Mark Madsen

@markmadsen.bsky.social

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Decision support, design, architecture, augmenting human analysis, organizational systems, cybernetics and sociotechnical systems, complexity, GOFAI, urban planning, botany, art, dada
"we have to be optimistic because the grift dies if we’re not"

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"Host bodies must be quiet and do only as the men folk dictate." "Florida Republican called pregnant women 'host bodies' five times while discussing anti-abortion bill" www.cltampa.com/news/florida...

Florida Republican called pregnant women 'host bodies' fives times while discussing anti-abortion bill | Creative Loafing Tampa Baywww.cltampa.com It wasn't a simple slip of the tongue, either.

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Mark Madsen

Reply to

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò

I assume most people know about the heckler's veto. what I worry about these days is closer to a "heckler's agenda" - where the most intransigent criticisms and critics end up deciding where everyone's focus goes (even when they don't decide people's opinions) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler...

Heckler's veto - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Great title for an article

The evolution of the GOP into a party obsessed with apocalyptic and implicitly antisemitic conspiracy theories about "Christ-hating Communist globalist elites" has been gradual and a long time coming, but it's also accelerated recently. sethcotlar.substack.com/p/the-trilat...

The Trilateral Shitpost Fire that was the 1980 GOP convention, part 1sethcotlar.substack.com On the long history of thinly veiled antisemitic conspiracy theories on the GOP's right edge

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Mark Madsen

Reply to

Seth Cotlar

Parties matter because they don't just express what their members believe, parties *shape* the people who identify with them. No one is born with a desire to emit bloodthirsty cheers in support of building a police state capable of deporting 50% of the nation's agricultural workforce. That's learned

🤗

I just saw some on a walk in the woods. It’s like kudzu, except it survives the cold winters. Horrible plant.

A skipper, I don’t know the species. He’s just hanging out because it’s 900 degrees today. Or maybe it’s because he’s old, which you can tell based on wings being all worn out and possible a bird got a piece of them too. 🌿

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Mark Madsen

A lesson from an old boxer, AND a guy whose been in politics, AND an attorney: If you think you're gonna lose, you're probably right. A lot of good can happen if you take a breath, put your mouthguard in, and fight.

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Mark Madsen

My latest research document on Project 2025. Roughly 3/4 of the authors and editors are former Trump administration officials, staffers or advisors while over 1/2 of the contributors also formerly worked for Trump. open.substack.com/pub/decoding...

Project 2025 - List of Authors, Editors and Contributorsopen.substack.com Emphasis on former Trump administration officials, staff members and advisors

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Mark Madsen

I work at Rockin' Stickers! We're a small business in the PNW and our stickers and our little crew are amazing (I print my own stickers in-house, too)! I love us so much, please consider ordering your stickers from Rockin' Stickers! 💛

Sticker Mule is Tr*mp trash. Use StickerApp or Sticker Robot or Zug Monster or literally anything else

Most problems are systemic. The structure of systems causes feedback loops that amplify. Usually the corrective actions are not systemic. Therein lies the problem

The problem with conspiracy theories is not that people have them or even that they can post them. The problem is an infosphere that systematically amplifies and sucks people into them, coupled with weakened trust in fact-based media and institutions, eroding a shared understanding of the truth.

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Mark Madsen

Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell was born #OTD in 1943. As a Cambridge grad student in 1967, she discovered an entirely new type of celestial object: Pulsars! In 1974 the Nobel was given to her advisor; she was left off. 🧪 👩‍🔬 🔭 Photo: National Science & Media Museum

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Mark Madsen

There is never any shame in using the library, and much benefit in doing so. They are the closest thing to an unmitigated social good that we have in these United States, which is why the hard right is gunning so fervently for them these days. A world without libraries and librarians is a poor one.

My book-buying budget is not what it once was, which is precisely why I’m using the library more. It also gives me the opportunity to read books that I’m not sure I want to add to the home library (not that there’s a lot of room to do that anyway).

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Mark Madsen

This is why you need a union, folks. $3 million in forced work. deadline.com/2024/07/cbs-...

CBS & WGA West Settle Arbitration Claim Over Work Done After Writers Room Shut-Downsdeadline.com The WGA told members Wednesday that it has settled a claim with CBS regarding work done by its members after writers rooms were closed on a trio of series.

I lived in an area with a long running pirate radio station. I hope to learn how to be a pirate too

our pamphlet "Build Your Own Mini FM Transmitter" is ready to go to the printer--last call to add yourself to our shipping list. spiral binding! no license needed! no experience needed! donations welcome but not necessary! forms.gle/9cRzgP2uzwX5... let 1000 transmitters keep blooming #othernetworks

I want a radio transmitter booklet!forms.gle Add your name and email to the list, and we'll contact you for your shipping address once our booklets are ready to ship! If you'd like to contribute to printing/shipping costs, please make a donation...

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Mark Madsen

Me: Maybe I'll just pop over to a news site and check the headlines. The headlines:

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Mark Madsen

One thing I learned as a counterterrorism analyst and researcher is that when an extremist tells you what they want to do, believe them. Even if they are on the Supreme Court. So why is the media continually “surprised”? Past time to proceed with that assumption.

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Mark Madsen

The Constitutional Crisis is already here. You are living inside it. No way back, for better or worse. Either fight to win the future or concede to fascist tyranny taking over our country, the world's largest economy and mightiest military.

Reply to

Erin Sherman

I don’t believe any plant with invasive tendencies should be sold, “sterile” or not. The totally safe sterile nothing to see here GMO poplar trees escaped containment from timber company research plots because they planted them in the field

Reply to

Erin Sherman

This one ai know. Replaced fertile bushes in southern oregon years ago because they’re obnoxious. I watched butterfly bush spread in europe along rail lines from 1995-2015. Every year they were further along and denser. In PDX I’m fighting invasive clematis which I now spot in wilderness watersheds

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Mark Madsen

Judge Cannon: Storing classified docs in your club's bathroom is very legal and very cool.

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Mark Madsen

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Gambino crime family boss Francesco Cali, there was all kinds of speculation about the rise of a new mob war and different factions trying to undermine other factions, and it then it turned out the shooter was just a crazy QAnon kook.

Looking at headlines today about how the "shooter's ideology remains unknown." It's strange that we assume assassination attempts are always ideology-driven. Is this because we need to explain something we ourselves can't conceive ever doing? Or do we want to blame a whole movement by association?

Contributing to the cause

Good morning! ✌️☕️

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Mark Madsen

Steal my slide! 😂

Sloppy data + Fancy tech = Sloppy, fancy data (I suspect that this slide from Simon’s talk could easily find a home in many other computer history & #histSTM case studies…) #SHOT2024

Where can I read more on the work you did for this presentation? I find the mention of data quality problems stemming from pick lists, etc interesting

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Mark Madsen

The fourth largest city in America is still in crisis under a deadly heatwave & the power company can't get hundreds of thousands of households back online, but you'd barely know it from our national news.

850K CenterPoint customers remain without power after Hurricane Berylwww.houstonchronicle.com More than 850,000 CenterPoint customers were without power four days after Hurricane Beryl hit the Texas coast.

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Mark Madsen

According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies—an eminently respectable, bipartisan think tank—right-wing political violence accounted for more than 90 percent of all attacks or plots in the first half of 2020, far outpacing terrorism from any other source since 1990.

We’re in an epidemic of right-wing terror. Won’t someone tell the press?www.motherjones.com More than a decade of media malpractice enabled January 6. Has the media learned its lesson?

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Mark Madsen

There is no situation where leftists won’t respond with dread, and it’s miserable. History is made by seizing opportunities and it’s impossible to do so if you assume everything that happens is going to be terrible

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Mark Madsen

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Mark Madsen

They banned the book not because it contains any obscene content, but because it espouses a negative view of book bans.

Book about book bans banned by Florida school boardwww.theguardian.com Ban This Book by Alan Gratz banned in Indian River county after opposition from parents linked to Moms for Liberty