Some level of inequality is expected and aspirational in a market-based economy. Everything from skills, luck and grit can create inequality. Extreme inequality is not and can dampen growth and leave large swaths of the population desperate rather than aspiring.

Sci-fi short story premise: A new drug operates as a cognitive enhancer. Soon an underground lab alternative starts circulating. People call it Aha. The problem is, Aha only gives the user the sensation of being smarter.

After vaccinating mice with these particles, researchers found that the vaccine accumulated in the lymph nodes- structures where B-cells encounter antigens and undergo rapid mutations that generate antibodies with high affinity for a particular antigen. This process takes place within clusters of

*six months earlier* Can he not turn his imperialistic impulse toward Greenland? *monkey paw curls*

Life satisfaction mostly declines with age. Previous findings (esp. the famous U-shaped age-SWB trajectory) were artifacts of misspecified models. doi.org/10.1093/esr/...

NEW: Most college graduates remain in-state after they complete -- even more among community college graduates -- and tend to move to higher-cost (and typically higher-wage) areas, particularly for grads of highly selective schools. www.american.edu/spa/peer/ear...

I don’t need to go back to the so-called good ol’ days I need people to actually make real products and services that work and aren’t just poorly disguised regulatory arbitrage

I've always been a bit puzzled by terms like "cancel culture" or "virtue signaling" - they seem like efforts to stigmatize the things any community does to maintain the line between what's acceptable and what's not.

If the moon is cheese, nucleosomes are macarons.

I am so glad that “all-or-nothing” versus “leaky“ exists as a distinction between working all of the time for some people or working some of the time for all people.

this is good drafts.interfluidity.com/2025/09/25/a...

When regulation extends beyond capacity or will for enforcement, society exerts a selective pressure that draws innovation from the least conscientious and most Machiavellian individuals.

Your startup should require one miracle.

CHOTINER: You enjoy a late night snack. ME: *chuckles* guilty as charged CHOTINER: You mentioned previously that plums are a favourite. ME: Oh. This. CHOTINER: Straight out of the icebox. ME: I can assure you that I was not aware that they were for breakfast. CHOTINER: okay, but this note...

What kind of animal would do this? Did a squirrel pick an apple from the apple tree and store it in the bamboo 100 feet away?

Ever stared at a table of regression coefficients & wondered what you're doing with your life? Very excited to share this gentle introduction to another way of making sense of statistical models (w @vincentab.bsky.social) Preprint: doi.org/10.31234/osf... Website: j-rohrer.github.io/marginal-psy...

Geordi Meme: Making it better somehow / arguing about how.

It’s interesting how electrifying and cloudifying your whole daily living and working environment is great until a power out. Clearly the next step is the great batterizing.

Yea.... Well.... Yea and those are terrible outcomes

Of course this was going to send me straight to Wikipedia, and I was not disappointed at all. What a legend.

Every once in a while you get a reminder you live in a seismic zone.

Eventually people returning online purchases will lead online retailers to devise a solution that allows customers to see, touch, and even try out items before they purchase them.

Tetragrammaton is a four-letter word.

Yesterday, I set the audiobook to 65% speed to transcribe this quotation. Today, I resumed listening, and by the time I noticed it was slowed down, I realized how much I was enjoying the dense and beautiful prose at that speed.

logging on

So in the model you have hawks, and you have doves, and you have … whatever this is (laudatory).

Legiterally a great portmanteau.

“But these were the final weapon, the absolute product of a technology dedicated to exploitation of its environment and violent solution to of political problems. They hate life. That is the way they were built.” M. John Harrison setting the stakes in The Pastel City.

After WWII, the U.S. had three major TV news stations. People shared one fact base, even if interpretations diverged. It was a narrow but overlapping informational world.

An interesting question is “Who is the successor to Gene Wolfe?”

When people say “hard” fiction they are referring to internal consistency. If the author combines rigorous world-building with “show don’t tell” then the reader gets to go on an abductive (and autocorrect nails it when it suggests addictive) journey.

On the science fiction side, I have read several books by Peter F. Hamilton, Iain M. Banks, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Yoon Ha Lee, and Pierce Brown. Of course I enjoyed Dune and the first couple sequels.

Recently I asked ChatGPT who is J.R.R. Tolkien's successor. It mentioned Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, N.K. Jemisin, Gene Wolfe, Guy Gavriel Kay, Patrick Rothfuss, Robert Jordan, China Miéville, and Stephen R. Donaldson. I was familiar with some but not all of these authors.

I wanted to get a video of this ghost crab but every time I got close to their hole they scuttled back in, so I tried getting clever with it. I made a little sandcastle and shoved my phone into it, hit record, and walked away. Crab was VERY suspicious of this addition to their environment.

I think you’re making stuff up You’re right to be skeptical. I apologize, and I won’t do it again. Only the verifiable truth from here. [More bullshit.]

Thinking longer for a better answer has gotten me in trouble many times.

Really enjoyed catching up with my brother earlier. He mentioned he had been contemplating nesting successive regular polygons. That throwaway comment grabbed ahold of my imagination and…

Leonardo Da Vinci got a lot of things wrong, but he had really interesting ideas. This anatomical drawing showing the humonculus responsible for the Vitruvian man’s fertility is one such example of his brilliant mind and eye for detail at work.

Some wanker is hogging the deadlift platform, so my breasts are getting smashed like I am about to bread them and fry them.

When you SB79.

The phrase stochastic violence comes to mind lately. Escalating tensions to get a few more donations to mobilize the base to distract from a scandal is reckless and corrosive to our national project. It should be condemned — assertively but with finesse for the obvious reason.

I support SB79. I want to see more housing in coastal California. Housing near jobs is good for the environment, good for the economy, and good for families. I also live within 1/4 mile of a BART stop and — wow — seven stories is a lot of height.

logging on

NEW: Studies blame “risk aversion” for the racial wealth gap—but risk is interpreted through unequal conditions, not personal failings. @zraresearch.bsky.social explores why systemic inequality, not financial education, drives disparities. rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

This one feels personal

ChatGPT as Omni-Shazam is underrated

art imitates life. life imitates The Hunger Games

Imagine seeing the name Diogenes the Cynic and thinking Oh yeah the guy who masturbated in public to show his contempt for his fellow man. His school of thought has lived on with many disciples keeping the art alive in the Bay Area.

You know that antibiotic use can exert pressure on bacterial populations to evolve resistance. So are vaccines exerting similar pressure on viruses? Let's talk about how vaccines MIGHT make viruses evolve to be LESS harmful over time. Warning: I'm speaking broadly here & biology loves exceptions.

Four pages into Perdido Street Station and a failed academic has already had sex with a bug lady. Thank you for your attention to this matter.