iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 6h

Hey all 👋 my family went apple picking and I made a pie with a few of the apples 🍎

Apple pie, cooling on top of a baking sheet.

Two kids picking apples from an apple tree. One is wearing a neon yellow sweatshirt and black pants, the other is wearing a mostly pink sweatshirt and green and red elf skirt.

J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Just finished the intro and first chapter and I’m psyched to see what we can do to legally hold liars accountable. Let’s rebuild this place with new safeguards for democracy!

Cover of the book I just started reading:
LIAR'S KINGDOM
HOW TO STOP TRUMP'S DECEIT
AND SAVE AMERICA
ANDREW WEISSMANN

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

@ayannapressley.bsky.social @pressley.house.gov came out like a freaking rock star at the convention tonight. The reaction of the crowd was so awesome. Great speech, too!!!

Ayanna Pressley being amazing at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention 2026

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Guys I’m at the democratic state convention in Massachusetts and it’s so cool! We nominated Healey again and she had a great speech about building 100k units of housing and more! 😍

Maura Healey being awesome at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention 2026

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 28/05/2026

Guys my lil 4th and 5th grade chorus kids sang their hearts out tonight for our concert and I’m so proud of them!! But also, look at this ridiculously kind note from one of my students/their family. Makes all the craziness worth it!

(Edited to remove real names)

Dear Bach to the future
Please accept these flowers as a Small token of our immense gratitude your Teaching style and kindness have been a true guiding light for T, whether it was the opportunities you gave her for Solo performance, choosing her for intros and chorus summer camp, or simply cheering her on, your encouragement hes truly Kept her going Thank you for always believing in her, fostering her musical growth, and making her feel like a part of your own musical family. We’re so lucky to have you.
Best
T & Family

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Used to go to building with my dad! This pic might be Whalom park, not sure

Children on a tug boat ride at a theme park

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

More evidence that people at the time knew Birth of a Nation was trash (like @moviessilently.bsky.social always says!) from the Hidden History of Boston by Dina Vargo:

The whole book is entertaining, but this paragraph stood out because of the film and history discussions I’ve seen here: “Trotter was, in fact, best when causing "trouble." His strength was in organizing protests, mainly at Fancuil Hall. He was a born agitator. He seemed to enjoy taking on the role of David to many Goliaths. Sometimes it worked; often it didn't. One of his best-known efforts was to shut down the showing of D.W. Griffith's movie Birth of a Nation at the Tremont Theatre. The movie features a storyline that depicts African Americans (mainly played by white actors in black face) as simple-minded and sexually aggressive. It also treats the Ku Klux Klan as conquering heroes. Trotter mounted not only a community-organizing effort to peacefully protest the movie at the theater but a political effort as well. The movie needed to be deemed offensive by both the state and local governments before it could be closed down. He convinced the authorities that certain scenes should be removed for their violence and offensive portrayal of African Americans, but the film still played.”

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

Ok I checked Clearsky and the lists I’m on? Somewhat accurate lol not a fan of most uses of AI and I do like to stitch

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Started a big one (Christmas stocking)

Cross stitch snowman with red and white striped scarf and squirrel on shoulder.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

More progress - we have a squirrel on the snowman’s shoulder! #wip #crossstitch #craftsky

Cross stitch “blob” starting to form into a squirrel perched on a yet to be finished snowman’s shoulder

Cross stitch “blob” progressing into a squirrel perched on a yet to be finished snowman’s shoulder

Cross stitch squirrel perched on a yet to be finished snowman’s shoulder

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

Haven’t posted a work in progress in a bit, so here’s the snowman’s scarf! 🧣 #wip #crossstitch #craftsky

Beginnings of a red and white striped scarf in cross stitch on Aida cloth.

More stitching of a red and white striped scarf in cross stitch on Aida cloth.

More details of a red and white striped scarf in cross stitch on Aida cloth.

Detailed red and white striped scarf in cross stitch on Aida cloth.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 30/01/2026

This book was excellent, and ended with the reminder to “never relinquish hope or concede defeat in our efforts to make the world more just.” Strongly recommend!

Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement book by Barbara F. Berenson

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Not washed and ironed yet, but it’s done!!! #wip #crossstitch #cross-stitch #craftsky

Cross stitch Ragdoll kitten reclining on a blanket.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Ragdoll cat understitching done; still need to get the details finished #wip #crossstitch #cross-stitch

Mostly finished cross stitch of a ragdoll cat reclining on a blanket.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

Met @moulton.house.gov in Lowell just a bit ago; he’s got a good head on his shoulders. He’s got my vote in the primary for Senate.

Seth Moulton, MA congressman, talking to a group of constituents in a bar in Lowell earlier today.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

I grabbed a lot of it for you; didn’t have time to look for a gift link but I turned it to reader and screenshots. Wasn’t an interesting article, to be honest

W11:31 EGTON - Senator Elizabeth WalYen got a call from President
I| 5G 66
Trump on Monday after she spent the morning criticizing him in a speech and a subsequent cable news interview, the Massachusetts Democrat said in statement.
Warren did not disclose what Trump said to her on the call, nor how long they spoke. But she said that she told the president if he wants to lower costs for Americans as he promised during the campaign, he should support Warren-backed legislation to cap credit card rates and promote more housing.
"In my remarks... I said that if he really wants to get something done, including capping credit card interest rates or lowering housing costs, he would use his leverage and pick up the phone," Warren said in a statement.
"After my speech, the President called me, and I delivered this same message on affordability to him directly."

M11:32 Bthrough Friday. 5G 66
4 Bluesky
A White House official, who requested to not be named as they were not authorized to comment publicly, said the call was "productive" and focused on credit card interest rates and the cost of housing.
Warren delivered a speech at the National Press Club on Monday where she criticized Trump over the Department of Justice's investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman
Jerome Powell and laid out a populist economic policy vision for Democrats.
She followed the speech with an appearance on CNN, where she laid out similar themes. Trump called shortly afterward.
"I almost didn't answer because I didn't recognize the number," Warren told the Globe. She said she couldn't remember the last time she spoke with him and said he wasn't angry.

with hi
n and said he wasn t angry.
11:32 B
4 Bluesky
• 5G 66:
"He wanted to talk about costs, what I talked about in the speech," Warren said. She declined to divulge his
responses.
Warren and Trump are frequent critics of one another, with Trump often referring to her by a derogatory nickname he gave her years ago based on her claim of Native American heritage.
Still, they have at times embraced similar policy ideas, such as eliminating the limit on the national debt, and more recently, capping credit card rates, though Trump has yet to muscle those proposals through the Republican-controlled Congress.
Warren also mentioned that she asked Trump to back a bipartisan housing bill she led with South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott. Scott and Warren are the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate

UNC,ACOpUUUVCyS U UC NUOL
Ba11:33 g Housing and Urban A5G 65
Committee. The bill would streamline regulations and promote housing solutions like prefabrication to spur construction of new houses and
apartments. She has said she'd work to pass a credit card rate cap if Trump was serious about it.
Earlier in the day, Warren was sharply critical of Trump not just on pocket book issues, but on his continued attacks on Powell. In particular, she decried the revelation that the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into Powell and the Federal Reserve regarding the ongoing renovation of its buildings.
Warren herself has been a longtime critic of Powell's, but has defended him this year in the face of repeated attacks by Trump stemming from his frustration that the independent Federal Reserve was not more aggressive in lowering interest rates.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 03/01/2026

Birthday treat number one: quiet time to drink tea and read a whole chapter without interruption.

Library Book cover: Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement by Barbara F Berenson

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

More progress on the kitty cross stitch, with a bonus cat

Teal wall, close up of grey couch cushion with a cream and seal point ragdoll cat sleeping next to a partially finished cross stitch of a very similar looking cat.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 24/12/2025

Lots of lovely time to listen to articles today while sewing. Getting caught up and making progress :D #wip

Cross stitch ragdoll cat in progress, off white Aida cloth in a blue plastic hoop.

Cross stitch ragdoll cat with a bit more progress, on off-white Aida cloth in a blue plastic hoop.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

More Ragdoll cross-stitch progress

Half-finished Cross stitch of a seal-point cream colored ragdoll cat laying on it’s side on a blue and green blanket.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 01/12/2025

Progress on the project. Gotta get it done, been working on it too long!

Cross stitch project in a blue plastic hoop. The Aida fabric is 18 point off-white, and the mostly complete cat head shows a ragdoll cat with seal point markings. The background is a mix of blue and green.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Thanksgiving so far: made an apple pie!

Fully baked apple pie on cooling rack on top of oven

Half baked pie out of the oven while the temp is turned down a bit

Apple pie filling just beginning to cook in a pan

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

This is the breakdown of ages in the 119th congress, per fiscalnote.com

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

When we’re on the other side of *this*, let’s take some of FDR’s ideas on adding seats to the court-

LAWLESS by Leah Litman
154
political power. "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism—-ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power," FDR said in a later speech. 58
Three months after his landslide 1936 reelection, FDR proposed adding seats to the Supreme Court for every justice above a certain age.59 This, finally, hit home with a certain group of nine old men—or at least one of them. Justice Owen Roberts changed his vote and started upholding New Deal programs as well as other redistributive legislation. Three weeks after FDR spoke to the country in a fireside chat about his court reform pro-posal, the Supreme Court upheld a minimum wage law by a 5-4 vote, with Justice Roberts in the majority.6o
The Court's decision upholding the minimum wage law seemed to cut back on the justices previous suggestion that certain legislative efforts to address economic inequality were unjustified handouts to the less well-off.
The justices came around to the idea that, without a minimum wage, markets and laws were structured in ways that unjustifiably favored employers.
The majority wrote that, without a minimum wage, the market provided
"a subsidy for unconscionable employers."61 The Court even echoed FDRs earlier speech about the dangers of too much economic power concentrated in the hands of the few. It said the minimum wage law "corrects) the abuse which springs from" companies' "selfish disregard of the public interest."62
While Congress didn't ultimately pass FDR's court expansion plan, it didn't have to. The Court changed without it. In 1937, the Court began upholding elements of the New Deal program. In

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

That one and this one get me through it all:

I know. It's all wrong. By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Pull of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day
will come. And when the sun shinest will shine out the ceaner Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't.
They kept going. Because they were holding on to something
-Samwise Gamgee

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 23/08/2025

Really think we need to go hard on economics against the billionaires.

Excerpt from Bad Company by Megan Greenwell:

BAD COMPANY
170
Critics of the industry point out that rate of return is an easy metric to game, making them skeptical of thos rosier studies. And public pension funds tend to generate worse returns from private equity funds than governments and private investors do. while it is true that millions of pensioners do rely on private returns, the evidence is far less clear that they must.

Those returns also aren't generated in a vacuum. Private equity often makes money by cutting costs and raising prices, both of which take the heaviest tolls on working-class people. In the retail world, cutting costs almost always means layoffs not of executives, but of low level employees like Liz. If private equity does in fact help pensioners lead better lives, it does so in part by hurting workers. Stavros and other private equity executives often talk about their responsibility to public employees who have served their communities don't all thore teachers and firefighters who served their communities for decades deserve a nice retirement? - but what they are in fact describing is a sort of zero-sum game in which cutting wages for working- and middle-class employes in one place helps working- and middle-class retirees in other places, a phenomenon labor journalist Hamilton Nolan has termed "capitalism's washing machine."

And while the pensioners make for a tidier narrative, the reality is that no one benefits nearly as much from private equity as privat equity itself. The system is designed so that firms put in less money and shoulder less risk than anyone else, yet reap the lion's share of the profits. Benefiting retired teachers and firefighters might be a desirabe side effect, but the point is to earn returns for private equity executives. Stephen Schwarzman didn't earn $37 billion by putting reachen and firefighters interests first.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 17/08/2025

When things swing back our way politically, we need to work hard to get private equity out of housing. We can’t fix the housing issue with them in there, they’re too motivated to drive up prices and kick people out.

Excerpt from Bad Company by Megan Greenwell
So if a private equity company hikes lot rent beyond what its residents can pay, many will have no choice but to sell. If a resident falls too far behind on payments, they can be evicted from the park, which means walking away from the home they own. That, in turn, legally makes the home abandoned property, freeing the park's owner to assume control, sell or rent it, and pocket the proceeds.
This recipe has made mobile homes irresistible to many private equity firms, including Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, Carlyle Group, Stockbridge Capital, and, more recently, Alden Global Capital, the most infamous newspaper owner in the country. Twenty-three percent of all mobile home park purchases in 2019 and 2020 were made by large investors. In 2017 and 2018, that number was 13 percent. Park owners have described the opportunity in eye-poppingly crass terms.
Most infamously, Frank Rolfe, the co-owner of a large chain of mobile home parks, once compared his business to a "Waffle House where everyone is chained to the booths."

Between apartments, single-family houses, and mobile homes, private equity firms now own millions of individual homes across the U.S. The industry's money and political clout, meanwhile, gives them outsize power to raise rents, lobby against regulation, and put homeownership out of reach of more people. Blackstone, which is both the world's largest private equity firm and the nation's largest landlord, is explicit about how America's affordable-housing crisis benefits its shareholders: "a structural shortage of housing has resulted in pricing power for rental housing assets," it wrote in a 2023 letter touting its growing investor returns. The firm has also poured millions of dollars into fighting ballot measures designed to expand rent-control protection in California.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Empire of AI by Karen Hao is so wonderfully informative. I’ve felt for a while that AI is like a god/religion to some of these people, and here it is, laid out.

Wher GPT-4, Sutskever, who had previously dedicated most of his time cadancing model capabilities, had made a hard pivot toward focusing Al safety. He began to split his time half and half. To people around him, he seemed at times to be at war with himself. He was both Boomer and Doomer: more excited and afraid than ever before of AGI arriving und rapidly surpassing humans to become superintelligence.

Sutskever now spoke in increasingly messianic overtones, leaving een his longtime friends scratching their heads and other employees ap-prehensive. During one meeting with a new group of researchers, Suts-leser laid out his plans for how to prepare for AGL
"Once we all get into the bunker—" he began.
I'm sorry," a researcher interrupted, "the bunker?"
«We're definitely going to build a bunker before we release AGI; Suts-lever replied matter-of-factly. Such a powerful technology would surely become an object of intense desire for governments globally. It could escalate geopolitical tensions; the core scientists working on the technology would need to be protected. "Of course," he added, "it's going to be optional whether you want to get into the bunker."

The researcher would in equal parts continue to hold Sutskever in high regard and keep himself at arm's length. "There is a group of people- Ilya being one of them-who believe that building AGI will bring about a rapture. Literally, a rapture," he says.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 10/08/2025

Opaque because they choose not to do reviews to figure it out (from the book Empire of AI):

Among many employees, GPT-4 solidified the belief that AGI was possible. Researchers who were once skeptical felt increasingly bullish about reaching such a technical pinnacle-even while OpenAI continued to lack a definition of what exactly it was. Engineers and product managers joining Applied and having their first close-up interaction with AI through GPT-4 adopted even more deterministic language. For many employees, the question became not if AGI would happen but when.

Some employees also felt exactly the opposite. While there was a clear qualitative change in what GPT-3 could do over GPT-2, GPT-4 was just bigger, says one of the researchers who worked on the model. "The big result was that there were a bunch of exams that the model does well.
But even that is highly questionable." OpenAI never did a comprehensive review of GPT-4's training data to check whether those exams-and their answers-were just in the data and being regurgitated, or whether GPT-4 had in fact developed a novel capability to pass them. It was the kind of shaky science that had become pervasive with the industry-wide shift from peer-reviewed to PR-reviewed research.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

I learned about goat glands from a buster keaton flick!

Buster Keaton in “Cops”, walking a horse into a Goat Gland Specialist shop.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

Found a typo in a great book I’m reading. It just came out last year- who do I reach out to, to help them fix it? Anyone know? *find the typo* :D

152 / LEGAL PERSONHOOD
the nation was continuing its constitutional recovery from the depthd the Dred Scott decision. It seemed to him that Johnson had won. Some could rejoice that despite Johnson's obstruction of Black equality, the states were moving forward in ratifying the Fourteenth Amendmen, which came on July 9, 1986. For Douglass, given the amendments shon-comings, its ratification provided little evidence of real progress.
*
* *
THE ROUTE TO DEMOCRATIC RECOVERY from the current crisis had no set path.
The response to the Adams crisis had been somewhat linear, expressed first in a partial recovery driven by the newspaper editors and Jefferson and next in a more comprehensive one by Hanson and Madison. The quest to realize the promise of a democratic and multiracial Const-rution after Buchanan's attack on it was more jagged: a partial move by Lincoln toward full democracy at the behest of Douglass, followed by a new threat to it from Johnson. At that moment, "We the White People" not "We the People" looked like the nation's future. Still, even at such a precarious point, the promise of equality was on the hori-zon, and a partnership between Douglass and a member of the Johnson administration would help realize that promise.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 11/07/2025

Project my aunt bought, but couldn’t work on due to health issues. I’m determined to get this done this summer. #crossstitch 🪡

Cross stitch project; it’s a cat, reading a book. Currently has mostly dark red shades and black thread completed, more to come.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Filling in the last color in this section of the project I’ve been working on for my aunt. 🪡

Cross stitch project in light blue frame. The image of the project is hard to discern from this small section, but it’s a cat with a book.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Good No Kings protest in Lexington today! My favorite sign: NO KINGS! IN AMERICA! WE ALREADY FOUGHT ABOUT THIS... RIGHT HERE!!

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 13/05/2025

All this talk of Eureka Moments in Abundance makes me want to play Civ

Excerpt from Abundance:

And it doesn't always change, even after a truly brilliant discov. ery. The ten-thousand-year story of human civilization is Mostly the story of things not getting better: diseases not being cured. edoms not being extended, truths not being transmitted, tech. nolocy not delivering on its promises. Progress is our escape from the status quo of suffering, our ejection seat from history-it is the less common story of how our inventions and institutions reduce disease, poverty, pain, and violence whlle expanding freedom happiness, and empowerment. It's a story that has been at risk of grinding to a halt in the United States.®
The US has thrown tens of billions of dollars annually into scientific discovery. But it hasn't brought as much progress as wed ex: pect. As we explained in the previous chapter, we have haphazardly burdened the scientific process with the same flavor of procedural kludge that has slowed down other critical parts of the economy.
What's more, as we'll explain in this chapter, we have gotten worse at translating our inventions into domestic industries. To borrow some familiar language, it's not just that ideas are getting harderto find. The problem is also that new ideas are getting harder to use?
What went wrong? There are many answers, but one is that we have become too enthralled by the eureka myth and, more to the point, too inattentive to all the things that must follow a eureka moment. The US has more Nobel Prizes for science than the UK, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, and Austria combined. But if there were a Nobel Prize for the domestic deployment of techno-ogy— even technology that we invented —our legacy wouldn't beso sterling.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 14/03/2025

Happy Pi Day! Made mini pies for the family ☺️ Apple, blueberry, cherry, and lemon meringue

Four 5 inch mini pies on a sheet pan topped with aluminum foil to catch any drips. From left to right, the fillings on the pies with latticework are apple, blueberry, and cherry. In the back right corner is a lemon meringue.

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Excited about my next few reads from the library! Almost done with Character Limit - read it guys, it’s a great guide for all the steps Elon’s taking with Doge. Same playbook.

MUIRHEAD and ROSENBLUM
A Lot of People Are Saying

CHRIS HAYES THE SIRENS' CALL

Character
Limit
How Elon Musk
Destroyed Twitter
Kate Conger & Ryan Mac

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J. S. Bach @bachtothefuture.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

Ok small thing, but one more reason to dislike Elon Musk? He doesn’t approve of the Oxford comma!

Page of a book (Character Limit):

The company's lawyers had warned that there were consumer protection laws outside the U.S. that would require the company to refund subscribers who were later suspended by the company for breaking is rules. We might be liable to give some money back, Crawford explained.
"Don't care," Musk said. "Fuck it. Do I seem concerned about legal bat-Les? Move forward. Get this thing done."
The only thing that seemed to hold Musk somewhat accountable was a fear of public shame on Twitter. In one meeting he blurted out that House Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Twitter power user and darling of the progressive left, would roast him if the Blue relaunch went poorly. alacanis chimed in to agree, stating that he thought Ocasio-Cortez would run for president one day.
At Tesla and Spacex, engineers often joked that the only laws they respected were those of physics and Musk's own demands. At Twitter, the Blue team got a crash course. In the same meeting, Musk wanted to review the descriptions of Twitter Blue that would be used online and in the Apple App store. "It should be: 'Rocket to the top of replies, mentions, search, and topics," he said, reading through some of that copy. "Remove the comma before 'and.' I find it troubling."
Crawford, a fan of the Oxford comma, tried to defend it. "I find the opposite with commas," she said with a smile. Some in the room shifted nervously in their seats.
"Too bad, I'm the law," Musk replied.

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