@pipedreaming.bsky.social I'd love to see an explainer of ABS vs PVC drain pipes, if there is much practical difference, and why the choice seems so geographically dependent
September 19, 2026 at 9:15 PM
@pipedreaming.bsky.social I'd love to see an explainer of ABS vs PVC drain pipes, if there is much practical difference, and why the choice seems so geographically dependent
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
NICU babies are the most vulnerable a human can be, and it seems almost quaint to say it now, but we are supposed to build societies where the most vulnerable can count on others to not let this happen
ICYMI: Possible measles exposure reported at the NICU at CHOP in Philadelphia, officials say
Possible measles exposure reported at the NICU at CHOP in Philadelphia, officials say
Health officials say that a possible measles exposure was reported in the NICU at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia last week.
trib.al
September 18, 2026 at 8:35 PM
NICU babies are the most vulnerable a human can be, and it seems almost quaint to say it now, but we are supposed to build societies where the most vulnerable can count on others to not let this happen
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
Thinking about how LLMs are both spicy autocorrect and also encode a helical structure in higher-dimensional space to perform addition with
Language Models Use Trigonometry to Do Addition
Mathematical reasoning is an increasingly important indicator of large language model (LLM) capabilities, yet we lack understanding of how LLMs process even simple mathematical tasks. To address this,...
arxiv.org
September 18, 2026 at 10:52 PM
Thinking about how LLMs are both spicy autocorrect and also encode a helical structure in higher-dimensional space to perform addition with
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
These are all extremely common sense steps, and opposition to them can be used as a useful filter for bad actors in the space.
* VIRGINIA GOVERNOR SAYS STATE IS BANNING NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENTS FOR DATA CENTERS, REQUIRING STRICTER PERMITTING AND CLEAN ENERGY MANDATES FOR THE SERVER WAREHOUSES
@reuters.com
@reuters.com
September 18, 2026 at 3:33 PM
These are all extremely common sense steps, and opposition to them can be used as a useful filter for bad actors in the space.
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
I don’t usually meddle on the writing side of Jeopardy!, but tonight I called in a favor for our Bluesky viewers.
September 18, 2026 at 10:34 PM
I don’t usually meddle on the writing side of Jeopardy!, but tonight I called in a favor for our Bluesky viewers.
It sure sounds like this Greenland "agreement" is a lot like that thing in memory care facilities where there's a bus that picks up patients at a single fake stop and then drops them back off
September 18, 2026 at 9:55 PM
It sure sounds like this Greenland "agreement" is a lot like that thing in memory care facilities where there's a bus that picks up patients at a single fake stop and then drops them back off
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
this is obvious (laudatory) and I have to keep explaining it in several contexts in my life
People keep conflating the "a superintelligent machine will defeat and destroy humanity" doomer idea (which is still pretty silly) with the problem Hugging Face demonstrates, which is that having many agents endlessly plugging away at a task can lead to bizarre and harmful choices and outcomes
September 18, 2026 at 9:20 PM
this is obvious (laudatory) and I have to keep explaining it in several contexts in my life
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
I think it’s telling that the most powerful remnants of Woke 1 or whatever is the one that happens to let drivers of all backgrounds off the hook for reckless driving. Decarceration/ depolicing etc as policy had staying power essentially nowhere else lol
Amon transpo policy people in state government and advocacy world it’s basically a consensus position that automated enforcement of traffic laws is racist. So more or less in pursuit of equity we shouldn’t have traffic laws.
September 18, 2026 at 3:43 PM
I think it’s telling that the most powerful remnants of Woke 1 or whatever is the one that happens to let drivers of all backgrounds off the hook for reckless driving. Decarceration/ depolicing etc as policy had staying power essentially nowhere else lol
Oregon and the mountain west have enormous geothermal potential. We know solar and wind are great deals on the current margin, but this could be an invaluable resource for deep decarbonization
September 18, 2026 at 6:37 PM
Oregon and the mountain west have enormous geothermal potential. We know solar and wind are great deals on the current margin, but this could be an invaluable resource for deep decarbonization
LOL. But being serious for a second: it is a massive policy failure at that any point Americans had to pay *more* to get an Impossible Burger patty
September 18, 2026 at 4:45 PM
LOL. But being serious for a second: it is a massive policy failure at that any point Americans had to pay *more* to get an Impossible Burger patty
Private jets are to some extent Veblen goods so exorbitantly taxing them would raise utility for everyone. Should be taxed at 1000% and they should have to capture+sequester 5x their carbon emissions
Private fliers pollute 14x more than commercial
Only the world's richest 0.003% flies private, and half of those flights are for fun.
Private flight is 16% of FAA operations, but contributes less than 0.6% of the taxes financing the FAA.
New report from @ips-dc.org
ips-dc.org/report-high-...
Only the world's richest 0.003% flies private, and half of those flights are for fun.
Private flight is 16% of FAA operations, but contributes less than 0.6% of the taxes financing the FAA.
New report from @ips-dc.org
ips-dc.org/report-high-...
High Flyers 2026: The High Cost of Private Jet Excess - Institute for Policy Studies
High Flyers 2026: The High Cost of Private Jet Excess
ips-dc.org
September 18, 2026 at 4:41 PM
Private jets are to some extent Veblen goods so exorbitantly taxing them would raise utility for everyone. Should be taxed at 1000% and they should have to capture+sequester 5x their carbon emissions
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
(This is also how some people think about labor strikes)
Certain kinds of smart people tend to have a "sexy apocalypse" problem when it comes to thinking about risk. E.g. skynet turning everyone in paperclips, while bad, is also *kind of cool and fun* at the same time. Where the reality is that most actual disasters are both stupid and disappointing.
September 18, 2026 at 3:01 PM
(This is also how some people think about labor strikes)
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
for the record i think my suspension was bullshit and i also support it. i have been saying for some time that moderation is too loose until people like me start catching bad ones. the ideal number of bullshit suspensions is not 0
September 17, 2026 at 9:44 PM
for the record i think my suspension was bullshit and i also support it. i have been saying for some time that moderation is too loose until people like me start catching bad ones. the ideal number of bullshit suspensions is not 0
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
hey I heard you like sankey diagrams that show huge populations making terrible decisions
September 16, 2026 at 3:22 AM
hey I heard you like sankey diagrams that show huge populations making terrible decisions
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, left a big gambling loophole in the Medicaid work requirements.
I'm no fan of the gambling industry, but if you are on Medicaid and struggling to deal with the work requirements, taking a $580 bet on both sides of an outcome is one way of getting around them.
I'm no fan of the gambling industry, but if you are on Medicaid and struggling to deal with the work requirements, taking a $580 bet on both sides of an outcome is one way of getting around them.
September 17, 2026 at 10:52 PM
Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, left a big gambling loophole in the Medicaid work requirements.
I'm no fan of the gambling industry, but if you are on Medicaid and struggling to deal with the work requirements, taking a $580 bet on both sides of an outcome is one way of getting around them.
I'm no fan of the gambling industry, but if you are on Medicaid and struggling to deal with the work requirements, taking a $580 bet on both sides of an outcome is one way of getting around them.
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
It's sort of concerning that, with the reflecting pool and the kennedy center at least, he's settled on "if I can't be famous for restoring it I'll be famous for destroying it"
Give me what I want or I'll tear it down.
He's demanding ransom and holding the nation hostage.
He's demanding ransom and holding the nation hostage.
September 17, 2026 at 5:34 PM
It's sort of concerning that, with the reflecting pool and the kennedy center at least, he's settled on "if I can't be famous for restoring it I'll be famous for destroying it"
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
New cat just dropped
The new wild cat species is about the size of a domestic kitten and lives in Bolivia.
New wild cat species is identified for first time in 100 years, researchers say
A type of tiger cat, the animal is smaller than a house cat, slender and spotted. It lives in the Bolivian cloud forest.
nbcnews.to
September 17, 2026 at 5:23 PM
New cat just dropped
That thing where any example of a Democrat doing a good thing is immediately spun as "why aren't all the other Democrats doing this thing, it's because they're all the absolute worst except this one person who's the exception that proves the rule" on here
September 17, 2026 at 5:16 PM
That thing where any example of a Democrat doing a good thing is immediately spun as "why aren't all the other Democrats doing this thing, it's because they're all the absolute worst except this one person who's the exception that proves the rule" on here
Damn. Owned by facts and logic
oho, the fact that you did not contemplate the possibility of one hundred trillion permanently orgasming krill dominating the universe only shows the shortcomings of your rational intellect
September 17, 2026 at 4:25 PM
Damn. Owned by facts and logic
The thing about measles is that it actually has a lot of the negative long-term effects on people's immune systems that COVID doomers (falsely) claim SARS-CoV-2 has. So we're likely to see significant downstream consequences of this
Pennsylvania’s Measles Outbreak Is Enormous
The two latest deaths suggest that the true number of infections is much larger than reported.
www.theatlantic.com
September 17, 2026 at 4:09 PM
The thing about measles is that it actually has a lot of the negative long-term effects on people's immune systems that COVID doomers (falsely) claim SARS-CoV-2 has. So we're likely to see significant downstream consequences of this
This post by @lastpositivist.bsky.social remains the single best take on effective altruism
September 17, 2026 at 3:54 PM
This post by @lastpositivist.bsky.social remains the single best take on effective altruism
It's possible that a "toxicity score" is a bad solution to a problem, but it's a real problem, and if you are gleefully piling onto someone proposing a solution to the solution without offering one yourself, it is very likely you are part of the problem
September 17, 2026 at 3:51 PM
It's possible that a "toxicity score" is a bad solution to a problem, but it's a real problem, and if you are gleefully piling onto someone proposing a solution to the solution without offering one yourself, it is very likely you are part of the problem
It's a unique part of their culture
People in Iceland take it personally when you murder them.
Icelandic Wikipedia appears to have an article about every known murder in Iceland going back to at least the 1970s
September 17, 2026 at 3:45 PM
It's a unique part of their culture
Reposted by Stephen Judkins
the fact that the NTSB is conducting a federal safety investigation of the helicopter crash, but nobody is going to do anything about the original deadly car crash, really shows just how few fucks our country gives about every day traffic violence that kills 40k people every year
September 16, 2026 at 9:06 PM
the fact that the NTSB is conducting a federal safety investigation of the helicopter crash, but nobody is going to do anything about the original deadly car crash, really shows just how few fucks our country gives about every day traffic violence that kills 40k people every year