John Timmer
@j_timmer
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Chief science wrangler for Ars Technica. Writes, edits, and teaches science communications. Я підтримую Україну
The big city
Joined October 2008
I seem to have picked up some new followers. Just a note that I won’t be using Twitter much until it’s under management that has a greater commitment to limiting the spread of misinformation. Until then: https://t.co/8sxPdHwT0q
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Also a great reminder that John Paul Jones did not deserve to be overshadowed.
Beamed in from an alternate universe where Zeppelin's main aim was to be as funky as The Meters instead of louder than The Who, “Trampled Under Foot” is five and a half minutes of cathartically blissful groove which hints at the truly great disco band they might well have become.
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Is it a conflict of interest to review a book by @WiringTheBrain if I used to play volleyball with him and found it amusing when his very annoyed wife came to retrieve him if he played too late?
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Unlike Meta, Bluesky seems to want more journalists on its platform. I asked them about it, and they kindly provided me with over a dozen invites for freelancers. If you’ve worked with me in the past and need an invite, shoot me an email.
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I’m excited to announce I'm joining @arstechnica next week as their new space reporter. The space beat is busier than ever, and I’m looking forward to working with @SciGuySpace to cover a growing list of important stories in spaceflight, space science, policy, and business.
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Lowering the value of my Berkeley degree every time he opens his mouth.
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To be clear: Jack Dorsey is an ass, as he's repeatedly made clear over the past few months. But Twitter under Jack was clearly better than what it's become under Musk.
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That said, I will be trying to avoid creating any content here that gives this place any value. I'll probably slip now and again (old habits die hard), but I'm going to try to do all of that over at Bluesky, where I'm jtimmer.
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At the moment I'm not deleting my account, for a few reasons: I expect Elon will get bored of losing shit-tons of money and unload it on someone else. It's one of two places I sometimes interact with readers. There are sources on Twitter I can't currently access elsewhere.
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This doesn't mean I expect perfection in moderation. I do moderation at Ars, and it is HARD to get it right consistently. But when it comes to misinformation, I expect a commitment to at least try. Current Twitter management is clearly committed to not trying.
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All 3 of you who care have probably noted that I've been far less active on Twitter lately. That's going to continue indefinitely. When it became clear that Facebook could act to limit misinformation on its site, but delibrately chose not to, I deleted my account there.
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What happens when you discover - as everyone else, including Twitter’s former management has - that these two goals are incompatible?
Twitter is on a mission to become the world’s most accurate real-time information source and a global town square for communication. That's not an empty promise. That’s OUR reality.
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Weird, he didn't include "imbecile" in his Twitter bio.
First, it's Trump. Next, it's you.
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Welcome to all the people who are just now discovering that Steve Milloy is a fucking idiot who will say just about anything if it’s politically expedient for him to do so.
Fox guest: There's just no health risk...We have this kind of air in India and China all the time, no public health emergency... this doesn't kill anybody, this doesn't make anybody cough, this is not a health event... particulate matter is just very fine soot, they're innocuous.
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In my continued quest to find a Twitter replacement, I've managed to snare https://t.co/ZomQ73YSMo.
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The NY Times has the people and resources to check whether prosecutions of this sort are typical. Instead, they say “fuck it” and both-sides the whole thing.
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But god forbid we teach anyone that systemic racism exists. https://t.co/Uk4EUzLwLZ
bbc.com
The head of the US tax-collection agency says he is "deeply concerned" by the disparity.
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Most of the news I've seen has been about the multiple poor decisions made by CNN that enabled this. So, mission accomplished? (And I definitely mean that in the Bush sense)
"You do not have to like the former president's answers, but you can't say that we didn't get them," Licht tells staffers, many of whom are angry about the town hall. "Kaitlan pressed him again and again and made news. Made a LOT of news." And "that is our job."
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The one thing I'm going to say here about the new EPA carbon emissions rules is that you cannot understand them except within the context of the Inflation Reduction Act. Got a lot more to say about that, but will probably do it on Mastodon, Twitter being what it is now.
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