← Feed

Posts

• View post

  The manager of the #Spirit #Halloween in #Butler, PA is very sad it's the off-season.

• View post

  "Actionable" is a word that should never appear in any report or paper, unless we are working on a project involving analysis of the neurological conditions that cause people to use words like "actionable." I'm rather proud of that one.

• View post

  "I am the exiled Prince of America, Donald J. Trump Jr. My father, KING DONALD J. TRUMP, hid a fortune of $1 BILLION US DOLLARS US in a secret location before being deposed by Democrat rebels. You are a good and kind person and I would like you to keep this money in safekeeping ..." Well, *I* thought it was funny.

• View post

  I hope my #stories will never be *quite* as obscure as this. But if anyone ever loves my #writing enough to put that much effort into finding me, I'll feel like I've really accomplished something. https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/267072/story-id-lost-in-space-novel-posted-on-usenet-in-87-88-with-an-engineer-and

• View post

  Yes, but also no because the #Reddit "science and logic guys" believe a whole lot of different but equally pernicious #bullshit, but also yes because #antivax may well be the most murderous ideology in history, which is a fucking high bar when you think about it.

• View post

  There are not words. Okay, I have plenty of words. Most of them would get me banned for life, so I won't say them. You can probably guess. I can say this, though: #Polis' political career had better be over forever. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/15/nx-s1-5690286/tina-peters-polis-commutation-trump

• View post

  Oh, they'll comply with the #virus, all right. See, viruses don't ask nicely for compliance.

• View post

  In the comments on the Quora version of this post: "Fear not! The truth and power will be fully exploited and realized in other, sane countries. Where there is demand, it will be met with supply! "When the first shipments are smuggled across the border, I will be waiting to meet the mule and take the load to smuggle it across the country to local distribution networks. Just like the good old days." "Well, it is the ‘20s. So I guess we should all meet up in vaxeasies, w...

• View post

  The #eagles have always known.

• View post

  Sure, there are things we don't understand about #LLMs. We know how the underlying #code works, and #tokenization, and all that, but the models are so complicated we can't just take them apart and look at them the way we would, say, a big database. This leads to unexpected emergent behaviors. That reminds me a lot of my job, which boils down to modeling living systems with #math and code. We know the #physics, we know the #chemistry, and we can observe the #biology, but there...

• View post

  Sure, there are things we don't understand about #LLMs. We know how the underlying #code works, and #tokenization, and all that, but the models are so complicated we can't just take them apart and look at them the way we would, say, a big database. This leads to unexpected emergent behaviors. That reminds me a lot of my job, which boils down to modeling living systems with #math and code. We know the #physics, we know the #chemistry, and we can observe the #biology, but there...

• View post

  For all the #antivaxers who are drawn to any post mentioning #vaccination like moths to a flame: You are shit. You will always be shit. No matter what good you've done in your life, no matter how kind you are to your family and friends, no matter how hard you work, no matter what accomplishments you have to your name, you're still shit. Add a drop of diarrhea to a bottle of the finest champagne, and you have a bottle of shit. (Hardly any of you were ever champagne. MD 20/20...

• View post

  #Artemis II is, as far as I know, still safely on its way to the #Moon. Flyby, not a landing. But you know, #Apollo 10 was followed by Apollo 11. This is a hell of a lot more than baby steps. Every once in a while, this country still reminds me what it was, and I continue to hope can be again. Now, back to work. My #science doesn't make headlines, but it does keep people alive. Not because it is easy, etc. SCIENCE never sleeps, but scientists have to. Eventually.

• View post

  Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew.

• View post

  A #British friend asks, "For goodness' sake #America, if you can achieve what you achieved last night, surely you can find a way to fix the global mess you've made politically?" I started to reply with my usual light-hearted snark, and then my answer turned into something else entirely: I continue to believe we can fix it. Somehow. Eventually. But I have the unpleasant feeling #Artemis is our last hurrah. Humans will once again walk on the #Moon, and to do...

• View post

  Note the name of the group where this was posted. They really think they're scoring some kind of point. Liberals punish our sex offenders. Conservatives idolize theirs.

• View post

  "Let's wait and see what the investigation shows! Anyway, the timing is suspicious! Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?" The political arena is not a courtroom. Elections are not trials. We the People are not prosecutors, or defense attorneys, or judges. Maybe we're closest to being jurors, but even that is a lousy analogy. There is no obligation to follow rules of evidence or procedure. But there *is* an obligation to do what we think is...

• View post

  Uphill both ways. That part is very important.

• View post

  Congratulations, #Hungary! I hope we can do the same.

• View post

  Like their modern #Italian descendants, the ancient #Romans ate a lot of fish. Italy is a peninsula, after all, and except for the northernmost part, nowhere in the country is far from salt water. Even as the #Empire extended to places deeper inland, they kept up their #pescavorian habits. Indeed, fish may have been their most esteemed source of protein. They appreciated red meat and poultry as much as anyone, but fish brought out their true culinary artistry. From tiny herring to giant hal...

• View post

  For the WISP (work in some progress) I'm fiddling with #population growth models, and considering rolling my own to justify the numbers I want. I guess that makes me a rather finicky #Watsonian. But maybe it's like Tolkien coming up with several complete languages before writing any actual plot!

• View post

  A line in a mostly unrelated post by a friend got me thinking about a maxim I've heard a lot lately: "#Sciencefiction is not about predicting the #future, but rather commenting on the present." It's become conventional wisdom rapidly approaching the status of a thought-terminating cliche. When I sit down to write #SF, "what if" is my primary motivation. The here-and-now obviously shapes my thoughts, but I'm not *deliberately* writing...

• View post

  When I am #dictator, every antivaxer will be on the hook for every death that could have been prevented by vaccines. #Civil and/or #criminal liability, depending on the extent of their activities. https://www.propublica.org/article/rfk-jr-vaccine-agenda-childhood-plagues Say there were 100,000 #vaccine-preventable deaths in the US last year—a reasonable guess, from some quick Googling. Did you make an #antivax post? Now you're a defendant in 100,000 wrongful death lawsuits. Are you...

• View post

  "#Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason." https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/30/jan-6-lawsuit-capitol-police-00850890

• View post

  "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

• View post

  "And this is why argument from authority is not always (or even usually) fallacious. Neither is ad hominem, and if you disagree with me, it's probably because you're an idiot."

• View post

  This is good news. Just remember what #antivaxers are. They don't know they're mass murderers—but they still want you dead, and your children, and ultimately themselves after they've done away with everyone else. You have to be lucky all the time. They only have to be lucky once. https://open.substack.com/pub/yourlocalepidemiologist/p/a-win-for-your-access-to-vaccines

• View post

  Since #Trump pardoned every member of the #J6 mob, 33 out of the approximately 1,500 released have been convicted of other #violent #crimes, a rate of 2.2%. Elsenet, sumdood is arguing that this is no big deal because, and I quote, "The national violent crime rate is 4.4%." He argues that therefore, J6ers are less violent than the average person. Unfortunately for him (but fortunately for everyone else!) he's not even close. There were about 1.3 million violent crimes *reported...