of their D&D campaign.”
So, you just made a “Diablo” simulator?
Why not just scrape “Tomb of Horrors” and call it a day? Or, better yet, base an entire campaign on that “Sacred Geometry” feat from Pathfinder.
Dollars to princess doughnuts, whoever designed this simulation is no fun to play D&D with.
Remember “Tucker’s Kobolds”? Clearly you missed the point.
D&D mean many things to many people. Not all of it’s optimizing glass cannons and exploiting corner cases. For the love of Carl, please stop trying to make everything I love part of The Matrix!
Even those bots realized you need to spice things up with roleplay. That’s the, you know, play part of the word.
2026-02-09 04:17:24
When you're reading this, you may already know what has happened at the Super Bowl on Sunday. Hopefully, the Patriots lose and ICE doesn't do anything idiotic like try to detain Bad Bunny—or anyone at the game... but they are just crazy enough to try some stupid shit like that...
February's LLoN went out right on time on the first—although we will probably shift to the first Saturday of every month moving forward. It's a depressing one, but an important one.
Kevin Kortum
We also launched a new subscriber-only monthly column, Semi-Sequitur, from my friend Nick. It's a really fun take on sharing links, as he annotates public domain works with links to all sorts of things.
Nicholas De Marino
When it came to actual linkage, we of course focused on the only thing that really matters right now and that’s what ICE is doing in Minnesota. Luckily, they are pulling agents from MN, but the job isn't done—we still need to keep making our voices heard. Just because they vacate one place, doesn't mean it won't continue elsewhere.
This first link, featuring Aliya Rahman’s testimony, is heartbreaking. To think any human being is being treated like this should terrify all Americans.
Kevin Kortum
Kevin Kortum
Kevin Kortum
Kevin Kortum
And to end things on a lighter note, the trailer for the latest show from Steve Conrad, who made two of the most underrated shows of the last decade in Patriot and, my personal favorite, Perpetual Grace Ltd.
Kevin Kortum
