iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by The Abominable Dr Workman

Emily @emilydawn.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

@hockeyviz.com I found some beautiful data viz for you

The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

So... If they were truly trying for "historical accuracy" they'd be doing it in (I'm guessing, archaic) Italian (or a Veronese?) but actually it seems like the reporter just got confused by a decision to do it in the original text? Is that what's happening?

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It's kind of exciting, trying to guess how the Democrats will throw this away.

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Reposted by The Abominable Dr Workman

Ken Tremendous @kentremendous.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

I wish there were a single sentence that could simultaneously encapsulate and explain every single problem we have in modern society.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Love the idea of the novelino as the quantum of fiction.

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Reposted by The Abominable Dr Workman

SlashFilm @slashfilm.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

In 2006, Syfy aired a miniseries called The Lost Room that featured a young Elle Fanning. The show is now streaming for free on Tubi.

slashfilm.com

Elle Fanning's Sci-Fi Miniseries Is A 2000s Gem That's A Must-Watch On Tubi - SlashFilm

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Reposted by The Abominable Dr Workman

Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

In a normal, functioning democracy, this would end his presidency tonight.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

How dare you insult President Bag-of-Rocks before he even has a chance to announce his candidacy.

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Reposted by The Abominable Dr Workman

mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

if you ever wonder how Americans became the richest major country on the planet but most of us still feel so poor, looking at what we spend on cars — not just directly but in tax money for infrastructure and space in the built environment — is the answer.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Which aisle is Kushner on the other side of?

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Turn the lights off, then he can't see you and it'll be easier to beat him.

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Reposted by The Abominable Dr Workman

The Editorial Board @editorialboard.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

1. Regular readers know I used to talk a lot about conservatism, fascism, authoritarianism, totalitarianism – all those multi-syllabic schools of thought that attempt to explain politics in America today. But I don't talk about them in depth these days. I have come to a conclusion.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

But is that actually what they're being asked? Is the survey a quiz of leading economic indicators and we're asking them to make a summary comparison of the economy at different times? I was under the impression the question was just "how do you feel about it" -- is that incorrect?

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

But I feel like these two are getting really muddled in the discourse on Blue Sky and probably everywhere.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I'm told this is all about a UMich survey in which people are estimating how they feel about the economy as a whole, and relating it to how they feel about their own financial situation. Not whether they're particularly skilled at judging the strength of the economy, or whether it is better.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Yes but that's not what is being measured, right?!? And the discourse around it keeps devolving into "kids today don't know how good they have it" which I think is... not helpful?

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

And also how well "own well-being" is normalized across circumstances. One can imagine that if you think the world is terrible, mere survival counts as "good". If you think the world is typical, "good" probably requires more.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Someone on another thread said it went back to the '50s. Interesting. So the data goes back about 12 years, and 1/3 of that sentiment was lower than the first 2/3? And we're taking that last third as anomalous?

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

What are the corresponding steady-state values in the UK and France

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I didn't say that at all. Yeah you're just trolling

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Several times I've had to say "yes that's my point" which tells me that you're interpreting things the opposite of how I meant them. I'm willing to concede that maybe I didn't do this well, assuming unsaid things were obvious. I can't tell if the problem is in the medium, or you're just trolling.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

So at best, there's just semantic quibbling made worse by microblogging as a communications mechanism, and at worst you're a lunatic deliberately trying to waste my time. Either way this is exhausting I'm not going to bother anymore

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I'd go on but every kind of example you just reject out of hand as meaningless or inapplicable, so it kind of makes it difficult to explain anything

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

There's only so much absolute truth you can shove into a number one to 100

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It really has nothing to do with economics. My point is the survey is about essentially one value that's a summary of at best actual economic data and at worst people's gut reactions to the economy. And as such it's meaningless to say it's irrational or wrong, just different.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

It's all centered about the opinion of the general economy in the survey. Is it or is it not expressed as a one-dimensional numeric value or possibly even just a count of binary values

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I don't know why I'm still trying to convince you of this

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

The point is that creating a summary value is necessarily going to involve deciding which factors are more valuable than others. And so rejecting somebody else's different summary as irrational, means you're saying you're specific valuation of those factors is objectively correct

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I'm trying to explain what I meant, but you keep insisting on one particular semantic quibble

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

In the context of summarizing them into a smaller value, and that is some kind of imperative, as something one must do. If you have two indicators, one good and one bad, and you summarize the total as good, then you are rejecting the one that is bad. I'm recommending it as practice

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Yeah if I keep trying to explain something to somebody who seems to be determined not to understand it, yeah it can get kind of repetitious. Have fun in your Ayn Rand book club or whatever

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Only if you take a really weird misinterpretation of what I said, as explained in the other branch of this thread

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

For future reference, circling text appears to be the internet standard for drawing attention to a certain subset of text in an image of text

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Okay. I was not saying in that message that you have to ignore indicators. I'm saying that if you're trying to shove all the indicators into a single good bad binary value, you are in practice ignoring half of them. I'm not saying you SHOULD ignore half of them.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Well it made it significantly harder to read so yes

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I'm trying to show that the question in the survey about the general economy, is unlikely to be judged as purely correct or incorrect, because it involves exactly this sort of value judgment summarizing a lot of indicators. At best, in practice people will just make a gut feeling.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

That's kind of my point. Are you being confused about discussions about discussions? Or maybe this is just a case where microblogging is an impossible way to communicate.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

What about the deficit? It's been an almost constant economic discussion point as long as I can remember. What's the problem with just raising it as an example of discussion exactly?

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I didn't say you have to pay attention to only some things not all. I'd say you were the one who was attacking nuance, because you were taking the general fear for the economy and casting it as wholly irrational.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Thing is, these questions suggest that nuance might be a thing, which itself would suggest that a binary good / bad conclusion would be difficult to achieve.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Today I learned that being insufficiently deferential to Will Stancil is a good way to initiate a pile-on that will waste most of a day.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I think suggesting it's impossible is definitionally kind of defeatist. Anyway whatever this whole thing is exhausting

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

"why you needed to retreat backwards" do you have any idea how libertarian you sound So anyway if you're saying that concern that the economy is bad is irrational, presumably you're Republican and think everything is fine. If not is this another case of Democrats determined to lose elections?

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I can't recall if you said this at any point, but several people have been framing the vibecession question as, given this how does anyone win elections? And if the answer is, it's all social media, then what scares me is that this suggests that the response is going to be more social media.

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Yes what do you do about it, if it's social media? Exhort people to get off social media? Ban social media? Just concentrate on future huge social media campaigns? Give up?

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The Abominable Dr Workman @drpaulabominable.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

How can you definitively say that the deficit record highs, which is discussed on the news a lot, has nothing to do with this, but concluded it must be social media instead?

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