TomG - speaker-of-numbers non-PhD #1555

Trust me: whatever you’re doing right now is less important than watching this candidate interview. No spoilers, just trust:

I think it is evidence of how so much we have been made to think that gaining an audience is the goal of life in this attention-seeking economy that saying "a rapist shouldn't seek a public persona that is available for consumption" is taken as equivalent to saying they "can never rejoin society."

Been too long since I did a big silly ancient history 🧵so let's bring an old one back over from the Bad Place: It's time for ::air horn:: Publius Ventidius Bassus, the coolest Roman you have never heard of and the only person to walk in a triumph first as captive, then as triumphing general. 1/

"There’s simply no way any of us could have predicted a Nazi SS guy with his eyeballs dangling out of his sockets and the Staff of Ra broiled into his flesh like grill marks on a meat slab would be such a terrible candidate for Senate."

Lincoln's 2nd inaugural address.

I can't find it now, but one quote (paraphrased) that helped me went something like "on social media, half the people are there to actually have discussions, and the other half are there to amuse themselves by getting reactions out of people. A lot of arguments online are when the two intermix."

If ours was a world where AI (the ideology, politic, and tech) were, uh, asking these graduates to shape AI this might resonate. But it’s not. Look, you cannot go out and market your new corporate monopoly widget as the death kneel to American workers and then ask new workers to be excited.

COMIC: Spiders

"Jennifer Kamrass confessed her worries to her therapist: her marriage, her finances, and self-esteem... 2 years later, a transcript of every word Kamrass had typed to her psychologist using the app Talkspace was produced in court by her former employer." 🤬

is it love? i bet it’s love

This is Achrioptera manga, a giant phasmid or stick insect native to Madagascar. The specific epithet, "manga" means blue in Malagasy & it's not hard to see why. Only males are blue. The tiny back wings ("alae") are an example of brachyptery: they're useless for flight, but have other functions.

A panorama from the Mars Curiosity Rover taken late last week (Sol 4821) looking towards the distant Yardang Unit. Part of a much larger 360 degree MastCam panorama. flic.kr/p/2rZJQyd

well i for one couldn’t be more excited for the possibilities of AI. finally a technology that answers the age old question ‘what if clippy was wormtongue’

Someone told me lately "Bluesky is just like Twitter." I argued that was untrue on the basis that last time I had a Twitter account most times I got a new follower their bio said "single & looking for fun" & here when I get a new follower it tends to say something like "professor of rare moths".

The total lack of explanation or comprehension from all sources contacted I this article is really unsettling - nobody has any idea why a major city was just suddenly grounded - with lethal force authorized against any aircraft that didn’t get the memo. www.nytimes.com/live/2026/02...

This thread is some of the most exceptional storytelling I've seen in ages?? wow. truly worth your time.

My husband was on the 2 train and a guy started braying about how Renee Good deserved to die and her "lesbian lover" did too. My husband got pissed and said, "You're absolutely disgusting." "Fuck you!" the guy said. "Fuck YOU!" my husband said. The guy left. See? We just need to talk to each other.

You go to war with the baby snowy plovers you have, not the baby snowy plovers you want. That being said, this is the baby snowy plover i want. 🪶 🐣

NB: When I, a professor of law, profess that an act is unlawful, I am not doing it to inform the lawbreaker, but rather to inform you, the reader. So the question “what, like you think he cares?” is inapposite. The question is whether *you* care. I think you should, which is why I bother.

The roadside 'flight diverters' cut monarch deaths by about 50 percent.

Ok this (arstechnica.com/space/2025/1...) is an amazing example of the kind of BS hype tech writing we see so much, because even I, a lowly historian, can see the Obvious Problems with 'space data centers' that the article by a journalist at a technical publication failed to ask.

In honor of Eric Adams dropping out, I'm now resharing my all-time favorite bit of Eric Adams content for years, this thing was like my video from The Ring, where I had to get other people to watch it in order for me to stay alive enjoy www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk2W...

Today’s murder of Charlie Kirk is outrageous. It is part of a dangerous pattern of violence that threatens the safety of all communities. This violence is unacceptable and tears at the social fabric, and we must find a way to work together to end it.

Dorothy Thompson had his number back in 1941. From “Who goes Nazi?”

Kill me

The inflationary surge begins in the food sector as a dozen major US food giants announce that a series of stark price increases are now imminent. www.wsj.com/business/ret...

A terrorist targeted federal workers last week. There wasn’t much reporting on it. But I’m not finished thinking about it! 🧵 An anti-vaxxer fired more than 500 gunshots into CDC Atlanta, shattering 150 “blast-proof” windows on 6 buildings. Employees were pinned down in terror.

US Park Police now doing traffic stops in DC, and charged at me with a baton for filming closer than they liked

This evening one of the very kind con organizers took us to the Vigeland Sculpture Park in Oslo, which is amazing and you should go and Gustav Vigeland was extraordinarily talented and probably does not deserve the narrative I constructed looking at his work. But Bluesky! You deserve EVERYTHING!

applying for jobs again

WATCH: Elephants at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park react to Monday's 5.2 magnitude earthquake that shook San Diego County. The elephants formed an "alert circle" meant to protect the young and the entire herd from any threats, according to the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.

They Still Live. #AllOutOfBubblegum

Freddie Mercury didn't go into the studio and nail the vocals for "The Show Must Go On" in one take while dying of AIDS for you to despair and give up now. Take the time you need, but then get up and get back out there. The show must go on.

www.goodreads.com/quotes/78707...

"Let Hylas have his moment of triumph...while he may." youtu.be/snEiW-PjuNc?...

once again thinking about this passage from David Lynch's book Catching the Big Fish

An act of kindness is seldom wasted. Something small to you could be an event ever remembered by someone else. These acts, large and small, make all of us better.