Aaron Helton

Aaron Helton

@aaronhelton.com

He/Him Library systems dev @ UN Library en/es TTRPGs, ♾️ DM Reader. Writer. Digital Humanist in training @ CUNY GC. William Blake stan. AI Hater. 📍Vienna, Austria www.aaronhelton.com and blog.hilltown.studio Likes/Reposts ≠ endorsements.

274 followers498 following1.6K posts

Aaron Helton reposted

Wow, this is beautifully done. Encourage library & archive folks to take 20 minutes to explore this story and learn more about Indigenous cultural heritage—there's a lot here that's new to me! 📚

Library Futures@libraryfutures.bsky.social

Travel across North America learn how the efforts of a new generation of digital librarians are returning indigenous knowledge to its rightful stewards. See The Map That Roared and much more in this digital story from LF intern Thomas Gagnon-van Leeuwen. www.libraryfutures.net/post/indigen...

You can unravel my L.L. Bean Fair Isle Cardigan from my globally warmed dead body.

McSweeney's@mcsweeneys.net

"Long has our society known the phenomenon of a man insisting upon wearing shorts no matter how cold it is outside, but in our rapidly warming world, a new generation of inappropriate dressers will emerge. I am the vanguard of that generation." buff.ly/LPSyRF8

Aaron Helton reposted

Queer histories are often preserved in places built by and for communities themselves. Writer and artist Brooke Palmieri reflects on the people who save these traces and why preserving what might disappear matters. 📚 Read the essay in Vanishing Culture: archive.org/details/vani... 🧵

Aaron Helton reposted

A thread-of-threads on my research into the ruined places of the world, the abandoned ruins of modernity, interesting historical knowledge I've come across, and strange parts of history I find fascinating.

Any company or organization with any commitment to climate goals should reckon with this, but instead they're all marching to the AI drumbeat.

KetAnthropic JoshAI@ketanjoshi.co

The numbers for potential climate harm from direct fossil-fuelled data centres are just phenomenal. It makes no sense to help them realise their dreams here

AI, acting as a hyperscale automator, rolls over brittle or broken institutions and systems. It's a thrown brick in every direction, meeting mostly Potemkin walls, paper over gnawed studs.

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Meanwhile, Anthropic thinks it's worth 1.5 trillion USD, and the AI financial circle jerk to date has passed around at least a couple trillion USD. Cory Doctorow's term "bezzle" comes to mind.

Aaron Helton reposted

Me estoy aventando 20 paginas al dia para el primer boceto de traducción para #KOKOTÖNA en español, y creo que (despues de la introducción del libro) este es el texto mas importante para reforzar el tema de no encasillarse ni usar estereotipos al jugar #MÖRKBORG #lodelrol #RPGLatAm #rolentuidioma

Why no, Frau Mayr, I have no idea why Herr Mayr would want to help me plow my fields. Yes, I understand he has his own fields to plow. (Detail from a piece of public art on the side of a building, spotted in Vienna, Austria, on 25 October 2026)

I started wearing a smart watch around 2018, and wore and upgraded that for a while before deciding to buy something that wouldn't die because the battery couldn't be recharged anymore. Went for the Baltic HMS 002 Blue Gilt with the stitched lion band, which looks fantastic. I'm never going back.

Jeremy White@jeremywired.bsky.social

WRISTY BUSINESS: @wired.com asked a panel of watch experts to pick their favorite proper mechanical watch... but make it under $400. The results were astonishing. Click the pic to see the full list. www.wired.com/story/best-w...

Aaron Helton reposted

🎃Thei did the Mash; thei did the Monstere Mash. The Monstere Mash! Beholde: sepulchral smash! Thei did the Mash, and it kaughte on moost fast - Hark, heare the Mash! Forsooth, the Monstere Mash!🎃

Aaron Helton reposted

Three years ago, my dad said that all fish are the same shape. Out of spite, I decided to draw all 478 families of bony fish listed in Nelson 2016. There's still some stuff I need to edit and some fish I want to redraw but, after 985 days, I finished my big dumb fish project last night.

Aaron Helton reposted

🎃Farmer GaddAAAHH!!!!🎃@farmergadda.bsky.social

I asked my wife "you own tarot and are pretty ritually involved with them. Would it be offensive to ask for one of your collection to be used for gaming purposes?" and she went to say no, stopped, thought about it, then slowly said "yeah... yeah I think I have a deck for you." And produced this.

Man, fuck these dark enlightenment neo-reactionaries and their bionic horizon. Today it's war dogs, tomorrow some chud will go all in on face tentacles.

Amy Feldman@amyfeldman7.bsky.social

*NEW* Colossal Biosciences’ Ben Lamm and Anduril’s Palmer Luckey team up on a new startup to genetically engineer war dogs for the military. Warhound comes out of stealth at $1.2B valuation For @forbes.com with @iainmartin.bsky.social and @mhunterhart.bsky.social www.forbes.com/sites/amyfel...

Aaron Helton reposted

A prime example of why AI 'leaders' are not who anyone should be listening to about AI, right and consciousness. It's not all wrong! In fact, it starts off very sensibly: "AIs do not have rights, feelings, or consciousness. And we must not train them to act as though they do". But then...hoo boy 1/n

mustafa-suleyman.aiA warning about ‘model welfare’AIs are not conscious. They do not feel, experience, or suffer. Training a model to believe it might be a moral patient, as Anthropic’s constitution does, makes the alignment and containment challenge...

Aaron Helton reposted

This seems like a great way to encourage your employees to spend hours on IT security forums looking for the most insidious malware available so they can intentionally load it onto your corporate network as a matter of moral justice.

shauna@goldengateblond.bsky.social

this is fucking appalling. i already knew james dolan (who owns the knicks and madison square garden) was a douche but this is next-level. www.nytimes.com/athletic/771...

Aaron Helton reposted

This is *exactly* why I started Stillfleet Studio: TTRPGs are not just games. They're storytelling experiences that invite us to challenge our views—in a friendly but deep way—about society, what is "good" (or "lawful," etc.), how and when to fight, etc.

James Pozenel@lectrotext.bsky.social

I’m a big believer that RPGs are a constructive medium to confront oneself with what it all means. Our world and the technology we’ve permitted needs some philosophical examination. Also destroying AI, defeating ICE, and bringing down the System feels super-cathartic right now.

Aaron Helton reposted

Update on the use of AI text in Chaosium Community Content programs @drivethrurpg.com. TL/DR: Don't use it in our programs. AI is not art. It is theft from you and every writer who has gone before you, repackaged dishonestly and shamelessly as original. www.chaosium.com/blogupdate-o...

chaosium.comUpdate on the use of AI text in Chaosium Community Content programsHello to all members of this group: thanks for the inspiration you bring us daily through your work for Chaosium roleplaying games, published via our community content programs. We always love to see ...

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