Wet prairie along the Fern Ridge multi-use path.

All grift, all the time.

The Apprentice "reality" TV series rebooted, as stupid as ever but with much higher stakes. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/u...

In related news Trump bans all university math departments from researching homomorphisms, especially group homomorphisms because that is particularly disgusting.

This made my day.

With the doggy boys firing NOAA scientists who track hurricanes, maybe they can compensate by issuing sharpies to whoever is left.

"Speaking truth to power." That's what Zelensky did today. Trump and Vance were pathetic bullies, unprepared for for an encounter with someone who would not grovel.

I stuck it out for a while ... but today's announcement of editorial policies was a bridge too far.

Meanwhile in Gaza ... wapo.st/4h1BWXY

Good analysis of data privacy in a guest essay in NYT. (I'm a computer scientist, not a sysadmin nor security professional, but I'm knowledgeable enough to vouch that this article is technically accurate.) www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/o...

I kind of get why duolingo does this, but it's still a silly way to introduce vocabulary.

In a prior life I worked on Cobol systems with two-digit dates. I can't say whether the Social Security database uses 1875 as an "epoch" offset so that a default value of 0 reads as 150 years old, but I've seen lots of software that does similar things. Bump's analysis is good: wapo.st/4gKwnNv

The doge boys (that's pronounced "doggy boys", btw) apparently know as much about data graphics as they do about fiscal management.

To be clear: like Hitler, Tr•mp’s aim is not to govern through existing institutions but to overthrow them and rule by decree. Attaining this goal requires two things: first, to neutralize independent legislative powers and second, to domesticate the civil service at all levels, as far as possible.

If you are involved in disability rights, you probably already know that the attack on DEI is an attack on "DEIA", including accessibility. Ramps, special ed, accessible documents, sign language interpreters ... all that. The Musks of the world don't like such obligations.

Lead prosecutor resigns: “If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion,” Scotten wrote. “But it was never going to be me.”

See here's how to do a headline. fortune.com/2025/02/13/e...

Prepare ahead. Donald Trump will die on a national holiday. No, I don't know the date, but I know we'll make it a national holiday.

I don't have definite information on the extent of Musk's ketamine use, although he has admitted using it. It's impossible to know if ketamine abuse is behind his mental deterioration, but it is certainly plausible.

Trump Names Himself Principal Ballerina of Kennedy Center Ballet open.substack.com/pub/borowitz...

We have been here before #Musk #RedScare #Coup www.politico.com/news/magazin...

FBI Uncovers Al-Qaeda Plot To Just Sit Back And Enjoy Collapse Of United States

An exception to shutting out refugees: Trump orders priority treatment for White South African landowners. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/u...

Note that overhead rates for research grants to industry run higher than grants to universities ... typically over 100% (that is, half or less of the grant amount goes to direct costs). There are ways to lower that burden. This isn't it. wapo.st/3Q9DrIH

Was reading George Orwell on the Spanish civil war last night and this part stuck out.

DOGE is re-hiring the intern who just last summer tweeted "I was racist before it was cool" and "normalize Indian hate". After all, it's not like he said something really offensive like defending diversity, equity, or inclusion.

REI member, and pro-union? Sign the petition to endorse Shemona Moreno for the REI board of directors. www.ourrei.com/shemona-more...

This week's comic now up on @dailykos.com DON'T CALL THEM N@ZIS www.dailykos.com/stories/2025...

“i never thought leopards would use recognition software on MY face," sobs cop who voted for the leopards using recognition software on people's faces party

🔶 This week's Klassic Tom the Dancing Bug - The Paleo Diet is old news. If you're serious about slimming down, Charley the Australopithecine introduces the Plio Diet! (2014) www.gocomics.com/tomthedancin...

Word of the month: autocoup, or self-coup. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup

From Threads:

The view from my home office. Radio is still saying it's just rain, but we're up a bit from the valley floor.

It would make more sense for Trump to offer the U.S. as temporary refuge for Palestinians while Gaza is rebuilt. That's not going to happen, but why should Jordan or Egypt volunteer if the U.S. won't?

From the man whom Rubio chose to be Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Charming, eh?

"But Trump has never wanted to be president, at least not as defined in Article II of the U.S. Constitution. He has always wanted to be king. His plan this time is to first play king on TV. If we believe he is already king, we will be likelier to let him govern as a king."

Facebook says it has suspended my account for failing to comply with "Community Standards." No information about what Community Standards I failed to uphold was given. But pretty much all I've done there is post my comics and links to my comics. The page still seems to be up but I can't log in to it

If you wanted no leaks you should have gone into Settings -> Security -> Configure privacy & security -> Privacy options -> Other -> Configure -> Media interface and clicked “Disallow.” The Leak setting is on by default but we understand your privacy is important so we’ve made it easy to opt out

Bluesky's length limits make it unsuitable for some kinds of posts, but it can still serve as a place to skim short summaries and click through to full posts. I'm looking forward to many such integrations. Paul Lieberman is sharing his implementation of cross-posting from Drupal, a widely used CMI.

Great ideas for building an ICE resistant community, based on a successful program in Trump’s first term. www.teenvogue.com/story/ice-wa...

I appropriated this image from as Facebook post.

Paul Krugman on why he left the Times. contrarian.substack.com/p/departing-...

An actual scientist-entrepreneur is making waves with his breakup with Musk. I can't vouch for what he writes, but NeuroVigil is a real thing on Round B venture capital funding. www.linkedin.com/posts/dr-phi...

Few dangers obsessed the framers of the constitution as much as that posed by power-hungry egomaniacal sociopathic tyrant-demagogues.

Good news and bad news in DeepSeek large language model. Good: Strong indication that the exploding power demands of model training can be contained. Bad: LLMs can have built-in censorship to fit propaganda needs (like elision of Tian-An-Men). www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/t...

I've had many excellent students who were also serious collegiate athletes, but zero from the sports that make money. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/25/b...

WaPo still worthwhile? Milbank today: "In the weeks before he became commander in chief, Trump aimed his fire at the traditional enemies of the United States: Canada, Denmark and Panama. But upon taking the oath of office, he launched verbal hostilities against a new foe: the Kingdom of Spain."

Our World in Data has the best discussion I've seen of scaling trends (power, compute, training set size) in AI. Accessible without deep background in CS or AI, but (as far as I can judge) technically accurate and free of gee-whiz BS. ourworldindata.org/scaling-up-ai