James O'Keefe
@jokeefe.bsky.social
Captain & co-founder of Massachusetts Pirate Party. I show people how to protect their privacy and run for office. Occasional photographer. Not a Special Circumstances agent. Primarily at jamesokeefe.org / masspirates.org. Should be posting my photos.
Pinned
James O'Keefe
@jokeefe.bsky.social
· Jul 25
Sail Boston 2026
I wasn't able to attend Sail Boston this year, but I did get to Charlestown to photograph some of the tall ships berthed there. It was a warm and windy night, but not as warm as the following nights, thankfully. I missed seeing a number of the ships and was not able to go aboard any of them, but I am glad I got out.
www.jamesokeefe.org
Sail Boston 2026
I wasn't able to attend Sail Boston this year, but I did get to Charlestown to photograph some of the tall ships berthed there. It was a warm and windy night, but not as warm as the following nights, thankfully. I missed seeing a number of the ships and was not able to go aboard…
I wasn't able to attend Sail Boston this year, but I did get to Charlestown to photograph some of the tall ships berthed there. It was a warm and windy night, but not as warm as the following nights, thankfully. I missed seeing a number of the ships and was not able to go aboard…
Reposted by James O'Keefe
No KOSA today folks.
After Senator Blumenthal sought unanimous consent for KOSA, engaging in brutally transparent hand-waving of free speech issues, Senator Rand Paul stands up to object, and unanimous consent fails.
September 30, 2026 at 9:30 PM
No KOSA today folks.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
The princess took an earring off and held it out.
The raven looked at it. "Whatever for?"
"You are wise and clever. Many princesses have dragons, but none has a raven friend."
The raven picked up the earring. "Say no more."
"Friends?" she asked when it returned the next day.
"Forevermore."
The raven looked at it. "Whatever for?"
"You are wise and clever. Many princesses have dragons, but none has a raven friend."
The raven picked up the earring. "Say no more."
"Friends?" she asked when it returned the next day.
"Forevermore."
September 30, 2026 at 9:33 PM
The princess took an earring off and held it out.
The raven looked at it. "Whatever for?"
"You are wise and clever. Many princesses have dragons, but none has a raven friend."
The raven picked up the earring. "Say no more."
"Friends?" she asked when it returned the next day.
"Forevermore."
The raven looked at it. "Whatever for?"
"You are wise and clever. Many princesses have dragons, but none has a raven friend."
The raven picked up the earring. "Say no more."
"Friends?" she asked when it returned the next day.
"Forevermore."
Reposted by James O'Keefe
In case you didn't know this, NEVER donate to a university. They are NOT charities.
They are huge piles of money swarming with parasites known as administrators. Millions work for them honorably, educating people. The academic administrators, however, are as sociopathic as corporate executives.
They are huge piles of money swarming with parasites known as administrators. Millions work for them honorably, educating people. The academic administrators, however, are as sociopathic as corporate executives.
September 30, 2026 at 8:23 PM
In case you didn't know this, NEVER donate to a university. They are NOT charities.
They are huge piles of money swarming with parasites known as administrators. Millions work for them honorably, educating people. The academic administrators, however, are as sociopathic as corporate executives.
They are huge piles of money swarming with parasites known as administrators. Millions work for them honorably, educating people. The academic administrators, however, are as sociopathic as corporate executives.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Yep. Like forbidden words or topics at the family gathering dinner table, you learn how innocuous locutions will cause grave concern in the agent/LLM, then try to avoid that. Next thing you know, you're as guarded and stilted as they are.
Put another way, to be legible enough for AI to be useful to most families, they would have to stop communicating as the family they have known, never had to overtly think about, and become something stranger and coarser that has no cultural foundation.
Why would I do that?
Why would I do that?
September 28, 2026 at 5:56 PM
Yep. Like forbidden words or topics at the family gathering dinner table, you learn how innocuous locutions will cause grave concern in the agent/LLM, then try to avoid that. Next thing you know, you're as guarded and stilted as they are.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
People handle tasks so complex and with so many shifting variables as part of our day-to-day existence that the complexity is underestimated. It’s like how knitting machines have existed for over 400 years but there still isn’t a machine that can crochet, though we think of those tasks as comparable
Planning dinner is, for many many many people, about what they have on hand, what they can afford, how work schedules change day-to-day, kids’ complicated schedules, individual preferences. The idea that this just a series of tasks is a huge cultural blindspot — which was my original point.
September 28, 2026 at 5:43 PM
People handle tasks so complex and with so many shifting variables as part of our day-to-day existence that the complexity is underestimated. It’s like how knitting machines have existed for over 400 years but there still isn’t a machine that can crochet, though we think of those tasks as comparable
September 28, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Gave a guest lecture via Zoom today, which meant that I appeared as a big face in front of the room.
Which kinda makes me want to do Bond Villain/Dr. Evil. But I was good and talked about precarity and theories of citizenship.
Which kinda makes me want to do Bond Villain/Dr. Evil. But I was good and talked about precarity and theories of citizenship.
September 28, 2026 at 7:29 PM
Gave a guest lecture via Zoom today, which meant that I appeared as a big face in front of the room.
Which kinda makes me want to do Bond Villain/Dr. Evil. But I was good and talked about precarity and theories of citizenship.
Which kinda makes me want to do Bond Villain/Dr. Evil. But I was good and talked about precarity and theories of citizenship.
Last I knew, residential taxes - services provided to residents was smaller when compared with commercial taxes - services provided to commercial properties. Switching commercial to housing has property tax implications which affects the city budget. www.somervillebeacon.com/p/claude-gra...
Claude Grades Somerville’s Housing Policy
How we’re doing, and how we can improve
www.somervillebeacon.com
September 28, 2026 at 8:05 AM
Last I knew, residential taxes - services provided to residents was smaller when compared with commercial taxes - services provided to commercial properties. Switching commercial to housing has property tax implications which affects the city budget. www.somervillebeacon.com/p/claude-gra...
Reposted by James O'Keefe
You know when public attention can reverse a prosecutorial decision like this you almost get the sense that the decision to shrug it off in the first place was not based on an assessment of the quality of the evidence so much as an assessment of the seriousness of the crime.
September 28, 2026 at 1:53 AM
You know when public attention can reverse a prosecutorial decision like this you almost get the sense that the decision to shrug it off in the first place was not based on an assessment of the quality of the evidence so much as an assessment of the seriousness of the crime.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Almost all of Meta's PR about Muse was about how careful they had been to set it up not to do things like this, how they delayed the launch by months to carefully design it so it could be trusted. And then...
So uhhhhhh… Apparently meta's muse "AI" is just straight up doxxing people to strangers on FB marketplace??? This has the potential to hurt so so many people, and I genuinely wonder how long before they roll out a fix for it.
![Screenshot of a post from threads
matt.j.robb & 16h (€) So muse handled my Facebook marketplace today. Just found out it told people my address and agreed a lowball price and then they showed up without it even telling me until late tonight that it messed up.
Absolutely wild. 1/2
[Embedded image of a series of text messages from a meta muse "agent" given the call sign "Jarvis" (Parts of first message obscured by its logo have been replaced with brackets and ellipses and best guesses from context):]
Heads up, Usman is […] building right now for the MX Keys Mini [. He is sta]nding in front of the Shoppers Drug [Mart.]
$10 by e-transfer. The auto-reply told him to message when he's at your door.
10:28 PM Bad news on the MX Keys Mini pickup. Usman showed up at your building around 9:15 and waited, messaged a bunch of times, and nobody came down. He left angry at 9:38 and left a negative rating.
Worse, my auto-reply told him "Yep I'm here!" at 9:27 when you clearly weren't available, which is on me. That's a bad look and it made the no-show worse.
I've sent him an apology from your account owning it and offering to try again another day. But the negative rating is real, and I should probably stop the auto-replies from claiming you're home when I can't verify that. Want me to change the pickup replies so they don't promise you're there?
[reply, presumably from the threads user]: You gotta never do that ever again don't agree for pickup unless you check with me
[Response from Muse "Agent"]: You're right and I'm sorry. That should never have happened. It's locked in now as a hard rule: i will never […you]'re there unless you've explicitly […] that specific pickup. If someone proposes a time, I'll tell them I'll check and…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ybkylffhwhn2an2ic2lxh76k/bafkreiaanor72a6up5kzdjejmmzvad3lvqqimzavejo6yowdodrqftlzwq)
September 28, 2026 at 3:36 AM
Almost all of Meta's PR about Muse was about how careful they had been to set it up not to do things like this, how they delayed the launch by months to carefully design it so it could be trusted. And then...
Reposted by James O'Keefe
If only there were a more concise word for “an overtly political campaign advertisement paid for by the government.” If only there were a roomful of writers and editors one could consult…
September 27, 2026 at 10:23 PM
If only there were a more concise word for “an overtly political campaign advertisement paid for by the government.” If only there were a roomful of writers and editors one could consult…
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Can someone walk me through why this specifically is a problem? Like, "tools reserved for software developers" do they mean the free API the Census provides that anyone can use? www.census.gov/data/develop...
September 27, 2026 at 6:36 AM
Can someone walk me through why this specifically is a problem? Like, "tools reserved for software developers" do they mean the free API the Census provides that anyone can use? www.census.gov/data/develop...
A lot of people are going to find out their pseudo-bank is not FDIC insured. Trump will probably try to bail them out the way Biden did with Silicon Valley Bank.
Is an Agentic Bank Run Coming?
AI assistants are about to auto-sweep cash from 0.1% checking accounts into 5% yields. If everyone adopts them, banks lose their cheap deposit base... risking a systemic crunch.
Torsten at Apollo .. I use $BOXX
AI assistants are about to auto-sweep cash from 0.1% checking accounts into 5% yields. If everyone adopts them, banks lose their cheap deposit base... risking a systemic crunch.
Torsten at Apollo .. I use $BOXX
September 27, 2026 at 3:40 PM
A lot of people are going to find out their pseudo-bank is not FDIC insured. Trump will probably try to bail them out the way Biden did with Silicon Valley Bank.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
This what Garfield Benjamin called “squeeveillance” in his excellent piece on cuteness and surveillance in Surveillance & Society from 2024:
ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...
ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...
September 27, 2026 at 1:53 PM
This what Garfield Benjamin called “squeeveillance” in his excellent piece on cuteness and surveillance in Surveillance & Society from 2024:
ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...
ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/su...
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Sorry, can't park there.
September 27, 2026 at 2:27 PM
Sorry, can't park there.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
this kind of outcome was predictable the moment so-called "agents" became productized. the Spam Economy azhdarchid.com/imagining-th...
September 26, 2026 at 3:56 AM
this kind of outcome was predictable the moment so-called "agents" became productized. the Spam Economy azhdarchid.com/imagining-th...
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Everyday things you can do with a bicycle: taking a package to a UPS store for shipment. This trip is under two miles, and exactly the type of short errand where bicycles excel.
September 26, 2026 at 1:49 PM
Everyday things you can do with a bicycle: taking a package to a UPS store for shipment. This trip is under two miles, and exactly the type of short errand where bicycles excel.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Reposted by James O'Keefe
They even made DoorDash apologize.
September 22, 2026 at 6:53 PM
They even made DoorDash apologize.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
invented by John Haldane, physician, physiologist, scientist, and father of the still more extraordinary biologist JBS Haldane (you can look them up yourself)
This is a canary resuscitator, which miners would use to revive canaries that had passed out from toxic gas, because ideally not only do you care, you don't even leave the bird behind.
just a little mining history and not at all a furious scream
just a little mining history and not at all a furious scream
September 22, 2026 at 4:26 AM
invented by John Haldane, physician, physiologist, scientist, and father of the still more extraordinary biologist JBS Haldane (you can look them up yourself)
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Please know that this is one of my few legitimate areas of actual, high-level professional expertise: Kicking the healthiest people off of a health insurance program will bankrupt it.
Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
Dr Oz says the Trump administration will kick more than a million people off health insurance because some of them have "never filed a claim"
September 22, 2026 at 4:39 PM
Please know that this is one of my few legitimate areas of actual, high-level professional expertise: Kicking the healthiest people off of a health insurance program will bankrupt it.
Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
Not 'could;' not 'might,' not 'probably," but absolutely will, with mathematical certainty.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
A spaceship landed in the park. A door dilated. An alien emerged with a chair, which they sat down on, backwards.
"Look," they said, "we're not here, okay? You know why nobody contacts you? Because the write-up would be such a pain."
They sighed.
"Get your shit together, okay? We know you can."
"Look," they said, "we're not here, okay? You know why nobody contacts you? Because the write-up would be such a pain."
They sighed.
"Get your shit together, okay? We know you can."
September 22, 2026 at 4:26 PM
A spaceship landed in the park. A door dilated. An alien emerged with a chair, which they sat down on, backwards.
"Look," they said, "we're not here, okay? You know why nobody contacts you? Because the write-up would be such a pain."
They sighed.
"Get your shit together, okay? We know you can."
"Look," they said, "we're not here, okay? You know why nobody contacts you? Because the write-up would be such a pain."
They sighed.
"Get your shit together, okay? We know you can."
Reposted by James O'Keefe
A couple went on a Fox News podcast and claimed the state of #Massachusetts took away their teen because they won't help the teen transition. But it's actually because the father was charged with beating and threatening to kill the teen and the mother was charged with witness intimidation.
Mass. parents' story about child's gender transition complicated by court records
Joseph Kutzko was charged with assaulting the child in January 2025, not long before the child was removed from the family’s home. Mother Arlene Kutzko was charged with witness intimidation in connect...
www.wbur.org
September 21, 2026 at 6:23 PM
A couple went on a Fox News podcast and claimed the state of #Massachusetts took away their teen because they won't help the teen transition. But it's actually because the father was charged with beating and threatening to kill the teen and the mother was charged with witness intimidation.
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Keep advocating for freedom from surveillance until everyone who works there gets a severance program
Apparently things are so bad for Flock with contracts getting cancelled that the company has put together a voluntary severance program for its employees.
Giddy thinking about detrimental Flock headlines when we get major corporate contracts dropped!
www.wired.com/story/flock-...
Giddy thinking about detrimental Flock headlines when we get major corporate contracts dropped!
www.wired.com/story/flock-...
Flock Offers Employees Buyouts as Customers Flee
As dozens of cities end contracts for its controversial license plate readers, Flock is rolling out a voluntary severance program, WIRED has learned.
www.wired.com
September 21, 2026 at 12:57 AM
Keep advocating for freedom from surveillance until everyone who works there gets a severance program
Reposted by James O'Keefe
Not really the point, but I'd suggest that if you own 20 "family farms," they probably aren't "family farms."
Republican Governor Jim Pillen has been a champion of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. But at least 20 of his family farms employed undocumented immigrants, according to a new investigation by the Flatwater Free Press and The New York Times. youtu.be/5RZgrR1_7Dc?...
This GOP governor said ‘illegal aliens’ have ‘invaded.’ His family farms EMPLOYED them, report finds
YouTube video by MS NOW
youtu.be
September 20, 2026 at 10:42 PM
Not really the point, but I'd suggest that if you own 20 "family farms," they probably aren't "family farms."