Weekend Editor

Weekend Editor

@weekend-editor.bsky.social

363

Posts

Retired physicist, after a career in machine learning & stats mostly for cancer drug discovery. Now blogging about stats in the news: https://www.someweekendreading.blog/

Posts Replies Media

Important to keep the vision. Even more important to *build* and *defend* the vision.

There's a world on the other side of this with a huge, vibrant, unionized and high-paying industrial base remaking the physical world for the post-fossil fuel age. It's already starting and I think even Trump can't *fully* destroy it, but he can slow it down and make us lag wayyy behind.

Today's blog post: The 4th of July, hydrangeas, Tennyson, pre-Raphaelites, JB Cabell, steak sous vide, puff pastry, Boston Pops, fireworks, Congreve rockets, Swiss Soderbundkrieg, Frederick Douglass, and Isaiah. www.someweekendreading.blog/2024-jul-04/

2024-July-04www.someweekendreading.blog So… the 4th of July, here in the US?

Reposted by

Best done in combination with the Wyoming Rule, so proportion is more closely guaranteed to be proportional to population, not territory. (The Senate is also wildly un-democratic, but less tractable to being repaired.) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyoming...

Watching the British election returns I feel compelled to point out that the 650 person House of Commons represents 67 million people and the 435 person House of Representatives in the United States represents 333 million. Replace the Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929. We deserve representation.

Reposted by

I just noticed that the UK election was on Independence Day and the US election is on Guy Fawkes Day.

Reposted by

Reposted by

Here’s a scenario, adopting, again, the current court’s methods. (Which are outrageous, but hey, geese, ganders). Thomas and Alito get on Thurston Howell’s private jet which disappears over the Pacific. The Dem Senate quickly confirms Justices Elie Mystal and Elizabeth Warren.

Reposted by

"Lawsuits are slow, they are complicated, they are often decided on arbitrary technicalities or total nonsense, and being so costly they are hideously biased toward the rich and well-connected." prospect.org/justice/amer...

American Government-by-Lawsuit Is a Disasterprospect.org Judicial review is not just anti-democratic, it strangles ordinary governance.

Today's blog post: some acerbic comments on AI LLMs, and their (lack of) usefulness. Citing Tim Cook, XKCD, Damien Williams, JenniferPlusPlus, CoreyBrickley, Charlie Stross, and several more sober journal articles. www.someweekendreading.blog/llm-ai-still...

AI Large Lanuage Models: Still a BS Firehosewww.someweekendreading.blog Somebody asked me, in the course of a family video call, what I thought about the latest AI Large Language Models (LLMs) and how they’re being used for everything. Have they improved from their previo...

Reposted by

these people do not intend to ever lose power again

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" www.mediamatters.org/project-2025...

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court immunity decision: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution"www.mediamatters.org

Reposted by

It's important to note that Trump tried to order this at least twice we know of during his regime.

right. the president could order troops to suppress protesters using live fire and the supreme court would extend that absolute immunity

Reposted by

If anyone wants to understand why Mexico has such problems with corruption, it's LITERALLY because their Constitution actually PROHIBITS prosecuting presidents, sitting or retired. That has meant Mexican presidents can and thus generally do whatever they want, legal or not.

Reposted by

"With fear for our democracy, I dissent," is about as bedrock and terrifying and vital a statement as you're going to get. That's a line you spraypaint on walls, that you ink into your skin. And it's chilling that it is necessary to say at all.

Justice Sotomayor, in conclusion.

Reposted by

A country where a minority of voters can elect a president with king-like authority and impunity and federal agencies that lack the power to do any of the things they are meant to do if big rich companies say they don't like it. Culmination shit for the right wing project.

Reposted by

Homeless people can be arrested for sleeping, Presidents cannot be arrested for rampant graft and corruption done while in office. There is no clearer a summary of "conservative 'law and order'" than this.

Reposted by

One for the syntax folk 🐦🐦

Reposted by

A few years ago, Jon Lovett floated a theory that media treats Democrats like protagonists - to be challenged, accounted, and forced to be behave in growth-oriented ways - while the GOP are treated like antagonists - immutable, expected to disrupt, thematic obstacles. Thinking about that a lot.

I don’t recall the NYT calling for Trump to step down after being convicted of 34 counts of fraud and being called by a judge at his civil trial a rapist in the common person sense

So, @funranium.bsky.social, does it really take 3 times?

the third time it happens, you make a sign

Today's blog post: There was a presidential debate last night. I didn't watch; nothing would change my mind ("Ceterum censeo, Trump incarcerandam esse"). Instead, I took a long, hot bath and went to bed early. www.someweekendreading.blog/biden-trump-...

The Biden/Trump Debatewww.someweekendreading.blog So, Biden/Trump debate, eh?

Reposted by

I mean, after Trump reinstates Schedule F, the executive agencies really *won't* have any special expertise to draw on, so the Roberts court is just planning ahead.

Reposted by

Jailing people for being homeless is a classic American policy: stupid, brutal, and very expensive.

Reposted by

Every morning I check the news and it's like -SCOTUS Eliminates Three More Basic Rights, Only Six Remain -President Mispronounces a Word, Will Now Lose Election to Senile Hitler -New AI Company Uses Artist Blood to Let Billionaires and Racists Live Forever, Gets $45 Billion Valuation

Reposted by

Okay so to be clear we are destroying power grids, the livelihoods of actual humans beings, and communication/research infrastructure for the sake of an algorithm that converts stolen data into unreliable stolen data and consistently loses millions of dollars. Just to be clear

Reposted by

There is no fucking way I am watching the debate tonight. I've known who I am voting for since 2020, and I'm certainly not going to subject myself to 90 minutes (or whatever) of watching a bilious orange turd fulminate incoherent fascism. If something truly memorable happens, I imagine I'll be told.

Part of me thinks I have a civic duty to endure the debate tonight, but the rational part of me knows better. I know where my vote is going and nothing will change that. Do I need to be armed with personal experience of the debates to play amateur pundit on the internet afterwards? Hell no.

Reposted by

Anyway I now have to finish writing this and read it this weekend, newsletter probably Monday, episodes Wednesday and Friday. The parasitic, nihilistic financial poison killing the tech industry and large parts of other businesses - The Shareholder Supremacy

Every time I make a connection like this I love it but I also feel like I'm in Hell. All of these poisonous business worms crawl in the dirt together

Reposted by

The media isn't interested in the biggest technology story of the 2020s, the rapid transition to clean energy, because 1) it will destroy a bunch of oil based wealth and is a boring, competirive low margin business 2) it makes Democrats look good for helping it and they want Republicans to win

THERE’S A QUIET NEW DEAL GOING ON The antidote to Project 2025 is happening now and will die if Trump seizes power. So let’s make some noise.

Why is The Quiet New Deal so quiet? | the earlyworm societywww.patreon.com Get more from the earlyworm society on Patreon

Reposted by

…and then mentions one of those failures: controlling immigration. Because while democracy means all people are created equals, it turns out when we said “people” we didn’t mean *them.*

Reposted by

New from 404 Media: the ID verification service for TikTok, Uber, X, and many more tech companies exposed real peoples' driver licenses. As we move towards an internet forcing us to verify our identities, shows these companies will absolutely be targeted www.404media.co/id-verificat...

Reposted by

Do you know any ten-year-olds? Go look at them. They were born before gay Americans could have their marriages federally recognized. Today is the 9th anniversary of Obergefell. It is that new, it is that fragile, and if the Democrats lose power, it could go away in a blink. Please vote accordingly.