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L. David Baron

@dbaron.org
426 followers 377 following 509 posts

Engineer on Google Chrome. Involved in CSS, W3C, and WHATWG standards. Previously Mozilla (2003-2020), W3C TAG (2015-2021). Massachusetts, USA. GIF with a soft G, Gerrymander with a hard G.

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Reposted by L. David Baron
Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Absolutely scorching endorsement, bringing serious heat for Weiner and against Chan, but a blast furnace at Pelosi for her role in this race and her true reasons for it. Never read an editorial this heated in Chron www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/edit...
sfchronicle.com
Endorsement: Who should replace Nancy Pelosi in Congress? It’s not even a choice
OPINION: The most intriguing thing about the race between Scott Wiener and Connie Chan to fill Nancy Pelosi’s House seat is that it has become a race at all, the editorial board writes.
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cira-csu.bsky.social @cira-csu.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Last night, moonlight illuminated Hurricanes Nolo, Odalys, and Polo churning over the Pacific Ocean.
This image contains the Day-Night Band (NCC) product from the NOAA-20 and NOAA-20 weather satellites from 08:54 UTC to 12:54 UTC on 2026-09-26.
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Jake Archibald @jakearchibald.com · 14/09/2026
This is a great article. I've always been sus about the hype around JPEG XL, as it never stacked up when I actually tested it with web use-cases. giannirosato.com/blog/post/ca...
giannirosato.com
The case against JPEG XL | Gianni Rosato
Investigating JPEG XL's place as a Web image codec.
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Alex Russell @infrequently.org · 14/09/2026
Jeremy's whole post is worth a read, and I would underline + bold the last point: the web is the superior choice for privacy and security, and it's anti-web *and anti-user* to be preferencing native app install affordances: adactio.com/journal/22757
adactio.com
Stalling installing
Trying to get past Webkit’s blockage at the W3C.
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Asawin Suebsaeng @swin24.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I need younger generations to understand how weird it is that trump is such a unique terrible fuck up that it’s actually correct to blame the president for a demonstrably shittier economy and costs
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Trump's political superpower is that he has somehow convinced the American political system to look at a poll result of "28 percent" and see the word "silent majority"
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 09/09/2026
NEW: Our analysis found that from 2020 to 2025, the rate of deaths involving ectopic pregnancies nearly doubled compared with the previous six-year period. The uptick was steeper in states with abortion bans.
propublica.org
Ectopic Pregnancy Deaths Have Nearly Doubled. It’s Worse in States With Abortion Bans.
With prompt and appropriate medical care, experts say, people shouldn’t die from an ectopic pregnancy. Women in Texas and Oklahoma have sued over delays in care, which, coupled with our new analysis, ...
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L. David Baron @dbaron.org · 04/09/2026
This isn't too far off, but I've seen quizzes with 10 questions rather than 60 that seemed more accurate (with sound questions only, not vocabulary). I've never lived in New Jersey, though, and most similar quizzes correctly place me in the Philadelphia area.
Your dialect map
Redder areas talk more like you; bluer areas least.

You talk most like someone from New Jersey — about 58% of your answers match a typical resident.

Cities most & least like you
Interpolated from the nearest survey responses.

Most similar
New York, NY (55%)
Boston, MA (55%)
Philadelphia, PA (55%)
Least similar
Oklahoma City, OK (44%)
Dallas, TX (44%)
New Orleans, LA (45%)
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Reposted by L. David Baron
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 26/08/2026
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog: pluralistic.net/2026/08/25/g... 2/
pluralistic.net
Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow – No trackers, no ads. Black type, white background. Privacy policy: we don't collect or retain any data at all ever period.
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Michael Clemens @mclem.org · 24/08/2026
Countless people will report the new H-1B tax as a “fee”. It is not. That word is used by advocates of the tax in order to avoid legal jeopardy for agencies with no authority to tax. Like the new OPT tax, it is a tax. I clarify in part of my new paper —> www.rfberlin.com/network-pape...
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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
The kids these days will hardly believe this, but a mere decade ago, we had a presidential election in which effectively the only issue on the table was the security of communications at the highest level of government.
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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"Accuse your enemies of doing scandalous things, especially when it might be true" is not, like, some fourteen-dimension political jujitsu, even if too many Democrats have basically spent a decade explaining to each other why the savvy move is to NOT accuse President Malfeasance of malfeasance
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L. David Baron @dbaron.org · 19/08/2026
Pinyin IME keyboard conventions (v for ü) creeping into actual product labels.
Part of a shoebox with text:
女鞋专家
Nv xie zhuan jia
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L. David Baron @dbaron.org · 18/08/2026
Older (yellow point access blocks on the right side of the street) and newer (gray/beige high rise towers further in the distance) styles of Chinese apartment construction.
A street with four 6-story (or 7?) buildings on the right side, with taller towers visible in the distance past the end of the street.
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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
“I’m mad that I can no longer get away with breaking the law and endangering others with my selfish and reckless behavior.”
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Adam Bonica @adambonica.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
The fundraising texts you delete are working on someone. It’s infuriating and heartbreaking. An 85yo in Ohio gave more than double the value of his home. A 91yo in an Indianapolis senior facility gave 25K times. The DCCC/DSCC don’t just tolerate the spammers who exploit seniors. They take part.
data4democracy.substack.com
Hook and Squeeze
How Democratic consultants, committees, and party leaders built a fundraising spam pipeline that funnels money from a captive pool of elderly donors into their own operations.
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James Fallows @jfallows.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Good thread. This is like Trump telling Boeing, midway through production of a new Air Force 1, that he thinks it should be propeller-driven. (After all, original AF1 was—Lockheed Super Constellation for Eisenhower. You can hear Trump saying, 'Many people don't know Ike was a Republican...')
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Peter Sagal @petersagal.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
So why is this story important rather than comical? B/c as the WSJ notes, for years the Navy has resisted this push, for obvious reasons. That resistance has now collapsed. Unless this is a dumb show for his benefit — “Yes, sir, we shall be removing those mysterious magnets, right away sir…”
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M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
We must: (a) Shift from unit targets to price targets. (b) In cases of outstanding local progress, preferential funding and deference on implementation. (c) In cases of extreme local failure, strip local governments of entitlement/permitting power. Our small version: cayimby.org/legislation/...
cayimby.org
SB 1216: Housing Leadership Designation
SB 1216 will create a new housing leadership designation to recognize and reward cities and counties that demonstrate measurable success in building new homes.
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L. David Baron @dbaron.org · 11/08/2026
An observation from "small city" China, after not visiting for 7.5 years: the conversion of most of the motorcycles and scooters from gas to electric has been a massive improvement for air quality. (It feels like the worst air pollution is now the cigarette smoke.)
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Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
New from me: More than a trillion dollars flow through the federal government in grants. We have more and more evidence that the Trump administration has been directing those grants on purely partisan grounds, denying them to blue states. 🧵 donmoynihan.substack.com/p/governing-...
donmoynihan.substack.com
Governing without Accountability
Trump only wants to be President of some of America, not all of America
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Jack Tindale @jacktindale.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
"Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, recently appointed to the role by the new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, meets Secretary of State Rubio in Washington" is one of those lines that would sound perfectly plausible to anyone in 2015, but explaining the intervening period would give them an aneurysm.
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Senator Elissa Slotkin @slotkin.senate.gov · 31/07/2026
Just this year, 40 military officers have been forcibly removed from those promotion lists. Over half of them are either women, or people of color. There seems to be a pointed effort to get rid of people who are not white men who are on the promotion list by merit.
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Murshed Zaheed @murshedz.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
“Trump has rejected disaster aid for Democratic-run states at the highest rate in the 47-year history of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.” Right now people in blue states are basically paying federal taxes as if they’re colonized territories of red states. www.politico.com/news/2026/03...
Trump has denied most disaster requests from Democratic-led states

A graph  showing Presidential approval rates for disaster requests from Democratic-led states and Republican-led states

Source: POLITICO's E&E News analysis of FEMA records
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 29/07/2026
Policy tradeoffs are real and trying to maximize social benefits while minimizing costs and bad second-order effects is often complicated and difficult. Engaging with these facts in public does not make someone a neoliberal sellout.
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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 27/07/2026
Before he was picked to lead the Navy, Admiral Daryl Caudle found ways to signal his support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anti-diversity goals. Caudle’s path to the top job is a case study in how the military promotion process at the Pentagon under Hegseth has deviated from tradition.
nyti.ms
An Admiral’s Rise Reveals the Politics Driving Hegseth’s Pentagon
Before he was picked to lead the Navy, Adm. Daryl Caudle found ways to signal his support for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s anti-diversity goals.
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Clara Jeffery @clarajeffery.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Take it from west coasters. Do not exercise in this shit and mask up or limit time outside as much as possible
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 16/07/2026
Time Change xkcd.com/3272/
3-panel comic. (1) PERSON 1 behind podium on stage: We all hate springing forward. But we love falling back. (2) [Audience pictured listening] PERSON 1: Therefore, we are abolishing the *spring* time change *only*. We’ll gain an hour every year, but never lose one. (3) PERSON OFF-PANEL: Won’t that cause the clocks to spiral out of sync with the sun? PERSON 1 holding up a fist: *Then we will meet the chaos clear-eyed and well-rested!*
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 14/07/2026
An amazing quote from Lindsey Graham in this Atlantic story. It really captures an essential truth about politics that too few people ever really come to terms with. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...
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Joey Arhar @josepharhar.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Hi! I'm working on a new HTML feature: filterable select There are two proposed API shapes so far: 1. Nesting <input> in <select> 2. Sibling <input> for listbox <select> w/id ref Option 1 is more ergonomic, but would break selects in older browsers Thoughts? (Both currently in Canary w/flag)
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Luis Villa @lu.is · 11/07/2026
Oh, and to be clear: you should probably be mad as hell, nearly all the time, about climate. But if you’re mad at LLMs before you’re mad at cars or meat or urban sprawl, you’re simply mad at the wrong thing.
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Kirsten Bladh @kerstanley.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
The number of cars on US roadways has been growing at a rate of 10 to 15 million *every year.* There are now 300 million vehicles and only 6.5% are electric. But you’ll never see an article about how the growth of vehicle emissions is “so severe it’s almost incomprehensible.”
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L. David Baron @dbaron.org · 08/07/2026
127 Lytton is about as SB79 a location as there is. It's less than a minute walk from Palo Alto Caltrain and near downtown. Hopefully Darbar finds a new location, though.
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Alex Ip 葉清霖 @alexip718.com · 07/07/2026
BREAKING: in June 2026, *every single one* of the 1,062 refugees admitted in the U.S. were white South Africans. In FY 2026, the U.S. has admitted a total of 7,727 white South Africans, three Afghans (back in November), and nobody else. For reference, the U.S. admitted 100,060 refugees in 2024.
rpc.state.gov
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Gordon Padelford @gordonofseattle.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
I don’t understand all the FIFA rules, but I believe our loss to Belgium today means we are required to adopt their street design standards
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Amanda Kolson Hurley @amandakhurley.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Ugh
Purple Air map showing extremely poor air quality readings around Washington, DC
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Climatologist49 @climatologist49.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
The low temperature of 84F at New York City Central Park ties the all time record warmest low temperature (1869-present). The low of 87F at Newark is a new all-time warmest low temperature (1843-present). It's as if something has changed. 🤔
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Chris Murphy @chrismurphyct.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Just shocking this was a 5-4 ruling. This Court is so so badly broken.
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 30/06/2026
Top 10 US cities with the smallest share of workers commuting by driving alone: —Hoboken NJ —Cambridge MA —New York NY —Jersey City NJ —Berkeley CA —Washington DC —Brookline MA —San Francisco CA —West New York NJ —Somerville MA www.thetransportpolitic.com/databook/us-...
Mode share of commuting to work, 10 top cities with the lowest share of workers driving alone to work (2020–24)
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L. David Baron @dbaron.org · 22/06/2026
Dear @theguardian.com , that headline is very easy to misread (either by swapping MP/PM or skipping a line).
[ UK politics live ]
Andy Burnham sworn in as an MP after Keir Starmer resigns as prime minister
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David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
NYT investigates US car bloat: “About 200 to 400 pedestrians a year would not have died if vehicles had remained approximately the same size over the past quarter-century. That represents about 10 percent of the recent increase in pedestrian deaths.”
nytimes.com
The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s
The vehicles on American roads have grown larger — and they are killing thousands more pedestrians, a Times investigation found.
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Britain Elects @britainelects.com · 19/06/2026
✅ BURNHAM IN Makerfield by-election result: LAB: 54.8% (+9.6) REF: 34.5% (+2.7) RST: 6.8% (+6.8) CON: 2.2% (-8.7) GRN: 0.7% (-3.7) LDEM: 0.4% (-6.4)
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Jarrett Walker @humantransit.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
But I wonder how much the lack of a front plate adds to the degree of impunity that a motorist feels when they are tempted to act out their aggressions using their car. 7/
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
This all blows up the normal way things work in Washington. Annual appropriations are the norm because it gives Congress power over agencies. But now ICE and CBP can tell Congress to pound sand for three years, and know that it’ll be another President who has to deal with the fallout in 2029.
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Atul Gawande @agawande.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Speed of response is everything, and it's still lagging far behind. Essential explainer on the Congo Ebola outbreak from @JeremyKonyndyk. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
nytimes.com
Opinion | Why This Ebola Outbreak Could End Up Being the Worst One in History (Gift Article)
The situation in eastern Congo and Uganda combines some of the most dangerous aspects of the 2014 and 2018 Ebola outbreaks.
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lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 08/06/2026
a post of mine from november 13, 2024:

one day you're going to see elon posting "we just cut 200 million dollars going to bull weevil outbreak prevention" and then a couple months later the entire midwest will be decimated by the first mass bull weevil outbreak since 1884
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L. David Baron @dbaron.org · 08/06/2026
If this exit poll holds, this is starting to look like a scary trend of far right wins in South America...
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Whitney Curry Wimbish @whitneycwimbish.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
Trump is trying every way he can to speed up his mass deportation machine. His new "mega master" hearing tactic hit NYC today, following NPR's report that they were already underway in Boston, Chicago and Massachusetts. It's where a judge sees 2-3 times as many cases in a single day than usual.
prospect.org
NYC Immigration Courts Speed Deportations as Striking Detainees in Newark Suffer - The American Prospect
The list of one judge’s ‘mega master’ hearings was so long on Monday that it nearly reached the floor. The violence in Delaney Hall illustrates what may await immigrants.
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Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 28/05/2026
Flag Design xkcd.com/3250/
Comic. [Flag with various designs on it and labels describing each. At the bottom of the flag are removable tabs with the heading, “Interested in citizenship? Take one!:] ] Rounded corners; Eurion anti-counterfeit mark; jaunty angle; tan and white stars on beige field; CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram, to ensure flag color fidelity; we can’t agree what this animal is, so we put it on our flag to spark national debate; national flag; island (not a specific island, just a tribute to islands in general); tap here to pay taxes; tribute to topology; GDPR consent. [caption] I think our flag design committee really knocked it out of the park.
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