Ben Klemens

@b-k.bsky.social

187 Followers 195 Following

I've stopped using "Economist" and have switched to "Computational Social Scientist". @b@xoxo.zone on Mastodon. He/him or they/them

Bus ad: "fair use advances innovation and improves lives". There is light bulb iconography, and a logo for "AI Progress".
Scrobble stats since September for the first track from Dark Side of the Moon, with a clear uptick on yesterday when Artemis II passed behind the Moon.
Screenshot from The Post. Hed: Why the iconic drum circles at D.C.'s Malcom X Park are going silent. Dek: A $15m project is underway to repair the park, aka Meridian Hill Park, and restore grass on the upper level... Pic is of a host of people with drums under the trees.
A sprawling flowchart with a lot of avocado boxes (inputs) and a maze of white boxes (calculated values).
Still from a Simpsons episode, where a Department of Homeland Security killbot looms over an old man who just broke his glasses. Background is dystopian ruins.
The 2024 IRS form 8863. As dull as a tax form should look; maybe the only thing that stands out is a big black caution icon. There are several yes/no questions.
A house, partially collapsed. The main house is visible, as are two walls of the rear addition, but the interior is otherwise open to the sunlight. We called it the veranda.
East wing of the White House, with a massive Xmas tree and other well-lit foliage along its portico. Paper lanterns on the floor along the entranceway to the WH grounds.
A close-up of my electric bill on the part which says "total credit amount: -$69.91".
A can of 3 stars peppercorn saison beer
A ferret at the keyboard of a 90s era PC. The ferret types for a while, then leans in to the screen for a while, then starts over. The product name, DataFerrett, is displayed at the top.
The cover of the US Department of Commerce's 1971 report "A Metric America: A decision whose time has come".
It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.
66.4 million total on this bar chart from 2023. Canada then Mexico are by far the largest shares, then Great Britain, Germany, India, Brazil, Korea, France, Japan, China.
A paperback: The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkein. With trippy looking trees and birds in foreground and a village on a hill in background, all very 1960s.
A big ol Pato V terminal, with orange plasma touchscreen. The museum's explanatory card is on top
Screen shot of a tweet from June 2022. "The street is still New Hampshire Ave but now has the honorific Khashoggi Way, like how I live between Bishop Hart Way and Li'l Benny Way but both of those names won't appear on a map. But Google is all in and is using the honorific in this case." The map is a close-up of DC outside the Saudi Embassy, with Jamal Khashoggi Way displayed.
A bag of pita, somewhere in Yafo. If you squish it down, it slowly expands back to its original form. That is, the pita is not wheat-based cardboard.
Almond bread (German: mandelbrot) cookies. One is on its side to show the texture of the interior.
@xoxogossipgita replying to a blocked account. "This is not common sense" and "THERE ARE TWO OTHER POSTS IN THIS THREAD LEARN TO READ". It looks like she also blocked the person later in the day.
Plot of U of C admissions rates. In 2001 it was just under 45%, it dropped steeply between 2007 and about 2015, and by 2022 was just under 5%.
Two tweets from @popchartbot. "To die from the cold in the arms of a nightmare, well knowing your best days are gone." and "I wonder why we waste our lives here. I wonder why we spend these nights together. Is this the room I'll live my life in forever?"
The bus stop is a giant blue guitar.
A 1908 street scene, with some buildings to the left and right, and a whole lot of space in between. There are some horseless carriages, a streetcar, random pedestrians, none very close together.
A map of Manhattan, with 1st, 50th, 100th, 150th, and 218th streets marked. The Lower East Side is South of 1st, and the Upper West and Upper East Sides are South of 100th.
Headline is "How the polar vortex could bring winter back with a vengeance", and the image is technically a weather map but clearly some kind of demon.
A captcha with a crosswalk at left and a pedestrian at right. We're asked to find the crosswalk.
"In 2022, a hard-right faction took over the Republican Town Committee — and are now planning to seize control of the Representative Town Meeting, the 230-member (!) legislative body whose powers include final say on any municipal expenditure over $5,000."
Ads from the mid-1980s for "Old Engish Wildlife engraving t-shirt", with lions and tigers and giraffes, and the Banana Republic name and logo (a star ringed by two bananas).
It's IXPE the Interstellar Ibex! She wears glasses, and looks out from the stars. You're getting a cartoon mascot because IXPE doesn't quite observe light, but the polarization of light, and so doesn't produce magazine-ready pix.
I can't put the entire text in the alt here, but after caveats and qualifications, Popper concludes with: "...we should claim the right to suppress [militant intolerants] if necessary even by force... We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law. and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."
Me, in a heavily distorted video. Lots of rainbow lines everywhere. My "Maryland" t-shirt is too big.