Asking for a friend: what is the best blackboard?

I love these dumb memes. "Show a tall building that isn't the Chrysler building" "Show a famous actor who's not Sean Connery" "Name a theorem but not the law of large numbers" "Show a famous painting but not Guernica" "Say a common English word but not 'of'" "Name a movie that's not Titanic"

One interesting thing is that the movie has this exact scene, with much of the exact dialogue, but the meaning is flattened. In the movie, Saruman is simply evil, so he wants to join with a greater evil. It loses the applicability to the temptation to colaborate with real world evils.

You may have thought they attempted time travel in Avengers: Endgame. No, they are truly attempting time travel with Avengers: Doomsday. Just go back and do exactly the thing that worked before, down to the last detail. Luckily for Marvel, this strategy has never failed in the history of Hollywood.

I saw a skeet the other day. Didn't like it. Wrote a skeet saying so. Didn't feel like I made my point adequately, so I didn't post it, went to bed. Woke up to find other people had articulated my point better than I ever could, and the original skeet had been deleted. I only make good choices

I agree with Bouie about Rogue One (although I don’t even think the final sequence is that good), but I’m happy for the people who love it. The movie they describe sounds great. I wish I could see that one, rather than the one I see when I watch it.

I wonder a lot about what life is like in the parallel universe in which the 2024 presidential election result is unchanged, but 3,656 people changed their votes and the Democrats took back the house.

This is me from ten years ago today. I’ve been wearing the tie every day since, but for some reason no one ever comments on it. I guess it really is the style of the future. Or perhaps the past.

From today’s No Kings march in Phoenix. When the march reached 4th Ave, we turned left despite the posted No Left Turn signs. Hell yes we did, and soon the country will follow.

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone if your profession would understand: Published theorem actually incorrect

I’m glad that many people post here instead of Xitter because they get more engagement here. But, for me personally, a random guy with no public following, I post here rather than Facebook (the other major option for me) even though I know I’d get more engagement *there*, because I think it’s evil

I don’t have kids, and from the outside active shooter drills seem bananas to me. Many liberals say “well this is just the consequence of living with so many guns.” And like I agree let’s get rid of the guns but in the meantime can we stop traumatizing the kids.

We're all the way up to iOS 26 now, and it still does this.

With each passing year, the cast of Sneakers becomes even more astonishing. David Strathairn is the least prominent actor on the poster! Ben Kingsley, Timothy Busfield, Stephen Tobolowsky, and James Earl Jones are in this movie and not even advertised. And they're all good in it. This movie rocks

You should watch this video. Not just for personal reasons, but also for personal reasons. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiWF...

Wait, this year we're getting re-releases for the 50th anniversary of Jaws, the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future, and the 30th anniversary of Apollo 13? What about the 20th anniversary of the 40 Year-old Virgin? The 10th anniversary of Jupiter Ascending?

I don’t know why, but this can be really hard. There’s someone I’ve been following on the internet for decades, who I really admire, but who has a take on a 35 year old movie that I strongly disagree with. I have imaginary arguments with them about this all the time. Why on earth do I care so much?

“speculation on how the technology might develop in the coming years can easily distract us from solving issues we are facing now” might be the best, most concise advice about AI in the present moment that I’ve ever read.

In this age of AI, it's important to maintain discipline and readiness. That's why this poster is so useful. I suggest printing it out and displaying it prominently anywhere that anyone might interact with rogue AI.

We really need movies directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Tony Kushner, and starring Daniel Day-Lewis about the passage of every constitutional amendment, not just the 13th. Implausible, you say? I say our democracy depends on it. We need to believe that we can change our country for the better

I finally got around to doing this. This is really hard; on any given day I'd probably produce a different list in a different order. Despite what some people sometimes say, cinema ain't dead.

The only flaw in the satire of Glass Onion is that Miles Bron is too smart.

Joni Ernst saying "we are all going to die" is an example of what I call the Crispin's Day Fallacy. A thread. 1/7

Sometimes, when the news is bad, I just read Wikipedia articles about obscure mathematical concepts that I only kind of understand. That’s not weird, is it?

I have my BlueSky app set to send links to the external browser. I cannot overstate how great this is. I hate in-app browsers. They force you to read the entire article right now or else it will be lost forever to the sands of time. External browser takes all the pressure off.

One of the great public services provided by Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” is that we can now all hear Thaddeus Stevens’ speeches in Tommy Lee Jones’ voice.

One of my favorite parts of grading exams is to do the Day Earth Stood Still thing of "this thing you crossed out is the answer."

The only dull performance he ever gave was as Batman.

I think about the alt-text on this xkcd all the time: “Both arXiv and archive.org are invaluable projects which, if they didn't exist, we would dismiss as obviously ridiculous and unworkable.” And the only other remaining good website, Wikipedia, is the same way.

Why so negative, bathroom?

I generally like CGP Grey, and I also think the penny is dumb, but he has a blind spot for actually existing politics. “If it stands, it could become the precedent for future presidents for eliminating far more than just coins.” Gee, hard to imagine that.

I remember being optimistic about tech companies. I remember thinking that them having power would be better than legacy corporations. When I remember these thoughts, it's like watching a character in a horror movie run up the stairs. "How can you be so stupid to think that's a good idea?"

Oliver North I was a kid when he testified about Iran-Contra. I was way too young to understand the politics, but I remember my parents watching it. I was excited that someone with my first name was in the spotlight.

There is quite a breeze blowing right now. Quite a breeze indeed.

In recent years the MIT mystery hunt has had too many puzzles that are too hard. Except for this year! This year my team will complete the hunt comfortably far from the winners.

Naturally, on the day of my first class of the semester, my thoughts are consumed with "can I think of more jokes?" rather than, say, "will any of this make any sense?"

I gotta say I think I'm going to stand by this skeet from... checks notes... three weeks ago.

I should really stop watching Coco on airplanes. At some point I’m weeping and spluttering so much that it’s kind of rude.

Before my wife and I lived together, we each had our own measuring spoons. Now we've blended our stuff, we so have the "good" set and the "bad" set. I remembered that the "bad" set was the one I'd had. Turns out my wife thinks it was hers! I guess we just have exactly the same anxieties.

I have two of these and I use one of them almost every day (I'm typing this on one right now). I wonder if I'm the only one left.

I used to regard Aaron Sorkin's disdain for the internet and social media in particular as the worst part about The Social Network. But I have to confess that he was probably right. Now I think the worst part is that Sorkin has a modicum of respect for Mark Zuckerburg, whereas I have none.

I love this deeply and also we need to come up with a list of Hanukkah movies. Here are some I can think of: The Two Towers Home Alone Skyfall (third act) 300 Zulu

For me, BlueSky has now entered the “Write drafts in my notes app but never post them” phase of my use of a social media platform.

At my university, any time an employee leaves, I get an email saying "An employee has been terminated" with no additional details. Every time, for a moment I think that one of my students has been murdered by the T-1000.

This skeet peers deep into my soul and expresses exactly who I am like nothing else ever created by humans.

My building's staircases have doors that open to each floor. Sometimes I'm walking up the stairs, and someone ahead of me holds a door open, thinking I'll exit there, but actually I'm continuing to a higher floor. My brain always short-circuits and I have no idea how to communicate what's going on.

Now that I’ve seen both Wicked and Gladiator II, I think the Barbenheimer analogy is apt but imperfect. These movies just aren't as good as Barbie/Oppenheimer. They do have a lot in common with each other: big studio movies trying to be crowd pleasers, a little too beholden to their source material.

@michaelhobbes.bsky.social, this is too close to home: "As I’ve gotten older, I used to have like 2 hours a day of extraversion in me, and now I’m down to like one interaction with a Trader Joe’s cashier."

I don't use Twitter/X any more, but I keep the app on my phone. The only reason is so I can meticulously avoid updating it so it keeps the old bird logo.

I'm really trying to give myself a break by accepting that I will just be less productive in the next 48 hours. My only hope is that I can be more productive after that.