Meteor that exploded over Cape Cod Bay came from somewhere past Mars, researchers say
https://www.universalhub.com/2026/meteor-exploded-over-cape-cod-bay-came-somewhere-past-mars-researchers
Email daddy gets the long Belmont Voice article he demanded, although it's not the adoring paean he wanted.
https://belmontvoice.org/a-letter-from-the-voice-board-of-directors
RFK Jr. likes to claim that the current measles outbreak isn’t his fault.
Nobody here will be surprised to hear that he is lying again.
Under his “leadership”, the CDC didn’t respond to a request to validate a test that could diagnose cases faster.
They said they had other priorities.
C.D.C. Ignored Request From St...
I got a campaign mailer pretending to be against the socialist candidate for MA governor. Interesting desperation strategy from the Massachusetts GOP: https://write.as/brendanhalpin/what-massachusetts-republicans-know
#MAPoli
In 2015, Shannon Vallor wrote a paper about technology and moral de-skilling; it is even more relevant now than it was then. This is my take on her argument, extrapolated to 2026.
* Technological changes (as well as social ones) modify the way we spend our time and the types of activities we engage in
* This creates a process of upskilling and deskilling, where we (individually, and as a society) gain new sets of skills while others atrophy - this happens both intentionally, and as an inevitable effect of how we now spend our time
* Acting in accordance with our morals is a skill - it requires intention, practice at recognizing the "right" actions in ambiguous situations, experience to predict outcomes of our choices, and sometimes self-restraint to act against our immediate self-interest in service of outcomes that align with our morals
* The more we use machines and automation for tasks that have a moral dimension, the more we engage in a process of moral deskilling of ourselves
Evidence of many types of deskilling are all around us; skills that used to be common because of their necessity, like knitting, woodworking, hunting, food foraging, etc. are relegated to the margins, have become the realm of specialists, or are treated as hobbies, because we have mostly automated away the need for large segments of the population to engage in them.
Vallor uses examples of warfare (offloading decisions about killing to machines) and caregiving (offloading physical, mental, and emotional support to robots, chatbots, etc.) as cases where we are likely to morally deskill our society; these were somewhat hypothetical in 2015, but it seems clear that we're well along this path in 2026. I think the judicial system, law enforcement, employment decisions, and allocation of resources such as healthcare, education, and social services would also make good examples.The more we automate or outsource these activities, the less good we get at performing them in ways that align with our morals.
While it's easy to think of this in the context of actions that have a clear, classical connection to morality, it operates in much smaller, and more pervasive ways as well. The way we act towards each other - whether we respect each others' dignity, autonomy, time, and humanity. The way we use common, finite, and shared resources. The decisions, large and small, we make about our interactions with the natural environment. Every one of these, and more, has a moral dimension, and the more we put machines between us and the practices of deciding and acting, the more we erode our ability to make moral decisions and to act morally.
We consider people who are skilled at acting morally to be virtuous, and those who are not as having poor moral character. As individuals and as a society, our current technological choices are morally deskilling us, reducing our moral character.
Maybe we should re-consider our relationship with some of this technology, lest we end up in a future where moral reasoning is something that is just done as a hobby, idly, while sitting in a boring lecture, like knitting.
https://bhaven.org/uploads/3/4/0/3/34038663/vallor2015_article_moraldeskillingandupskillingin.pdf
@xssfox I'm just saying I've never had an issue
#MAPoli good and relatively neutral roundup at #Tufts #TischCollege for the ballot questions for #Massachusetts https://tischcollege.tufts.edu/take-action/vote/voters-guide-2026-massachusetts-ballot-questions
RE: https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5o6k7jvowuyaquloafzn3cfw/post/3myfjcm3isk2h
I’ve heard reports exactly like this in • every • single • election • since 2004. And every time, when somebody finally manages to get to the bottom of it, it turns out the culprit is garbage UI design — not the machine secretly changing votes (because why would it •show• the user if it’s actually cheating?!).
But these breathless stories about touchscreen voting aren’t going die unless touchscreen voting itself dies — because it’s a terrible idea.
Paper ballots, marked directly by the voter themselves, validated and counted in an optical scanner. It’s not rocket science, folks.
Since Collins thinks Manchin has solid independent cred, it’s a good time to remind people that Joe Manchin’s daughter ran up the price of epinephrine autoinjectors (Epipens) around 300% for no reason beyond pure profit. She is responsible for the preventable death of many children and adults. Joe Manchin facilitated this, and protected her in Congress. Fuck Joe Manchin and his yacht.
Bike lane protest thread, one last time 🧵
The key's randomart image is:
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Cycling campaigners in Wellington, New Zealand showing solidarity with cycling campaigners in Toronto, Canada who are physically blocking construction vehicles ripping up cycle lanes.
📸 Alex Dyer
Text: @tomflood
Self-proclaimed Father of Email and eternal candidate sues hometown news site for refusing to write about him
https://www.universalhub.com/2026/self-proclaimed-father-email-and-eternal-candidate-sues-hometown-news
I am reminded again how in 1935, the US Congress passed a tax law that created a new top tax bracket of nearly 80%.
That tax bracket contained exactly one person, John D. Rockefeller, and was designed to stop him from causing so much trouble.
In case anyone needs the precedent.
PebbleOS runs in browser (pebbleos.readthedocs.io/en/latest/pl...) and...on Apple watch??
Looking for a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man in the Seaport from back in the day
https://www.universalhub.com/2026/looking-stay-puft-marshmallow-man-seaport
title text: Other numbers are largely unaffected, but anyone using '4' for their certificate key is urged to upgrade to '5'.
desktop link: https://xkcd.com/3314
mobile link: https://m.xkcd.com/3314
explainxkcd: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/3314
"Artificial intelligence (AI), as it currently unfolds, is incompatible with a sustainable transformation of the economy, which arguably requires degrowth. AI is the growth paradigm reborn — built on enclosed commons, powered by fossil energy, and driven by a competitive logic that makes precaution structurally impossible. Limits to AI growth are not technophobia; they are our best chance for a liveable future for all."
Fascism fighters assemble at Park Street
https://www.universalhub.com/2026/fascist-fighters-assemble-park-street
Photo by Adam Castiglioni.
#Boston