Ben Hanowell

Ben Hanowell

@hanowell.me

Writing a hybrid memoir + narrative science nonfiction book about the statistical paradox of competing risks and how it applies to my near-death. Posts are my own thoughts. This is a personal account. MEDIO·TUTISSIMUS·IBIS CUSTOS·VIAE·MEDIAE

504 followers 563 following3.3K posts

Ben Hanowell reposted

Paula Poundstone

@paulapoundstone.bsky.social

Stay strong Rep. Omar!

Ilhan Omar@ilhanmn.bsky.social

One week until Election Day. America deserves better than the pedophile protection party. Knock doors. Make calls. Get your friends to vote. Let’s elect Democrats up and down the ballot and finally make Trump release the Epstein files.

Ben Hanowell reposted

🚲insert into haunted select uid from partisans where party = "R"

@db-user.bsky.social

gee, I wonder who would want to cause outages in such systems?

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Ben Hanowell reposted

@joelhs.bsky.social

This ad is indeed, antisemitic, transphobic, and indefensible, but also, it is being run by Cenk Uygur, a known antisemitic wrecker with no link to the Abdul El-Sayed campaign. It isn't really comparable to the Ramaswamy ad, which his campaign is paying to run.

In 2025, 1,580 people aged two and older received advanced life support care after a sudden cardiac arrest in King County, WA. I was among them, and among the 19 percent who survived to hospital discharge. cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/king...

cdn.kingcounty.govcdn.kingcounty.gov

This weekend, I went to the Medic One Foundation’s annual gala, where they raised $1.7 million to train and equip paramedics with, I do not exaggerate, some of the best advanced life support training this world has ever known.

Consider chipping in: www.mediconefoundation.org/ways-to-give...

mediconefoundation.orgDonate to Medic One | Seattle, WA | Medic One FoundationEvery Second Counts – Donate Today! In critical emergencies, every second can mean the difference between life and death. For over 50 years, the Medic One Foundation has been committed to saving lives...

Ben Hanowell reposted

Gillian Brockell

@gillianbrockell.com

For several days I have been hearing rumors of an ICE detainee death that ICE was not reporting. I've just learned a local journalist has confirmed it and will publish soon. Now I read this and see there are actually TWO deaths ICE is not reporting. www.daylightsandiego.org/ice-detainee...

daylightsandiego.orgICE detainee dies at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San DiegoPrivate prison company CoreCivic confirmed that someone in its custody died on Oct. 24 in one of the housing units.

Katie Mack@astrokatie.com

A reminder, because it is almost that time of year: More children are killed by cars on Halloween than any other day of the year, by far. www.vox.com/future-perfe... If you're a parent, I hope you'll do what you can to keep kids safe. If you're driving on Saturday, PLEASE exercise extra caution.

Would be cool to be able to not have to have one of two extreme views about data centers and AI while not being accused of having one of those extreme views by an opponent of that view, but we’re idiotic humans so…

HOW ARE NEARLY ALL LEADERS AT THIS POINT NOT OPENLY CONDEMNING THIS ADMINISTRATION?! THEY ARE NOT EVEN REMOTELY POPULAR AND THEY ARE A LAME DUCK ANYWAY. WHAT ARE YOU SISSIES AFRAID OF?

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com

RFK: "There's five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."

Ah yes. Must be because of the AI.

Want an economic indicator for "city to live in if you don't want to be part of the rat race, but also want to live in a good city."

I don't think such a city exists, or such a life exists, but I want badly to be proven wrong.

Germans of BlueSky: is the taco taco taco taco (really long German word) meme true?

My kid is weird, devious, and will cut you if you mess with her. God I love her.

Matt Darling@besttrousers.bsky.social

Half the responses to this are people saying "my kid is smart, funny and kind" as if most parents would not say the exact same thing about their kid.

Ben Hanowell reposted

@goldy.horsesass.org

The whole point is the fear. Trump's "immigration" policies are working exactly as intended.

seattletimes.comPoint Roberts woman dies after fearing detention if she crossed borderWashington resident Paige Adamson, 61, was stopped at the border and questioned about her voting history. Weeks later she skipped a doctor visit. Then she died.

Ben Hanowell reposted

@gregsargent.bsky.social

NEWS --> Dems are planning novel ways to wield power of the purse against Trump's corrupt prosecutions of critics like Ilhan Omar if they win House. Reps Pramila Jayapal and Jamie Raskin tell me a range of aggressive tactics will be deployed. Details in my new piece: newrepublic.com/article/2171...

newrepublic.comTrump’s Vile Prosecution of Ilhan Omar Is About to Run Into a WallIf they retake the House, Democrats will have plenty of ways to act against Trump’s corrupt prosecutions. Pramila Jayapal and Jamie Raskin say they’re going to use them.

Ben Hanowell reposted

@mattwallaert.com

There are a staggering number of issues on which the majority of Americans agree. Democrats should just start going down the list.

David Brauer@dbrauer.net

Lula won in part by banning online gambling

In the progressive backlash against the fascist backlash against the previous progressive backlash, let’s try to do one thing differently:

Let’s focus on getting stuff done instead of performatively competing for who has the most progressive worldview.

Ben Hanowell reposted

John Woodrow Cox

@johnwoodrowcox.bsky.social

EXCLUSIVE: Trump DOJ’s has repeatedly insisted it will not tell immigration judges how to rule, as required by law. But after a demand from unidentified “higher-ups,” a veteran judge was ordered to reverse four rulings—then yanked from court mid-hearing. wapo.st/4BuABEM

wapo.stTrump’s DOJ told a judge how to rule. Then it pulled her from court.Karen Donoso Stevens offers a rare firsthand look at the administration’s campaign to rewrite the rules of the immigration court system.

This police officer has done his town a whole lot of wrong and should face consequences for it.

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social

Startling stat — a police officer in a small Texas town handed arrested and handed over immigrants to ICE at such volume that the total number is the equivalent of 10% of his town's population. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/25/m...

nytimes.comHe Helped Deport 200 People. Now He Has Misgivings.A deputy in small-town Texas became the local face of ICE’s national crackdown.

This has got to be a deepfake, how can a mother &&$@er be this stupid while smiling as he agrees with ludicrous lampooning of his own tired and uninspired beliefs?

Jake Grumbach@jakemgrumbach.bsky.social

A helpfully clear exchange here Hasan: "So your argument is that [Minnesota ICE protesters] should stay at home because immigration is a salient issue for Donald Trump. Opposing ICE is only going to help Trump. Wait until we win the election in 2028." Yglesias: "Yes that is what I would have said"

Ben Hanowell reposted

Eric Lipton NYT

@ericlipton.nytimes.com

JUST POSTED: Today at The NYT we are publishing a major investigation into how President Trump used his executive powers to expose millions of Americans to greater cancer risks. A six month-long investigation built on more than 10,000 pages of FOIA records. Read it www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...

nytimes.comHow Trump Gave the Worst Polluters a Free Pass (Gift Article)The president temporarily waived clean-air rules for industrial facilities that spew cancer-causing gases. Then his appointees worked to gut the regulations altogether.

Ben Hanowell reposted

Joan Meiners, PhD

@joanmeiners.bsky.social

This is taxpayer-funded research data and info that belongs to the public and is not this administration’s to erase.

Mother Jones@motherjones.com

In a little-noticed webpage update, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced a plan to decommission its online web archive at the end of the year, a move that would wipe tens of thousands of publicly available environmental resources from the web.

motherjones.comThe EPA is quietly killing its web archiveTens of thousands of documents on contamination, clean power, and Trump's climate deletions are now scheduled to disappear.

Kind of surprised by how bad the King article on AI reviewing is to be honest.

What pisses me off is the view that the only thing that can be produced in collaboration with tools like Claude is “slop.” I’ve put hundreds of hours or mire into a project I’ve been working on, and no it’s not because AI is ironically inefficient, it’s cuz I’ve worked my ass off on it.

Also I think it’s badass.

Gonna start rocking the curly stache STARTINg TOMORROW

lol wtf

VoteHub@votehub.com

NEWS — The Trump administration sued Alaska over Dan J. Sullivan’s Senate candidacy, arguing voter confusion could affect the race between Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola, per Courthouse News.

Listen to some Erasure and make yourself right with the world people!!!!!!!!

Would be super cool to see sane views about AI, rather than the extreme views on both extreme poles, to gain ascendance. In the end, they will, but for now, it's super annoying to deal with this every day. I am exhausted by extreme views. Feel like the SW: A New Hope part in the trash compactor.

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Do you not know that Pangram scores are based on a completely bogus measurement target, and using the same methods that you excoriated just four short years ago...

I could gripe for fourteen years about this, which is telling me I desperately and immediately need to go touch grass. The problem is, increasingly, these stupid extreme views encroach into meatspace conversion, so I want to gouge out my god damned eyeballs.

Would be super cool to see sane views about AI, rather than the extreme views on both extreme poles, to gain ascendance. In the end, they will, but for now, it's super annoying to deal with this every day. I am exhausted by extreme views. Feel like the SW: A New Hope part in the trash compactor.

And much of the scholarly research on this topic is CLEARLY feeding off of the polarized controversy. It's so utterly exhausting and dismaying.

The irony is also no longer funny. For example, we've got people who four years ago were complaining about how ML algorithms that predict binary outcomes are total BS now posting screenshots of Pangram scores of content by people they don't like. IT IS STUPID. THIS IS ALL STUPID.

Ben Hanowell reposted

🚨🚨🚨 Q: Is there any scenario in which DOJ would try to block states from certifying the election? AG TODD BLANCHE: Yes, of course. It is not DOJ's intention to improperly interfere with elections or the state certification process, but ...

This but WA politics

Robert (Bob) Kubinec@rmkubinec.bsky.social

I have to say, the underwhelming thing about Texan politics is that everyone complains about how high their property taxes are while refusing to consider an income tax. Both Dems and Republicans have the same message. There are some basic math issues at stake here... 🤷

Ben Hanowell reposted

Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️

@spahn711.bsky.social

While standing along the Rio Grande, I was able to record a liquefaction demo! By simply tapping the sand, it progressively became more liquid-like. Liquefaction occurs when loose, water-saturated sand/soil loses its strength/stiffness during vibrations, causing it to behave like a liquid.

Ben Hanowell reposted

@brendannyhan.bsky.social

literally illegal

Sam Bagenstos@sbagen.bsky.social

Not a surprise from this administration, but both unlawful and incredibly destructive of effective governance. www.washingtonsun.com/administrati...

washingtonsun.comState Asked Foreign Service Officers Up for Promotion Whether They Voted for TrumpFederal law strictly prohibits making civil service personnel decisions on the basis of political affiliation.

Ben Hanowell reposted

Ukraine says the abrupt throttling of US-funded Starshield grounded dozens of drones mid-flight, costing one unit $1M+, and halted some strikes for three days (New York Times) Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Ben Hanowell reposted

@mtsw.bsky.social

The Plot to Enslave America

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social

Crypto industry alone is now up to an insane $55 million spent trying to defeat Sherrod Brown. www.politico.com/live-updates...

It’s super cute how excited the Acquired podcast guys get about episode crossovers because duh the companies they tend to cover end up now being the companies that own everything.

Ben Hanowell reposted

Soraya Nadia McDonald

cynicism is hemlock to democracy. vote!

“I cannot believe you have to ask an LLM like every question.” Literally the same person getting directions to something located at one of the most obvious intersections in the entire city: “okay google get me directions to…” THIS IS THE DUMBEST &@$!

Why is everything except like chilling with your friends and touching grass the absolute dumbest &@$!?

The paparazzi caught us in Philly.