Joel
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polyparadigm.bsky.social
Joel
@polyparadigm.bsky.social
Materials scientist:some range and depth, interested in making arcane topics a little more accessible.
Prior place photo was from the aughts; figured I should update.
Reposted by Joel
Since there's Star Wars discourse going on, it's the perfect time to bring up the time when people got mad at Scott Aukerman for listing the Star Wars movies in order of release date
November 25, 2025 at 5:19 AM
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A new kind of rapid Chotining. Please appreciate the alt-text.
November 25, 2025 at 1:09 AM
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UPDATE: Boasberg orders the parties to submit plans for the "inquiry regarding a potential contempt referral," by tomorrow, "including names of possible witnesses and dates for hearings." (ACLU's Lee Gelernt smartly suggested waiting on the mandate from the DC Circuit before issuing any orders.)
November 25, 2025 at 3:18 AM
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British edition: my non alcoholic mulled cider recipe for if you’re serving mulled wine, for whoever wants it.
Big stock pot. Two litres pressed apple juice, 2 L cranberry juice, 500 mL lemon squash. Put about 30 allspice berries, 30 whole cloves in a loose leaf tea bag.
I do not drink because I have almost no tolerance for it anymore (one margarita is too much).

If you are hosting a party, I recommend also stocking:
-fancy ginger beer
-coconut water
-premium juices like lychee and guava
-apple cider with cinnamon
-Italian sodas
-sparkling water

Lots of options!
November 24, 2025 at 2:13 PM
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Will the govt be able to bring a new indictment against Comey despite the statute of limitations having run?

Ordinarily yes, but Judge Currie argues no in this case, since Halligan's indictment was void from the start. This question will no doubt be litigated!
November 24, 2025 at 6:16 PM
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NEW: Judge Currie finds that Lindsay Halligan was UNLAWFULLY APPOINTED and dismisses the James Comey and Letitia James indictments without prejudice. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
November 24, 2025 at 5:54 PM
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trying to make citing the law a punishable act
🚨This is dangerous, dangerous territory Hegseth and Trump are diving into. This is crossing the rubicon into authoritarianism. If we haven’t already.

apnews.com/article/pent...

This debate came up in the past around Mike Flynn. But that was warranted.

This is a whole different thing.
Pentagon says it's investigating Sen. Mark Kelly for video urging troops to defy 'illegal orders'
The Pentagon says that it is investigating Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona for possible breaches of military law after Kelly joined a handful of other lawmakers in a video that called for U.S. t...
apnews.com
November 24, 2025 at 6:41 PM
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History is cool and you should know more of it. Case in point:

www.popsci.com/science/medi...
Medieval Arabic texts help researchers track down explosive star deaths
In 1181, Egyptian, Chinese, and Japanese scholars documented a cosmic explosion.
www.popsci.com
November 24, 2025 at 6:42 PM
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Butterball CEO: friends I come to you with both challenging and exciting news about my proposed changes for the Butterball company to meet the modern world
Good morning. In the past 24 hours, more Americans have Googled “felching” than have searched for “turkey recipes”
November 24, 2025 at 2:23 AM
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If you have a GOP rep and you’ve been holding off on contacting them because what difference will it make, you could be the reason the funniest thing happens
PUNCHBOWL: “.. GOP members messaged us over the weekend saying that they, too, are considering retiring in the middle of the term. Here’s one particularly exercised senior House Republican:

@punchbowlnews.bsky.social
November 24, 2025 at 3:59 PM
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Man you don’t even need to be an expert. I rewatched that old Enron documentary a few weeks ago and was like oh that’s how AI is cooking the books.
“Artificial intelligence, meet artificial accounting.” The guy who first pointed out Enron’s sketchy accounting is now scrutinizing AI accounting and it’s the same nonsense: www.wsj.com/tech/meta-ai...
AI Meets Aggressive Accounting at Meta’s Gigantic New Data Center
Favorable treatment off the balance sheet hinges on some convenient assumptions.
www.wsj.com
November 24, 2025 at 4:02 PM
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New: I wrote about how when the GOP retook the House in 1994, Art Bell and his listeners were filled with hope, conspiracy theories, and anti-immigrant nativism. 30 years later, nothing has changed.

www.patreon.com/posts/144039...
The Heart of Art, #3: 11/10/94 Open Lines and Midterm Reactions | Mike Rothschild
Get more from Mike Rothschild on Patreon
www.patreon.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:46 PM
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November 24, 2025 at 2:47 PM
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Any recently laid off federal workers in need of a new place to use their knowledge and expertise to do good?

Bonus: the ad explicitly says don’t you dare use Gen Ai to write your shit, which I love
November 24, 2025 at 3:23 PM
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Family Worried Where Grandma Going With Conversation On Low-Income Housing https://theonion.com/family-worried-where-grandma-going-with-conversation-on-1819578444/
November 24, 2025 at 3:01 PM
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In several days you'll likely be sitting next to an ignorant relative who is 100% convinced he knows the difference between a sweet potato and a yam. Here's my primer on the topic. #thanksgiving #sweetpotato #yam #botany 🍠 colinpurrington.com/yams-versus-...
The difference between sweet potatoes and yams » Colin Purrington's blog
Every year at Thanksgiving, families in the United States sit down to argue about politics and the difference between sweet potatoes and yams. This page details how to tell them apart and explains how...
colinpurrington.com
November 24, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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It’s so wild that the Congress members who went to Russia on the 4th of July are never questioned about it
November 24, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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Doo-lang doo-lang doo-lang.
November 23, 1970

George Harrison releases "My Sweet Lord," his first single as a solo artist. A spiritual song reflecting Harrison's study of Eastern religion, it goes to #1 in the US and UK, the first chart-topper for any former Beatle.

#ClassicVinyl
#MusicSky

youtu.be/04v-SdKeEpE?...
George Harrison - My Sweet Lord
YouTube video by GeorgeHarrisonVEVO
youtu.be
November 24, 2025 at 2:40 PM
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do you have any idea how much you have to piss somebody off to make them change their gauge
#Finland will begin to #Russia - proof its rail network, integrate with EU train infrastructure.

The Finnish government has announced the conversion of its rail network from Russian gauge (1,524 mm) to European standard (1,435 mm).

www.trenvista.net/en/news/flas...
November 23, 2025 at 4:40 PM
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Just watched NOW YOU SEE ME which I found structurally infuriating on pretty much every level. Did not work at all, left me wanting to take an angry red pen to the script and write SEE ME AFTER CLASS.
November 24, 2025 at 5:11 AM
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Some outlets are reporting that DOGE "doesn't exist" anymore. But the fine print on that overturns the whole story: DOGE is just dropping its tarnished brand, not the chainsaw. 🧵
November 24, 2025 at 6:10 AM
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the model successfully generalizes over language two guys on a bus dot jpg
November 24, 2025 at 6:12 AM
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At least once a month, Anthropic puts out an alignment paper d AI behavior where, if you saw it in a science fiction film, you‘d be screaming at the idiot scientists onscreen to stop development

www.anthropic.com/research/eme...
From shortcuts to sabotage: natural emergent misalignment from reward hacking
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
www.anthropic.com
November 24, 2025 at 5:54 AM
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Wanna know how bad the Arizona legislator's petition forgeries were? Here's the examples from the Austin Smith indictment.

s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24...
November 24, 2025 at 2:50 AM
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All I am doing these days is building tiny sets and I couldn't be happier.
November 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM