Catie Watson

Freelance writer, book lover, software engineer, quilter.

[Grady Booch @Grady_Booch]

The burning of the Library of Alexandria v2

[Hedgie @HedgieMarkets]

🦔AI companies are bulk-buying rare books, scanning them through high-speed machines that cut the spines off, and shredding the originals. A service called ISBNdb facilitates orders of up to a million books and keeps buyers anonymous. Pre-2022 books are premium because they're free of AI-generated text. A federal judge ruled the practice is fair use because eliminating the original means only one copy exists at a time. Anthropic hired the former head of Google Books partnerships to obtain "all the books in the world."

My Take
This got to me. A bookseller told 404 Media that rare books with almost no surviving copies are being fed into this pipeline. Books that survived wars, fires, and centuries of handling are being shredded so an AI can learn to write a better marketing email.
ISBNdb's website literally says "'AI company destroys two million books' is not a headline that generates sympathy," and they still built an entire business around making it happen quietly. They offer NDAs as a feature. They coach clients to call it "digital preservation."

I've covered AI companies scraping the internet, torrenting libraries, and stealing music. This is worse because it's irreversible. You can re-upload a website. You can reprint a bestseller. You can't replace the last three copies of an 18th-century botanical text once someone shreds them for training data. And the judge said it's legal. So it's going to accelerate.
"We shred rare books and offer NDAs so nobody finds out" is a legitimate business model in 2026. What a timeline.

Hedgie🤗

[Evan @daviddunn177]

This is the most accurate anyone has ever described Elon Musk.

[derek guy @dieworkwear]

this is the kind of bullshit we could be doing if rent in a walkable neighborhood was $500/ month

[Catie Watson @_CatieWatson]

@tcboyle We're having that problem too. Nobody seems to want the job. Whatever happened to paperboys? I guess there are so few subscribers that delivery by bike isn't practical.

[Ted Lieu @tedlieu]

Maybe, just maybe, and I know for some of you this may be difficult to believe … trump is lying.

[TomHB @TinPotPourri]

Today's brunch entertainment at Leisure World just showed up @DrOzCMS

[Catie Watson @_CatieWatson]

@tcboyle Looks like something from Budding Prospects!

[Catie Watson @_CatieWatson]

@tcboyle Good for the soul!

[Grady Booch @Grady_Booch]

Prompting is the new cut-and-paste programming style.

[Anderson Cooper 360° @AC360]

Cheri Oteri impersonates Barbara Walters on Independence Day Eve with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen.

[Tom Nichols @RadioFreeTom]

Well, at least they're getting some fresh air. A lot of moms thinking "it's awful quiet down in the basement today."

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

Republican Rep. Kean voted against 40 hours of paid medical leave for workers, then took 4 months paid leave himself.

[Governor Newsom Press Office @GovPressOffice]

NEW: A court just rejected Huntington Beach’s latest attempt to dodge its legal responsibility to plan for housing.

Another loss for the city. Another win for California’s housing laws.

NIMBYism is over in California!

[Catie Watson @_CatieWatson]

@tcboyle Ever changing but always the same

[Catie Watson @_CatieWatson]

@nikogallogly @goodculturefood As a kid, I took cottage cheese sandwiches to school for lunch. Didn't touch it for decades until Good Culture came around. They know how to make it, had some for lunch today.

[Catie Watson @_CatieWatson]

@tcboyle One day late and they're raising the rate

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

Remember, during today's literal cage match on the White House grounds:

No matter what, it's not his house. It's our house.

Get a hat, coaster, or sticker to support groups and candidates who will respect the form AND the function of the people's house. https://t.co/yGDgJciDQZ

[Hillary Clinton @HillaryClinton]

A little preview of Independence Day.