Force the entire Republican Party to die on the hill of “The president is a king and should be allowed to defy the law to build himself a golden palace.” Talk about it nonstop. No issue so succinctly captures the battle lines: on one side, an authoritarian personalist cult, on the other, democracy.

At Row Zero, we had a scientist upload a whole genome to a spreadsheet! I couldn't imagine why, laughed at the idea of ctrl-Fing for "T" or something. But I am sure they had a good reason.

Sisyphus, but for reducing tail latency@bluespacecanary.bsky.social · yesterday

Assuming "spreadsheet people" only refers to like, parasitic MBAs is ironclad proof you've never worked a real white collar job and know ~nothing about what working scientists actually do tbh

I agree the bad answer is bad. But isn't it bad because the correct one is "The Democratic party welcomes everyone! We believe in democracy. Don't like the platform? Join the party and work to change it. We're the only major party left in America that believes the people should have a voice."

Counterpoint: many of us have done the work, we've read Hegel, and just concluded it wasn't worth the effort. (This is a friendly counterpoint, I am broadly sympathetic, but I am partial to analytic philosophy.)

Humanists Have Done Nothing Wrong | Defector

For many years, I’ve held a pet theory that cultural consumers can be grouped into two broad categories: Primary Source People and Secondary Source People. The former are the book lovers, cinephiles, ...

defector.com

Really drives home how badly the Stranger has failed as a guide for progressive voters. No one should rely on it.

Lefty Cheat Sheet@electioncheatsheet.org · 2w ago

No single organization makes perfect endorsements. Our approach is to show voters how a collection of member-driven, lefty organizations have endorsed and to put the voter one tap away from more detail and context. leftycheatsheet.org#race=ld43_sen

not to take anything away from Kelabe, who is a phenomenal candidate & has run a great campaign, but this result does show the influence of The Stranger when you look at the 43rd and 46th LDs. The results in those races could have been very different if they had followed their progressive reputation

Northwest Progressive Institute@nwprogressive.org · 2w ago

ICYMI: Friday ballot drop, August 2026: Kelabe Tewolde now leads Sharon Tomiko Santos in 37th LD House race Here's what's happening in some of the… https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/08/friday-ballot-drop-august-2026-kelabe-tewolde-now-leads-sharon-tomiko-santos-in-37th-ld-house-race.html

The first rule of Socratic dialogue is "say what you believe." It sounds simple, but it's actually somewhat radical. Distinguishing what you believe from what you're supposed to say or your audience wants to hear is hard and is the beginning of wisdom.

oh this is just how todo lists work for me

Holly Gramazio@hollygramazio.bsky.social · 2w ago

I have started a new todo list system where each week if something fills me with a sense of immense dread and guilt it goes on a separate Shame List and as soon as I've done one thing from the Shame List each week I don't have to look at it or think about it again until the following Monday

historical rationalist vs empiricist dichotomy still holding up today

Micah@rincewind.run · 2w ago

if you devote your life to the concept of being rational I feel that you should have acquired by now some vague sense of the empirical reality of who donald trump is as a person

for the good of Seattle, we must tell everyone we know that the Stranger can no longer be trusted

Ryan Packer@typewriteralley.bsky.social · 2w ago

The two main differences between Tewolde's race and Sabio-Howell's: Tewolde got the Stranger endorsement, and Sabio-Howell's opponent actually campaigned. Will be interesting to see how this result wakes up the Tomiko-Santos campaign.

This is such a shame. The Stranger's endorsements are trash now (if you're a progressive voter), but way too many people still trust them.

Erica C. Barnett@ericacbarnett.bsky.social · 2w ago

Ron Davis, no surprise, will not make it through the primary against 46th D state legislator Gerry Pollet; Will Dreher, endorsed by the Stranger in what turned out to be a controversial pick, will. Davis' campaign focused heavily on the Stranger at the end, which probably raised Dreher's profile.

I'm sorry but who in their right minds publishes a ranked list as a MAP

Lexington Herald-Leader@kentucky.com · 3w ago

Here’s how Kentucky cities ranked among the 150 most and least educated U.S. cities.

Downplay a book or movie: E.T. (this is a reference to Alien)

The Fig Economy@figgityfigs.bsky.social · 3w ago

Downplay a book or movie: Longish Duration Mostly Sunny Conditions of the Relatively Unblemished Mind

what are the truth conditions for sentences of the form: "A group of X is called Y"? Given that a group of X is never called Y except in this sentence, it's either self-affirming or false. "Did you know a group of flamingos is called a ballet?" How many utterances would make that true?

"I love em dashes and will not give them up" is the Facebook Legal Notice of 2026

how about we just go with a non-gendered conception of virtue

If you moved Corruption up just above Cost of Living, this would be a pretty decent ranking of what our national priorities should be. (War is bad but wtf is "Wars/Terrorism")

Polling USA@usapolling.bsky.social · 4w ago

"Who's better on..." 🔵Women's Rights: D +18 🔵Environment: D +17 🔵Democratic Norms: D +10 🔵Cost of Living: D +4 🟣Political Violence: Even 🟣Wars/Terrorism: Even 🔴AI: R +1 🔴Corruption: R +1 🔴Guns Control: R +3 🔴Immigration: R +5 🔴Crime: R +14 Ipsos / July 26, 2026

but I use @kagi.com, not google, anyway. i won't be sad to see this unfortunate bit of early-21st-century verbiage die

Mark Harris@markharris.bsky.social · 4w ago

I'm actually fine with sounding old.

It's well-known that American baby names have gotten more diverse over time. The last year in which any single name was given to more than 1% of the babies in the SSA baby names data set was 1997, in which 1.04% of babies were named Michael.

one way to tell if Claude got out on the wrong side of the bed this session is when it's like, "the build timed out, I can't verify that the code compiles", but the timeout was just some arbitrary threshold it picked for how long it would wait

wonder how much the church of scientology paid for this

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS 🏆⭐️ #SalmonBayFC | #FeelTheCurrent

I have a fun reaction story to Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker. I was working on the S3 storage team in AWS at the time. For years it was customary there to have a work outing to see any new Star Wars film.

Boner Vivant@dougtilley.bsky.social · last yr.

Got me thinking.. What's the strongest reaction you've seen an audience member have to a scene in a cinema? During the birthday party scene in SIGNS I saw a whole row of young women literally throw their popcorn in the air like a cartoon.

I bought a car when I had a child, in Seattle. I hadn't had one for 2 decades. I don't regret it. We wanted to raise her bilingual. The Chinese language preschool isn't accessible from our home via bus or foot.

Romeo Kokriatski@vagrantjourno.bsky.social · last mo.

Honestly with a 9mo without a car, it'd be a logistical nightmare just to make it to his checkups. I feel like a lot of anti-car stuff comes from people who don't have kids tbh

Kettle's amendment FAILS 2-7, with Rivera voting with him. The renewal of the Seattle Transit Measure STAYS at a full 0.3%.

like 50% of my instructions to Claude these days are "delete that comment"

The Seattle City Council's select committee on the city's transportation benefit district is kicking off now. This morning Katie Wilson's proposed Seattle Transit Measure renewal is getting amended before going to the voters. We're about to see how significantly.

Ryan Packer@typewriteralley.bsky.social · last mo.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the votes happening later this morning at the Seattle City Council will decide the future of transit in the city. The choice is expansion or stagnation.

Best World Cup ever? Not only did we get a perfect England elimination, we get to watch them lose a 2nd time to France!

me to a coworker a couple years ago: "My dream is someday I'll be a senior distinguished principal architect, and my actual work will consist only of listening to other people talk about their work, then asking the right pointed question to get them on their way." [monkey's paw curls]

the best case scenario for 2028 is constant conflict between "Pivot to kitchen table," "Consolidate power & take revenge," and "Defend democracy; bring back justice." we'll need a few more democracy defenders to counterbalance the mighty kitchen tablers

James Butler@piercepenniless.bsky.social · last mo.

I think for democratic politics to survive this century we will have to maintain a strong distinction between justice and revenge, and especially that the pursuit of justice cannot be reduced to the desire of political opponents to screw their enemies.