iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 16/08/2026

This week on Triptych—my free biweekly newsletter. triptych.oxus.net/kerims-tript...

## story-1-communion.png

Vertical black graphic with a two-photo band across the middle. At left, J.D.
Vance in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, bearded, frowning slightly at the
camera, a blurred yellow and blue umbrella behind him. At right, Peter Thiel in a
navy suit and open-collar white shirt, faintly smiling, against a black and cream
damask curtain. Cream text on the black below, a thin orange rule beside the
quotation.

Text: "This week on Kerim's Triptych — Item 1". "Communion". "Rather, she argues
it is a not-so-thinly veiled retelling of the argument made by Peter Thiel in his
lecture, "The Straussian Moment."" "https://triptych.oxus.net/".

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

## story-2-pyongyang.png

Vertical black graphic with a white chart card in the upper half. The bar chart
is headed "North Korea's GDP, change from a year earlier," with a vertical axis
from 5.0% down to -5.0 and a horizontal axis labelled 2016 and '20. Nine bars:
one orange bar near +3.7 at 2016, then grey bars at about -3.5 and -4.3, a small
orange bar near +0.4, a grey bar near -4.8 at 2020, two very short grey bars near
zero, then two orange bars near +2.8 and +3.4. Cream text on the black below, a
thin orange rule beside the quotation.

Text: "North Korea's GDP, change from a year earlier". "5.0%", "2.5", "0",
"-2.5", "-5.0". "2016", "'20". "Source: South Korea's central bank/Bank of
Korea". "This week on Kerim's Triptych — Item 2". "Pyongyang". "While the
countryside hasn't shared these benefits… arms sales to Russia have brought North
Korea billions of dollars." "https://triptych.oxus.net/".

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

## story-3-roosters-vs-meat-sticks.png

Vertical black graphic with a widescreen photograph across the middle: a film set
inside a room panelled with tall carved rosewood lattice screens. A boom
microphone reaches in from the upper right. In the foreground, crew members in
black stand with their backs to the camera, one beside a monitor showing the shot
being filmed. Beyond them, on a carved wooden daybed, a young woman kneels
between two older men in a scene being shot. Cream text on the black below, a
thin orange rule beside the quotation.

Text: "This week on Kerim's Triptych — Item 3". "Roosters vs. Meat Sticks". "They
have to be careful to speak in the appropriate accent and not to use local
slang." "https://triptych.oxus.net/".

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 03/08/2026

What you'll find in this week's Triptych newsletter: triptych.oxus.net/kerims-tript...

Vertical graphic filled by a photograph of a Times Square billboard, cropped to
the memorial poster on its left half: a large snapshot of a small
brown-and-white long-haired dog looking at the camera with its mouth open and
tongue out, green leaves behind it. Below the snapshot, handwritten-style text
on the billboard. A BBC News watermark is faintly visible at the bottom. The
lower half darkens to black beneath cream text, a thin orange rule beside the
quotation.

Text: "This week on Kerim's Triptych — Item 1". "Stray Dog". "Ordinary Chinese
people paid for these displays, one small donation at a time – all to mourn a
stray dog." "https://triptych.oxus.net/". On the billboard, partly obscured: "In
Memeory of our Wangwang" [sic].

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

Vertical graphic, black, with a widescreen film still set across the upper half.
The still shows a fleet of Chinese junks with slatted battened sails on grey open
water under a smoke-filled sky, cannon smoke drifting across the horizon. A large
junk at right carries a crimson pennant and a crowded deck with a tiled cabin
roof; more junks recede into haze at left and centre. Cream text sits on the
black below, a thin orange rule beside the quotation.

Text: "This week on Kerim's Triptych — Item 2". "The Belief". "So why has a film
so clearly aligned with official ideology not been released yet?"
"https://triptych.oxus.net/".

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

Vertical graphic filled by a Chinese ink-and-colour painting by Li Chen of a
feathered dinosaur perched with wings spread, cropped at both edges. It has a
red crest, a yellow eye, pale blue-grey plumage and long wing feathers barred
with black and green, with clawed fingers at the wing tips. A dragonfly hovers
above it against a pale silk ground. The lower half darkens to black beneath
cream text, a thin orange rule beside the quotation.

Text: "This week on Kerim's Triptych — Item 3". "Chinese Dinosaurs". "The museum
hired a traditional Chinese artist, Li Chen, to create paintings of famous
Chinese dinosaurs." "https://triptych.oxus.net/".

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 31/05/2026

RIP Edgar Morin. I know he was much more than just Jean Rouch's sidekick (one obit refers to him as "France’s intellectual ‘grandfather’"), but their collaboration led to something remarkable.

Jean Rouch and Edgar Morin shake hands on the street in Paris. Black and White.

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 01/05/2026

Nothing to see here, move along…

Bar chart titled “Trump’s Net Worth: billions (Forbes estimate, Mar. 2026).” Dark navy bars show annual estimates: approximately $1.7B (2001), rising gradually through the mid-2000s to around $2.5–$3B (2005–2007), dipping to roughly $1.5B (2009), climbing to a peak near $4.5B (2015–2016), then declining through the late 2010s to approximately $2.1B (2021), recovering to $3B (2023), and falling again to $2.3B (2025). Two vertical red dashed lines bracket “Term 1” (approximately 2017–2021) and mark the start of “Term 2” (approximately 2025), with both labels in red text.

The final 2026 bar is a stacked segmented column with a data label of $6.5B at the top. Segments from bottom to top are: red (Crypto & Liquid Assets $2.1B), salmon/pink (Trump Media $1.2B), gold/yellow (Golf Clubs & Resorts $1.5B), teal (Real Estate $1.2B), and gray (Other $454M). Intermediate labels “$5.1B” and “$2.3B” mark internal stack levels. A legend in the upper left lists all five categories with matching colors. Source credited to Forbes in italic text at lower left.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 28/02/2026

Trump has a habit of saying the quiet parts out loud.

August 18, 2025
President Trump Quips About Canceling 2028 Elections If U.S. Is At War
During an Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on ending the war with Russia, President Trump appears to imply that the 2028 elections could be cancelled if the U.S. is at war. “During the war, you can't have elections? So let me just see, three and a half years from now, if we happen to be in a war with somebody, no more elections? That's good," Mr. Trump says in response to the Ukrainian leader's comments on committing to holding elections after the war with Russia is over.

(Image of Zelensky at White House)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 28/02/2026

Oh, the NY Times ... you just couldn't help yourselves, could you?

==A responsible American president could make a plausible argument for further action against Iran.== The core of this argument would need to be a clear explanation of the goals — whether they were limited to denying Iran a nuclear weapon or extended to more ambitious aims, like ending its support for terrorist groups — as well as the justification for attacking now. This strategy would involve a promise to seek approval from Congress and to collaborate with international allies.

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 24/02/2026

The adventurous among you can try my new app finalfinalapp.cc

FINAL|FINAL

A MacOS writing app built for academics, novelists, or screenplay writers—anyone who needs to focus without losing track of the big picture

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 23/02/2026

One of several cut and folded paper flowers that were discovered in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang. It is amazing that they survived so well for over a thousand years! From this week's edition of my Triptych newsletter.

A square paper-cut decorative object photographed against a white background, showing visible aging, staining, and minor tears. The outer border is composed of dark olive-brown cut paper forming a symmetrical frame with scalloped, lobed, and leafy projections at the corners and along each side. Inside this frame is a layered rosette construction in concentric rings of rounded petal shapes. The outermost ring is pale beige-pink, followed by a layer of coral-red, then dark brown, with a central cluster of overlapping rounded forms in olive green and dark brown. The overall composition is radially symmetrical, creating a mandala-like floral pattern. The paper surfaces show considerable texture, foxing, and soiling consistent with age. No text is present. (ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 16/02/2026

In this week's issue of Triptych, I feature the Taiwanese-Anglo-American photographer, Eliott Ross, whose project "A Question of Balance" explores the relationship between the Diné (Navajo Nation) and water and that of Utah’s Washington County, some eighty kilometers away.

A desert scene in Monument Valley featuring tall, eroded red sandstone rock formations rising against a blue sky with white clouds in the background. In the foreground stands a modest wooden structure with an open white door revealing an interior workspace where a woman wearing a pink shirt and dark shorts stands at a white folding table. Outside the structure, five blue plastic barrels are arranged on the sandy ground, along with an orange bucket. To the left, a wooden platform with scattered items and a simple covered frame structure are visible. The ground is reddish-orange sand with sparse patches of green vegetation, and wire fencing can be seen in the middle distance stretching across the desert landscape.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 11/02/2026

Wikipedia has a page of capital cities ranked by elevation. Here are the top 10. I never realized how high these cities are. I spent a few weeks at 2000 m once, and it took about a week to adjust to being that high. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Bolivia La Paz (government seat) 3,640 11,942
Ecuador Quito 2,850 9,350
Bolivia Sucre (de jure capital) 2,790 9,220
Colombia Bogotá 2,625 8,612
Ethiopia Addis Ababa 2,355 7,726
Bhutan Thimphu 2,334 7,657
Eritrea Asmara 2,325 7,628
Yemen Sanaa 2,250 7,382
Mexico Mexico City 2,240 7,350
Iran Tehran 2,040 6,692

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 05/02/2026

Carter's reforms lasted longer than most, Obama's were largely ineffectual, and we are now far beyond what either the Church Committee or Snowden warned us about.

Meme based on But It Might Work For Us Template
also called: Tobias, Funke, Lindsay, Tobias Funke, Tobias and Lindsay, people delude themselves, arrested development

Tobias says "You know, Lindsay, some people have tried to reform the police state." Lindsay asks "Did it ever work for these people?" to which Tobias answers "No. It never does. I mean these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might. But......it might work for us."

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 30/01/2026

Already happening under TikTok's new ownership www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Frame from Simpson's cartoon, which originally said "Tian An Men Square, on this site, in 1989, nothing happened." Has been updated to read: "Minneapolis, on this site, in 2026, nothing happened."

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 27/01/2026

I see Bluesky is debating optimism vs. pessimism. I always liked what Gramsci had to say about this: “I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.”

And in a letter to his brother Carlo, written on December 19, 1929, Gramsci compared the risks taken by a political revolutionary with those assumed by soldiers such as his older brother Gennaro, who had spent three years on the battlefield in World War I as part of a unit whose task was to lay and defuse land mines. "It seems to me, that under such conditions prolonged for years," Gramsci wrote, "and with such psychological experiences, a man should have reached the loftiest stage of stoic serenity and should have acquired such a profound conviction that man bears within himself the source of his own moral strength, that everything depends on him, on his energy, on his will, on the iron coherence of the aims that he sets for himself and the means he adopts to realize them, that he will never again despair and lapse into those vulgar, banal states of mind that are called pessimism and optimism. My state of mind synthesizes these two emotions and overcomes them: I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will."

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 05/01/2026

That “yellow cloak” is a standard $1 disposable raincoat worn by scooter riders in Taiwan. Something like this.

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 18/12/2025

Can you identify this Bond villain?

A man in a black suit stands in the center of an underground facility with exposed stone walls and ceiling, holding a Siamese or similar bicolor cat. He faces three people seated with their backs to the camera, also wearing dark clothing. The ceiling features multiple recessed white spotlights. Behind the standing figure is a table or counter with an illuminated world map display. To the right, glass shelving units display rows of bottles. The facility's floor level contains numerous small yellow-orange figurines or miniature figures scattered throughout the space. The lighting creates dramatic contrast between the illuminated areas and shadowed stone walls.
(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 10/12/2025

Three headlines from today. I can't help but feel that Taiwan's "silicon shield" won't last for much longer...

Taiwan Invokes National Security Law to Protect TSMC Trade Secrets

An executive left the world’s largest computer chip maker for a rival, Intel. Taiwan’s government said the move could threaten its national security.

4 min read

Chip Company Plotted to Send Technology to China, Ex-C.E.O. Says

The former chief executive of Nexperia, a Dutch chipmaker, said Dutch officials knew that the company’s Chinese owner sought to move its technology to China.

6 min read

Analysis

Trump’s Nvidia Chip Deal Reverses Decades of Technology Restrictions

5 min read

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 07/12/2025

Since when is Casablanca a "franchise"? Can we expect Rick Blaine to fight off a zombie invasion in the next film?

Hi Kerim,
We recently announced that Netflix will acquire Warner Bros., including its film and television studios, HBO Max and HBO. This unites our leading entertainment service with Warner Bros.’ iconic stories, bringing some of the world’s most beloved franchises like Harry Potter, Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Casablanca, Game of Thrones and the DC Universe together with Stranger Things, Wednesday, Squid Game, Bridgerton and KPop Demon Hunters.

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 27/11/2025

Drop-down menus can offer a peek into the Silicon Valley mindset. Even though the people who make such drop-down menus have all graduated college, they somehow never think of education as a category of "work."

A dark-themed dropdown menu interface displaying the heading "What best describes your work?" at the top. Below this is an expanded dropdown labeled "Select your work function" showing a list of job function categories. The visible options include: Product Management, Engineering, Human Resources, Finance, Marketing, Sales, Operations, Data Science, Design, Legal, and Other. All text appears in light gray or white against a dark charcoal background.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 16/11/2025

"Between 2007 and 2025, New York City’s GDP grew at an average annual rate of 5.1 percent, while city revenues grew at just 4.1 percent." www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/mam...

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 11/11/2025

In the latest issue of Triptych: Adam Tooze on China's electrostate and the desire to "integrate the far flung territories of the Chinese nation state." As well as how "China’s green energy projects are fully part of an extractivist system of development." triptych.oxus.net/kerims-tript...

A map of China with outlined provincial boundaries in light blue-green. Four major regions are highlighted in purple and labeled as energy production areas: Xingjiang in the northwest, Erdos Basin in the north-central region, Shanxi in the north, and Mongolia East along the northern border, with Southwest Base in the southwest. The remaining areas in light blue-green are labeled as energy consumption areas. Three types of arrows indicate energy infrastructure and flow: thin outlined arrows labeled "To be built, Potential import channel," thick solid blue arrows labeled "Run, building import channels," and thick solid red arrows labeled "Energy flow." The red energy flow arrows point from the purple production regions toward the eastern consumption areas. Text annotations specify coal production amounts: "Annual 3 million tons of coal" near Xingjiang, "Annual 3.3 million tons of coal" near Mongolia East, "Annual 9.2 million tons of coal" near Erdos Basin, "Annual 4 million tons of coal" near Southwest Base, and "Annual 7 million tons of coal" pointing toward the eastern region. A small inset map appears in the lower right corner. The caption reads "Fig. 2. Energy flow in China."

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 05/11/2025

In @nkjemisin.bsky.social's sci-fi novel, The City We Became, Staten Island is the vector by which fascist aliens from a parallel dimension invade the city.

A map of New York City showing its five boroughs colored in two distinct schemes. Staten Island appears in a solid gold or tan color. The other four boroughs—Manhattan, Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn—are rendered in varying shades of blue, ranging from light to dark. Each borough is labeled with its name in black text.

At the bottom of the image are two legends. The first reads "Mamdani" followed by a gradient scale in shades of blue, marked with "30 40 50%". The second reads "Cuomo" followed by a gradient scale in gold/tan tones, also marked with "30 40 50%". The blue boroughs show variation in shading intensity, with some areas appearing in darker blue and others in lighter blue, corresponding to the percentage scale.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 31/10/2025

Probably the most useful aspect of BPMF is that it is well suited for "ruby" characters, where the transcription is alongside the characters. You can do it with HYPY as well, but typographically this is much neater.

An educational display panel in orange/peach color with a red pushpin at the top. The panel features a circled number 4 on the left side. The main text appears in Traditional Chinese characters with phonetic notation marks above each character, reading "為負荷身體的重量走路時以整個掌面貼地" followed by the English translation "They walk by their soles touching the ground to support their weight." Below this is additional Chinese text explaining that, like humans, Taiwanese black bears have five toes on their front and rear limbs, with claws that can reach 5 centimeters in length. Unlike felines, bear claws cannot retract. The text continues describing how bears' long, powerful claws leave deep marks on tree trunks when climbing.

An inset photograph in the lower right shows a close-up of a bear's paw pad, displaying white or light-colored toe pads against dark fur and claws.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 16/10/2025

Israel is holding 4,000 more Palestinians captive than pre-October 2023. Including 580 more hostages in administrative detention. Administrative detainees are de facto hostages, held indefinitely without charge or trial. Chart: Stephen Semler

Israel is holding 4,000 more Palestinians captive than pre-October 2023. Including 580 more hostages in administrative detention. September 2023 column: 5,088 total prisoners, including 1,264 administrative detainees and 3,824 other Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. October 2025 column: 9,106 total prisoners, including 1,844 administrative detainees and 7,262 other Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Post-ceasefire estimate based on reported 1 October 2025 data. Data: Israel Prison Service. Administrative detainees are de facto hostages, held indefinitely without charge or trial. Chart: Stephen Semler.

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 24/09/2025

Here's some public art from Taiwan. Source: www.flickr.com/photos/18367...

A large outdoor sculptural installation features two pig figures positioned in a mating pose against a blue sky with white clouds. The black pig figure is mounted behind a white pig that is lying down with a cheerful, smiling expression and closed eyes. The white pig's head is prominently displayed in the foreground, showing distinctive pig features including a snout and ears.

The setting appears to be in a rural or park-like environment, with green trees visible in the background and rolling hills on the horizon. A paved road or pathway runs along the foreground of the image. The sculptures appear to be made of a smooth, painted material and are quite large in scale, likely several feet in height.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 08/09/2025

Migration Scholars' Global Solidarity and Resistance Network The Global Teach-In/Teach-Out 11 November 2025 migrationscholarsmobilize.org/new-page

The image features a vibrant orange-red background with three raised fists rendered in black and white halftone dot pattern positioned on the left side. On the right side, bold black text reads "Don't Mourn — Organize. Resist. Build Solidarity."

At the bottom of the image, a dark gray banner contains the website URL "MIGRATIONSCHOLARSMOBILIZE.ORG" and the text "Migration Scholars Mobilize Network" in white lettering. A small circular information icon appears in the bottom right corner.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 24/08/2025

A brief anecdote used in my dad's book on the history of nuclear power sent me down this rabbit hole: radioactive toothpaste!

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 17/08/2025

It used to be that all the messages in my SPAM folder were for virility pills or penis enlargement; now they are all MAGA related. Is MAGA the new viagra?

This image shows a screenshot of what appears to be an email inbox interface with a dark background and white text. The interface displays a vertical list of email messages, each containing sender names on the left, subject lines or message previews in the center, and timestamps on the right side.

The visible messages include senders such as "Kellyanne Conway," "RNC MAJOR ALERTS," "Nancy Mace for Gov...," "Heather, GOP Polling," "NRSC HQ" (appearing twice), "DOGE Inquiry," and "Mike Collins." The timestamps range from 4:40 PM to 5:40 PM. Each message entry shows a preview of the subject line or opening text, with some text appearing to be cut off with ellipses. At the top right of some entries, there appear to be small icons for various functions like archiving, deleting, or marking messages.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 17/08/2025

This stuff is even better. I was amazed that it is legal in Taiwan.

A hand holds a small glass bottle with a clear plastic measuring cup attachment at the top. The bottle contains a brown liquid and has a white label with red and black text in both Chinese and English. The label reads "晟德" at the top, followed by "甘草止咳水" and "Liquid Brown Mixture" with "(乾咳化痰劑)" underneath. The ingredients section lists "Glycyrrhiza Fluid Extract," "Opium Tincture," and "Antimony Potassium Tartrate" with corresponding measurements. Additional Chinese text provides usage instructions, warnings, and storage information. (ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 12/08/2025

Discovery from today's research rabbit hole: "How to adopt a Chinese name," a guide from Taiwan's Ministry of the Interior (2012): "Please avoid inappropriate words such as: 豬角 (pig knuckle), 蝦 (shrimp), 罔市 (fed whatever), 色 (pervert), 肖維(crazy), 死 (dead) and 老爾 (old), etc."

Who needs to adopt a Chinese name?
1. Foreign spouses and their children;
2. Nationals without registered permanent residence and their children;
3. Other foreign nationals.

When do you need to adopt a Chinese name?
1. When applying for the marriage registration,
"it is required" to adopt a
Chinese name
Apply for marriage registration at the household registration office.
Provide marriage certificates and related documents to be authenticated by an ROC
Embassy or Mission abroad.
Il. When applying for Alien Resident
Certificate
1. For foreign spouses applying for the Alien Resident Certificate at local service centers of the National Immigration Agency, Ministry of the Interior, "it is required" to adopt a Chinese name.
Those who have completed the marriage registration need to adopt the same
Chinese name.
2. Other foreign nationals who apply for Alien Resident Certificate for reasons of investment, employment, schooling or missionary work "may" adopt a Chinese name.
…
Principles of adopting a Chinese name:
1. Surname first, and then the given name.
2. Those who do not have a surname can register the given name only.
3. Anyone can adopt an original Chinese name or Romanization of their foreign name.
4. Only the Chinese characters that may be found in the
"dictionaries"
are allowed.
(e.g. Chinese dictionary,
辭
康熙字典
Chinese comprehensive dictionary, and Kangxi dictionary.)
5. The Chinese surname and given name cannot be separated by commas or "
space
6. Anyone who adopts a surname, changes a surname or a given name or alters a surname or a given name should follow the Civil Code and Name Act. For Example, those who register adopted children at the household registration office also need to adopt a Chinese name.
Reminder
If this is the first time you adopt a Chinese name, please pay attention!
1. Use the same Chinese name for all registrations.
…

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 09/08/2025

Cuomo should read this NY Times story about why Vienna has affordable housing. Short version: even wealthy people benefit from it. Programs that only benefit the poor tend to be underfunded and poorly run. archive.ph/2023.05.23-1...

Imagine a Renters’ Utopia.
It Might Look Like Vienna.
Soaring real estate markets have created a worldwide housing crisis. What can we learn from a city that has largely avoided it?

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 03/08/2025

This is the cake that convinced me to hire them.

This round cake is designed to resemble a traditional bamboo steamer basket, with brown fondant sides featuring horizontal ridged lines that mimic the texture of bamboo wood. The top surface is covered with bright green fondant shaped and textured to look like a large leaf, complete with detailed vein patterns and realistic creases.

Sitting in the center of the green leaf surface is a small white fondant figure crafted to look like a steamed bao bun, featuring a simple black curved line for a smiling mouth and small arms positioned at its sides. On the side of the cake is a small white decorative medallion displaying the number "1". The entire cake sits on a white plate against a plain background.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 03/08/2025

Here's a link to his book: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 03/08/2025

We recently celebrated my father's 90th. Because he has just written a book on the future of nuclear power, we asked The Hudson Cakery to make a cake in the shape of a nuclear power plant. They did an outstanding job. Not only did the cake look fantastic, but everyone said it was delicious as well.

This elaborate cake depicts a nuclear power plant facility with two prominent grey cylindrical cooling towers, each decorated with black atomic symbols and topped with white decorative material resembling steam or vapor. The main facility consists of a rectangular gray-blue base decorated with various small architectural elements including purple, light blue, and dark colored buildings and structures. Many of these miniature buildings feature dark rectangular elements resembling solar panels on their rooftops.

The facility includes red domed structures representing reactor cores, along with orange decorative elements, and at least one structure displays a yellow radiation warning symbol. The entire cake sits on a bright green base representing grass or ground cover, with small green decorative elements positioned around the perimeter to simulate trees or vegetation. The cake appears to be professionally crafted with fondant and detailed edible decorations to create a realistic representation of an industrial nuclear facility.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 27/07/2025

In this week’s Triptych newsletter, the Civil Rights Era origins of Trump’s weaponized lawsuits. Also, prison-like Indigenous schools in India and the aesthetics of Taiwan’s recall campaign. triptych.oxus.net/kerims-tript...

This bar chart displays the annual count of media and defamation lawsuits involving Trump from 1984 to 2025 (as of July 22). The chart shows red bars on a timeline, with the y-axis measuring lawsuit frequency from 0 to 5 cases per year.

The data reveals a stark pattern: minimal lawsuit activity in the early decades (single cases in 1984, around 1990, 2006, 2010, and 2012), followed by a dramatic surge beginning in 2015 when Trump announced his presidential candidacy. From 2015 onward, the frequency increases substantially, with annual counts reaching 3-4 cases and peaking at 5 cases in both 2024 and 2025. The chart specifically notes Trump’s 1984 lawsuit against a Chicago Tribune architecture critic and marks 2015 as the pivotal year when he announced his presidential candidacy, clearly correlating this political milestone with the subsequent escalation in legal disputes. (Claude ai generated alt text)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 26/07/2025

Not looking good for the recall. I really thought at least 4 or 5 would succeed. #taiwan

This image displays a dashboard showing recall election statistics in Traditional Chinese. The key information shows that out of 25 total recall cases, 0 have succeeded and 22 have failed to meet the required threshold. A progress bar indicates 88.0% completion toward some metric, with all cases either failing to reach the threshold or not yet completing the process. (ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 24/07/2025

This is the painting I use when I want to explain settler colonialism to my students. (And yes, I checked, this is real.)

You're absolutely right. Here's a more accurate description:

A social media post from the Homeland Security account (@DHSgov) with a verified checkmark and Follow button. The post text reads "A Heritage to be proud of, a Homeland worth Defending." followed by "American Progress - John Gast."

The image shows a 19th-century painting depicting a large female figure in flowing white robes floating above a vast landscape. She holds a book in one hand while trailing ribbons or banners flow behind her. The scene spans from left to right across a dramatic landscape with storm clouds on the left transitioning to clearer skies on the right. On the left side of the painting, Indigenous people on horseback are fleeing toward the darker, stormy area, along with buffalo and other wildlife retreating from the advancing figure. The center and right portions show covered wagons, a steam locomotive with smoke, telegraph poles, small settlements, and various settlers. Mountains are visible in the distant background, and the overall composition moves from wilderness and displaced Indigenous peoples on the left to Euro-American settlement and development on the right.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 24/07/2025

The international reporting on Taiwan's recall vote has suffered from their usual "both-sides" framing, but the FT gets it right: it is a story about the KMT becoming estranged from the electorate: archive.ph/zGWcM

Taiwan’s once-dominant KMT falls ‘out of step’ with the electorate
Party that has failed three times to win presidency since 2016 faces reckoning over its ties to China in looming recall vote

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 05/07/2025

"Abolish ICE" is one of those slogans that was ridiculed as hopelessly naive by centrist liberal types. Now the future of American democracy (such as it is) depends on it. talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/criti...

Last spring, when Dan Ziblatt and I taught a comparative course on democratic backsliding, our study of the Hungarian and German (1920s-30s) cases left me slightly reassured about the United States today. Hungary is highly centralized, and in Germany the most important state transformation happened just before Hitler was appointed Chancellor, when the previous government nationalized the Prussian police and bureaucracy, removing it from Social Democratic control in federated Germany’s largest state. Not long after, unexpectedly, Hitler could easily turn the centralized agencies into his Gestapo core. I thought last year that the USA was somewhat protected against any similar coerceive authoritarian takeover by its federal structure, given state and local government rights to control most U.S. police powers (I presented this argument in my Madison lecture for the Sept 2024 American Political Science Association).

But now I see that the Miller-Trump ethno-authoritarians have figured out a devilishly clever workaround. Immigration is an area where a U.S. President can exercise virtually unchecked legal coercive power, especially if backed by a Supreme Court majority and corrupted Department of Justice. Now Congress has given ICE unprecedented resources – much of this windfall to be used for graft with private contractors Trump patronizes, but lots of to hire street agents willing to mask themselves and do whatever they are told against residents and fellow American citizens. The Miller-Trumpites are not interested only in rounding up undocumented immigrants. They will step up using ICE and DOJ enforcements use to harass Democrats, citizen critics, and subvert future elections if they can.

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 30/06/2025

The @theguardian.com published a letter from a Dr. Craig Reeves claiming that independent research had "debunked" concerns about "false positives" when using online tools to check for AI use in student papers. Except, if you actually read the three papers he cites, only one supports such a claim.

In 2023, a widely used assessment platform, Turnitin, released an AI indicator, reporting high reliability from huge-sample tests. However, many universities opted out of this indicator, without testing it. Noise about high “false positives” circulated, but independent research has debunked these concerns (Weber-Wulff et al 2023; Walters 2023; Perkins et al, 2024).

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 22/06/2025

This appears to be real. x.com/realDonaldTr...

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump

Remember that I predicted a long time ago that President Obama will attack Iran because of his inability to negotiate properly-not skilled!
10:55 AM · Nov 11, 2013

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 17/06/2025

"In fact, the term *war crime* is not even adequate for what’s happening in Gaza, in that it suggests that there is a war happening and there are some crimes in it." archive.ph/eb4Hw

This image shows a page from New York magazine. At the top is the stylized "New York" masthead in elegant black serif lettering. Below is a text block containing an article excerpt that reads:

"Ever since the horrors of World War II, the world has attempted to prevent, even in wartime, the morally unconscionable: the purposeful killing of noncombatants, the decimation of civilian property, the denial of humanitarian assistance. Netanyahu's Israel, abetted by two American administrations, has likely committed hundreds, maybe thousands, of war crimes in Gaza, brazenly defying the body of law that, however imperfectly applied over the decades, aimed to protect the sanctity of human life. An era of unchecked brutality has emerged in its place."

In the bottom right corner, there is red text reading "CRIMES OF THE CENTURY" with "By Suzy Hansen" in smaller text below it.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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Kerim Friedman 傅可恩 @kerim.one · 15/06/2025

My friend spotted this at today’s #nokings protest 😂

A crowd of people gathered outdoors holding various protest signs and flags. The most prominent sign in the center is white with Chinese characters “去冰” followed by “NO ICE!” in English, featuring an illustration of what appears to be a bubble tea drink with dark tapioca pearls. An American flag is visible on the right side of the image. The crowd consists of people wearing casual clothing including baseball caps, sun hats, and other headwear. One person in the foreground is wearing a white face mask. Additional protest signs are visible in the background, though their text is partially obscured. The setting appears to be outdoors with green foliage and trees visible in the background.

(ALT Text by Claude AI)

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