Tom Higley
@tomhigley
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Reclusive. Background: entrepreneur, board member, advisor, mentor, attorney (former), musician, painter, waiter, janitor, blueberry picker.
Maine, USA
Joined March 2007
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Kicking off Tom’s Substack Book Club: Reading for the Republic https://t.co/Q2nHUVCBNv Beginning this first season of the Book Club with Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons for the Twentieth Century.
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When the Executive makes itself the law, and acts as if it alone represents the People, the Executive is no equal branch — or a “branch” at all — of government. https://t.co/KMm5mvqsFI via @NYTimes
nytimes.com
Legal scholars say that the nation has reached a tipping point and that the right question is not whether there is a crisis, but rather how much damage it will cause.
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A critical appraisal of Siri, Apple, and “Apple Intelligence” from @gruber
https://t.co/AO7JQqocTe I’m afraid he’s spot on.
daringfireball.net
Who decided these personalized Siri features should go in the WWDC keynote, with a promise they’d arrive in the coming year, when, at the time, they were in such an unfinished state they could not be...
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“Apple intelligence” is a comic’s punchline. Why use this expression when your AI capabilities are subpar or nonexistent?
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Yesterday, Rubio terminated 5800 USAID contracts – more than 90% of its foreign aid programs – in defiance of the courts. Here’s a list of just some of the lifesaving awards that were terminated. Nearly all were Congressional mandated. They've saved millions of lives. 🧵
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Evidently my perspective about this takeover of federal infrastructure has already gotten attention from what some are calling the “groups on the left.” Whether you’re left or right doesn’t matter. The evidence and issues are the same albeit with different implications.
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If they realize their aims, they will have obtained effective operational control over the U.S. government. The evidence is mounting to support this hypothesis, and I suspect these people may succeed. I don’t think you understand what this means. You can’t. We can’t.
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Their claims of inefficiency and fraud create a useful justification for arguments that 1) this must be fixed; 2) only they can do this effectively; and 3) the newly revamped systems (now with AI) should be privatized.
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Notable persons in tech see their roles in the Trump regime as an opportunity to secure control of the computational and data infrastructure and resources of the federal government. This is happening in plain sight. With incredible speed.
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I read Martin Ford’s book in 2009 and found it disturbing—and compelling. He’s right. The book seems prescient.
My book on #AI and job losses, The Lights in the Tunnel, is now available as a free download. (The download link is in my reply to this post.) Recent advances in #AI, such as DeepSeek R1, make it clear that ever more powerful artificial intelligence is destined to become
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https://t.co/Rv7UWHGZBU
@ezraklein—great, but you & @karaswisher buried the lede. @elonmusk acquired control of the US computation and data infrastructure. He will declare it broken. He will “fix,” privatize, own, and operate it, and be paid very very well. And…control = power.
nytimes.com
The journalist Kara Swisher discusses Elon Musk's goals in government — and the factors that have led to his radicalization.
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Re DeepSeek — a couple things. Props for the research and the cost-cutting breakthroughs. That said, how is DeepSeek not a kind of Trojan Horse? How is its Chinese ownership and its user data flow back to China data not as problematic in the U.S. as TikTok’s? Has anyone else read
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An update: I stopped using Facebook and Instagram many years ago, and with Elon’s acquisition I’ve all but abandoned X. Business models matter. Some are worse than others. Sadly, much of the revenue generated in the world of tech has — because of the business models — become a
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Just wrote my first Substack note. It's not much, but it's a start.
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As for a single syllable product name, how about “Sky?” (Too soon?) 🤣
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