Ted Fickes

@tedfickes

I run Bright+3 which provides content, community and fundraising strategy to nonprofit leaders. I also run the Future Community newsletter and jobs list. All that and more at

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Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Jun 28

Open up Watch Duty to see how months of extreme heat and drought have caught up to the southwest US. Be careful out there.

A screenshot of Watch Duty app centered on Four Corners states shows dozens of fires in the region.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Jun 10

Last week I received a few spam emails that were doing an excellent job of spoofing SendGrid. Really well done. Bravo. I imagine they work well for a certain set of folks who might actually have or had a SendGrid account. They could have tried harder on the sender domain, though.

A phishing email sent to look as though it's from Twilio SendGrid.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· May 8

Best film adaptation of The Odyssey, wrong answers only

John Candy hugs a rather uncomfortable Steve Martin in the movie promo photo of Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· May 7

Perhaps maybe all the Republican tax cuts, budget cuts, firings, and bluster about the US needing to cut its debt are just...oh, what's the word...bullshit. One likes how a total and avoidable economic clusterfuck is called a "fiscal headache" by the NYT.

New York Times headline: As U.S. Debt Hits a Worrying Milestone, Washington Barely Notices. The debt is outgrowing the size of America’s economy. The President's policies could accelerate America's fiscal headaches, experts say, unless policymakers intervene.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· May 6

Cinco de Snow-o in Denver. Very good for border collies. Very very bad for trees. #cowx

A border collie on a snowy picnic table in Denver on May 5, 2026.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Apr 20

Among other things this @leahsottile.bsky.social article in @highcountrynews.org does a great job showing the connections between misogyny and political violence. Connections that get plenty of extra oxygen in trump world.

Last year, Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice, a research organization dedicated to gender equality, released a report called State of American Men 2025. Of the 2,400 men surveyed, half expressed a belief that for one group to succeed, another has to lose, while more than 60% defined feminism as “favoring women over men.”

The study was like a codebreaker for Livelsberger’s writings: It found that 52% of American men said they felt safer under Trump, and 55% “support Trump’s effort to dismantle DEI.”

“We have to humanize and understand what makes people vulnerable to these ideologies,” Bates said, because “male supremacist facets in other extremist ideologies” were being harnessed to recruit veterans. “They’re playing to that power, control, toxic masculinity, violence as protection.”

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Apr 15

Today’s much needed book delivery spans time and place. Looking forward to time with the characters of Willy Vlautin and Jerome K. Jerome.

Three books. 1. Lean on Pete by Willy Vlautin. 2. The Left and the Lucky, also by Willy Vlautin. 3. Three Men in a Boat (To Swy Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K Jerome.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Mar 27

On the other hand, donny's doing a great job blowing up the future of the oil industry. 🤷‍♂️

A chart showing the price of a barrel of Brent Crude oil over the past month. The price has risen over 52% and is current $114.57.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Mar 27

Denver is one of 35 cities in which Nexstar now owns multiple TV stations. Nexstar took on $5.1 BILLION debt to do the deal. Roger Ogden, longtime Denver news exec, predicts 80-90 journalism jobs will be lost in Denver alone due to consolidation and budget cuts. coloradosun.com/2026/03/26/t...

An excerpt from Colorado Sun story about the impacts of Nexstar's acquisition of TEGNA talks about the debt Nexstar took on and how consolidation will eliminate journalism jobs in Denver.

But longtime Denver TV insiders like Ogden say this merger comes with a much higher cost to independent reporting in Colorado. Ogden predicts deep cuts will be needed to make the finances of this merger work. He expects to see 80 to 90 journalists laid off in Denver.

To complete the transaction, Nexstar took on $5.1 billion in new debt, adding to fears there will be cuts in the company’s 31 overlapping markets. The final deal has been met with mixed reaction on Wall Street.

“The pressures on Nexstar to make it economically viable are going to be enormous,” Ogden said.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Mar 8

Call 588-2300…Empire.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Mar 6

For color I'll add this screenshot of an article about the US Defense Department using Claude to manage the first attacks on Iran last weekend. The lede from the shitbox that's WaPo fails to mention that America used Claude to murder a couple hundred kids at a girls school. But, oh well, go AI.

Headline: Anthropic’s AI tool Claude central to U.S. campaign in Iran, amid a bitter feud

Subhead: Advanced AI technology is identifying targets in Iran and quickly prioritizing them, supporting the massive military operations carried out by U.S. and Israeli forces.

First para: In order to strike a blistering 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of its attack on Iran, the U.S. military leveraged the most advanced artificial intelligence it’s ever used in warfare, a tool that could be difficult for the Pentagon to give up even as it severs ties with the company that created it.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Feb 23

Currently on the To Read pile. Which one is next?

Four books. Ask the Dust by John Fante. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamont. We Die Alone by David Howarth. The Wrong End of the Telescope by Rabih Alamein’s.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Feb 12

Feathers hit the ground before the weight can leave the air.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Feb 4

100% and folks aren't waiting around for lethargic NPOs/politicos. Random observations...over 1,000 people came out to this run put together by a physical therapist on a couple days notice. My ultra normie neighbors have gone from police flag on their F150 to flying a rebel alliance flag out front.

Screenshot of an instagram post promoting a people's run in Boulder Colorado on February 1. The planned route spells out Fuck Ice for those using apps like Strava to map their run.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Jan 30

The guy is a hack who is well aware that immigration and immigrants have nothing to do with child mortality/injury in his state and that they've long done a lousy job with prevention. Perhaps because white children have lower death and injury rates? Hmm State data... ldh.la.gov/assets/oph/C...

Key Points
 Overall child mortality and the injury-related child mortality rate have remained relatively
steady since 2010.
 Louisiana has consistently had higher child mortality rates than the United States as a whole.
 Injury prevention programs have gained traction. While rates of injury-related child mortality
have not yet decreased, there are promising prevention strategies on the horizon. These
include:
o Providing free water safety and swim lessons to children.
o Implementing life jacket loaner programs.
o Training inspectors and contractors on current swimming pool and spa codes.
o Training school health personnel on suicide prevention methods.
o Educating about current child passenger safety laws

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Jan 28

Here's a good one for you. Details destination and growth of American LNG exports since 2016. Before 2016 there were zero US LNG exports. ieefa.org/north-americ...

A chart of the monthly volume of north american LNG exports by destination since 2016. Largest growth (top chunk on the chart) and current destination is Europe. Since 2016 US exports have grown from zero to nearly 10 million metric tonnes per month.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Jan 15

Fascists are pathetic because they only know how to operate through fear, hate, and pain. They also always (always) lose so long as people come together to fight with care and community. Anyway, this is great stuff from David Roth at @defector.com: defector.com/fascists-are...

It's inspiring, this persistence of community and care in the face of a campaign to annihilate them, and the defiance of people who want to live their lives against a force that doesn't want anything at all, and all of these small and vital human things pushing up through the attempt to make those things and that resistance impossible. But it is also a reminder of how pathetic—how sincerely and deeply abject, how valueless and lost—this offensive is. There is all this rude and humble everyday life and all these different types of people who believe it is meaningful, and then there is this attempt, overseen by an elite that doesn't believe in anything at all, to replace it with something dumber, simpler, more demeaning, and more like content. They are going to lose, and not just because they are outnumbered.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Dec 11

Meanwhile over at the newspaper of record...

The New York Times breaking news with this story headlined "There's Party Power in the Shrimp Tower." Apparently, according the the lede, this is a guest wowing way to save space during those crowded holiday gatherings.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Nov 29

Among other things, Northwestern's capitulation commits the University to eliminating student protest on campus. The Rock even gets a few mentions. This is the university essentially agreeing to implement discrimination against students based on race, religion, nationality and thought.

Parts of the agreement Northwestern University signed with Trump crime syndicate include restrictions on student protest. Including:

a. Prohibition on demonstrations and other protest activities that occur in academic
buildings and places where academic activities take place and that impede
ordinary classroom activities or studying.
b. Prohibition on overnight demonstrations in any University locations.
c. Prohibition on any disruption, prevention, obstruction, or attempt to prevent or
obstruct (i) regularly scheduled University activities; (ii) co-curricular activities;
(iii) University or public events; (iv) medical center access or business; or (v)
the movement of individuals throughout the campus, including on its grounds and buildings, except in specific outdoor areas designated for demonstrations.
d. Prohibition on demonstrations at the Rock location on the Evanston campus that violate University time, place, and manner rules which are designed to limit disruption during times when classes are offered in nearby buildings.
e. Prohibition on the use of amplified sound at the Rock location on the Evanston campus without reservation and approval or when it violates University time, place, and manner rules which are designed to limit disruption during times when classes are offered in nearby buildings.
f. Prohibition on on-campus displays, including flyers, banners, chalking, and 3-D installations outside of areas specifically designated by Northwestern.
g. Prohibition on the use of tents (with exception for University-sponsored events and for the purposes of guarding and painting the Rock), light displays, and chalking on buildings.
h. All demonstration activity

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Nov 10

When in doubt follow the money. Climate change wipes out home insurance business and the ability of many (most) to ever get a mortgage. Private equity can still get rich building apartments to suck you dry. Just one more reason the GOP could care less. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/202...

In Butler’s Parable, corporations use global warming to their advantage, taking over distressed governments, buying up devastated lands, and providing housing to residents in exchange for cheap labor. Parts of this vision are manifesting in real life. Private-equity firms are deeply embedded in the disaster-recovery industry, sometimes relying on the low-wage labor of immigrants and incarcerated people in order to provide reconstruction services at cut rates. Investors often come into distressed real-estate markets and transform them, buying up land on the cheap and flipping residential homes into rental units. Essential services such as firefighting, disaster response, and cleanup are being slowly ceded by the public to the private sector in places under climate stress. Life in these places won’t be like life in the company towns of the 19th century, not exactly. But if you squint, it may not look that different, either.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Nov 10

One never knows what kind of broken email programs can be found buried in the promotions tab. Today, it's the Dems.

A screenshot of five emails received from The Democrats and Mikie Sherrill (probably via The Democrats). All have subject lines that leave off the full statement. For example, "WOW, Ted: -" is a subject line. How does that even make sense?

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Oct 10

An actual sentence written in the year 2025.

Tech billionaire Peter Thiel has privately hosted a series of sold-out lectures in San Francisco warning that “the antichrist” may already be present, tying the idea to global governance, environmentalism, and technology regulation, and suggesting figures like Greta Thunberg and Bill Gates embody “anti-science” or authoritarian traits hastening Armageddon, according to recordings obtained by The Guardian.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Oct 6

Granada in October sounds amazing. We went to flamenco in a cave: cuevaslostarantos.com sure, sounds touristy but fun. Granada does good (and free) tapas. All the time. Wander the streets of Albayzin. We did a food tour w/ these folks: www.spainfoodsherpas.com/granada/ Alhambra at night!

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Sep 18

Don't ever say that fascists don't know good art or that authoritarians are against innovative and interesting cultural products. www.msn.com/en-us/news/u...

a gold spray painted statue of donald trump wearing a suit that fits (and probably about 25 pounds lighter than real life...and also with a full head of hair) holding a fucking bitcoin. This is a real statue that somebody actually took time and energy to create and then prop up in the national mall in DC near the US Capitol. We are doomed, aren't we?

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Sep 11

It's only funny because it could be real text someone uses to describe their AI work. alignmentalignment.ai/caaac/blog/e...

About the AI alignment alignment crisis:

Already, it has become clear that many AI alignment centers are producing reports that are misaligned with the best interests of AI and/or humanity. Worse, the research outputs of one center are frequently used as the inputs for another, causing our shared priors to be polluted by misaligned priors, or worse — prior priors.

However, there are reasons for optimism. We believe that humanity is approaching an AI alignment center singularity, where all alignment centers will eventually coalesce into a single self-reinforcing center that will finally possess the power to solve the alignment problem. We exist to accelerate humanity's progress towards that goal.

Our work is crucial to the future of AI alignment research. If the alignment problem is the first step to safe superintelligence, the alignment alignment problem is the zeroth step. Without solving this challenge, we risk a future where the sheer catastrophic scale of misaligned reports on AI alignment imperils all human life on this planet or, worse, exposes the majority of AI alignment research as a big waste of time.

Our mission is simple: solve the alignment alignment problem, then solve everything else.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Sep 1

Nature FTW

A late August snowfield holds onto the slope in a cirque above Lake Isabelle in the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

Two guys stand in front of a sign that says they are on the Continental Divide at an elevation of 12,250 feet. Also known as Pawnee Pass on the map.

A sign telling you that you are entering the Indian Peaks Wilderness area.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Aug 7

I don’t think they mean my culture.

An image of a guitar and the words “This machine kills fascists” — made famous by Woody Guthrie.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Aug 4

International tourist visits to Colorado have cratered this summer. Big budget holes will follow for counties and towns across the state. And will be worsened by other federal policy/tax changes. coloradosun.com/2025/08/04/c...

Bookings by Canadian travelers are down 58% compared with 2024, bookings from European visitors are down 39% and reservations from the Aussies and Kiwis are down 21%. The number of international tourists visiting Colorado has not returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2019. The Trump administration’s tariff policies and chatter about annexing Canada have irked a growing number of America’s northern and southern neighbors who are eschewing U.S. holidays.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Jul 30

If you want to turn off Google's damn AI email summaries in Gmail go into full settings and shut off all the "smart" features. They're of course bundled w/ things that may actually be useful, like inbox categories. They're forcing intrusive AI on you no matter what you pay. #enshittification

A screenshot of the full setting page in Gmail. Highlighted are "smart features" and "Google Workspace Smart Features" options. This is where you turn AI on and off in Gmail.

Ted Fickes@tedfickes· Jul 23

Just saying.