Miranda Osthoff

@tinyconstruct.bsky.social

374 Followers 252 Following

Minneapolis computer witch Indie TTRPG goblin Books, dog person Tired 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🖕🧊

An image of the "popular times" widget from Google maps (the implication being that going when places are less busy is much less stressful)
Said blurb from Wired: “You Can't Code I'm amazed by how many writers perpetuate the idea that anyone can code now. For one thing, they almost certainly haven't coded anything themselves. For another, they'd never agree with the statement that anyone can write now-even though there's no obvious difference between using Al to generate a novel and using it to generate a code base. The fact is, not just anyone can code now. Randos here and there may have used Claude to, I don't know, conjure up some Photoshop knockoff or email-sorting tool, but this is novelty, curiosity-like the time you tried VR or built a website or bought an NFT. I promise you it won't stick, and the people using Al to code for real are ... the people who were coding already! Techies. Early adopters. Computer people. There isn't some new generation of citizen coder rising up to take back software.”
“At Harvard, Hajjar was a member of The Harvard Crimson's editorial board. Frustrated by ideological homogeneity on campus, she penned a column for the Crimson called "Always at Odds." Hajjar shared her experience as a conservative student at Harvard and became a vocal advocate for free speech and ideological diversity, co-founding the Harvard Institute of Politics' Conservative Coalition. She spent the summer of 2020 as an editorial intern at National Review writing about foreign policy and national security. She has also been published in the Daily Signal and CapX. In 2019, Hajjar was a Capitol Hill intern for Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. She worked with the defense team, reporting on Armed Service hearings and researching national security affairs. She also worked as a research assistant for the Adam Smith Institute in London and attended an American Enterprise Institute Summer Honors Program seminar on Middle Eastern affairs.”
A photo of Jensen Huang with a caption that says: “If we discourage people from being software engineers, we're going to run out of software engineers... Some of the doomers were telling people... don't be a radiologist. Guess what we're short of? Radiologists." - Jensen Huang, CEO Nvidia Dwarkesh Podcast April 15, 2026
Tom’s Hardware article headline: “Jensen Huang says kids shouldn't learn to code — they should leave it up to Al” By Mark Tyson published February 25, 2024
Wired article: “They Built the 'Cursor for Hardware? Now, Anthropic Wants In Schematik is a program that aims to help people vibe code for physical devices. Hopefully, it won't blow anything up.”
Al Jazeera headline from 2024: Kamala Harris says Iran is 'greatest adversary' of US Democratic presidential candidate says preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is one of her top priorities.
From the above article: Charges of fifth-degree domestic assault were filed after Steve Drazkowski, 41, allegedly grabbed his daughter by the shirt below her neck and lifted her heels off the ground while yelling in her face, court records say. Documents say a Wabasha police officer arrived at Wabasha/Kellogg High School on Oct. 13 to find an emotionally distraught girl with two red marks on her upper chest. She complained that she was afraid of her father and didn't want to return to her home. The girl told authorities that the assault was not an isolated incident and that verbal fights occur on a daily basis. She said Drazkowski had slapped her one time in December 2004 when "she could not hold a cold dog dish while he filled it."
from the linked article: Charges of fifth-degree domestic assault were filed after Steve Drazkowski, 41, allegedly grabbed his daughter by the shirt below her neck and lifted her heels off the ground while yelling in her face, court records say. Documents say a Wabasha police officer arrived at Wabasha/Kellogg High School on Oct. 13 to find an emotionally distraught girl with two red marks on her upper chest. She complained that she was afraid of her father and didn't want to return to her home. The girl told authorities that the assault was not an isolated incident and that verbal fights occur on a daily
Texas AG opinion from here https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/2026/kp-0518.pdf “Subsection 161.701(2) broadly defines a "[h]ealth care provider" as "a person other than a physician who is licensed, certified, or otherwise authorized by this state's laws to provide or render health care or to dispense or prescribe a prescription drug in the ordinary course of business or practice of a profession." Tex. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE § 161.701(2); see also id. § 161.701(4) (defining "[p]hysician" as "a person licensed to practice medicine in this state"). The phrase "health care" is commonly understood to mean "efforts made to maintain or restore health ... by trained and licensed professionals." MERRIAM-WEBSTER'S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARY 574 (11th ed. 2020); see also, e.g., NEW OXFORD AMERICAN DICTIONARY 801 (3d ed. 2010) (referring to "the maintenance and improvement of physical and mental health," including "through the provision of medical services"). Further, the attributive noun "health" ordinarily refers to "physical and mental well-being; freedom from disease, pain, or defect; normalcy of physical and mental functions; [or] soundness." WEBSTER'S NEW WORLD COLLEGE DICTIONARY 669 (5th ed. 2016); see also, e.g., MERRIAM-WEBSTER'S COLLEGIATE DICTIONARy 574 (11th ed. 2020) (emphasizing "the condition of being sound in body, mind, or spirit"); MOsBY's DICTIONARY OF MEDICINE, NURSING & HEALTH PROFESSIONS 809 (10th ed. 2017) (emphasizing "a condition of physical, mental, and social well-being and the absence of disease or other abnormal condition"). This makes clear that a health care provider engages in licensed efforts to maintain or restore health, whether in body or mind, and belies any perceived ambiguity in subsection 161.701(2).”
From the article: NYU Langone is closing its program as the Trump administration threatens to pull federal funding from hospitals that provide treatments such as hormones or puberty blockers to minors. The Trump administration in December proposed new rules that would prohibit Medicare or Medicaid funding from flowing to hospitals that provide such gender-affirming treatments to patients under 18. Hospitals rely heavily on these massive public insurance programs for revenue.
A post from Children’s Minnesota about pausing medical interventions for minors in their gender care program: As one of the leading pediatric providers of gender-affirming care in the region, we have recently experienced an increase in federal actions directed at health systems Like ours that provide this care. These actions jeopardize the stability of Minnesota's only comprehensive pediatric health care system, and they threaten our clinicians' ability to practice medicine now and in the future. If conditions remain the same, we plan to temporarily pause prescribing puberty-suppressing medications and pubertal hormones (estrogen and testosterone) for patients under age 18 in our Gender Health program, effective Friday, Feb. 27, 2026.
Telegraph headline: Sophia Money-Coutts Being posh should be a protected characteristic If we're going to outlaw class discrimination in the interests of fairness, no one should be exempt
Minneapolis -3° Clear H:9º L:-5°
A wired headline/lede: Palantir Defends Work With ICE to Staff Following Killing of Alex Pretti BY MAKENA KELLY "In my opinion ICE are the bad guys. I am not proud that the company I enjoy so much working for is part of this," one worker wrote on Slack.
Racket headline: Report: Bye Bye, Baby Bitch Bovino
Atlantic article: Cancel Culture's Boomerang Effect How we got to a place where free speech means whatever conservatives want to say By Adam Serwer
"This is how autocrats cement their permanent grip on power, Rassin told NPR. All of these threats raise a question: if Trump won reelection, could he tell the Justice Department to go after all of these people? Bassin says the answer is, essentially, yes. "There are not really legal restrictions or even structural restrictions that would stop the president from simply directing them to go and investigate his perceived opponents," Bassin said. Some of Trump's allies have promised to undo the decades-long custom that the White House stays out of the Justice Department's decision-making. "The Department of Justice is not an independent agency," said former Trump administration official Russell Vought at a conference last year. "If anyone brings it up in a policy meeting in the White House, I want them out of the meeting."”
A photo of DreamHaven Books boarded up during the George Floyd Uprising, “with great power comes great responsibility” is sprayed across the boards, also with a depiction of Spider Man’s face and “MPLS strong”
Wired headline: We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower With Donald Trump's actions in Greenland, Minneapolis, and Venezuela, a foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck the standing of the United States.
Screenshot of a New Yorker article titled: WHAT COMES AFTER THE PROTESTS The killing of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis will continue to bring people to the streets. Can it bring change? By Jay Caspian Kang
The post continues in the next slide: I made a decision years ago to not opt out of the world, and with that decision and the commitment to stick to that decision, I made a choice to live a certain way, where my survival was tied to care for others, principled community-building, not hoarding resources (even/especially if the resource is my own time! which it often is!) not closing myself off to connection, or the making of new friends, or the trying of new things. Trying to be as welcoming in real life as 1 am on the page as I am on the stage as I am when joking around online. In short: not drifting through the world like it and everyone in it owes me something just because I decided to stick around.
From Hanif Abdurraqib’s Instagram post: I don't know. You're maybe going to have to give your close attention to other people in a world that increasingly devalues close attention. You're probably going to have to think about the way you talk to others in a world that increasingly encourages people to say the first bullshit that pops into their head, regardless of how harmful it may be. You are possibly going to have to create things that you are proud of, and then share them with a world that is increasingly ill-equipped to engage with those things, but it'll find the people it needs to find. You are almost certainly going to have to be patient in the name of loving others well, and loving yourself well. I guess I'm mostly saying this to myself, but you also may have to do these things, and more. I hope you remain up for that challenge. Our time here isn't infinite, and it can't only be miserable
a photo of the section of the bill being discussed: "SEC. 559A. PROHIBITION ON PARTICIPATION OF MALES IN ATHLETIC PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES AT THE MILITARY SERVICE ACADEMIES THAT ARE DESIGNATED FOR WOMEN OR GIRLS. (a) In General.--The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that the United States Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, and the United States Air Force Academy do not permit a person enrolled at such an Academy whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls. (b) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the United States Military Academy, the United States Naval Academy, or the United States Air Force Academy from permitting males to train or practice with an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls so long as no female is deprived of a roster spot on a team or sport, opportunity to participate in a practice or competition, scholarship, admission to an educational institution, or any other benefit that accompanies participating in the athletic program or activity. (c) Definitions.--In this section-- (1) the term ``athletic programs and activities'' includes all programs or activities that are provided conditional upon participation with any athletic team; and (2) the term ``sex'' means a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth."
The Pepe Silvia meme
"The belief that this enormous, existential problem could have been fixed if all of us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous; it’s dangerous … It’s victim blaming, plain and simple. Heglar and others have taken a strong stance against environmental purity—the idea that you can’t care about or advocate for systems-level change if you aren’t first changing your own habits. But not everyone agrees that individual actions should be completely deemphasized in the climate conversation. Kimberly Nicholas, a climate scientist and author of the popular book Under the Sky We Make, has argued that wealthy people living in wealthy countries—and globally, “wealthy” is a lower bar than you might think—do have a responsibility to slash their outsize carbon emissions. And particularly for those of us living in democracies, personal action isn’t just about the choices we make as consumers. “There’s still an ongoing tension between personal and system change, or individual and collective action,” Nicholas said. “It’s really hard to get that right—to get the right balance there that acknowledges the role and the importance of both, and to talk about and study and describe both in a way that motivates people to take high-impact actions.” Goldwert saw that tension play out in her maligned climate communications study. In the experiment, participants reviewed 21 individual climate actions (like eating less meat) and five systemic actions (like voting) and rated their commitments to taking each action. Two test groups then received clarifying information about the relative impact of the 21 individual actions—one group was asked to estimate their ranking before learning how they actually ranked, the other group received the information straight-up. But participants didn’t receive any data about the carbon-mitigation potential of the five collective actions, which would be far more difficult to quantify.
From the article: "The study set out to understand how to shift behavior by communicating climate truths. Instead, its media coverage revealed a troubling psychological trade-off: When climate-related messaging strikes a nerve, it may actually turn people off from the work of shifting societal norms. It’s an instinct I understand on some level. I love Loki, and my knee-jerk reaction is to defend the very personal choice of sharing one’s life with a dog. I also sympathize with redirecting the blame toward the biggest polluters: billionaires and fossil fuel companies (not Bon-Bon, the pet Chihuahua in question). But is it irresponsible to shrug off any conversation about the environmental impact of our pets—something far more within our control than, say, the overthrow of capitalism? Is there a way to have a frank discussion about the climate impact of our personal lives without it going to the dogs?"
A Newsweek excerpt: That said, the occupations not deemed professional among the health care space include nursing, physician assistants, physical therapists and audiologists, according to the education news outlet Inside Higher Ed. Per the outlet, other professions not included are architects, accountants, educators, and social workers—which sector representatives pushed to be included in the list, given that they are high-demand occupations. It has also been reported that engineering, a business master's, counseling or therapy, and speech pathology will not be considered "professional" either.
The two spidermen pointing at each other by a cop van meme
From the article: “The e-mails of the celebrated programmer Linus Torvalds land like thunderbolts from on high onto public lists, full of invective, insults, and demeaning language. "Please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place," he wrote in one. "Guys, this is not a dick-sucking contest," he observed in another. "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" he began in a third. Torvalds has publicly posted thousands of scathing messages targeting programmers who submit what he deems flawed code to the Linux computer-operating-system kernel, which he brought to life more than twenty-five years ago and now administers as a collaborative, open-source project. Today, the Linux kernel is famous, running the enormous computers of Google, PayPal, Amazon, and eBay, and the two billion mobile phones using the Android operating system. Torvalds, though, retains final say over each precious line of code, just as he did when he first started working on the system as a graduate student at the University of Helsinki. For years, he has been known as Linux's "benevolent dictator for life."”
I willed myself to see the mileage meter, the pale road dust on the black plastic dashboard, the overflowing ashtray. "Amphetamine psychosis," I said. I opened my eyes. The dash was still there, the dust, the crushed filtertips. Very carefully, without moving my head, I turned the headlights on. And saw them. They were blond. They were standing beside their car, an aluminum avocado with a central shark-fin rudder jutting up from its spine and smooth black tires like a child's toy. He had his arm around her waist and was gesturing toward the city. They were both in white: loose clothing, bare legs, spotless white sun shoes. Neither of them seemed aware of the beams of my headlights. He was saying something wise and strong, and she was nodding, and suddenly I was frightened, frightened in an entirely different way. Sanity had ceased to be an issue; I knew, somehow, that the city behind me was Tucson a dream Tucson thrown up out of the collective yearning of an era. That it was real, entirely real. But the couple in front of me lived in it, and they frightened me. They were the children of Dialta Downes's '80- that-wasn't; they were Heirs to the Dream. They were white, blond, and they probably had blue eyes. They were American. Dialta had said that the Future had come to America finally passed first, but had finally passed it by. But not here, in the heart of the Dream. Here, we'd gone on and on, in a dream logic that knew nothing of pollution, the finite bounds of fossil fuel, or foreign wars it was possible to lose. They were smug, happy, and utterly content with themselves and their world. And in the Dream, it was their world. Behind me, the illuminated city: Searchlights swept the sky for the sheer joy of it. I imagined them thronging the plazas of white marble, orderly and alert, their bright eyes shining with enthusiasm for their floodlit avenues and silver cars. It had all the sinister fruitiness of Hitler Youth propaganda.
A photo of northern lights in red and a little green over some homes, taken in Northeast Minneapolis
From the previous article: “"It's not uncommon for people with significant mental illness to try to use substances to manage any number of symptoms that they have," says Jill Wiedemann-West, CEO of People Incorporated, one of Minnesota's largest nonprofit treatment and service providers. "We basically assume that there's physical health comorbidity, there's mental health comorbidity, there's substance use comorbidity ... and also a level of trauma." This "wraparound, whole-person approach, combined with high-level housing management, has become the gold standard.”
POLITICO Many Biden aides say they're speaking out now because, under President Donald Trump, the situation in Gaza has grown far more dire, with famine taking hold. Unlike Biden or other modern presidents, Trump has seemingly no limit on how far he'll take his executive power. But, perhaps because Israel retains widespread GOP support, Trump has been largely hands-off on the Gaza conflict. The Biden aides hope to push Trump to do more to end the war, even if it means drawing attention to their own missteps. Some skeptics see another reason for the Biden aides' new outspokenness: That these are people who want to protect their job prospects in a Democratic Party where support for Israel is falling.
An article excerpt that lists Democratic senators who voted in favor of the NDAA: “Democratic senators voting in favor of the NDAA included Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland; Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado; Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Lisa Blunt Rochester and Chris Coons of Delaware; Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona; Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia; Mazie Hirono of Hawaii; Gary Peters and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan; Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota; Jacky Rosen of Nevada; Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire; Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico; Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer of New York; John Fetterman of Pennsylvania; Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island; and Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia.”