DOG AT THE OLYMPICS FULL COMPETITION HIGHLIGHTS

most of the critiques of AI I've seen on bluesky are willfully ignorant of the technology and totally unable to identify what are very real risks to well-being vs. what are inflated or minor concerns (e.g. data center water usage). This piece is a strong start to a more serious conversation.

Back on my bullshit (NASA-STD-8739.4A workman ship standards for cable harness lacing)

the thing everyone is going to have to accept is that the post-trump period, whenever it comes, will not and cannot be a project of national unity, it must be a project of partisan project of renewal, in the same way that reconstruction and the new deal were partisan projects of renewal.

So, the March for Life appears to have brought Measles to DC. www.nbcwashington.com/news/health/...

The cuts at the @washingtonpost.com are shameful, damaging to democracy, and bad for the District as a community. If you know this and are mad about it...do something. Subscribe to the @51st.news. We can rebuild a media landscape that actually serves our community. 51st.news/membership/

Besides being a critical role for maintaining basic civic democracy, volunteering at polling places is incredibly satisfying. Registering people to vote for the first time, seeing kids help their parents submit their ballots, slapping "I voted" stickers on dogs' butts, its all rather great.

Finally, aluminum electrolytic capacitors for women.

The 51st is great and anybody who cares about news in DC should subscribe

one of the key motions of protest is that it places the adversary in zugzwang: either they abide the protest, and look weak, or attack the protest, and look cruel

the first step to rekindling our Special Relationship: meet up to simultaneously dump the entirety of DHS and the Home Office into the North Atlantic garbage patch

Me as a radical college student: we should tax capital gains at the same rates as earned income! Me as a sedate middle-aged homeowner: TAKE EVERYTHING OVER $10 MILLION, OR TAKE EVERYTHING OVER THE NECK. THEIR CHOICE

Today, Luke Farrell (@lukef.bsky.social) explains how complex eligibility requirements have turned America’s safety net into a lucrative revenue stream for monopolistic private contractors.

made a new bluesky bot, @metart.bsky.social , that posts random items from the met's collections. mostly written by claude code, borrowing from my other bots and the met's fantastic api (metmuseum.github.io) source here: github.com/jacobbarssba...

i'm loving the new masthead

Heads up: The National Guard will patrol Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park 24/7 "for the foreseeable future," per an email from the superintendent of Rock Creek Park. The request came from U.S. Park Police, which traditionally patrols the park, due to "high levels of incidents."

this country will do anything and everything to avoid using the metric system

Buchla's Touché was a really interesting bridge between 1970s modular synths and early computer music. As Kev says, the demos here are great.

the local DA should indict it. if they cannot serve the warrant because ICE has more men with guns, they should say so.

This is insane not just the explicit "go break the 4A" substance but how they knew how bad it was, acting in guilty paranoia to cover it up and suppress the written evidence. This isn't how running a government agency works. This is what a criminal conspiracy looks like, because that's what it is.

Just saw on KARE 11 that this boy was sent to a detainment facility in Texas and that his family didn't know his whereabouts for almost 24 hours.

Hannah M.G. Shapero with Brandeis University's Buchla 100 in 1970

Oh wow, this is fascinating, welders may be vulnerable because they end up with elevated iron in their system, offering an all-you-can-eat buffet to microbes like anthrax. 🩺 #EpiSky

finally getting some help in the garden 🐀🦅 🌱

good wombat today

Fun game for the new year, with color names from github.com/meodai/color... which is a delightful CSV file (as CSV files go)

acela nextgen seats don’t consistently stay unreclined and it’s annoying as hell to know what these janky trains actually cost otoh the original acela trainsets don’t even consistently move any more so 🤷

being something of a neighbor myself: i recommend it

Cómo llegas a fin de año

A beautiful story of kindness and love for Christmas day. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

It's time! Behold the Christmas hedgehog! From Verdun, Bibl. mun., ms. 0107, f. 008. Our thanks as always to @etreharne.bsky.social who found her.

parang soca is still the best christmas music and its not even close

the tiger bites down with crushing force. suddenly its mouth is flooded with the flavors of arugula and fernet branca. the italian escapes… this time.

🇧🇷Araponga 🌎Procnias nudicollis Conservação: Vulnerável *** Ameaçada de extinção *** 📷 Rudimar Cipriani

A moratorium on new data centers is immediately destructive to the the environment and hurts virtually every other sort of modern computing more than anything 'AI'. There's a ton of necessary work needed to better regulate the creation and application of new AI technology but this? This ain't it.

biked beans

I don't know, Aaron. I think we need to take this seriously. In fact, after surveying hundreds of years of history in the past few days, I've written an article assessing the originalist case here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Again, anti-wokeness is a backlash to integration of white collar work. Only white men are allowed to have prestigious jobs otherwise it's unfair bsky.app/profile/mike...

i am convinced that most people making a strong argument for an ideological presence on twitter simply do not understand what recommenders are or how they work

trying to finish a few eurorack modules this winter. the four channel, equal-power panning stereo mixer (with meter and automation) is coming along nicely.

District court judges are engaged in a bipartisan project of [forgive me] actually calling balls and strikes. Republican circuit judges are largely going full-tilt partisan. Stats as of last month: courtaccountability.substack.com/p/where-law-...

lol

Larry Summers is good at connecting donors and funders to institutions who want money and access. His educational position is a perk he was given for that job – not the other way around – and perks are the *first* thing you lose after being confirmed to be a weird fucking creep.

there’s no rule that says a dog can’t play james bond