• 3 Posts
  • 21 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
cake
Cake day: July 12th, 2023

help-circle

  • Let’s add to the list, almost four years of operatives infiltrating their way into the election certification process. Not to get too tinfoil hatty, but the addiction denial strategy almost worked last time, and while the same team that orchestrated it no longer occupied the White house, state officials open to the scheme likely won’t make the same mistakes this time.

    It’s a different election now with Harris taking the Dem nomination, but 2020 was decided by about 40k votes spread across a few key states. The same polarization that makes polling almost impossible to do accurately also means people’s opinions are equally hard to change. Don’t try. Instead, focus your efforts on mobilizing voters to turn out. Organize and make a plan to get yourself to the polls and to bring a friend. Check vote.gov and make sure you’re still registered and make sure the reasonable people in your life have too! Uncle ivermectin isn’t changing his mind about the trans panic, but there’s going to be a significant portion of the population that just doesn’t have time to vote between working the jobs to stay afloat. Get them a mail in ballot!

    I’ve checked my registration about 25 times this month after learning I had mysteriously dropped from the rolls in a swing state. Don’t let some jackass take your opportunity to vote away. It may be our last change to finally stop hearing about every single stupid thing that comes out of the mouths of the worst people in government. Winning is the only way to fix what’s broken in our system.


  • Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero Zotero

    This post brought to you by the open source Zotero committee.




  • Obligatory crooked timber post:

    https://crookedtimber.org/2018/03/21/liberals-against-progressives/#comment-729288

    “Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protectes but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”

    It’s pretty nakedly just a cult of personality with no other policy platforms that I recognize. For 50 years quality of life for Americans had meaningfully stagnated or declined. It’s brutal paying so much for groceries and gasoline when rent has been commodified. Answering that with mythical “I alone can fix it” is a very attractive and easily understood pitch. A lecture about the nuances of globalization and market efficiency is not. As important as bathroom access and preferred pronouns are, they too are not a sufficient political answer for a minimum wage that hasn’t matched productivity for decades.

    It’s a leadership issue but any sane person would never subject themselves or their families to running for office in a news environment like America’s. That leaves us with a government composed primarily by clinical narcissists and grifters.

    Feels bad.


  • CIS had an interesting chat with John Mearscheimer about Israel that’s unsurprising, but worth the listen. The host commented with a running joke that, "having been strongly supportive of Netanyahu after October 7, Joe Biden is seriously invested in the two-state solution—Michigan and Pennsylvania (@1:17:38)

    Tough sell. Sure it’s obvious who will make the situation measurably worse in nearly every way, but it’s really hard to motivate and mobilize a voting block on harm reduction, when the incumbent elicits strongly emotional revulsion right now.

    Recency bias, negativity bias, etc. are so hard to overcome. It’s like trying to logic your way out of an argument someone has emotion’d themselves into. You may know the answer conceptually, but actually feeling ok about it enough to act isn’t a logic proposition. It’s one of the most emotionally charged decisions we make.

    Not a demographic I’d be counting on showing up in large numbers if I we’re a campaign strategist. Sadly, Trump is retaining well over 90% of his voting coalition from 2020, whereas Biden is only retaining a fraction of his (very diverse) block. Since the election will come down to a very small number of votes, he’s going to need all of his 2020 coalition to show up. 4 years of reality make that a hard bargain for Arab Americans and Republicans who held their noses after Jan 6 and voted blue though. Ugh.

    Link to the video: https://youtu.be/kAfIYtpcBxo

    Piped bot, assemble!









  • Last.fm used to have a Pandora radio aspect to it, but lost the race with YouTube music, Spotify, etc.

    The thing that last.fm had that made them unique is what they call scrobbling. Basically they kept track of what users were listening to and made links between user preferences that you can use to find new music. I mean they used to, and they still do too, but with far far fewer users. Think Spotify’s year in review, but running constantly.

    Honestly, it’s pretty great. I still hop on from time to time, because it’s a great way to find less well known bands. Makes me sad for when it was better used though…


  • It’s science reporting and not immune to headline inflation, but it’s not a lie to say there were measured improvements to patient cognition.

    There’s a developing consensus that electric stimulation has therapeutic potential in restoring brain function (from basal ganglion to transdermal stim). But if you want the full study findings here, I course this article because it looks the DOI address at the bottom.

    Given how few (none) treatments they’re are for TBIs right now, this is pretty exciting stuff to me at least.








  • There really was something about the windows phone UI though. If you weren’t around to try it, it’s hard to properly explain how different and fresh the flat pane interface felt compared to iOS and Android. It really was a phenomenal design language compared to the same old thing in the market.

    I honestly believe it they had just sucked it up and subsidized the cost of doubling the ram on those last Nokia devices, it could have been good enough to break through. Microsoft had everything possible to gain from integrating the desktop-to-mobile workflow for business clients. Then they threw it out the window…

    Seriously, I doubt many people here who aren’t used to corporate environments can fully understand how big the market was, that Microsoft gave up, by not spending enough to fill the BlackBerry hole that formed. They had 98% of the solution already developed, and fumbled the ball with a single yard left to go.

    There was room for three players, if one of them actually serviced the business environment; and nobody was better positioned to do so than Microsoft at the time. Excel and PowerPoint that synced from your work machine, to the field, in a zero trust environment… Gah… they were so close.