“New thinking about how authoritarian rule works” @DanLittle https://undsoc.org/2023/05/13/new-thinking-about-how-authoritarian-rule-works/

I had great fun giving an Intro to #Scala for #Java Programmers last night at the Tampa Java Users Group.

Slides are at https://www.interfluidity.com/uploads/2023/05/tjug-scala-talk-2023-05-11/index.html (html/css) or https://www.interfluidity.com/uploads/2023/05/tjug-scala-talk-2023-05-11-glitchy-render.pdf (pdf).

( There's also — oh no! — video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8KGn8ZOXvc )

I got to meet @AccordionGuy, who did a great writeup here https://www.globalnerdy.com/2023/05/12/scenes-from-last-nights-java-user-group-meetup-featuring-scala/

Thanks to #AmmarYussuf and #SamKasimalla for organizing!

we know so much less than we pretend we do but that’s no excuse to make shit up in order to justify your dickishness. regardless of whether you believe the shit you make up.

a focus on elite credentials and endorsements, while treating diversity as a matter of identity rather than ideology, yields a corporate-friendly monoculture among judicial nominees selected by Democrats. this should change. see @ddayen https://prospect.org/justice/2023-05-09-case-for-judge-tim-wu/

the rich have no monopoly on the truth, but high quality disinformation and platforms to distribute it are goods and services that money can buy.

there are days when the fact the world has turned a very radioactive kind of stupid really gets to me.

"Democracy Is Our Hope For A Better Future" #EdWalker https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/05/09/democracy-is-our-hope-for-a-better-future/ #ViaRSS

imagine five years ago trying to explain that a significant faction would come to believe an American deep state runs high-stakes, elaborate psyops to deceive the public in favor of, um, trans people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4

don't erase the hardest hard drive. https://toot.site/@livingarchitect/110334464358011459

this page doesn’t exist.

you drop by twitter to lurk a little, and it’s not kindergarten, it’s lord of the flies.

super-NIMBY, one home per acre way too dense. or should we consider this good, actually, preventing suburban sprawl in favor of infill or at least denser development? https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-hillsborough/keystone-residents-fighting-to-stop-housing-development-in-rural-neighborhood

i’d like to have a word with whoever invented the car alarm.

“Capitalism is the machine that will do whatever it takes to prevent us from turning it off, and the most successful weapon in its arsenal has been its campaign to prevent us from considering any alternatives.” #TedChiang https://www.newyorker.com/science/annals-of-artificial-intelligence/will-ai-become-the-new-mckinsey ht @KathyReid @snipe

i would like to see a television show
that would be a kind of police procedural, only the “detective” would be an IRS investigator going after the ever-more-elaborate tax dodges of very high-net-worth cheats.

which is worse, for things to go sideways or pear-shaped?

"in reality it would be every bit as illegal for Biden to respect [the debt ceiling] as ignore it." @ryanlcooper https://prospect.org/economy/2023-05-03-x-date-debt-ceiling-newsletter/

what does it mean for a thing to be true?

if looks could bill i’d be in debtors prison, baby.

the most hopeful thing i’ve read about LLMs lately (the part before the paywall at least…) https://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-neither ht Stephen Pimentel