Today's blog post:
Autumnal beauty in New England, beyond leaves: cranberry harvests!
Also, the cats attempt to confer, consult, and otherwise hob-knob with wild turkeys about their holiday plans. Without noticeable success.
Today's blog post:
I voted in the US midterms & verified my ballot was received/accepted/queued for counting.
Also a quick review of 9 Massachusetts ballot questions & a word of advice to the DSA about getting their guides out faster for early voters.
Today's blog post:
On the 25th anniversary of 9/11, we look abroad at yet more war: 1.5 million Russian dead in Ukraine.
A segmented regression model helps us understand when Ukraine began fighting really efficiently.
Today's blog post:
Anti-surveillance coloration for cars, to avoid Flock cameras & the like.
Honestly, it's like WWI 'dazzle camouflage'. The fact that we have to view law enforcement as a hostile occupying army is the root of the problem.
Paul Krugman @pkrugman @paulkrugman.substack.com today mentioned "an old military axiom" about professionals and logistics. I did a little digging, and it's more recent than I thought:
 (1922-2008), USMC 4-star general, interviewed in the _San Diego Union-Tribune,_ 1979-Nov-11: "Q&A: Marines’ Barrow Backs SALT — And Conventional Rearming", pg. C4, col. 4.](https://media.mathstodon.xyz/media_attachments/files/117/111/990/041/481/081/original/15ee6b7f644cdb2f.jpg)
Today's blog post:
Historian of fascism Ruth Ben-Ghiat surveys the fragile state of American democracy, and lists the things authoritarians do to undermine democracy.
It terrified me.
https://www.someweekendreading.blog/ben-ghiat-fall-of-democracy/
"This image is from the crab."
Now I have this image of you riding around town in an 8-legged vehicle, walking on 6 legs with 2 pincers to wave around.
Battery powered, of course, from solar.
A couple years ago, I had some thoughts on the complex, racially charged origins of Memorial Day.
RE: https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/116449728786884001
I see the innumeracy of the rulers has not gotten any better in the last couple of years.
Today's blog post: a protest song
And history has eyes, history has ears
History finds secrets that are buried for years
Exploded, explained, exposed and explicit
History will judge us either stupid or complicit
And we know we are not stupid
Ask questions
Today's blog post: miscellaneous bits of madness.
- 12th COVID-19 vax
- Where we land in BlueSky acct clusters
- @siderea shows us a 16th century motet for Trump
- Flying tankers over Strait of Hormuz (almost)
- On reading old books
- Voting
RE: https://social.linux.pizza/@teoten/116210821615119289
I go back & forth on whether or not to click the Magritte square...
RE: https://universeodon.com/@Edmonds_Scanner/116206557203756295
A few economists disagree.
The loudest of them tend to get eaten by curious ghost cats.
RE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/116134590715834642
Now *there's* a turn of phrase:
"What used to be bicycles for the mind are now subscription-based pickup trucks driven by Nazis in a neverending demolition derby."
Conspiracy or not, the pattern of oligarchs attempting to corner markets (and occasionally succeeding) is a long-established one.
Here's a backgrounder on things like the GINI coefficient, corporate mega-mergers, and some context from historian Heather Cox Richardson:
RE: https://mastodon.social/@blogdiva/116127740444038853
Dunno if I believe it yet, but it's at the edge of being almost plausible to me.
RE: https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic/115983875604010038
Numbers don't lie.
They do, however, occasionally burn.
RE: https://vis.social/@infobeautiful/115979668993362896
As a 70 year old, I'm not ashamed that about 85% of emissions happened in my lifetime. Mostly, we didn't understand the consequences, with rare exceptions.
I *am* ashamed at how much we resist changing now that we *do* know better, and alternatives like solar, wind, and nuclear are so available.
RE: https://discuss.systems/@ricci/115963680279336959
Honestly, it's also the hardest problem for the rest of us, too.
Today's blog post:
Addendum re AI LLMs providing little benefit in business deployments. Price Waterhouse Coopers joins & agrees with MIT, CMU, Boston Consulting Group, the BBC, Reuters, The Economist, and Oxford Economics.
Evidence is piling up.