what do you do when you are tired but not sleepy?

“the idea that Donald Trump is a free speech supporter is literally backwards. He’s spent years suing people for their speech, and now he’s even doing it in response to editorial discretion he dislikes. Donald Trump has no conception of free speech. He only supports speech he likes, and he is eager to punish any speech he dislikes.” @mmasnick https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/04/trumps-latest-lawsuit-against-cbs-proves-hes-no-free-speech-champion/

happy election day, to all who celebrate.

@jalefkowit i guess you must be on weekly, then.

@kentwillard (i have some sympathy too. but we shouldn’t pretend that just because mistakes are understandable, they haven’t proven catastrophic when they have.)

[new draft post] The coveted interfluidity endorsement https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/04/the-coveted-interfluidity-endorsement/index.html

god i hate that these people are still asking for money when it’s plainly too late to spend it. what do campaigns do with the surplus funds they amassed, once an election is past?

@_dm the battle rages on!

kind of surprised “the enemy within” hasn’t become a t-shirt tagline, like “nevertheless she persisted”.

“he never understood that he was a subject and not the sovereign.” @jbouie on Trump https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/01/opinion/donald-trump-kamala-harris-election-power.html ht @ryanlcooper

the way you find out who will win an election is you hold one.

“My rule – I don't join a service that I can't leave without switching costs – is my Ulysses Pact, and it's keeping me safe from danger I've sailed into too many times before.” @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

// i agree, for a long time held this line + abstained from BlueSky. but recently i’ve created a presence, tempted by people i want to converse with. i’m glad to contribute to an evacuation from x, but i feel ick too. i am taking too much on faith, without guard rails. again.

people who style themselves “truthtellers” are usually (at best) better characterized as oversimplifiers.

the etymology of “peer” is that everybody pees it’s a sacred bond that binds us all on fundamentally egalitarian terms.

Maybe it’d be good if, in places like Texas, there were a list of lawyers willing to accompany pregnant patients.

It’s horrible that Texas has made lifesaving care a legal risk from the perspective of providers. Hopefully we find a way to remedy that soon. Maybe in the meantime we could make clear there are legal risks in both directions.

https://www.propublica.org/article/josseli-barnica-death-miscarriage-texas-abortion-ban

The kid is learning about exponents, and I’m trying to help.

One trick I think useful is to suggest he define, say, 4^3 not as 4 x 4 x 4, but as 1 x 4 x 4 x 4. Of course the two expressions amount to the same thing. But if you get into the habit of including the 1, it becomes obvious why 4^0 is just one.

And since for positive exponents, subtracting an exponent corresponds to dividing by the base, you can just subtract past the zero exponent to define negative exponents.

“Part of Trump’s genius is being bad in so many ways that no particular way stands out and it seems like he must not be that bad.” #ScottAlexander https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/acx-endorses-harris-oliver-or-stein

ouch.

[new draft post] Private firms, public industries https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/11/01/private-firms-public-industries/index.html

James Madison in Federalist No 10 writes a virtue of a large republic is “the greater security afforded by a greater variety of parties, against the event of any one party being able to outnumber and oppress the rest”.

Though they inadvertently produced one quite quickly, the “founding fathers” never favored a two-party system. A two-party system is repellent to the logic and aspirations of the Constitutional system.

https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/federalist-no-10