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To look “objective” the Times must occasionally run stories that will irritate liberals and leftists...Again and again, when the Times attempts its false balance — trying to make Republicans sound less unhinged than they actually are — it results in bad journalism. It is the same problem social media platforms have encountered in moderation: removing misinformation and deplatforming bad actors means removing and deplatforming more Republicans. Eventually, using the excuse of “fairness,” social media companies gave up.

damn, yeah

If you think politics is just about finding a middle ground on policy, consistency in values can seem like stubborn dogmatism. Reactionary centrists in the United States frequently criticize leftists and progressive liberals for refusing to make the compromises they see as necessary for winning. But here, too, Britain offers a hard lesson. For almost two decades, our politicians have listened to anti-immigrant voices and prioritized their concerns—arguably over all others. To placate the anti-immigrant right, our leaders have stalled our economy, mangled our constitution, and diminished our standing in the world. And rather than recede in satisfaction, those voices have grown louder and angrier than ever.

what do schools do & why reformers miss the point

Media Bias Fact Check, LLC is a North Carolina-based Limited Liability Company solely owned and operated by Dave Van Zandt. He makes all final editorial and publishing decisions.

In the longer term, fine-tuning models for managing businesses might be possible, potentially through an approach like reinforcement learning where sound business decisions would be rewarded—and selling heavy metals at a loss would be discouraged

A skeptical report of Welcomefest, the convention for Centrist Democrats

Settle in a posture that, for you, provides a good compromise between comfort and alertness. Open yourself to the detail of your experience. Allow yourself to be interested in, and receptive to, the rich, particular texture of what’s happening—look beyond the concept of experience into what’s actually going on with your mind, and senses, and emotions. Don’t argue with what’s there. If you wish, bring your attention to a meditation object, like a mantra, or the flow of your breath, and notice how this tends to make your experience more collected and calmer. Orient towards whatever brings relief, wakeful relaxation, and pleasantness. Do this for anywhere between thirty seconds and ninety minutes

maybe it's time to be just a little more alarmist?

hahaha what the fuck

good advice on learning any language in general

A typical belief among students is that classes are a series of hurdles to be overcome; at the end of this obstacle course, they shall receive a degree as testament to their completion of these assignments.

an amazingly in depth explanation on shader writing

bloom's taxonomy and the offloading of critical thinking

the US is a police state at its borders

This is not what DARPA designed!

Hosting web apps on a Mac Mini

a compelling example of a compelling combat in the dungeon world ttrpg

This article would make a fantastic high school statistics lesson, especially if each kid had to make their own dishonest chart and their peers had to debug them

i am a lover-of-this-essay

another W for bikes

A satisfying delve into biology's various layers of abstraction

a whole realm of consciousness exists in the sphere of Japanese speakers that's perhaps truly unique in the world

see also https://www.are.na/elan-kiderman-ullendorff/write-the-algorithm

An exploration of tesselation in the Palace of Alhambra

you gon jump if molly white made it

how to move past like/dislike/idk

lunar expert? i prefer 'the man on the moon'

blowing the jones act out of the water

I love these data heavy, skeptical deep dives that scott alexander does

'I have spoken to high-performers in all sorts if fields at this point, and every single one has said that their profession is plagued by people that are essentially not even trying'

a charming story about manufacturing FM radios in mason jars at a small and then medium scale

matthew smith the flexible goat

Hear, hear!

A video about Isaac Lab and using ML to balance double pendulums

find random old videos from 2015 with this one weird trick

an expertly written explanation of the Oklab color space (aka you don't know how little you know about colour)

i feel like we could all do with a little reset right now

In avatar therapy, a clinician gives voice to their patients’ inner demons. For some of the participants in a new trial, the results have been astounding

Scott Alexander's techno-optimist roundup

a scrolly telling lesson in narrative and the way social media misuses scientific literature by The Pudding

How Warhammer 40,000 abandoned anti-authoritarianism for comfortable cowardice

more of a bookmark than a reblog but WHATEVER

same as BELOW

Molly White's article on the war against the internet archive boils my blood

The observance of defeat, especially in an election, is often all that keeps a state from tipping into violence

a big forum roundup

maybe this time will be different

a fun LitHub piece on the history of bathing

An idea I've often wondered about, challenged

a stunning examination of the reading pedagogy dogma that has dominated american schools for the last 2 decades

facts, facts

so technical, so cool

another fun works in progress read

An earnest and labour intensive documentation of the consequences of AI slop and SEO fraud

What? CSS is evolving!

Chiang does it again

'I wasn’t sure how wise it was to solicit health advice from a meta­human whose creators hadn’t mastered human anatomy, but she was, after all, wearing a stethoscope.'

i read this a while ago but it's an idea that's stuck with me since

Everything that was once considered lowbrow is now triumphant. It is still common for people to talk of “guilty” cultural pleasures—TV, dance music—about which no one has felt guilty in decades, and to apologize for them with an enthusiasm that looks a lot like pride.

An essay that has stuck with me for years, and returns to mind whenever I hear someone praising art for its subtlety. Subtlety is simply another quality that art may have, like humour, or beauty. Its absence doesn't mean the art isn't good!

Do “outline speedrunning”: Recursively outline an MVP, speedrun filling it in, and only then go back and perfect.

neat!

an aesthetically satisfying youtube channel of a person who folds up complex cardboard boxes

A good little article on typed function design

how to write about conspiracy theories and the process of revising an essay

One of the eminent learning tech thinkers presenting the thesis he's been cooking since LLMs took off

“Nobody thinks the current system is perfect. I respect people who want to change it. But you’ve got to propose a specific change! Don’t just write yet another article saying “the damn liberals are soft on the mentally ill” The damn liberals are soft because some of them are the people who have to develop an alternative plan, and they can’t think of a good one. If you’re going to write yet another article like this, and you want to change minds, you should skip the one hundred paragraphs about the damn liberals, and go straight to the part where you explain how you plan to do better.”

the most forceful argument for anything i've ever read. normally this makes me feel reflexively distrusting of the position but here i think it's just an honest salvo of really, really good arguments

please can ticketmaster die already

specifically in the context of having developed Thoracic Outlet Syndrome from power lifting

more jhānas vulgarization. i am part of the problem

peter attia discusses the most impactful ways people can increase their healthspan

Not the robot wars kind

A disappointing read, but good to know, to push back against anyone who's deferring changing their diet until this technology exists

good seeming life wisdom from sasha chapin

an even bigger list of life wisdom from mari andrew