nesdon

Enough with the "Gulag". It's a loaded purple word and actually not a very strong analogy. It signals bias and, preaching to the choir, alienates potential moderate allies. The left needs to get a grip on its language. Our sloganeering has cost us our moral authority.

They may not want to, but we should boycott it. Then rub his nose in the abysmal ratings. Plus, it might be pretty hard, literally, to stomach. xhhttps://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/03/democrats-trump-speech-response-sotu-00206863

Donald Trump... ✅ Boots FAA chief ✅ Freezes hiring of already short-handed air traffic control personnel ✅ Offers to “buyout” federal workers ✅ Guts key aviation security advisory group And when one of our busiest airports is understaffed he has the nerve to blame wokeness?

Wildfires have been happening in SM Mountains forever. ALWAYS driven by Santa Ana winds blowing offshore down the canyons, they are generally unstoppable while the Santa Ana is blowing, but once they end and the normal onshores resume, fire fighters can generally prevent any further structure loss.

TCEP, Topanga Canyon's unique and extraordinary community emergency prep organization reports that th cluster of businesses at the junction of Topanga Canyon Blvd and PCH: The Reel Inn, Malibu Feed Bin, Cholada and Wylies Bait shop have burned. All of Topanga is under evacuation orders.

And its partner, Gratitude. holly-days.org/2024/12/26/g...

Happy Generosity! holly-days.org/2024/12/25/g...

Wild that Joni Mitchell's River gets so much play as a holiday song. She rhymes "singing songs of joy and peace" with "loved me so naughty made me weak in the knees". Title scraping bots have also put two other pretty dark songs: White Winter Hymnal and Hallelujah in the holiday rotation.

Happy Holly Days! holly-days.org/2024/12/24/h...

Ending the first trinity of values is Kindness. holly-days.org/2024/12/23/k...

Today is the second Holly Day. Each day we contemplate one of the values in a quartet of trinities, today I muse on Compassion. holly-days.org/2024/12/22/c...

My family celebrates an mash up winter holiday we call Holly Days. Runs 12 days from the Solstice to New Years Day. This is its origin story. Happy Unity! holly-days.org/nesdons-rant/

Under Medicare drs are incentivized to upcode and rx unnecessary procedures. Rather than Medicare for all we need Kaiser for all. Most docs are salaried in Kaiser’s non profit system that succeeds when members are more healthy. Plus they build extraordinary and specialized centers of excellence

The Mangione story is very reminiscent of a number of young men I've known who had their first psychotic breaks in their 20's as their first expression of their schizophrenia, schizo affective disorder or bipolar one. www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publi...

Give snitches riches and indict the bitches who give snitches stitches.

He “saw himself as hero” means to me that all of you cheering him as a hero have blood on your hands too. www.nytimes.com/live/2024/12...

Too many assumptions. At the end of the day this sort of mercy might be warranted, but it is undoubtedly not warranted at this point. Condoning vengeance puts all of us at risk. Should we pardon the son of this executive after he kills you for calling for his father's murderer to be freed?

Given all the increasing serious knock-on effects of this problem, this may be our most existentially important project. Buried in a post from Jay, this is an important and very accessible read. knightcolumbia.org/content/prot...

This “marketplace of algorithms” feels like it could be as revolutionary and disruptive as was the incoming link weighting in google’s automated marketplace of search. BUT we code clutzes need help! Point us to tutorials on how to craft/assemble our best personal algo.

Adding this important statement of goals here. I tend to trust that most folks have good intentions, even if they may be laying evil paving stones. Most of the digerati, unlike the robber barons, were/are utopians. This means diligent iteration may save us. bsky.social/about/blog/3...

I was hopeful when elon took over twitter that features like community notes and Open algorithms could solve the profound crisis of social media. Of course he was BSing and just went all oligarch, but I am more hopeful that we may create solutions here together. www.newscientist.com/article/2456...

There is a very deep insight into network effects that led me to take the BG photo in my header. It is of two things I love very deeply interacting it what seems an impossible way. Big props to anyone who can unpack all this.

Holly Days, our homemade winter holiday, now almost 2 decades old! holly-days.org

Been very sad that as a lonely old fart the online communities that keep me connected have turned to shit. Looking blueskyward hopefully