They are bad on free speech though.
Interests: Neuroscience, programming, teaching, political theory Originally Texan, also in love with Pittsburgh. Currently in NYC. Liberal Technocrat, opposed to a lot of Progressivism. https://unfocused.substack.com
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They are bad on free speech though.
Damaged, under threat, sure. What we should want is to ensure and reaffirm pluralistic, free speech friendly norms, not to engage in abuses ourselves.
Fiona Apple is a musician that, at least until she got too weird in her activism, was adept in both lyrics and music.
If that song is representative of her works, I don't think I could like her as a musician, but possibly as a poet.
In an Uber, heard a Taylor Swift song for the first time, called Invisible String. Not musically remarkable or even catchy, but the lyrics are put together adeptly.
I think Trump is a deep outlier
This proposal would make things far worse along that metric.
I've had the luxury of working at some places that offered stock grants or options; was a nice plus. They did it voluntarily as part of the total comp negotiation.
Would still need to think them through, particularly with regards to whether companies would structure employment vs contracting differently or otherwise be able to diminish or avoid intended effects, as well as how to navigate questions of internationals, company size vs EMP count, and so on
I would be more open to some of these ideas.
I'm not sure being on Bluesky is the same thing as participating in whatever is being called Blueskyism.
Ridiculous that Giuliani is to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but really any award, pardon, criticism, or praise given by this admin should be considered likely entirely incorrect.
Private corporate power should be kept very distant from state power as a broad principle of governance.
It is a terrible idea; it entangles government interests in companies, making regulation difficult, markets one where the state picks a winner, and encourages propping up things that may fail. Trump and Bernie are both deeply wrong on this topic.
"Let's eliminate free speech because we're worried about someone else eliminating free speech" is a pretty cursed line of reasoning. My answer to that is no; anyone opposed to free speech is part of the problem.
Our traditions, laws, and judicial history on free speech are solid guidelines for navigating most of this from a legal perspective. We permit hate speech. With few exceptions we tolerate all kinds of speech even for hateful groups and groups that would end free speech. This tolerance is good.
That shouldn't come to resemble looking for excuses to avoid decent principles of political pluralism.
It's actually terrible; laws should generally apply equally regardless of expressed perspectives; basic principle of free speech.
In the closing hours of DragonCon 2025; had a generally good time, but now pretty eager to be back home, sleeping in my own bed, having access to restaurants I like, and getting back to work. Good to back with it occasionally, but the comforts of regular life are many
New rule for geek bands: no band may play either the imperial March or the intro from Star Wars more than once in a 24 hour period.
Imagine actually believing this nonsense.
They couldn't even wait until after the firefighting?!
It's hard to build coalitions and capture the mainstream when the weirdest people keep turning people off with really bad social or policy ideas.
Character limits on posts on many platforms are a great, if not explicit, push towards"Elements of Style".
I offer a (tepid) defense for this; protest is worth extra deference in policy and treatment, beyond other, non-poltitically expressive "I am uncomfortable with my government" activity. That said, I'm not entirely comfortable with this argument; opposing this very idea turns anything into protest.
Yes. They still occasionally see use in medicine, in much more narrow circumstances than they once did. Not everything old is pseudoscience; things that work can be retained until better means are found.
They don't work. There are a lot of things never demonstrate to be of benefit that ignorant people use. Placebos.
It is important to have room for the nuance of celebrating some aspects of something while refusing to celebrate other aspects.
seek an unconstitutional third term, and use of the military in US cities with no emergency demanding it. I refuse to celebrate death or violence themselves, just as I did not celebrate the death of Qaddafi. But I did celebrate Qaddafi no longer being in his country's politics
Regarding Trump's hand bruise and any other health issues he may have in the future, unlike any president we've had in my lifetime, I would be pleased to see Trump out of power, through any means possible, because of his threats to invade other nations,
Wondering what the best way to build and maintain neck muscle strength is as we age.
You sound nice
So far the three tracks I've been to the most have been space, science, and EFF (legal policy track).
Didn't expect to meet someone at dragoncon who likely will end up using a piece of scientific software I maintain at work. Kinda fun.
I rather love that this guy saw an idiom he's not familiar with and decided it's a sign that I don't speak English well.
You may not be familiar with the idiom of "millstone around the neck". Go look it up. I use that phrase not because my English is poor, but because I read a lot.
In this case I'm talking about the modern cultural neoprogressive movement that entered prominence around 2010; often but not only tied to the DSA, pushing validation rather than tolerance, pushing radical politics.
Nationwide at every level of politics, progressives are the millstone around the neck of the left.
It's important to keep fringe progressives from sinking the Democratic party.
I recently wondered about Google releasing new generations of phones; Valve has the exact opposite problem with the Steam Deck; a gaming system can and should have a reasonably frequent release cycle to stay relevant.
It would be good to start drawing up plans to divide Russia and manage its transition from fascism.
Trump is responsible both for his own substantial contribution to this and for how poorly he vets anyone who would work for him.
Ideally, they'll prepare to defend Ukraine from Russian aggression, prepare to defend Greenland from US aggression, and perhaps prepare to defend Taiwan from Chinese aggression.
My general strategy is that before a day starts I've whittled down all the options for every timeslot in that day to 1-3 good options and I'll pick between them at the time. Sometimes a room is full, sometimes I'll just feel more like this or that. I want the menu small enough to think about though.
My first real decision will be whether to see an EFF-track panel on tort reform in Georgia, or a panel on the Wizard of Oz 125 years after publication. Leaning towards the former (the latter has a weird activist as a panelist, although it's still tempting despite that).
At DragonCon, this is the first (and partial) day of the scifi-fantasy-other convention. Happy to see a bit of Clair Obscur here, actually now wishing I had dressed up as Verso or Renoir. Saw a really kickass Monoco outfit. As usual, it's hard to pick between all the options on what to go to.
Not interested in her at all, but what the heck is this take?!
I've seen it before; it was propaganda for manifest destiny I think. Middle school history. I wouldn't assume everyone knows it though; I barely remember it and in my brain it's filed with all the other national propaganda I've ever seen.
The whole trump tower meeting and all the details about it need to go on repeat every time people try to pretend Trump didn't have inappropriate ties to Russia.
Inflicting harm. Not violence.
There is never a license to just make shit up.
So now you're onto the make things up about the secret motivations of others stage.
Washington Union Station is not in a state of disrepair. I was there about two weeks ago and it was fine. Either that or I was strikingly unobservant. apnews.com/article/trum...
I've eaten at Cracker Barrel many times in my life. Food there is decent, never great. I didn't like the new logo, found it bland and soulless. Most of the time I find rebranding efforts by companies make things worse. Still, I don't care that much. Weird for POTUS to get involved
It's a little weird both knowing that continuity of memory is a big part of identity and not being able to remember what company one worked at with a former co-worker. 15 years is surprisingly effective at making memories fade.
That song is fire
An intent for a raw show of force without an actual concrete mission lands then in this ridiculous place.
I've sympathy with the family for their loss, but the cause was him, not a chatbot. If words can convince someone to do this, that's on them. Liability gets in the way of making truly open source guardrails removed genML.
There is, but it is also true that the older center-left messaging is better than the recent neoprogressive one.
"Someone panders to me occasionally for PR reasons I feel so powerful"
Stylishly making the point the person is talking absolute fantasy
The red clenched first is very old communist iconography. That's what I was talking about. Good you're protesting though; important we express dissent.
Saw this was added recently near the sometimes smelly trash bins for my apartment building; brilliant solution to that. Assuming it doesn't get stolen.
Not keen on the idea of businesses having rights, but the idea that we're entering an era when countries demand significant stakes in companies operating within their borders is chilling. It's bad for business, bad for trade, and bad for the countries.
I wasn't a fan of abolishing ICE before, but given what has been done with it it probably will need to be entirely disbanded with its role handed off to another agency. And so on...
I think we will need to push for more limits on the power of the presidency. If we can get constitutional amendments passed to abolish the person, limit gerrymandering, bar both private and foreign prisons as destinations for those arrested here, as well as a bunch of regular legal changes...
The ideal is to recreate society very close to what it was, not to play with ideas of a worker's paradise and communist imagery/slogans.
People need to have reasonable expectations of what is possible and how fast. That old normalcy was actually pretty great by most metrics, including its slow and steady self improvement.
Some parts of the interiour are architecturally interesting; pity it'd feel quite wrong to turn it into a mall or anything that doesn't recognise/highlight its past role as a prison.
Tired of losing elections for a cause that never was worthwhile even if it were free. Tolerance is where things should land. Not validation, not recognition, simply and only on tolerance. Like with scientologists and furries.
Really depends on whether the courts ignore precedent again or not.
"The revolution" is not what we're going to unite around. Restoring normalcy is. Stick that communist imagery back in your basement.
Seems plausible, although there tend to be (very modest) spec improvements every year. That's not inconsistent with efforts to reduce component cost though. This upgrade cycle slightly reduces battery capacity, although given continual efforts to reduce draw it's hard to compare effective change.
It's possible that differences in state laws may be at play.
Good to see companies pushing back on dumb laws like this rather than routinely bending to them.
Wishing reboots would stop happening.
He's actually not good at insults; all of his seem pretty childish.
My Pixel 8 is actually totally fine; battery life is still ok, performs well, etc etc. Maybe the problem is partly me and I should skip two gens between purchases. Still seems weird they feel a need to release a new gen of phones every year though.
Recently ordered a Google Pixel 10 series phone to replace my Pixel 8 series phone, and I noticed in the store order history that the former was less than 2 years ago. Wondering if Google really needs to refresh their hardware every year. I skip every other gen, but still seems excessive.
Raising free speech concern? More accurately, in a blatant attack on the First Amendment.
I know it sounds weird for someone living in NYC to look forward to food from Atlanta, but with my upcoming trip there for DragonCon I really am looking forward to: A) The noodle place in the Peachtree Center underground mall B) Blue India, a rather good Indian restaurant in the city
The danger is they might fabricate something from whole cloth rather than admit their lies.
Tolerance is the standard we should be aiming for because it's the right standard on most of these issues. Try to make people validate or believe in something and it rightly causes all kinds of trouble.
How does one end an ideology "for good"?
It's been moving surprisingly quickly.
Birthright citizenship and flag desecration are two areas where Trump seems to think he can override the Constitution by fiat.
Good framing for the question; with the right followups ideally can really expose the contradictions at the heart of Trump's policies here.
As part of the transskeptic part of the left, I am absolutely tired of all this far-left trans stuff. I don't care about trans issues, I don't want society to recognise them or do anything more than tolerate them, and I don't want to see them on a stage. They're like scientologists and furries.
The never Trump movement may be a large exception
Probably actually a Ragnahawk, from Palworld.
I wish her well.
It's been reported he called and threatened Jens Stoltenberg (Norway's Finance Minister) over exactly this.
Another attack on free speech from an authoritarian president.
If (somehow) flamenco music were to really take the US by storm, I wouldn't complain at all. Flamenco, like klezmer, has an admirable complexity and as a genre takes rich inspiration from many other genres.
Wondering if it's okay bodega etiquette to pet cats one doesn't know in these circumstances.
I'm sure a lot of people will reach the wrong conclusion - foreigners are bad, immigration is dangerous, rather than ideally hoping to find a way to help Guatemala eliminate nasty parasites.
The game just abruptly ends at a certain point; no plot resolution, lots of existing buildup just lands you in a dead end. One might almost guess Kojima was trying to call Konami's bluff and they'd give him more time/money to finish it and they just were glad of a way to stop the bleed and shipped.
Occasionally artists have a tough time finishing their projects and getting them out the door, and occasionally publishers/studios interfere with artistic vision; unclear whether Kojima or Konami was more to blame for MGSV being a half-finished game but it's a shame it was released in that state.
You're certainly demonstrating the power of nutty activists to drive people away.
