iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2h

I get e-mails from crazy people/cranks on a fairly regular basis, and this kind of thing would not be out of place among them. The wild pronouncements, the ALL CAPS, that delusional aggression. But apparently one has to consider this a valid political stance to be a serious person??? idk

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2h

that is one crazy ad... before my time!!!

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2h

I have noticed in various offline circles — particularly media and political science — it is still considered rather inappropriate to acknowledge that the US President is evidently quite insane. It's not that these people don't *know* it; they clearly do. You just aren't supposed to *say* it. 🙃

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2h

For detecting sub activity, there have been networks of hydrophones and such (like SOSUS) since the 1950s meant to tell if roughly where subs were moving around. I don't know exactly how well they worked, but presumably there would be indications of patterns.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 2h

I gather than determining the number of SSBNs is not hard, because they need to go to port periodically and you can count them then (and could do that even before satellites, certainly with them, because ports are pretty exposed).

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 4h

Last week I stumbled across a once-classified report from 1971 that listed the actual times for SLBM attacks and warning systems. What hooked me from the onset was that all the times are listed in *seconds*. This week for DOOMSDAY MACHINES, I try to unpack all that a bit...

doomsdaymachines.net

The speed of war

The short times of nuclear warning and attack (1971)

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 23h

congrats on being one of the weirdos! one of us, one of us!

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Most *immediately* try to change the topic of conversation to something else, which I find fascinating. A rare few get *very* interested.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

When I tell non-academics what I research, the usually response is usually a combination of "yikes"+"why"+"wtf" — less because I think they think I "like" the weapons, but more of a "what kind of psychotic path through life led you to this point and should I be talking to you?"

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Mine deduced things that are really just statements about my recurring purchases: I read a lot of sci fi, I drink a lot of tea, I have a dog. Guilty as charged... Funniest line was that I "prefer" a certain company for my warranties on electronic products, like they give me a choice in the matter

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

My current favorite is Rochebaron, which is a very common (i.e., available at Monoprix when in season) sort of half-blue, half-brie that manages to combine the bests of both. It's not as big of a commitment as a true blue, but not as bland as a brie can be. Just a great everyday cheese.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

>90% of the world's nuclear weapons are held by states whose leaders are dictators and/or personalist "strong men." It's a unique moment, and a much more proximate threat than AI killing us all.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Does the fact that I know it is a bad idea mean I haven't made concept art? Of course not

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The more people you know personally who have won in either category, the better this cartoon is, I think. One likes to believe that knowing such people increases one's own meager odds, and it must, in objective terms. But that final degree of separation, it's a doozy, watch your step.

Cartoon from S. Gross, the New Yorker, of a little silly jester, making the silliest goofy jester facial expression, dancing before a king and queen in medieval times. In the crowd of onlookers is a disgruntled wizard, who speaks the cartoon's caption: "What riles me is that he got a genius grant and I didn't."

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

even during the heat death of the universe, some resonance of the song will be bouncing around, heard by no one, but still there

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

OK, I spoke too soon. They just took a break. Now they're playing something I don't recognize...

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I find myself wondering how universally well-known it is? Among American Xennials like myself I think it is practically universal, but I don't know about later generations of Americans, much less the French? An interesting choice to end with, either way.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

I think my favorite aspect of it is that the song itself asserts that its own existence came about accidentally. "Some people started singing it not knowing what it was / And they’ll continue singing it forever just because..." Just what a clever little concept. Again, a metaphor for life itself.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

They wrapped up their set with an instrumental rendering one of my all-time favorite children' songs, "The Song That Doesn't End." It's got such a wonderful trickster quality to it, a clever self-referential nature, and I've tended to think of it as a metaphor for the circle of life itself.

youtube.com

The Song That Doesn't End

YouTube video by G boz

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

There is what looks like a Catholic big-hair heavy metal band (big hair, leather, Jesus tattoos) loudly playing a brass band instrumental rendition of The Cure's "Close to Me" under my apartment window at the moment. Vive la France?

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

It does ring a faint bell but I have never seen footage of it, so that's neat. One really bad idea I've had floating around my head for many years is to make an NES-style adaptation of John Hersey's Hiroshima. Just to see what it does to it.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

do everything on this list of chores and obligations. make no mistakes. masterpiece quality.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

It's just gutter racism. And of course the attacks on other immigrant groups — Somalis, Haitians, you name it — are not any less so. But perhaps it is because they are going after this "model" group, one that contributes SO much to the USA, that makes the racism intent just so exceptionally overt.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Anyone who has bothered to spend any time at all interacting with Indian immigrants in the USA — and living in New Jersey, and teaching at an engineering school, means that I have done a lot of that — knows that they are as good citizens and contributors to the community as anyone could ask for.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I find all xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment disgusting and offensive, but perhaps because I have spent so much of my life around Indian immigrants and Indian-Americans, the anti-Indian sentiment currently rising on the American right is just beyond the low expectations that I had for them.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

I do — I will write on it at some point. I believe I gave him feedback on it before publication

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Reposted by Alex Wellerstein

Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

In 2022 and 2023 I became somewhat obsessed with the warnings about surviving “radiation emergencies” that were posted around northern New Jersey. For this week’s DOOMSDAY MACHINES, I share my obsession with you, and analyze the motivations, messages, and methods of the campaign. 🐕

doomsdaymachines.net

“Do you know what to do in a radiation emergency?”

New Jersey’s strangely-decontextualized nuclear terrorism PSAs

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

yes, and I will be writing about that in the future — I have the "inside story" behind it

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

(And, as one more aside, while I definitely want to get into the French healthcare system, it has a lot less import and urgency to it than it would in a US context, because the out-of-pocket uninsured costs for healthcare in France are on the order what pays as a co-pay in the US WITH insurance.)

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

The only real safeguard is that the number of people trying to fraudulently request a certified copy of my marriage certificate (as part of my endless struggle to get into the French healthcare system) is presumably pretty small.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It's a weird system, because most of that stuff is publicly available info. Your SSN is really the only thing that's not supposed to be, and, well, one knows how that goes. The only safeguards are that the whole thing must be completed in 2 minutes or so, but even that, these days, is pretty silly.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

They basically list a bunch of schools (and workplaces), and say, which of these might be associated with you? Sometimes none of them are and the correct answer is indeed "NONE OF THE ABOVE."

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

(and if you are wondering why I added a dog emoji... well, you'll just have to read the post to find out)

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

doomsdaymachines.net

“Do you know what to do in a radiation emergency?”

New Jersey’s strangely-decontextualized nuclear terrorism PSAs

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

also, look at this absolutely hellish CAPTCHA. I began to wonder if I was actually a robot

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

As part of a system that was used to legally verify my identity online, a site asked me a series of "knowledge-based questions" — what is my SSN, birth date, former addresses, where I went to school, etc. — and then, this one... note that I already had to provide my DOB...

"Knowledge-Based Question. Using your date of birth, please select your astrological sun sign of the zodiac from the following choices."

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

(This is one of those "managed" institutional accounts via Google, where the IT people are allowed to impose whatever arbitrary requirements they want and Chrome will dutifully obey. I guess I should not use Chrome for it, moving forward...)

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This happened right at the beginning of summer, and I just have not had the chance to go in and get it resolved. (It doesn't help that this will have to be done in a language I barely speak, which is an additional disincentive.) Fortunately (or not) it is not my main e-mail account.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I've actually been locked out of one of my institutional e-mail accounts for months because IT doesn't let me use a password manager, they require me to change it every 6 mo., and once I inevitably get locked out for screwing it up 3 times, I can't reset it without going in to talk in-person.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

website had the gall to ask me how many stars I would give the experience after it full well knows I just spent 10 minutes trying to input my phone number. and then the extra gall of asking whether I had made a mistake in giving it one star!!!!

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I got lucky with one recently where my street name EXACTLY fit the form. It felt amazing

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

ok, after doing it a million times, it finally accepted ########## (no spaces). I have no idea why it didn't accept it the million other times I tried it. maddening.

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Things it is not: (###) ###-#### (###)###-#### ### ### #### ### ###-#### ###-###-#### ########## 1########## god I just did it once and it worked, and now I have to do it again, and I can't remember what the right format is. I'm losing my mind over here

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This message brought to you by trying to deal with the website for VitalChek, a major website for ordering copies of vital records. WHAT DO YOU WANT VITALCHECK? JUST TELL ME. Or learn how to use Regex correctly, my god. Also, it checks server-side, so I can't even reverse engineer it. WHY

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

There is a special place in hell for websites that have a phone number input field that is hyper-specific about what kinds of formatting it will accept for input, but they never tell one what the formatting requirements are. Parentheses? Spaces? Dashes? Country code? Sorry, you have to guess!

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Alex Wellerstein @wellerstein.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

("daddy of the atomic bomb" has such a different vibe to it than "father")

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