Being a conservative journalist/“voice”/“advocate” in very blue cities is an interesting gig. You’re constantly aggrieved, never get a win *ever*, Sisyphean project placing you as a permanent heel. You guarantee yourself a permanent local audience though
A couple of takeaways from tonight's World Cup "Pride" match between Egypt & Iran in Seattle:
- Tonight wasn't just a soccer match—it was a test of whether Seattle's politicians actually believe the values they claim to champion. If you're going to celebrate Pride, why stay silent when teams from countries that execute gay people come to your city?
This was the Pride movement's biggest opportunity to make a statement—and they completely missed it. If America stands for free speech and equal rights, then don't apologize for it. Say it proudly. A soccer game comes and goes. Taking a stand for American values would have been remembered.
-The politicians who never miss an opportunity to virtue signal suddenly became very quiet when it actually mattered. The people protesting the Iranian regime showed more consistency than the politicians who claim to champion LGBTQ rights. This could have been a defining moment for Seattle. Instead, city leaders chose silence. If your principles disappear the moment they're inconvenient, they aren't principles—they're performance."
-Where were all the activists? For all the noise they usually make, they were almost nowhere to be found. If you believe in something, defend it.
-The World Cup showed Seattle can secure its streets when it wants to. The question is why that commitment isn't year-round. Public safety isn't impossible. Tonight proved it's a choice."
-Seattle had a chance to show the world what it stands for. Instead, it showed the world what it was unwilling to say.
We’re excited to introduce Taste Labs.
Our mission is to end AI slop. We’re building the data and infrastructure layer to give AI models and agents taste.
And today we’re coming out of stealth, announcing our $18.5M seed funding, co-led by @CRV and @AmplifyPartners
AI has nailed objective domains and made it easy to generate anything. But it still feels off. Now, the challenge is judgement. What fits, what feels like you, what’s GREAT. This requires turning a fuzzy, subjective domain into something we can measure and codify. We’re starting with design.
There are two sides to cracking this, the foundation model layer and the agent layer:
- We’ve already been working with the top frontier labs to evaluate and improve their models, crafting the right post-training data and RL environments.
- We’ve also been working with app-layer companies to build the context and verification tools for their agents to produce better, more on-brand, more creative outputs.
We want a future where AI feels right.
If you’re passionate about this mission, join us!
replugging my essay, “taste is not scalable” where I had the audacity to quote Kant on taste coz this is getting a bit ridiculous. taste in what? art assets? typography? writing? static design? video editing? cinematography? UI? interaction design? UX? taxonomies? copy? TASTE IN WHAT? WHOSE TASTE? AND THEIR TASTE IN WHAT? AND WHAT WILL THAT BEING FORMULISED DO FOR ANYONE?
tech industry didn’t have the vocabulary to discuss human art and creativity so it’s created a new binary definition: taste vs slop. naturally, there were going to be models and companies “solving” for taste. it started with “context”. I don’t mean to diss on this company, I know others too in this space and it’s been the most soulless work to watch which is really something if you’re going to turn “taste” into your category.
you know what’s the real slop? these catchphrases and whoever keeps coming up with them.
ghibli’s work is BEYOND “tasteful”. AI generated ghiblislop is bottom of the trash pile. go figure.
TASTE IS NOT SCALABLE.
https://t.co/yMtxWWBGAD
The smaller the business the better vibecoded tooling is. I run a small furniture business and our vibecoded internal quoting website makes us look as though we punch above our weight when sent to clients.
I've watched a ton of people vibe code internal tooling only to realize:
"I am now the admin for something that basically does the same thing as the software we used to use "
And go back to using that software. It turns out 10% more customization isn't really worth it at all
They’re using the guy beheading your brother in the street to distract you from your real enemy: Jeff Bezos delivering medicine to your front door overnight
The lost & forgotten history of Jaguars in the United States is one of the most fascinating & overlooked topics I have ever come across. They lived here… from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean🐆
The issue is that the piano/sports aren't necessarily a golden summer of leisure and personal development before the 40 years of slides begin.
The recreational activities are often conducted with the same grim anxiety and workism as the rest of life, yet even more pointless.
@robertlasagna1 I struggled to get into the YouTube series precisely because after all that effort to curate a “vibe”… the horror element is just a scawwy monster? That’s the best we could do?
young couples trying to raise a family in our clown economy are admirable bordering on heroic, so if you have kids, its actually a patriotic duty to invade spaces where boomers, "childfree" redditors, disney adults, other sorts of foul beasts, cavort and stuff their putrid jowls
Megafauna reintroduction would mitigate insect loss: “Insects are declining across Europe. Czech scientist have determined this decline can be mitigated by returning large ungulates—horses, aurochs cattle, and wisents—to landscapes.”
https://t.co/iIxCe4zL9K