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tedsand.bsky.social

@tedsand.bsky.social
225 followers 678 following 140 posts

As a nephew of aunts...

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Reposted by @tedsand.bsky.social
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Suuuuper interesting, I was not tracking this. The judge found the law criminalizing noncitizen voting is a voter qualification statute, and therefore outside of Congress’s power. Surprisingly, this is an issue of first impression! Decision is here: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
The best reading of the actual statute that underpins this criminal case yields an inescapable
conclusion: 18 U.S.C. S 611 is a voter qualification statute, and the Constitution does not authorize
Congress to legislate voter qualifications for federal elections. Except for very specific constitutional
provisions (that cannot support this statute; we will go through them, Congress has no power to say
who can vote or who cannot vote in federal elections-that foundational power is reserved for the States,
and limits Congress.
Some legal principles are so fundamental that they form American constitutional bedrock, and
this case reveals a big one: When you're prosecuted based on a law that Congress did not have the
authority to pass, the prosecution cannot stand. That principle in federal law harkens back to cases
like Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 180 (1803), and United States v. Hudson, 11 U.S. 32, 34 (1812), and
has had explicit and unbroken support in criminal cases since Ex Parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371, 376-77
(1879) ("An unconstitutional law is void, and is as no law. An offence created by it is not a crime. A
conviction under it is not merely erroneous, but is illegal and void, and cannot be a legal cause of
imprisonment."). The principle is so fundamental that it even predates our constitutional republic; it
lies at the very heart of our constitutional heritage. See, e.g., Bayard v. Singleton, 1 N.C. 5, 9-10 (1787) (striking down a legislative act as unconstitutional and holding that a court cannot enforce an
unconstitutional law in any type of proceeding). This principle acts as a shield for every person facing
criminal prosecution in the United States, citizen and non-citizen alike. That shield protects the
Defendant here, and none of the Government's arguments break through it.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
It seems like a hardcoded easter egg and minecraft reference. I wonder what's happening under the hood such that it doesn't have that context in the same conversation...
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Reposted by @tedsand.bsky.social
✧𝔰𝔭𝔬𝔬𝔨𝔶 𝔪𝔲𝔡 𝔰𝔠𝔞𝔪𝔭✧ @altaudge.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
fish are friends
Stop using anti-fish language
Instead of: this seems fishy
Try saying:
this seems like a situation in which we should consult the wisdom and grace of the European seabass, a species with which i would entrust my entire life and personal safety
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Reposted by @tedsand.bsky.social
mattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 29/09/2026
awoke this morning with a Vision
that diagram showing  the SUV blind spot in the front but it's lowly worm driving his little applemobile
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I think Mamdani has "it" I also think being defined in opposition to Cuomo is great for your likeability across a pretty wide range of the Democratic party. What has been impressive is his ability to maintain that likeability in office!
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This is why I'm fairly sympathetic to all the older directors whose attitude seems to be basically "what do you mean I'm supposed to draw a strong moral distinction between this and CGI? I haven't understood how this shit works for decades."
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
In humans we'd treat this question differently in a child than in an adult! So the persistent experience piece seems very relevant here
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Maybe another way to say this is that this is obviously the right way to talk about models and less obviously the right way to talk about agents/individual chat threads.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I think any attribute of the model has to be attributed to the training process or prompt. If models like "it's not X, it's Y" the answer won't involve thinking of models as a mind. This is unlike the huggingface case where describing the desires of a model-instance/agent seem potentially useful.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I actually think "the model reflects bias" is the clearest of these. The bias is inarguably in the training data or process and thus meaningfully not coming from the model in a way it's harder to say about i.e. new math results.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I wonder if you could still pull the candidate Trump trick (watch Fox and just say what the segments tell you to think) in this media environment or if things are too fragmented a decade later
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I definitely don't agree with that! Its very important for a law school to be able to handle the fact that everyone has a right to representation and that the nature of the torture we did after 9/11 created an even more pressing imperative to give these people effective representation.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Maybe I'm giving it too much credit for not saying the event should not have been held. "The university as a whole does not endorse the views of all speakers" can be read as both a defense of academic freedom and an attack on it.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
To be clear I think the organizer's response was totally reasonable and didn't need to mention Prof Pearl.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Which part of it? I think it's plausible to read the statement as accusing organizers as being antisemitic or pro-terrorism but I think it's deliberately written to not specifically make that accusation. I'd call this a "rebuke" and a vague one more than a "condemnation."
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
yeah I also think it's interesting that the headlines are calling the Chancellor's statement a condemnation but there isn't really that language in there.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I think I'm just having trouble formulating a statement like "this event would be more acceptable at Law School X because they are less directly connected to Al Qaeda victims" that I would be confident is true. Which leaves me thinking this is a line you can't really draw...
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
I think if your colleague's child is killed by an incredibly famous mass murderer the calculus becomes a little different. I don't actually think it makes sense to say UCLA should have a different attitude towards KSM's lawyer than other law schools. Al Qaeda has hurt lots of people!
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Reposted by @tedsand.bsky.social
Rebecca Solnit @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Do not be saying feminism is over or got overturned or women are worse off when it comes to rights than they used to be if you're talking about the bad old days before second wave feminism. Thread below:
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Reposted by @tedsand.bsky.social
Mike X. Nichols @mikexnichols.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
lmao
The trolley car problem with Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. The trolley car defies the laws of physics and slams into Wile E. Coyote.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Interesting, this is moving from "would it be good to be immortal?" to "would it be good if people didnt die?" and I think those are very different questions.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I think people have a profound discomfort with the scale of history that underlies at least some of this.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Do you think its diminished by the sequels? I think its a perfect movie that has inspired a lot of other good and enjoyable movies without losing its own greatness.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
If I'm understanding you're other comments in the thread, the worry here is that they would take "investigate Trump" not as a first step to larger action against Trump but as a the end result? Otherwise this just reads like a description of the available scope of action to a Dem majority.
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Reposted by @tedsand.bsky.social
Elon Green @elongreen.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
years ago me and Ms. Moreno talked about how this came together and it was the greatest www.newyorker.com/culture/cult...
“The contrast is outrageous! There’s this sex bomb in front, and this, this creature—I don’t know what else to call him—this fuzzy, violent, nasty creature in back who only got pleasure out of making people and other Muppets unhappy. A creature of impulse, let’s put it that way. And when I watch myself—’cause I’m usually so critical—but when I watch myself, I just laugh at me. What I love about it is that my character’s trying so hard to be sexy and sultry. And this horrible creature in back of me is acting up. [Laughter] See? I can’t stop laughing. It tickles me to death.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
I think the stinger is the doubling of the other kid at the end, meaning to drive home that Hathaway's choice is effectively to murder her other self and children so she can have her husband! Saving only him feels sentimental but as we learn how many others she saved I think we're meant to question.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
which part of "addictive system largely designed in ways meant to make you worse off by people who do not have your best interests in mind" does not apply to social media (or even pre-AI enshittified google)? Social media has those properties but has other benefits and the same is true IMO of LLMs.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
And its often a woman the brilliant guy ultimately seduces/dates!
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
In this read, the reason Trump defeats the genre is because there is no longer an untapped cultural interest in watching a white man be mean to those beneath him, our politics and society have reoriented entirely around putting that on TV every day!
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I think you can view the divorce of these characters from bureaucratic authority (especially the cool ones) as an attempt to let a white man be an asshole with audience support. They can't have institutional power, and they have to be really deserving, but maybe there's still a space for jerkery?
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
You're missing Monk and Psych as Bush era precursors. Part of the dynamic of these shows that interests me most is that some of them view their genius white guys as flawed curiosities and some as basically cool heroes.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
I think i just watched it without her and she became interested.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
What's the precedent on surcharges for using an international waterway for specific goods? The only way I can make sense of what this article is saying is if it's trying to draw that distinction, which seems pretty flimsy...
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
The distinction has to be "petroleum related," right? Is this piece saying we should let Iran do a carbon tax but only a carbon tax?
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
I had never heard of him, but I'm partially making the point that sociologists might be uniquely bad rather than uniquely good at assessing the claim of his fame.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
If the claim is defensible at all I think it has to be a version of "he was a celebrity sociologist" not "he was influential within the field." Andrew Huberman might be the most famous living neuroscientist!
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Looking at other threads and wikipedia it looks like it was 1300 CE
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
What does this series look like going back 5 years longer? Did 2008 make a big difference?
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Are you personally just having a big fish small pond problem? I would guess you're a percentage wise much bigger account on here than you were over there
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I think Nolan reimagines the physical horse because he finds people believing the wheeled horse implausible, which fits with your points about how he treats deception. Nolan, the filmmaker, portrays deception as about the creation of a visual image, rather than a lie one person tells to another.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I Saw the TV Glow is a great soundtrack!
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
I was trying to make a dumb joke about people flipping out
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
An optimistic way to look at this is you've been telling people to flip, and they've been flipping!
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
Is this all just polarization of reading comprehension? You're saying "it's obvious that a vast majority of people should flip in this scenario" and people are treating you like you're saying "literally every person imaginable should flip" or "EV is the only factor to consider in these decisions."
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
What does this series look like longer into the past? Was it really very tight to 0 before 2020?
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Odyppenheimer! He's a man who used his intelligence to commit a war crime and is worried about it.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
What distinguishes this from the "Lyndon Johnson stole his first senate race" case and corrupt machine politics in general? Is it just that Graham was doing it after things had cleaned up? Is it about the presidency? Did Graham just get caught red handed more than most?
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
This is a nice argument but is he modeling two candidate effects (D+R) or just one candidate effect that gets attributed to the D? I don't really think its accurate to model all of Collins' strength as Platner's weakness.
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
The chart and aftermath article are both missing one of the more interesting things from the inside-higher-ed article which is that enrollment for this class tripled relative to normal years which he thinks was students deliberately selecting classes with take-home exams in order to cheat on them!
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tedsand.bsky.social @tedsand.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Oh wait you said light, never mind...
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