Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 10/10/2026As a general matter, per-pupil expenditure is higher in low-income areas than in high-income ones. (This isn't true everywhere, but it's the broad pattern.) Higher spending can't make up for the gap in the home environment. Trying is right. But education can't engineer equal outcomes. 6213
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 06/10/2026My mother-in-law used to give directions like this for rural Maryland. God forbid that someone should paint their mailbox a new color. 070
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I am goinig to thank you for correcting me, because I can only think good thoughts. 110
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 28/09/2026I think the boy is the one who sends you to the cornfield in the Twilight Zone's greatest episode. He is evil. 111
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 12/09/2026Wizard of Oz. The Empire Strikes Back (because I was a theatre usher--that used to be a thing). 121
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 10/09/2026I miss Disco Duck. youtu.be/ynWhozyOoZQ?...youtu.beRick Dees and his Cast of Idiots - Disco Duck TOTP ( 1976 )YouTube video by TheVideoJukeBox3 010
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 07/09/2026When people know they're going through an AI screen, they'll choose the most urgent possible options in order to get to a live agent more quickly. Calls are likely to ratchet upward in urgency, making the AI screen useless. 041
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 30/08/2026X, Laurie Andersen, Greensky Bluegrass, Grateful Dead, Talking Heads, Clash, Andres Segovia, Ravi Shankar, Metropolitan Opera, Abbie Lincoln. 020
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 17/08/2026People imagine that no one ever denied care in universal systems. But it happens all the time! Some treatments the system covers; other treatments it doesn't. The difference is that the scope of coverage is a social choice, not one farmed out to insurance companies. 070
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 06/08/2026This is backwards. Dense urban counties are commonly 75-90% Democratic. Very red rural counties can be 65-80% Republican, but many red rural counties fall in the 60-70% range. That are voters are so concentrated works against us (fewer blue districts). 170
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 03/08/2026In the 1960s, we wore hand-me- down clothes from our older siblings. Basically everyone I knew did. Moms patched them up. (Dad was busy working on the car--or drinking.) My mom darned socks! 110
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 01/08/2026True. But if you were a teenager listening to FM radio in the early 1970s, they seemed as big as the Stones. 010
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 01/08/2026It's weird how Credence has disappeared. Eighteen top-40 hits and nine top-10 during 1968-72, but almost no lasting cultural imprint. And a lot of those hits were bangers! 220
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 29/07/2026Commissary prices are subdidized by design. Appropriated federal funds pay for most commissary operating costs. The prices charged don't cover much more than the cost of merchandise. Crucially, the building rent is free! And commercial grocery store profit margins are paper-thin, about 2%. 000
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 18/07/2026The Godfather. I was 12. My reasoning was that I'd already read the book. 000
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 10/07/2026Very likely naive question: Has anyone raised the objection that a Boltzman brain requires not just a quantum state, but a sequence of states over time? If the minimum span of a "thought" were even a second, such a brain would be many billions of times less likely to arise by chance. 101
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 04/05/2026The Third Man The Philadelphia Story Casablanca Double Indemnity Pan's Labyrinth Of Gods and Men The Best Years of Our Lives The Seven Samurai The Sweet Smell of Success High Noon The Wizard of Oz The Seventh Seal The Godfather Notorious Beat the Devil 040
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 03/05/2026The Twilight Zone. The Avengers. Monty Python's Flying Circus. The Wire. Le Bureau. The Expanse. All in the Family. Buggs Bunny & Roadrunner. Rocky and Bullwinkle. A French Village. Homicide. Stark Trek: Next Generation. Deep Space 9. The Wild, Wild West. Perry Mason (original series). 010
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 12/04/2026That's why we have the PCE index--in particular, why it's generally preferred for measuring real incomes. The conclusion that average or median real incomes have risen in recent holds using either the CPI or the PCE. 050
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 10/04/2026A penny saved is a gift horse earned. Penny wise and gift horse foolish. A stitch in times saves a gift horse. A fool and his gift horse are soon parted. Never count your chickens before a gift horse. 020
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 06/04/2026And please, speak to me as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever. 180
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 05/03/2026Trump should be made personally to pay every dime to put it back the way it was. And to pay the cost of taking his name off every other federal building in DC. 020
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 01/03/2026A photon checks into a hotel. The clerk asks, "Do you have any luggage?" Answer: "No--I'm traveling light." 28410
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 01/03/2026The population of Bakersfield is about 417,000 as of 2024, the latest available figure. 200
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 08/02/2026That--and on a related theme, Black Robe. Beautiful and shattering. After 30 years, I can't make myself see it again. 010
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 17/01/2026Marx's argument is irrefutable: "Potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes." 010
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 16/01/2026I used to Watch Him on Laugh-In back in the late 1960s. 010
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 04/01/2026Doug Zonker should have cited one of his earlier papers on the topic. 000
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 08/12/2025I assume you're referring to the Land Orcas. I also live in fear. 030
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 23/11/2025Yes, it varies slightly by prefecture. I quoted the upper end. 100
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 22/11/2025This is way off. Japan’s minimum wage is less $7.50/hr in dollar terms. I promise you that you can't live on $82.50 a week in Japan. The minimum wage in Portugal is about 5.4 euro/hr, or $193 for a 31 hr week. Since it's cheaper there, this translates to maybe $300/week--still a poverty wage. 160
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 22/11/2025With five year's service, she'll be in for a pension of maybe $15,000 a year. Basically, federal pensions are 1.7% of income for each year served. The Congressional salary is a little shy of $180,000. So: .017 x 5 x 180,000 = $15,300. 120
Matt @matthoboken.bsky.social · 17/11/2025The House of Representatives, controlled by Republicans, would have awarded Florida's electoral votes to Bush come what may. (Yes: The House could have and would have done that.) Katherine Harris and the Supreme Court acted corruptly, but didn't change the result. 010