Notices by Kieran Healy (kjhealy@mastodon.social)

““Hi it’s Elon. Can we be friends? Will you be my friend? I’ll give you a cybertruck I promise.”

https://www.paloaltoonline.com/technology/2025/04/12/silicon-valley-crosswalk-buttons-apparently-hacked-to-imitate-musk-zuckerberg-voices/

Bad. I have upset more than one person in my life by introducing them to real butter instead of the tasteless pap it is somehow legal to sell under that name in this country. Upset because they realize they did not actually know what butter tasted like at all, and that they have been living a lie in Plato’s Margarine Cave, as it were. https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0406/1505938-irish-butter-us-tariffs/

Trump take Newegg
https://kotaku.com/switch-2-preorder-price-tariff-trump-nintendo-1851774764

The Vignelli map is BACK, baby https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/02/nyregion/nyc-new-subway-map.html

Pine Pollen season has arrived. In their normal state these bricks are red.

Ha, I remember this case. She paid $18k to a guy teaching data science at iirc CUNY to fake thousands of names and addresses of “customers” for her company, which she then sold to JP Morgan for $175 million in a flurry of 30-under-30 entrepreneurial genius slobbering. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/business/charlie-javice-jpmorgan-guilty.html

CONTROL: You weren’t followed?
SMILEY: No.
CONTROL: You're sure?
SMILEY: Quite sure.
ALLELINE: Always one for the tradecraft, our George.
BLAND (coughing): Can we begin?
CONTROL: Yes, yes.
KERMIT: Hi-ho! Kermit T. Frog here for Sesame Street News.
ALLELINE: George, take a look at this from Source Merlin. Absolute gold dust from start to finish.
SMILEY: Very well. But first, may I—may I ask a question?
CONTROL: Oh for heaven’s sake George what is it this time?
SMILEY: It's just—

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt3vzOMzQYU

Good finale.

Me [typing Gapminder life expectancy data into an Excel sheet]: Here I am explicitly inserting knowledge of geopolitics into the machine’s very source code

Here’s a graph based on data from the Digest of Education Statistics, derived ultimately from IPEDS, both of which are overseen by the National Center for Education Statistics, which is a federal agency that traces its roots to legislation passed in 1867, which been collecting data on U.S. educational enrollment and attainment since 1870, and whose staff were apparently all fired yesterday.

RIP Kevin Drum, one of the O.G. bloggers. https://jabberwocking.com/health-update-100/

Navigating an otherwise jam-packed Houston Intercontinental on Friday I ended up on a long walk through this deserted, extremely Backrooms section of the airport that I later learned was the Subway. Just me and tinny country music echoing in the empty corridors. At one point a tiny, tiny train went by. Its occupants regarded me with curiosity and surprise. I half-expected to meet my Innie.

I assume this is a direct translation from the Māori that the surveyor wrote down thinking it referred to a feature of the landscape.

Discussed the matter with E*** via DMs having been woken from my induced birth coma and, in light of recent events, thought it best to publicly share news of our newest child together. Welcome to the world ___ROLL 3D10 AND SELECT ONE NAME FROM EACH COLUMN___, he or she is beautiful and thriving!

Very helpful and accurate answer from Google AI to a search about how many episodes are in this season of Severance. Carefully reasoned.

A post about TSA Passenger Screening volume and epiweeks, cannily advertised with this, the least mobile-friendly graphic ever made. https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2025/02/20/tsa-screening-volume-and-epiweeks/

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/18/nx-s1-5301049/national-science-foundation-fires-roughly-10-of-its-workforce

The NIH indirect cost cap thing will blow a hole the size of Texas in the budgets of research medical schools and life sciences departments across the country. Federal IDC rates are extremely high and it would be wrong to say there’s no room for debate about them. These cuts are gigantic, though. Capping IDCs at 15% is like a 45 percentage point cut.

https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-25-068.html

I needed something to distract me from the news and it turned out to be something even more miserable. https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2025/02/06/kerning-and-kerning-in-a-widening-gyre/