RE: https://neuromatch.social/@SRLevine/117556789959798738
If anyone else is curious, this website gives a breakdown of who controls which state legislatures and governors' offices and how that's working out tonight.
These are the current election results (so far): https://www.multistate.us/elections/general-2026
ETA: @ml had another one with a slightly different format for viewing https://eldritch.cafe/@ml/117556803307373120
Random question of the night: can anyone recommend an animal focused charity? A friend's kid had a major milestone recently (Bar Mitzvah) and since I gave donations in honor of his older siblings I want to do the same for him, but he doesn't have a specific charity already picked out like they did. I'd like something a little better run than my local animal shelter even though I volunteer there (it already benefits from being a very feel good charity near Newport Beach).
ETA: Went with the Wetlands & Wildlife Care Center of Orange County (they do the post oil spill animal rehab around here on top of their regular work)
My uncle and his husband (who I'm pretty sure aren't usually awake at 1 AM) live in Maine and hate Susan Collins. I just messaged them and one of them replied back instantly to say "we couldn't be happier!"
CA voters might have dropped the ball on the propositions.
Though maybe 43 will at least be defeated. I really want 43 to be defeated.
https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/11/california-election-results-november-2026/#us-house
Both voting sites I passed on the way home had lines, one looked reasonable, the other looked absurd (but I think is a much larger location and has a lot more parking). Surprising to me for California since we all get ballots mailed to us, but I guess they are like my co-worker who apparently really, really likes voting in person?
Yet another thing where they don't care about you if you don't have a smartphone*. Pizza to the polls requires a photo to verify the line.
*I could have unpacked my entire pannier and taken out my iPad or if someone has a digital camera I guess that would work, but I saw the line on the way home and didn't stop to take photos
I really hope we get an absurd number of people today, because I accidentally made a metric ton of this stuff (filled my second largest baking dish, which is very large) and I don't want to be stuck eating left over vegan mac & cheese for the next two weeks. If I even find it edible (the aftertaste from the chao is not an improvement over the follow your heart).
I normally wouldn't show up to something with food I'm unsure about, but the problem in this case is sort of out of my control, I make perfectly good dairy mac & cheese, the problem is the vegan cheese!
Vegan cheese has come a long way over the years, but it still isn't what I'd call cheese. But you put enough garlic powder and smoked paprika into the sauce and you can convince anyone your mac & cheese tastes good, right?
(the mellowness/flavor dampening properties of the pumpkin might actually be helping in this case, the "follow your heart" vegan cheddar shreds have a weird to me flavor, going to sprinkle some of the chao on the top of this casserole and hope that's better)
Parts of the CA ballot I filled out tonight:
Part of the CA ballot I looked at and quaked in fear and haven't started slogging through yet:
Yeah, yeah, I'm late getting this done compared with most of you. But considering I often fill it out the night before it's due (I live near a ballot drop box, I don't need the post office or a voting site) I'm actually ahead of the game this year!
The owner's husband managed to roll it onto the "hell strip" so uh, good luck getting it off that strip of dirt on those terrible looking wheels.
Someone in the local buy nothing group posted a photo of an 1860's Netzow organ their neighbor put on the curb and everyone is going gaga over it. I'm non-binarily resisting the urge to yell "do not move an organ yourself" after that popular thread last week. This thing is substantially taller than a piano so I'm sure the center of mass is even more wonky.
(Also: it's very obviously in terrible shape, at least the keys are and everyone saying it should be in a museum or their home needs to learn about how much restoration of stuff costs)
RE: https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:2rrp7amblhg3xoly5n5huiqv/post/3myt2pqk6ss2w
This is not only old news, but any halo around this guy was debunked when it first came out.
See: https://www.reddit.com/r/chemistry/comments/1unt19i/nobelwinning_scientist_omar_yaghi_joins_chinas/
TLDR: Yaghi is a massive jerk and his sympathetic personal origin story doesn't make him a good person
Last night's debate was whether to replace the vacuum pump's membranes and see if that solved the pressure issue. However I started checking the seals on the GL14 screws first and one of them was clearly stiff so I replaced that seal + screw and put it back together and it works! No membrane replacement needed! Yay!
(And also noted which one is likely to go next, though since it still had some flex to it I left it in place for now because I don't have a huge supply of extra seals so I want to get as much life as possible out of them)
So are we neuronomers or neuromembees?
Spent the morning volunteering at a one-off repair cafe (the organization usually does stuff in Irvine, but they are trying to branch out more to other cities nearby and so we were the beneficiaries). Also got three knives sharpened.
Me, mentally whenever @DrFerrous posts about doing knife sharpening at her repair cafe "how many people possibly need that". Me today: "well it's a good thing I signed up in advance!". It was super popular, Rebecca you're doing way more work than I realized!
Did you know it is possible that if you are going too slowly on a bike you can be blown over in a cross wind? And that if you have to stop at a light you might not be able to restart at the light without getting blown over. In related news: the winds are really, really picking-up across the marsh so any exit from UCI onto University by bike is an, uh interesting experience right now.
Santa Ana winds: alternating fast (tailwind) and terrifying (crosswind) ride home. Fully anticipating tomorrow's commute to be a slog with moments of terror.
Yeah, I'm bitter about that experience. It was a slap in the face of really either not listening or not caring as long as it wasn't something she had to adjust her expectations about me for.
I'm ace, apparently it wasn't memorable enough and she insisted I hadn't previously told her. I wanted to cry. No matter how accepting someone might be it's still anxiety inducing to say "hey I'm queer". even if the next word in that sentence is "too"
Does literally anyone not on here know I'm queer? I've technically come out to my mom and my siblings, but considering my mom "forgot" the first time I don't honestly give a damn what the straights think anymore and if they want to assume I'm cis and straight, well that's their problem if I wear a shirt proclaiming my queerness and confuse them.
In honor of Coming Out Day, a story of how I was apparently too subtle about it.
The picture that is my header photo of a bunch of nmr tubes arranged in a pride flag rainbow is one I took about 5 years ago. I figured I'd post it on facebook for pride month in June of that year and let the photo do the heavy lifting. The one person to comment on it (just to say he liked it) was my uncle, who is gay (and married to someone who is also my uncle for occasional verbal comedy). Apparently it flew right over everyone else's head.