Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 29/08/2026Yeah, that was noticeable too. I first looked up the perfume, and ok, it's actually $88 on her web store. But her mansion? $3 million. Clearly grok is so steeped in Nazi content that as soon as it saw 88, it had no choice but to hallucinate 14. 1181
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 05/08/2026You would never know it from NYT coverage, of course. This is from their On Politics newsletter this morning. 061
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 01/08/2026These deferred interest promotions are both entirely legal and rather scummy - it's often not explained well (or at all) by retail workers, and lots of consumers reasonably assume it's like other 0% promos, where you only start accruing interest on the remaining balance at the end. 040
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 01/08/2026Synchrony is the bank behind many of the retail store cards that offer 0% interest for x months using a deferred interest contract (where you owe the entire deferred interest amount if you still have a single cent still owed on the loan at the end of x months). 151
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 01/08/2026Silver lining is that you are now done with Synchrony, which is one of the absolute worst credit card issuers in the US. 1160
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 16/07/2026I should note they do also make a small version of the VFlex. That's presumably a great option too for smaller heads. I just don't have personal experience with that version. And, for smaller heads, Aura is much easier to find - commonly stocked at hardware stores. 010
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 16/07/2026Head strap is the way to go for any longer wearing! The ear loop option can be good - quicker to put on for short wearing, but for anything longer, 100% on the head straps. I love the 3M VFlex - great for larger heads and super easy breathing. 3M Aura is good for smaller heads. 111
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 26/06/2026Give it a minute - I'm sure right-wing pundits will invent a new Ivy League scandal soon enough, and this will require a few dozen of NYT's top reporters to provide breathless, 24 hour a day coverage. Sadly, NYT simply does not have enough resources to cover that and minor stories like Springfield. 020
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 29/01/2026It is rather infuriating how much press time Jay got during the pandemic - so much more than the vast majority of good scientists. That press time helped elevate his stature, and is a big part of the reason he's now director of the NIH. 050
Reposted by RyanThomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 04/11/2025Where America stands, one year after the election. A fascistic movement controls the government; they are building an authoritarian state; but they have not been able yet to extend authoritarian rule across society. A democracy no more, but not a consolidated autocratic regime yet. New piece:steady.pageEscalation, Authoritarian “Normalization,” or a Democratic Turnaround?One year after the election: What we can say with certainty about the state of the Trumpist assault, where uncertainty lies, and where America might go from here 20903367
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 19/10/2025Yep, this morning on the NYT website there was a small, no photo headline mentioning the protests, that you had to scroll to find. By the afternoon, even that was gone. Anyone who only consumes NYT would be stunned to learn these were the second largest single day protests in US history. 060
Reposted by RyanThomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 16/10/2025This isn’t the whole story, of course – but if it’s not at the core of your story, you’re on the wrong track. Add “Once democracy made it possible for women to threaten patriarchal domination and for queer people to publicly affirm their identity” – and we’re already very, very close. 9426131
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 13/07/2025In addition to everything else, "included "extraordinary restrictions on free speech"" is an incredible thing to write about the COVID era. Especially in 2025 when we have an actual, real, full blown free speech crisis. 040
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 10/07/2025The first portion I was thinking "ok, using it like a natural language search engine - that can work well enough." But then I kept reading.. 010
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 07/07/2025What a wild article. This is why I don't subscribe to the Atlantic. They have some excellent journalists putting out great content, but they seem determined to balance that out by also putting out some of the absolute worst content imaginable. 070
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 04/07/2025I always look at them as a center right newspaper marketing to a center left audience. They're not trying to capture a right-wing audience, but they'd love to pull liberals a bit rightward and make them a bit more reactionary. 0361
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 29/06/2025"Platforms may respond by removing that content entirely. VPNs won't help then." This is a key point. You already see this general behavior in the payment processing industry re adult sites. Despite the content being entirely legal, adult platforms face massive hurdles. 060
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 29/06/2025100%. There are some great voices on TikTok (Jamelle for example), but they're more the exception than the rule. I'd love to have something like TikTok but with good curation. 040
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 25/03/2025In many ways, that era of Twitter provided radical transparency into what the world's best scientists were thinking all along the Covid timeline. And, surprise, y'all actually weren't nefarious! Many journalists absolutely failed in this era, despite incredible scientific commentary being available. 1130
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 25/03/2025It's been infuriating watching so many powerful figures paint the infectious disease community as the villains, when you all worked so hard to get us to a better place. On top of that, the presence of so many world class scientists on Twitter meant the public could actually follow along. 1200
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 21/01/2025They should. They probably won't. But they should. And I say that as someone with a US passport. 100
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 21/01/2025Maddeningly, that's one of the better headlines from US media. Far better than NYT and WaPo, but still terrible. 110
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 19/01/2025My reaction to this was "ok, here's someone I need to follow" only to realize I was already following. 130
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 06/01/2025If you want N95 tier, 3M VFlex is great. Because it has a large volume, it makes heavier breathing a lot less annoying. It'll still be annoying, but I've used it for high heart rate activities, and it's been pretty decent, and a lot better than other N95 masks I've tried. 1120
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 29/12/2024Just want to say I'll miss you. You've always been an incredible voice, and there are few others with as much insight as you've provided. 010
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 07/12/2024Related: every consumer good that private equity has touched 030
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 04/12/2024Indeed. That was clear in listening to some of the hearings they held a while back. And I continually worry about the safety of some of the world class scientists that they've targeted. 020
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 04/12/2024That bullet point summary is quite the ride. I mean, it's about what you'd expect given the committee makeup, but man, it's still so disappointing to see something so disconnected from reality. 120
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 27/11/2024The biggest thing for me was GBD came out when vaccines were right around the corner (and we had a reasonably strong signal on this). It was a completely reckless proposal that would have been a massive wave of infection just months before vaccines started rolling out. 000
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 14/11/2024Yep. And as a bonus for these folks, it'll enable more harassment of women of color who don't conform to traditional western beauty standards. 020
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 06/11/2024Long overdue, but I finally pledged a monthly donation. You all do such phenomenal and important work, and I suspect Bolts is going to be even more critical to democracy in the near future. 000
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 06/11/2024Broadly agree. 2017 I was all on board with subscribing to NYT et al. This time, there is zero chance I put money toward NYT, WaPo, LATimes. I will put money toward things like Bolts Magazine, and will continue reading particular folks like Jamelle. But the outlets that sane-washed Trump? Never. 061
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 22/10/2024Precisely. I have a few critiques of your piece, but overall it's more thoughtful and nuanced than the vast majority of "antisemitism on the left" pieces that have appeared in major outlets over the last decade. 050
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 23/09/2024The challenge, as always, is finding interesting thinkers that are mostly grounded in reality. 010
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 23/09/2024While I would go in the direction of ensuring equal paternity leave, and shifting parental leave monetary obligations more to the state. Now, that's a trivial example, but it's the sort of example where other viewpoints (that are generally grounded in reality), are useful. 100
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 23/09/2024It's often that I disagree with their policy prescriptions, but their thinking can be useful in helping uncover bad side effects. As a trivial example - enhanced maternity leave can make women less attractive in hiring. Now, their prescription might be to not have enhanced maternity leave. 100
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 23/09/2024Good piece. This is really a key point: "I’ve changed my approach to following people with whom I agree with on the basic reality" For example, I'm relatively far left, but some of the libertarian thinkers (usually those more in the civil libertarian space) have useful things to say. 120
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 08/09/2024Good choice. While your legal analysis was always appreciated, your hat names were what kept us coming back. 000
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 20/08/2024It's such a bizarre (yet sadly common) take. So much of your work is about how we can make this country better and correct past mistakes, which inherently means that you don't think the country is irredeemable! 010
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 16/08/2024It's a bad sign when even I, someone completely uninvolved in the legal profession, was able to guess who it was. 040
Reposted by RyanThomas Zimmer @thomaszimmer.bsky.social · 13/08/2024What is “weird” and what is “normal” in America? Democrats are, finally, asserting their right to define the boundaries of normalcy – and their claim to be defending the nation’s true ideals against the reactionary assault. Some thoughts from my new piece: 🧵1/thomaszimmer.substack.comWhat is “weird” and what is “normal” in America?Democrats are, finally, asserting their right to define the boundaries of normalcy – and their claim to be defending the nation’s true ideals against the reactionary assault 210234
Reposted by RyanLydia Polgreen @polgreen.bsky.social · 13/08/2024I wrote about the Cass Review, and the sneaky effort to use what looks like science to justify broad intrusions in our personal freedom. www.nytimes.com/2024/08/13/o...nytimes.comOpinion | How a Supposedly Scientific Report Became a Weapon in the War on Trans KidsFor all its claims to science, the Cass report is fundamentally a subjective, political document. 19805248
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 11/07/2024Definitely popular! And for good reason. I did like that for Grand Canyon, there was the South Rim trail, so even though the car-accessible viewpoints sometimes had a lot of people, the rest of the hike (and the rest of the viewpoints) were significantly less trafficked. 000
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 11/07/2024Great shots! And small world - I was just in Yellowstone, and ended up with a couple of rather similar shots! 290
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 24/06/2024Additional context: one of the main sponsors/presenters was My Home In Israel. MHII are also known for having been part of the Great Israeli Real Estate Events that had protests earlier in the year, in particular for their listings in illegal settlements in the West Bank. archive.is/KjiTA 020
Ryan @rallison.bsky.social · 24/06/2024Apologies for the twitter link, and there's probably a better reference - this was a tweet published after the June 20th protest but before the June 23rd protest: x.com/unwaiverhese... Still problematic! But that's the context missing from LA Times and others. 140
![Wikipedia snippet that says:
In November 2019, Rasmusen was criticized by his university after a popular Twitter account posted a screenshot of one of his tweets that the Indiana University provost called "racist, sexist, and homophobic."[3] Rasmusen had retweeted an article titled "Are Women Destroying Academia? Probably" with a quote: "geniuses are overwhelmingly male because they combine outlier IQ with moderately low Agreeableness and Moderately low Conscientiousness."[3]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:dea7z24uqpgsy3w7spry25x3/bafkreidpb3wusayyhqhouoa6o5c2wiafijbzmscx6uayvkq6fz6tx5jrwm)