Notices by Brian Marick (marick@mstdn.social)

@inthehands It’s not horribly wrong, I understand, that “Agile as Practiced” is now one-month waterfalls, so wotthehell wotthehell.

http://donmarquis.com/reading-room/song-of-mehitabel/

RE: https://mastodon.cloud/@jasongorman/116877113827732750

My career meant nothing.

RE: https://www.manton.org/2026/07/02/more-reporting-today-from-the.html

There’s this ancient technology, called “taxation”, that gives the public the upside of success without risking the downside of failure.

During the 30+ years I ran my own business, I don’t recall any government wanting a stake in Testing Foundations / Exampler Consulting. They just taxed my profits.

As the author of the below points out, the whole “unitary executive” thing is contrary to the civic mythology of the United States.

The President of the United States is an employee of the citizens, not a king.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trump-can-tear-down-statue-of-liberty-says-trump-lawyer

@cammerman I subscribed to The Economist for about a decade (maybe 1995-2005). They relentlessly predicted that the French economic model would be proved unsustainable any day now.

Year
After
Year

RE: https://mastodon.social/@mattsheffield/116500991239336079

Although people would turn it against me, there needs to be a social consensus that we should call out people who once made major contributions but are now well past their sell-by date.

Wisdom may increase with age, but credulity and crankishness increase faster.

(Unrelated: new blog post coming up!)

Wikipedia is so useful. So is the Internet Archive.

Thank you to everyone who’s contributed to them.

RE: https://mastodon.social/@joelvanderwerf/116382925729254825

“I found myself looking up at this huge beast of a construction, wondering how many people who were involved in building it knew that it would sink.”

“You’re telling me ICE agents are showing up to the airport and doing absolutely nothing? Well then it’s my honor to present the award for most improved agency…” – Josh Johnson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P143pzEawWI&t=224s

@inthehands @mhoye Unless I misunderstand, that’s included in the article:

'instead showed that both experts and novices underestimate and overestimate their skills with the same frequency. “It’s just that experts do that over a narrower range,” he wrote to me.’

@inthehands Potoooooooo has a passing mention in one of Patrick O’Brian’s “Jane Austen with Naval Battles” novels (/Desolation Island/). One of the main characters says, while talking of horses, “Oh yes, indeed. His grandfather owned Potoooooooo, so it’s in the blood.” Given it’s a weird name, and O’Brian’s penchant for odd historical facts (“double bottomed defecator”), I looked it up. It was thus that I became a fan of Potoooooooo.

@inthehands Yes. Sorry.

Clever thread. https://xoxo.zone/@artlung/116137695999372370

@inthehands An aside. When people used to ask Dawn wasn’t it hard to treat animals because “they can’t tell you what’s wrong,” she’d answer that they also can’t lie about it. She thought the latter probably outweighed the former.

@inthehands @deborahh Donated. Thanks.

What can people do who are outside Minneapolis / St. Paul do to help the residents in their efforts to stop ICE? Donate dash cams? To whom? Etc.

@deborahh @inthehands Thanks. I meant to tag him.

Sometimes it’s the little things, the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I hope.

“I was going to school!” the 16-year-old citizen protested.

They choke-hold-ed him, then:

“Agents had taken his phone. He used Find My to locate the phone — at a vending machine for used electronics miles away, close to an ICE detention center.”

They took his phone and sold it.

https://www.propublica.org/article/videos-ice-dhs-immigration-agents-using-chokeholds-citizens

“At long last, have you no decency?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc6Yo3A7CC8

There is much news out of Minneapolis. I hear no news out of St. Paul. But they’re, um, the same city, aren’t they?

Is ICE or their overseers actually respecting lines on maps?

(I don’t buy this completely – it makes it hard to explain individual variability except as a “sensitive dependence on initial conditions.” However, I believe people would understand intellectual progress better if they paid more attention to group causation and indulged less in hero worship.

(The thing about Popper and Lakatos is that they fervently believe in the 10X scientist and think the mass of scientists contribute little that matters.) (2/2)