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Weekend Editor

@weekend-editor.bsky.social

16 followers 71 following 370 posts

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

Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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There are many somewhat similar stories about Pauli, where instruments would mysteriously malfunction when he walked by.

My favorite is when they tried a "Schrempeltrap" in which a chandelier would fall, but the trip mechanism itself failed when Pauli walked in.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_e...

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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That would be Brandolini's Law: it's far easier to create BS than to clean it up, so we'll always be behind.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandol...

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Totally get the feeling, since I had it for the last decade of work. The science was fascinating, the other scientists were lovely, and the levels of BS grew intolerable. One day, we "made our number", so I retired. (Into a pandemic. Which I don't recommend, but it still wasn't my fault.)

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CZEdwards's avatar CZEdwards @czedwards.bsky.social
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It’s because we’re not having a real argument, we’re having a collective anxiety attack. There’s no thinking going on. It’s all feels and vibes and inchoate anxieties and displacement.

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ʝꪖꪀꪊᦓ ᥅ꪮᦓꫀ 🍉's avatar ʝꪖꪀꪊᦓ ᥅ꪮᦓꫀ 🍉 @janus.bsky.social
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how it feels to live in america

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Widely ignored, but the concept of "learn to love good, then do as you please" is built into Augustine's Homily 7 on 1 John.

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Also: the Texas power grid is not hooked up with the national power grid. Because... well, stupid thinking.

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Makes it look as though the US should have about 15 states, if based on economic flows.

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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I grew up -- long ago -- in nearby La Porte, Indiana. This makes total sense to me too. Though back in those days there was light manufacturing to bring money in and out. Like, Allis Chalmers had a huge manufacturing operation in my little town. Also, Bastian-Morley boilers. And railroads.

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Important to keep the vision. Even more important to *build* and *defend* the vision.

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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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/

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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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...

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Uh... you drinking phenol red? Maybe cobalt sulfate?

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David D. Levine's avatar David D. Levine @daviddlevine.com
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I just noticed that the UK election was on Independence Day and the US election is on Guy Fawkes Day.

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Peter Sagal's avatar Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social
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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.

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ryan cooper's avatar ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com
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"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...

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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On the plus side, when I retired I realized I would never again have to do things like that.

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b-boy bouiebaisse's avatar b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie.bsky.social
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these people do not intend to ever lose power again

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Here at Chez Weekend, one of the boys occasinally assumes "heso-ten" pose (Japanese: navel to the heavens). This sort of situation calls for application of The Brush:

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Emma Evans's avatar Emma Evans @trance.bsky.social
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It's important to note that Trump tried to order this at least twice we know of during his regime.

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Jackie Barbosa's avatar Jackie Barbosa @jackiebarbosa.bsky.social
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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.

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Kelsey Atherton's avatar Kelsey Atherton @atherton.bsky.social
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"Expand the court" has gone from radical solution to the most exceptionally moderate option on the table.

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Chuck Wendig's avatar Chuck Wendig @chuckwendig.bsky.social
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"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.

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Dave Levitan's avatar Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social
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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.

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John Pfaff's avatar John Pfaff @johnpfaff.bsky.social
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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.

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Prof. EAGZ's avatar Prof. EAGZ @emmmilygz.bsky.social
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One for the syntax folk 🐦🐦

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John Dellaporta's avatar John Dellaporta @johndellaporta.bsky.social
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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.

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Jacob T. Levy's avatar Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social
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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.

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Popehat's avatar Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social
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Jailing people for being homeless is a classic American policy: stupid, brutal, and very expensive.

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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"Wonky triangulating centrists of yore" is a great phrase. Weird, but damningly accurate.

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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"Prophecy in Retrospect" is an interesting phrase. It sounds somewhat like the title one would see on a slim volume of self-published poetry, in the back of one of the odder bookstores in Cambridge, MA. (Not that I would ever admit to being in such a place, of course.)

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Django Wexler's avatar Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social
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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

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Contempt is totally understandable. But if you offered some practical advice for how we can calm down and be effective, that would be *heroic*.

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Weekend Editor's avatar Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social
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Sometimes there's no grass at all on the other side, because "the other side" is a step off a cliff.

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Corey Brickley Illustration's avatar Corey Brickley Illustration @coreybrickley.bsky.social
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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

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John Scalzi's avatar John Scalzi @scalzi.com
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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.

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