Tessera

Ernest Post

@rehmi.bsky.social

full-stack physicist doing things with stuff | wave optics | e-textiles | triboelectricity | kernel hacking | AR

8 Posts1117 Follower 1747 Folgt

Zoomer Antimillenarian @surcomplicated.bsky.social · 6h ago

This isn't a court at all. They're literally not even reading the fucking briefs before making "decisions".

Steve Vladeck@stevevladeck.bsky.social · yesterday

By my math, the order was filed 11 minutes after the Trump administration's reply brief came in.

Jack Lynch @jacklynch000.bsky.social · 6h ago

Teaching Swift today, and will always share this on “Modest Proposal” day.

Bild

Susan Rinkunas @susanrinkunas.com · 5h ago

NEW / HUGE: Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama sued nearly three dozen abortion pill providers + a pharmacy and The states asked the Supreme Court to be able to sue New York, Massachusetts, and California to challenge their telehealth shield laws @autonomynews.co storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Dear Mr. Cayce:
I write to notify the panel of two legal developments material to the
panel’s resolution of this case.
First, today Louisiana—joined by Arkansas and Alabama—filed a
lawsuit in the Western District of Louisiana against nearly three dozen
individuals and entities responsible for remotely dispensing FDA-
approved mifepristone in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama. See
Louisiana v. Nouhavandi, No. 2:26-cv-03836 (W.D. La.) (attached). As
the complaint in that case illustrates, none of those individuals and
entities could carry out their current operations without the 2023
REMS’s removal of the in-person dispensing requirement.
Second, also today Louisiana—joined by Arkansas and Alabama—
filed a motion for leave to file a bill of complaint (attached), Louisiana v.
New York, in the United States Supreme Court against New York,
Massachusetts, and California. The bill of complaint challenges the
telehealth shield laws of those states on various legal grounds.
Both complaints explain how Louisiana’s success in Louisiana v.
FDA will eliminate the flood of FDA-approved mifepristone into the
State. Louisiana’s success in Louisiana v. Nouhavandi will eliminate the
2
ability of nearly three dozen of the most prominent actors to illegally send
any abortion drugs into the State. And Louisiana’s success in Louisiana
v. New York will strip all shield-law state residents—regardless of any
back-up drugs they may try to use—of the claimed authority to violate
Louisiana’s laws with impunity.
espectfully,
/s/J. Benjamin Aguiñaga
J. Benjamin Aguiñaga
Solicitor General
Counsel for Louisiana

B. A. Friedman @bafriedman.bsky.social · 5h ago

We used to be an arsenal of democracy.

Adam@adam35.bsky.social · 6h ago

Constantine @ajaxsinger.bsky.social · 6h ago

Yeah, this got me on board. My issue isn't attention, it's that all the things life wants me to do are boring and take too long. Also, hard agree that what stimulants do is make dumb tasks feel more rewarding.

Scott McGrath@smcgrath.phd · 6h ago

🧪 A.D.H.D. may be fundamentally mischaracterized as a deficit of attention. Brain imaging reveals stimulants alter reward and salience circuits rather than attention networks. A focus might be making routine tasks register as worth doing instead of filtering distractions. 🧠

404 Media @404media.co · 7h ago

BREAKING: The Trump administration is using a grant program from the 1980s to force cities around the US to funnel their ongoing collection of Flock, Axon, and other ALPR data into large federal surveillance centers that fall under the White House’s jurisdiction, 404 Media has learned

How Cities Are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program

How the federal government built a massive database of license plate reader data through an anti-drug trafficking program.

404media.co

Julia Grant Reed @juliareedwa.bsky.social · 6h ago

No, you’re providing concentration camps that hold people against the law in horrific conditions without access to counsel.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago

Markwayne Mullin on conditions at ICE facilities: "We're not providing Holiday Inns. These people broke the law."

Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 6h ago

Oh really? When were their trials?

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago

Markwayne Mullin on conditions at ICE facilities: "We're not providing Holiday Inns. These people broke the law."

@geoffoneil @geoffoneil.bsky.social · 6h ago

We should remember this when this administration finally faces the consequences of their actions

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago

Markwayne Mullin on conditions at ICE facilities: "We're not providing Holiday Inns. These people broke the law."

dreamin'@dreaminerryday.bsky.social · 6h ago

there are children as young as two sometimes that are being forced to represent themselves in front of immigration courts that have absolutely no idea what's going on, they just break down into tears because theyre scared, and dont realize their lives are being ruined or sent to their deaths

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago

Markwayne Mullin on conditions at ICE facilities: "We're not providing Holiday Inns. These people broke the law."

Larry J. Simon @larryjsimon.bsky.social · 5h ago

“These people”=mothers & fathers, grandmothers & grandfathers, neighbors & colleagues, nurses & nursing home assistants, teachers & students. They drive taxis & trucks; plant & harvest crops; build & repair our houses. They’ve more dignity & generosity in their pinkies than MwM has in his entirety.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 6h ago

Markwayne Mullin on conditions at ICE facilities: "We're not providing Holiday Inns. These people broke the law."

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 6h ago

Blanche: "Today, we're also announcing that just a few minutes ago the DOJ filed a judicial misconduct complaint with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals against all but one district court judge in the District of Minnesota for violating various judicial canons."

Rick Hasen @rickhasen.bsky.social · 6h ago

"Whether he is watching too much Fox News or acting for other reasons, Justice Alito seems to be emotionally unable to rationally examine the actual evidence in the cases before him to see if they support his voter fraud arguments." democracyproject.org/posts/exorci...

Exorcising Justice Alito’s Voter Fraud Boogeyman

A broad range of views on democracy to help break the stalemate caused by partisan conflict.

democracyproject.org

Ian Coldwater 🧊🚫@lookitup.baby · 20h ago

People saying what Amy Klobuchar was doing here looked tame do not understand the body language, tone, and affect of Minnesotans. She basically tarred and feathered this man in the town square while cackling with glee

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · yesterday

🤡 Schmitt beclowns himself 🤡 Schmitt concocted an elaborate conspiracy theory that Smith traveled to Atl for a Hawks game and to collude with Fani Willis, & flashed his "evidence" before accusing Smith of perjury. There's just one problem -- his facts were totally wrong. Here's the whole sequence:

Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 9h ago

Meta is using a radical interpretation of a tax credit for “research and experimentation” to get billions of dollars off GPUs for its A.I. data centers. My latest with Jesse Drucker, @elitan.bsky.social and @mikeisaac.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/09/30/t...

How Meta Uses A.I. Data Centers to Avoid Billions in Federal Taxes (Gift Article)

Meta is exploiting a lucrative tax break intended to support research and experimentation. Its own accountants say the gambit is risky.

nytimes.com

Micah @rincewind.run · 7h ago

he's bored and angry and all he wants to do is stand in front of a crowd of people cheering for him that's why he did the midterm convention, that's why he's doing this, and he's well beyond giving a shit how it affects any other republican candidate I love that for all of them

Micah @rincewind.run · 7h ago

I wholeheartedly support this I think he should show up and campaign personally with every republican senate candidate, make it really clear that there’s no daylight between them he can start with susan collins

Sarah Posner@sarahposner.bsky.social · 8h ago

Trump says he is embarking on 32 days of campaign travel before November elections www.reuters.com/world/us/tru...

Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur.bsky.social · yesterday

A phenomenal moment in the Senate. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., claims he has evidence Jack Smith went to a HAWKS game in Atlanta. Smith denies it. Schmitt declares he has busted Jack Smith for perjury. Smith, vexed, says he went to HAWKEYES game in Maryland. WATCH IN FULL, UNINTERRUPTED

Team Talarico @teamtalaricohq.bsky.social · 2d ago

Ken Paxton: The only thing that really saves us is that the Supreme Court came along and allowed Super PACs. Otherwise... I would be sitting here and never have a chance...

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 4d ago

It is no coincidence that rationalists and EAs tend to be straight white guys from well-off families, because for everybody else, the world usually conspires to knock some sense into you about your inherent god-emperor genius by the time you’re old enough to drink.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 4d ago

As a former pretentious little shit who grew out of it, rationalists (et al) annoy the piss out of me because they are adults with the mentality of tweens - they are somehow still convinced they are the greatest geniuses who have ever walked the earth. It is the worldview of an arrogant baby.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 4d ago

like I suspect many of you on This Website, I think a core reason why I find Eliezer Yudkowsky and his rationalist and effective altruist satellites so intensely annoying is because I had a VERY similar “being a super weird, pretentious, hyper-literate kid” experience - I just, you know, grew up.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 4d ago

While I am no psychologist or psychiatrist, Eliezer Yudkowsky’s account of his own life does read exactly like the writing of every other reasonably articulate person with a severe personality disorder:

4.6: What's it like to be you?
I am sufficiently intelligent to have completely avoided most or all of the pitfalls of youth, and I've cleaned enough dirt out of my mind that the thought of living in a completely open telepathic society doesn't disturb me. And yet I still fall short of moral perfection, because I have far less mental energy than an ordinary human.
The human mind is scarily, unintuitively modular, as even a casual student of brain-damage cases knows.
Consider, for example, the phenomenon of anosognosia, in which a patient's left arm or leg is paralyzed and the patient doesn't know it. The patient will deny any paralysis, rationalize vis "decision" not to move the arm, become angry if the confrontation continues, and so on. This only happens with the left side of the body, never the right!
It's horrifying to contemplate the thought that your self-awareness, your rationality, is subject to that sort of selective damage. It makes you wonder whether there are other blatantly obvious facts that we're all incapable of perceiving.
I am a neurohack, every bit as alien as any denizen of The Modular Brain or The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. But that alienness expresses itself in an unintuitive, modular, dramatically inconsistent way. I have a painter's self-awareness, a clean mind, and tricks of self-alteration; things which, if they were transferred to someone else, would probably result in nearly total "self-control"; I have beliefs which, all else being equal, would create an intense, energetic fanatic. It doesn't work that way, for me, because I have a hardware deficit creating a lack of mental energy. Nothing trumps hardware. Period. I can be a fanatic Singularitarian, reorganize my mind, and it won't ever give me as much mental energy as an ordinary human. End of story.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 4d ago

the Eliezer Yudkowsky superhero origin story is truly so intensely dorky as to defy all attempts at parody. you could not waterboard any of this out of me web.archive.org/web/20010309...

His autobiography even opens with a parable: as a small child he threw his favorite squirtgun off a third-floor balcony rather than accept that his mother could lend out what was his, and felt complete when he heard it hit the pavement. He goes on to describes himself as a specialist in the technological transformation of the human species, one of the few people alive with the standing to steer it. He identifies with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the one person who sees the danger clearly and has to act while everyone else gets on with ordinary life.

Faine Greenwood @faineg.com · 4d ago

Here is Eliezer Yudkowsky explaining (like a very normal person who absolutely does not have some kind of acute personality disorder) why, on the basis of his childhood test scores, he is a special genius uniquely qualified to change the world: web.archive.org/web/20010309...

5.2: Do you really think you can change the world?
Well, yes. After all, if I shouldn't believe that I can do it - or at least, that I have enough of a chance to make the effort worthwhile - who should?
That, at any rate, would be the argument I'd use if I were trying to set up a socially acceptable set of emotional bindings under which "I can change the world" sounds like a modest endeavor. "You can assign a suitably humble estimate to my chances of success as an individual, but if nobody tried, we'd be out of luck, wouldn't we?i
That's not what I tell myself.
Algernon's Law says that any simple (45) major intelligence enhancement will turn out to be a net evolutionary disadvantage. (46). The flip side of Algernon's Law is that there are some levels of performance that can't be achieved without the evolutionary disadvantage. If there were any way to duplicate the performance level of a Specialist without the downside, my SAT scores would be as common as mud; those performance levels would be part of the standard human neurology, like symbolic language or three-dimensional vision. I therefore expect that in any of my areas of Specialization - causal analysis, combinatorial design, reflectivity - I will have significantly more raw processing power than anyone except another Specialist.
Just because ten thousand dedicated researchers hit a problem and bounce, it is not a licensable conclusion that a Specialist will bounce off as well. A truly "impossible" problem often takes me a while to solve; I have to slog away at it steadily, whereas my usual rule is that I can see an answer instantly if I can see it at all. Conversely, if my level of processing power is enough to make slow but steady progress on a problem, then I would expect any non-Specialist to hit the problem and bounce. Which, to some extent, explains the travails suffered by Al.

The existence of Specialists expands the range of problems that humanity can solve. And because I don't know of any other Countersphexists operating in the fields of Al, transhumanism, or Singularitarianism (47), or of any other Countersphexists at all (48), then, for an important class of problems, I expand the range of problems that can be solved. In particular, I am referring to the problem of Al.
Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm sure AI would be solved eventually. In about 2020 CRNS (49), the weight of accumulated cognitive science and available computing power would disintegrate the ideological oversimplifications and create enough of a foothold in the problem to last humanity the rest of the way. It would be absurd to claim to represent the difference between a solvable and unsolvable problem in the long run, but one genius can easily spell the difference between cracking the problem of intelligence in five years and cracking it in twenty-five - or to put it another way, the difference between a seed Al created immediately after the invention of nanotechnology, and a seed Al created by the last dozen survivors of the human race huddled in a survival station, or some military installation, after Earth's surface has been reduced to a churning mass of goo.
That's why I matter, and that's why I think my efforts could spell the difference between life and death for most of humanity, or even the difference between a Singularity and a lifeless, sterilized planet. I don't mean to say, of course, that the entire causal load should be attributed to me; if I make it, then Ed Regis or Vernor Vinge, both of whom got me into this, would equally be able to say "My efforts made the difference between Singularity and destruction." The same goes for Brian Atkins, and Eric Drexler, and so on. History is a fragile thing. So are our causal intuitions, where linear chains of dependencies are concerned. Nonetheless, I think that I can save the world, not just because I'm the one who hap…

The Volatile Mermaid @ohnoshetwitnt.bsky.social · 7h ago

Why does he look like a racist marionette

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 8h ago

Trump is standing like no human has ever stood before

Matthew Buckley @physicsmatt.bsky.social · 7h ago

It's funny because noted sex-cult leader Big Yuds' argument for the AI murdering us all is that it will be a ruthlessly "logical" machine, whereas current AI is a gaussian blur of the Collective Unconscious and if it nukes us all its because we wrote a lot of fiction where AI tries to kill humans.

Steve Vladeck @stevevladeck.bsky.social · 22h ago

I started writing a newsletter post about the third-country removals case and had to stop—I was too mad. Maybe tomorrow.

Omri Marian @omrimarian.bsky.social · 7h ago

When people ask "universities sit on a billion dollar endowment, why don't they spend it on scholarships?" The answer is: "because the people who gave the money conditioned it on spending it on building a campus in Miami."

The New York Times@nytimes.com · 8h ago

Breaking News: The hedge fund executive Kenneth Griffin pledged $3 billion to Carnegie Mellon, the largest ever single donation in American higher education. The record-breaking gift will largely go toward the development of a campus in Miami.

Senator Scott Wiener @scottwiener.bsky.social · yesterday

The Governor just signed my bill to allow people to sue ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agents for violating people’s constitutional rights. Starting immediately, people can sue federal agents retroactive to abuse occurring in March 2025.