Mark Rabkin

I am Harry, a Harvard educated curator ready to slay the house down boots. Today is the day I yoink control from the social girlies and Ali the mother of all rizzlers. They will not stop my aura. Siri add painting emoji here thanks

This is wild. theaustralian.com.au/business/techn…

All signs continue to point to an exceptional, long-duration, and record-breaking to (in some cases) record-shattering March heatwave initially centered across U.S. Southwest but expanding to much broader region next week. This is effectively a full-on summer heatwave in March.

It's almost impossible for a newspaper outlet to cover the attempted murder of 140 Jewish preschool children by blaming the attack on a Detroit synagogue built during the Holocaust. Yet the NY Times did it anyway. You can't hate these people enough. It's just not possible.

Seriously, you don’t hate the @nytimes enough. A synagogue with a preschool is targeted. The NYT reminds readers it was “dedicated to the formation of a Jewish state.” The journalistic equivalent of: “well… what was she wearing?”

The @nytimes just can’t help itself. The lengths it will go to humanize an ISIS-inspired terrorist who built a bomb packed with nails meant to rip through a crowd. This is the man who raised his hand in an ISIS gesture and smirked as police led him away in cuffs. Disgusting.

I just gave a closed-book, pen-and-paper midterm exam in my 300-level course at UBC with 100 students. All exams were graded by an experienced graduate-level TA according to a rubric. *** The average was 64/100.*** My class averages at UBC are usually 80-85. Context: • This was the first midterm, covering ONLY 4 weeks of material. • Students had a list of possible questions in advance: no surprise questions. • Questions included (a) 3 concept definitions, (b) 3 paragraph-long questions, and (c) a 1.5-page essay. • I have taught this class multiple times. Nothing in my teaching style changed this semester. • We read entire paragraphs of text in class, so students don't have to do something on their own that wasn't covered during the lecture. • Students take a 10-question multiple-choice quiz at the end of every class (30% of the final grade). • Attendance is 95-99% every class. Attention during lectures and participation in pair-work activities are very high → anticipating the end-of-class quiz. *** But unfortunately, I suspect many students are not reading the material on the syllabus. They are asking LLMs to summarize it instead.*** After the midterm, students reported: • They thought they knew concept definitions but couldn't produce them on paper. • They thought they understood the arguments but struggled to connect them or identify points of agreement and disagreement. My view: It might be “cool” or “innovative” to teach students to summarize readings with ChatGPT or write essays with Claude. But we may be doing them a disservice: reducing their ability to retain material, think creatively, and reason from what they know. If you only read what AI has summarized for you, you don’t truly "know" the material. Moving forward: We have a second midterm coming up. I don't know how to convey to students that the best way to do better on the exam is to rely on and improve their own reading skills.

The NYPD Bomb Squad has conducted a preliminary analysis of a device that was ignited and deployed at a protest yesterday and has determined that it is not a hoax device or a smoke bomb. It is, in fact, an improvised explosive device that could have caused serious injury or death. Further analysis will be conducted, including on a second device. Emir Balat and Ibrahim Kayumi were arrested on scene yesterday and are in custody in connection with this matter. The NYPD is working on this investigation with our partners at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the FBI through our Joint Terrorism Task Force. I want to again thank the brave members of the NYPD who ran towards the danger without hesitation and quickly apprehended the suspects.

I’m so fucking sick of snark from people on here because I talk about Jew hatred a lot. First, those who have followed me for a while know this has been a focus of mine for more than 10 years — it’s not something I suddenly picked up post–October 7. My focus is largely on extremism, particularly in America, not on Israel, although I fully understand there’s crossover. Second, people who say my focus on this is cringe, annoying, or stupid either don’t understand how serious this problem is — or they’re Jew haters themselves. This is an urgent matter. I wouldn’t spend this much time on it if it weren’t. And despite what some people online seem to believe, it certainly isn’t lucrative or helpful to my career. We know from decades of research that once someone adopts a fully developed antisemitic worldview, it becomes very, very difficult to deradicalize them — though not impossible. I don’t want to lose more people to the abyss of Jew hatred. As far as I’m concerned, this is existential. When hatred of Jews becomes part of someone’s identity and worldview, it shapes how they understand everything: politics, morality, and even their sense of belonging. Antisemitism operates differently from many other forms of hatred because it is conspiratorial in nature rather than simply prejudicial. Conspiracy beliefs are self-sealing: evidence against them is interpreted as proof of the conspiracy itself. People who adopt strong antisemitic views often move into social ecosystems that reinforce those beliefs: online communities, ideological networks, and political movements. Antisemites also see their hatred as morally justified. In their minds, they are defending civilization, fighting corruption, exposing hidden evil, and, as many of you learned recently, exposing child-killing pedophiles. Once hatred becomes framed as a moral duty, deradicalization becomes far more difficult. Antisemitism also “explains” everything to the Jew hater. Because Jews are falsely framed as the hidden cause behind many unrelated problems, Jews become the grand explanatory theory for the world’s failures and for the failures and challenges people have personally. People who criticize me or mock me ultimately don’t bother me. But it is deeply annoying and concerning — particularly because they cannot even claim that I spend my time advocating for Israel or defending the decisions of the Israeli government. So their issue is with Jews. Ultimately, if you have a problem with me talking about this, you can kiss my Iranian ass.

Bro dropping “Tempered” cheese and “Beef notes” like it’s a three Michelin starred cuisine 😭

I always laugh at yo-yo’s who don’t have the 1st clue what information the President had that forced this decision. Even politicians who despise him but were briefed on the situation seem to agree with this operation. I guess lotta podcasters know better. 😂. Gotta keep the lights on somehow. Borderline traitors if you ask me. Iran is a terror nation with a long history of some of the worst human rights atrocities in the world. Nobody disputes that fact.They hate Americans. They hate Israel. They hate all Jews. They hate the West. They would kill us all if given the chance. They just murdered tens of thousands of their own people. The rest of the Middle East is on our side. The Iranian people are on our side. It isn’t that complicated to support our Troops and our country this morning. We are on the right side here. God Bless America . 🇺🇸 x.com/WhiteHouse/sta…

"You Should Have Moral Qualms about Anthropic's Qualms" thefreedomfrequency.org/p/905edaf0-763…

Striking graph from @esoltas and Jon Gruber

We fetched 871 articles published in the Guardian by Bryan Armen Graham over the last six years. It's clear that he is increasingly relying on AI. In two weeks in February he churned out nine articles classified by Pangram as fully AI-generated. Receipts below:

John Collison and Meta CFO Susan Lee on Grimes on Cheeky Pint last year:

It's astonishing to witness the improvement in public education--reading, math, attendance, grad rates--in Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi. But we're busy fighting culture wars rather than scaling up what these three states have done. Please do read: nytimes.com/2026/02/09/opi…

Every time Bad Bunny said "Ey!" in the Halftime Show

Leading into Super Bowl LX, we were proud to donate our mobile CT trailer and support heart health screenings for NFL alumni and their loved ones—bringing coronary artery calcium (CAC) CT scans right to the legends who've given so much to the game. Early detection saves lives. ❤️ Huge thank you to co-founders @altcap @yoweichang, the incredible teams at @StanfordHealth @NFLPCF @TulaneMedicine, and our friends @chamath, @DavidSacks, @friedberg, @Jason, @theallinpod, @bgurley, @BG2Pod. Excited to bring our mobile CT trailer to Bay Area companies next—want to host a screening or join our Buy One, Give One initiative as part of the team? DM us! #Ctr4HeartAtkPrv #HeartHealth #CACscan #SuperBowlLX #NFLLegends #WForHealth #PreventHeartAttacks

This has been a trend on TikTok and Instagram for over a year but what makes Luchs so good at it is her perfectly deadpan delivery