iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

It belonged to my father, actually -- I'm not *quite* old enough to have had a 1930s slide rule, but I certainly used one as a kid.

A slide rule, very like the one belonging to my father that I used as a kid. This one is a Keufel + Esser K&E 4081-3S (ca. 1938).

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Bayesian probability: If we initially assume the probability of DOJ success is a random number between 0 and 1, then after 0/23 wins we update our median estimate for their success going forward to 2.8%. Some details, back when it was 0/20: www.someweekendreading.blog/doj-smackdow...

Bayesian posterior Beta distribution for the DOJ's probability of success going forward, after observing 0 wins out of 23 tries.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

19th century mathematician WK Clifford, famous for sufficiently arcane definitions of "famous", described this in what are now known as Clifford's Principle and Clifford's Other Principle: www.someweekendreading.blog/quotes/#:~:t...

“It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” — W. K. Clifford, “The Ethics of Belief”, Contemporary Review, 1877. Clifford also offered a related principle: “It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to ignore evidence that is relevant to his beliefs, or to dismiss relevant evidence in a facile way.” These are, charmingly, called Clifford’s Principle and Clifford’s Other Principle, respectively.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Paul Krugman @pkrugman.bsky.social today mentioned "an old military axiom" about professionals and logistics. I did a little digging, and it's more recent than I thought: www.someweekendreading.blog/quotes/#:~:t...

"Amateurs talk about strategy and tactics. Professionals talk about logistics and sustainability in warfare." — [Robert Hilliard Barrow](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Barrow) (1922-2008), USMC 4-star general, interviewed in the _San Diego Union-Tribune,_ 1979-Nov-11: "Q&A: Marines’ Barrow Backs SALT — And Conventional Rearming", pg. C4, col. 4.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Also to say it again: bsky.app/profile/week...

If your business cannot prosper without breaking the law, then it is not a business. It is organized crime.

Like those dependent on slavery, child labor, or wage theft, it should go out of business as soon as possible.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

As Virgil put it in the Aeneid (Book 6, v 126), any damn fool can climb down into Hell, it's getting back out that's the hard part:

Quote from Virgil's Aeneid, Book 6, v126: the descent to hell is easy, but getting back out is hard.

Sort of an ancient religious and literary description of one-way trapdoor functions?

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

@funranium.bsky.social This may amuse your priestly friends? A bon mot in some apologetics by GK Chesterton alludes both to his Father Brown mysteries and Hollnagel's Safety-I and Safety-II concept: why someone is dead (Safety-I) vs how we can all live (Safety-II).

"All science, even the divine science, is a sublime detective story. Only it is not set to detect why a man is dead; but the darker secret of why he is alive." -- GKC, _The Thing_, 1929

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

Linguists & phonologists -- way smarter 'n me in these matters! -- think it approaches an accent nowadays? A readable example, e.g., vowel fronting: J Harrington, et al., "Phonetic change in an Antarctic winter", Jnl Acoust Soc Am, 146 (2019), 3327-3332. doi.org/10.1121/1.51...

A paper on phonetic changes resembling accent formation among Antarctic winter-over staff. "Early stages" of accent formation.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

You know you've made the big time when Bloom County makes fun of you (a couple years later, I think in August 1985). Not sure why I can't add alt text, so: Cutter John's wheelchair is fitted with helium balloons... because reasons... and he drifts out to sea with Opus the penguin.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Blog post addendum: Wet bulb temps (temp & humidity) in Massachusetts will be extreme this week. Some research shows the lethal wet bulb limit is 87.8F; much of Mass will be above that. Make plans for cool shelter. www.someweekendreading.blog/french-baker...

Wet bulb temperature forecast for Massachusetts on 2026-Jul-02.

The lethal limit is somewhere between 87.8F to 95F. NB: "wet bulb" temps include humidity; above that limit sweating no longer works and the outside is *dangerous*.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Some thought on Russian casualty rates in Ukraine over the last several years, and the sudden increase beginning in February 2024. www.someweekendreading.blog/ukraine-1400k/

Russian casualty rates in Ukrain for the last several years. Shows a statistically significant and large effect size jump in the rate, around February 2024.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

A plot of the regression model (Russian solders killed vs time):

Plot of Russian solders killed in Ukraine vs time. The model shows a kink with about a 70% increase in fatality rate sometime around February 2024.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

A similar sentiment from Peanuts, 1959-Nov-12:

Peanuts 1959-Nov-12: Linus says he loves humanity, but can't stand people.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

He's like a hallucinating LLM. Tuberville complained about poetry slams on Navy ships, to which the only fitting reply is via Sappho #65, "To One Who Loved Not Poetry".

Sappho #65, "To One Who Loved Not Poetry", original Greek and modern English:

But thou shalt ever lie dead,
nor shall there be any remembrance of thee then or thereafter,
for thou hast not of the roses of Pieria;
but thou shalt wander obscure even in the house of Hades,
flitting among the shadowy dead.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

ICE is very like the slave-catcher patrols of the 1850s. So perhaps the best analogy is not sardines, but the layout of a slave ship? encyclopediavirginia.org/4303hpr-7e68...

Layout of human packing on the slave ship Brooks, from Encyclopedia Virginia.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

'Tis the season.

$The continued fraction expansion for pi, and pecan pies arranged as a picosahedron.$

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Billionaires conspire to save each other at the expense of everyone else, phrased as a variation of Philippa Foote's trolley problem. I've sadly forgotten the source of the image. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley...

The classic trolley problem, re-imagined with a billionaire on the track vs everyone else, and another billionaire at the switch.

Obviously, the billionaires conspire to save each other, not us.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 21/02/2026

Consider, for comparison, the layout of a slave ship and how the bodies were packed:

Cross-sections of the Brookes, a 1781 British slave ship involved in the triangular Atlantic slave trade, loaded with enslaved Africans.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Passage

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 17/02/2026

New board game observed on Mastodon. I'm not a board game person, by any measure. But this one... is intriguing. mastodon.social/@2dh5/116084...

A board game called "Billionaires & Guillotines" which... well, it's pretty straightforward to work out, isn't it?

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Your photo is... not so unrealistic? In the 1940s, Boston Mayor Curley wrote to the President of MIT asking for engineers to figure out how to use flamethrowers for snow removal.

Letter from 1948 in which Boston Mayor Curley writes to the president of MIT, asking for engineers to figure out how to use flamethrowers for snow removal.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

But... are those *maudlin* tears? Because then we can be confused in multiple, independent ways!

Etymology of "maudlin" (self-pitying or tearfully sentimental), deriving it from "magdalena", i.e., from Mary Magdalene (~ Maryam Magdalena)

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

Gorgeous animal! The feather-fluffing is silly, but dignity overcomes silliness. My favorite owl for today is the Superb Owl in the Chauvet Cave in France, patiently waiting for 32,000 years.

Owl art in Chauvet Cave, in France. Dated to approximately 32,000 years ago.

Superb Owl 32,000!

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 04/02/2026

Looks more or less vanilla. Just adding a note about the hospitalization. Then tweaking it a bit, as Wikipediants tend to do.

Recent Wikipedia edit history on Sen Mitch McConnell, showing addition of material about his recent hospitalization and subsequent tweaking.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

A similar one was done here in Boston last May. One of my squares is on the result:

A flag quilt, organized by Mormon Women for Ethical Government, each with pro-democracy writing.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

I've kept track, w/regression model of Russian casualties vs time. Around 2024-Apr-10, casualty rate increases (see plot). 1.2 mln Russian men of military service age = ~5% of that demographic. Add emigration & COVID-19, and it's ~10% of that group. www.someweekendreading.blog/ukraine-1200k/

Regression model of Russian casualties over time, using Ukrainian MoD figures.

Linear fit to first 100 days, and single data points every 100k plotted after that.

Note increase in casualty rate around day 450.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 21/12/2025

The number 1 movie when you were 10 years old will define your 2026. If only it were so.

Theatrical poster for the movie _Mary Poppins_.

It was the highest grossing film of 1965, though most of that revenue was from 1964.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 11/12/2025

"... may be used forwrong, but are useless for right" is *exactly* the thought of Martin Luther King on "white moderates" in his Letter from Birmingham Jail:

Extract from Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail:

“I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action’; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a ‘more convenient season.’ Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

“I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air ...

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 22/11/2025

is this the same Jules Feiffer who illustrated _The Phantom Tollbooth_?

A Jules Feiffer illustration from _The Phantom Tollbooth_. I particularly like Tock, the watch dog.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Seen on Mastodon via “Uncle Duke”, submitted without comment, other than to note that *some* talking lamps speak more emphatically than others:

A cat wearing a vet cone, positioned in front of an electrical cord so as to resemble a lamp.

Some talking lamps speak more emphatically than others.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

Perhaps you might be looking at the bsky app, instead of the web page interface? In the web page interface as rendered in Firefox, there's no Advanced option under Moderation (below). Maybe they update the web interface more slowly.

BlueSky settings, Moderation tab, in the web interface 2025-Nov-06.

Notably no "Advanced" option.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 12/10/2025

Experiment design is the most important step, of course. But many statistics clients of course skip that, and ask you to analyze the wounded result. After that, it's knowing *which* statistic to use, and *why*, and explain what bad things will happen if the client chooses to deviate.

RA Fisher, founder of modern statistics, on why it's important to get a statistician in at the *design* phase, not just to do a post-mortem after you've screwed that up.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 08/10/2025

... and the unicyclists dressed as Darth Vader in a kilt, with flamethrower bagpipes. Don't forget those. www.unipiper.com

Portland's Unipiper: a unicyclist, dressed in kilt and darth vader cape/helmet, playing bagpipes where the drones spout flames.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

There is a web page at the ACIP web site which defines "shared clinical decision making". It dates from 2025-Jan-07 (when CDC was still moslty sane). www.cdc.gov/acip/vaccine... As to who's involved on the clinical side, I captured this image (because character limits). Pharmacists qualify.

From the CDC ACIP web site on shared clinical decision making: who constitutes the "clinical" side.

...anyone who provides or administers vaccines: primary care physicians, specialists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, registered nurses, and pharmacists.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Speaking of economic polices we saw fail 100 years ago... Morningstar (investment analyst folk) interview Neil Shearing, Group Chief Economist @ Capital Economics. "Why the Global Economy Is Headed Back to the 1930s" Image: Tom Toro, riffs on George Santayana. www.morningstar.com/economy/why-...

Cartoon by Tom Toro. Two men are sitting in a library. The apparently older one says: Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it. Yet those who *do* study history are doomed to stand by helplessly while everyone else repeats it.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Obviously a cat of good taste. It appears our cats think alike, also: www.someweekendreading.blog/le-chat-noir/

Famous turn of the century art advertising "le chat noir", and one of my cats sitting similarly.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Got a t-shirt to recommend to you, next time you're in a mood to think about Rome: www.someweekendreading.blog/ceterum-cens...

A shirt showing a Romanized caricature of the Morton Salt girl, spilling salt over the epigram, "Carthago delenda est."

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

I've some trouble imagining when such question might need to be asked. Though, as the person called in when things turn pear-shaped, you have regrettable experience instead of imagination. Babbage was asked a similarly absurdity & he was dumbfounded: www.someweekendreading.blog/quotes/#:~:t....

Charles Babbage, dumbfounded by questions from Parliament about whether his computing engine could, given wrong inputs, generate the correct answers anyway.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Most whackos who try to say something to me about ice-9 have no idea that it forms only at 2-4 kilobar pressure and below -100C temperature. Vonnegut was many things, some of which were quite charming, but "scientist" was not among them. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phases_...

Phase diagram (pressure vs temperature) showing ice 9 is restrited to 2-4 kilobars of pressure, and below -100C. Source: Wikipedia.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Clearly the correct answer is this one:

Professor Charles Xavier, over the years.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

One of my cats once complained about the meaning of "ChatGPT" in French, which led to the discovery that other people have been exploring cat-rocketry for some time: www.someweekendreading.blog/misbranding-...

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

Try this: a trial of AI tools shows they actually *slow down* software development, once you include debugging time. bsky.app/profile/metr...

Experiment showing expectations of AI speedup, and experimental result of actual slowdown.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

At MIT, in Building 6, there is a bronze relief of George Eastman (of Eastman Kodak, major donor back in the day). Students love to rub his nose for luck just before going into 6-120 for exams. alum.mit.edu/slice/george...

At MIT, in building 6: a relief of George Eastman, an early donor. Students love to rub his nose for luck. The nose is noticeably shinier than the rest of the relief.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

Babbage had a similarly bewildered response to members of Parliament who asked him about computing back in the 19th century: en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Charles...

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], — 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' [... ] I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- Charles Babbage, _Passages from the Life of a Philosopher_, ch. 5 "Difference Engine No. 1" (London 1864)

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 05/07/2025

Welp... she's doubling down on "Democrats control the weather":

Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene's response to recent floods is to attempt to outlaw weather control, which she thinks Democrats use against her.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

How about... Deadpool reading Deadpool reading Deadpool? (Unclear if the recursion ever bottoms out; the illustration is only 3 levels deep.)

A recursive comic in which Deadpool reads a comic about himself reading a comic about himself... and we can't see if the recursion ever bottoms out.

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Weekend Editor @weekend-editor.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

They aren't named Mabel, but they won't mind being called that if you pet them, play with them, or give them a treat.

Two cats, a tabby and a black, sit on a wicker couch in a sun room.

One is mildly interested in the camera; the other ignores it with aplomb suitable to his station as Senior Cat.

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