iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 11/10/2026

C-3PO tape dispenser (1980).

C-3PO tape dispenser. Reclining, tape is dispensed from between his legs.

59912

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 10/10/2026

“This concept demeans us both.”

O'BAGEL IS COMING TO PRINCETON
O'BAGEL
Since 1995

4748950

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 09/10/2026

CMOT Dibbler NYC manifestation.

0290

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 09/10/2026

Steadily increasing crowd at Allen Pavilion.

1 train passes overhead as anti-ICE protest grows at Allen Pavilion

16717

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 09/10/2026

Anti-ICE Protest at Allen Pavilion on Broadway and 220th.

Protest at Allen Pavilion on Broadway and 220tu

06912

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 08/10/2026

The @lrb.co.uk out here publishing smut again, apparently

Anne Carson has been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 'for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature!'
You can read 52 of her essays and poems in the
LRB archive.

Labeled as Adult Content by bsky mod service

55411

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 08/10/2026

A special case of a more general pet theory of mine. kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

My pet Theory of Professional Academic Associations is that the discipline's organizational life inverts its core intellectual commitments. Thus, Political Science is the discipline of government and especially of democracy. Yet, the last time I checked, all of the high-level positions in APSA are decided by committee deals rather than free and fair elections by the membership. Or, Economics is the discipline of decentralized coordination through the efficient operation of the market. Yet its job "market" is in fact an administered queue, with departments explicitly ranking their candidates, departments effectively ranking themselves, and a direct matching process operating between the two as top-ranking candidates slot into open positions in top-ranked schools. (This mechanism also includes an effective method of rent-extraction from Deans in the form of a salary ratchet.) And, to get to the present case, Sociology is the discipline that analyzes the many forms of collective social action, on the one hand, and is the social science most oriented towards the exposure of the workings of power, on the other. So naturally it follows that the ASA is not very good at organizing anything, and that its financial arrangements are as secretive as legally possible.

713826

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 08/10/2026

A special case of my general pet theory. kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

1122

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 06/10/2026

Call the botulance spom LLM is having a stronk

Re: A Publishing Conversation Regarding Last Best...
To: Kieran Healy
Details
目
Hello,
I'm following up on my previous email regarding your book. I'm still interested in the possibility of publishing the book and would be glad to have a conversation about it and discuss the potential next steps.
Please let me know if you would be open to continuing the conversation. Hello,
I'm following up on my previous email regarding your book. I'm still interested in the possibility of publishing the book and would be glad to have a conversation about it and discuss the potential next steps.
Please let me know if you would be open to continuing the conversation. Hello,
I'm following up on my previous email regarding your book. I'm still interested in the possibility of publishing the book and would be glad to have a conversation about it and discuss the potential next steps.
Please let me know if you would be open to continuing the conversation. Hello,
I'm following up on my previous email regarding your book. I'm still interested in the possibility of publishing the book and would be glad to have a conversation about it and discuss the potential next steps.
Please let me know if you would be open to continuing the conversation.

6472

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 06/10/2026

Life in the city is sometimes strange and confusing.

5324

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 05/10/2026

I think it’s a fairly general phenomenon that’s weakened over time? Here’s New Zealand’s raw monthly series since 1980, and a quick-and-dirty rate decomposition from 1991, which is the first year from which I could find quarterly population numbers to interpolate to monthly.

STL decomposition of estimated monthly birth rates for NZ, 1991-2025

020

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 05/10/2026

I should just sell my poster as the most depressing gift to give someone in your life who is under fifty. In this case, focus on the sequence of population pyramids in the second-to-last row. kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

A poster showing a variety of views of the baby boom: a heat map, a time series, a decomposition, and a series of population pyramids.

3150

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 04/10/2026

W.G. Runciman (1989), p.18.

ı8
Confessions of a reluctant theorist
3. I recall a short but striking conversation with the formidable Piero Sraffa at the Economics Faculty cocktail party after Dennis Robertson's Marshall Lectures. 1 well knew that it was Sraffa whom Wittgenstein had described as his mentor during the gestation of the Philosophical Investigations, but I still ventured a rather simple-minded remark about the obvious importance of the fact-value distinction to the social sciences.
He turned on me his charming smile and glittering eyes. Did I really suppose that one could switch from fact to value as if simply moving a handle? His voice rose, and his Italian accent grew sharper: 'Fact, value! Value, fact! Fact, value! Value, fact! FACT, VALUE! VALUE, FACT!' I beat a swift and chastened retreat.

3676

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 02/10/2026

Now that I have this travel data I am of course messing around with it further. Here’s all monthly visits Jan 2015-June 2026, smoothed. The size of the Canadian reaction to the Trump administration’s attack on them really is remarkable. Elbows up, Canada. kieranhealy.org/blog/archive...

Big drop in Canadian visits to the US. Mexico trending up, everywhere else declining slightly

57626

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 02/10/2026

AI Godfather will make you an offer you’re absolutely right.

4403

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 01/10/2026

Here’s the monthly data with a 12-month trailing average, so we don’t “look ahead” of the time series. We can see that visits from Canada are substantially down. Like, a *lot*. And if we looked at the French series by itself we’d see something too. But it’s not on the scale of Covid. Yet.

Smoothed monthly graph shows Canada has dropped in visits substantially, but not to the extent we saw in Covid

1129258

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 01/10/2026

I went and got the data. Here’s the raw series, which is noisy because tourism is highly seasonal. The catastrophic effect of Covid is obvious, followed by a recovery to lower levels. There’s also evidence of a substantial Trump effect from Canada. We can apply a more sensible smoother to see.

Noisy monthly data, massive Covid drop, recovery (to lower levels). There’s also evidence of a Trump effect in some countries

216613

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 01/10/2026

I keep seeing this Semafor graph that seems to show the Trump administration’s effect on international visits is comparable to the pandemic. My first thought was “that can’t be true” and indeed it is not. This is monthly data. We only have to Jun/Aug 2026. The lines are over-fitted to the months.

12460134

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 01/10/2026

Literary LLM spam, a continuing series. Dundurn is a real press (in Canada) and this person is a real editor there, but as I hope is obvious this email is not from them and of course the gmail at the end is not really their email. The ongoing Canadian angle is intriguing, like the Emily Mandel one.

A scam email.

Kathryn Lane
A Publishing Conversation Regarding Last Best Gifts
To: Kieran Healy
Yesterday at 9:51 PM
画
Dear Kieran Healy,
My name is Kathryn Lane, and I'm a Senior Editor at Dundurn. I recently spent some time with Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs, and what caught my attention was the strength of your analytical voice and the clarity of your approach to the social organization of blood and organ donation.
In particular, I was interested in the way you move the discussion beyond individual motivations for donation and examine the organizations and institutional arrangements that create the conditions in which altruism can operate. Your comparison of donation systems in Europe and the United States, alongside your attention to the tension between the cultural idea of the "gift of
sociological dimension. It suggests a deliberate understanding of how institutions shape not only the exchange itself but also the meanings attached to giving.
I'd like to know what you're working on now and whether you have any forthcoming projects. I'd also be interested to know whether you're currently represented by a literary agent. If you are, I'm perfectly comfortable continuing the conversation through your agent. If you're not, I can
Subject to seeing more of your writing, I believe there could be scope for a broader conversation
publishing programme.
Best regards,
Kathryn Lane Senior Editor
Dundurn
KATHRYN LANE
SENIOR EDITOR
EDITORIAL TEAM | DUNDURN PRESS
• kathrynlane.dundurn@gmail.com
• https://www.dundurn.com

4131

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 01/10/2026

RIP to everyone’s favorite p<0.05 factory

122038

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 29/09/2026

I’m touched that the well-known author Emily St John Mandel is now gently following up on her note about talking to me, an author who deserves to be well-known but remains unjustly neglected. I admire—perhaps I am even a little attracted to—her warmth, honesty, and good taste and shall surely reply

Re: A Note from a Fellow Author - The Ordinal Society
To: Kieran Healy
4:30 AM
Dear Kieran,
be glad to hear your thoughts whenever you have a moment. I know how easily a thoughtful reply
with being a working scholar.
What stayed with me most after writing to you was the larger question of how you came to see The Ordinal Society as the book it ultimately became. I would be particularly honored to hear your perspective on that journey not only what the research revealed, but what surprised or challenged you along the way as an author.
With genuine admiration,
Emily St. John Mandel
Award-winning Canadian novelist and essayist
Author of: Station Eleven

7495

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 27/09/2026

With a bunch of fully-armed and operational PDP-8s, the sky’s the limit computationally.

071

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 27/09/2026

Quite pleased to see that despite continuing to exist in a paraphysical world where the rules of space and time do not apply, in Resonant, just as in the original Control, the “Minimizes Residuals!” OLS/loglinear whiteboard lives on at the Federal Bureau of Control. Even the Hiss can’t defeat OLS.

Adiabatie Procoses
No opporturity for Heat Transfer
Expo ne
No Time to equelizet
P,O conderos RAIN.
Mf LinearRegression
Dota → Tables → Liaßess
(cotalyst)
) Duta→ Table → Transform
Data
[For nontinarddeta (logy, lege bogg
Ex :
구
Exp Reg
(,, (a):
y=0.9871•1.307x
Minimizes
Residieels!
Cintay (4, 4)
r= 0.%
飞yt.
gyr, 'ogey Filed! +=0.776 CURVEP!
So... ia coutà be:
• Expohential -
→ Tochock: 13 = logg [Lg=log (L)]
o Romer Function
Then, graph (x, logg)
or (4, 13)
(logx, 1og9)
Is it Lincar?
Its more Linear!

2221

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 26/09/2026

Incidentally, the pattern on custard creams represents ferns. More generally the style is that of William Morris, in tiny biscuit form. I was not aware of any of this when growing up, only that being allowed to have a second one was a rare treat and having a third decadence beyond imagining.

6916

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 25/09/2026

Control: Resonant may have gotten the feel of downtown a little wrong, but in fairness they captured 168th St station perfectly; just scanned it directly into the game.

391

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 25/09/2026

Best strategy is for people to stop reading rubbish books.

Financial Times O
@financialtim... • 20m
How do I avoid bookshaming?

2443

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 25/09/2026

I’m sure this will cause some nasty headaches. On the other hand, let we who are without sin, etc

2380

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 24/09/2026

Of all the crazy geometric effects that the Hiss containment breach had on the geography of Manhattan in “Control: Resonant”, perhaps the most substantial has been to turn it into a city of Alleys, which NYC very much is not.

Screenshot from early in “Control: Resonant”. An alley.

3190

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 21/09/2026

Bluesky undefeated. I guess I have to hand it to this guy.

Kausik @kausikdatta22.bsky.social • 1m
- Replied to you
The phrase "You have to hand it to..." is usually an admission to grudging admiration. My unpopular opinion, then, is that if one values truth & fearless journalism not beholden to those with power & money, one does not, in fact, "have to hand" anything to corporate-and/or billionaire-owned media.
fa Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co • 30m
You have to hand it to the Times. When it comes to local stuff they are just so good at trolling 90 percent of their own readers while making the other 10 percent happy. I like to imagine that the Real Estate people and the Vows people have a scoreboard, like Legolas and Gimli in Lord of the Rings.
AFFORDING NEW YORK
How a Risk Associate Lives on $110,000 in Lenox Hill
While his mother helped him buy a co-op in Manhattan, Sean de Ganon, 26, has also benefited from learning financial literacy at a young age.
By DAVAUGHNIA WILSON

101738

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 21/09/2026

You have to hand it to the Times. When it comes to local stuff they are just so good at trolling 90 percent of their own readers while making the other 10 percent happy. I like to imagine that the Real Estate people and the Vows people have a scoreboard, like Legolas and Gimli in Lord of the Rings.

AFFORDING NEW YORK
How a Risk Associate Lives on $110,000 in
Lenox Hill
While his mother helped him buy a co-op in Manhattan, Sean de Ganon, 26, has also benefited from learning financial literacy at a young age.
By DAVAUGHNIA WILSON

2544044

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 20/09/2026

This thing I made two years ago continues to hold up pretty well

AI and consciousness political 2D grid.

Authoritarian
Al is not conscious and neither am I
Authoritarian
Left
Al is conscious but l am not
Authoritarian
Right
Economic-
Left
Economic-Right
Libertarian
Left
I am conscious but Al is not
Libertarian
Right
I am conscious and so is Al
Libertarian

947287

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 20/09/2026

The chattering class microcelebrity world is a funny place.

HowTheLightGetsIn
HAY 2026
SPEAKERS
BRIAN GREENE | SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK JEREMY CORBYN | KATHLEEN STOCK
JOHN GRAY | GILLIAN TETT | JAMES ORR
JIMMY WALES | CORNEL WEST | CORY DOCTOROW
ROWAN WILLIAMS | SUSAN NEIMAN | IVETTE FUENTES
ZIA YUSUF | ZARAH SULTANA | MICHAEL GOVE
MARTHA FIENNES | MICHAEL SHERMER | MAHMOOD MAMDANI
MUSIC & PERFORMANCE
DAMIAN LEWIS | TOM ROSENTHAL
SHAPPI KHORSANDI | NERINA PALLOT GRAEME PARK | ASHLEY CAMPBELL | GIRL GROUP
DIRTY NICE | HACKNEY COLLIERY BAND| MR BRUCE,.
DULCIMA | ANA SILVERA & SAIED SILBAK | N'FAMADY KOUYATÉ
JOHN TOTHILL | MR TEA AND THE MINIONS | HUGE DAVIES THE BREAKS | ELIZA DELE & THE WILDERNESS | MARTY OLEESON
K.O.G SOUNDSYSTEM | ROSALIE MINNITT
AND MANY, MANY MORE!

HowTheLightGetsIn
LONDON 2026
SATURDAY LINEUP
SPEAKERS
LOUIS THEROUX • EMILY WILSON
BRYAN JOHNSON • SABINE HOSSENFELDER
JEREMY HUNT • SABRINA PASTERSKI • GILLIAN TETT
LEO VARADKAR • NICOLA STURGEON • ADAM FRANK
JOANNA MONCRIEFF • MICHAEL GOVE
MUSIC & PERFORMANCE
PATRICK WOLF • HARRIET KEMSLEY
PRIMA QUEEN • ALFIE DUNDAS • THE TURBANS
FATHIYA SALEH • PREEN
ELLY HOPKINS • BOURGEOIS & MAURICE • LEWIS GARNHAM
AND MANY, MANY MORE!

140

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 20/09/2026

I’m at the Military Complex. I’m at the Triumphal Arch. I’m at the combined Military Complex/Triumphal Arch.

Donald J. Trump C @realDonaldTrump
At the strong request of the United States Military, and for National Security purposes, I have agreed to convert the magnificent Triumphal Arch, planned since the Civil War Era many years ago, at the Receptive Circle adjoining the Arlington Memorial Bridge, into a top grade Military Complex/Triumphal Arch, to house, store, and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus Snipers, on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition in storage. There will be no facility like this anywhere in the World. Out of the 59 top cities and Capitals, Washington, D.C., IS THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT DOES NOT HAVE A TRIUMPHAL ARCH, but it will now and, by far, the greatest of them all! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
486 ReTruths 1.76k Likes
9/20/26, 7:34 AM

108911

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 19/09/2026

I cannot believe I just organically and spontaneously got the opportunity to Morgenbesser in real life.

I am coming home with a pastry for myself
For you?
Apple Danish; chocolate croissant
Danish!
Muffin, sticky bun?
In that case I'll have the croissant

2403

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 19/09/2026

I assume that when whoever is making it IPOs they will reveal the full lineup implied by the existence of Tilly Norwood.

Grid of logic gate options as Venn diagrams of Tilly Norwood, Tilly Orwood, Tilly Andwood, Tilly Xorwood, Tilly Nandwood, and Tilly Xnandwood

16626121

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 19/09/2026

I’m sorry for the poor quality of the photo of this incredible fight—possibly a territorial display, or competition for a recent kill—that I witnessed in the wild yesterday evening, but as you can imagine I was running for my life at the time.

Two tyrannosaurus rexes fighting at a bus stop

91049

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 18/09/2026

OK news agencies and broadcasters with a presence in the White House Briefing Room, and indeed the WHCA: your test has arrived. It is not hard to pass. You just need to not attend WH Briefings for as long as this rule is in force. That’s it. Does your commitment to a free press mean anything or not?

509/ replies
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
+
I am proud to announce that, effective immediately, I am banning Fake News CNN, MSNOW (who recently changed their name from MSNBC due to lack of viewership and credibility!), and
Dollar subscription, an All Time Record, directly from the United States Government, under Crooked Joe Biden, in order to keep
as a result of their constant "reporting" FAKE NEWS! Media
and LIES when they're covering the President of the United States, the Trump Administration, or the United States of
your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
6.2k ReTruths 25.5k Likes
Sep 18, 2026 at 3:04 PM

19367112

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 18/09/2026

That’s a load-bearing assumption, Dr Strangelove. www.cnn.com/2026/09/18/p...

program.
sources, armed members of the US military were preparing to board the
familiar with the incident said.
The report, according to one of the sources, was "entirely false." But it also
"almost started a war," the source said. Any US operation against a Chinese
nations.

1323163

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 15/09/2026

I do approve of this billing, I have to say.

Rationalization
12 Rationalization
MAX WEBER
13 The Roots of Stratification in Global Cultural Individualism
EVAN SCHOFER AND JOHN W. MEYER
14 Rationalized Stratification
MARION FOURCADE AND KIERAN HEALY
Division of Labor
15 Of the Division of Labour
ADAM SMITH
16 Mechanical and Organic Solidarity
ÉMILE DURKHEIM
17 The Paradox of Specialization
MICHELLE JACKSON
18 Rebalancing AI
DARON ACEMOGLU AND SIMON JOHNSON
Race and Ethnicity
19 The Conservation of Races
W. E.B. DU BOIS

3420

Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 15/09/2026

This thing could easily kill someone if dropped from a moderate height.

8200