Nic Babarskis

Sat, 18 Jul 2026 17:56:32 -0400

If the air quality experienced in the Great Lakes this past week is a foretaste of summers to come they should start calling this game the ‘Campfire Classic’

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 19:30:00 -0400

Despite major decentralization election integrity seems to be a hot topic, so if you find yourself in mid-Michigan on July 20 and want to experience one element of how election facilitators check for integrity you should swing by the East Lansing City Hall at 1:30p for a tabulation accuracy test.

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 12:34:03 -0400

“…many companies are trading near-term productivity for long-term woes” sure feels like a working definition of how we’ve collectively made important decisions for my entire adult life.

WSJ:

Vibe slop happens when coders replace the hard work of designing and testing a system with the shortcut of prompting AI to whip it up … and the resulting software won’t stand the test of time. It’s become a big enough problem that the world’s main repository of open-source code — GitHub — has instituted new policies and features to combat it. […]

These systems are supposed to make senior engineers so productive that companies can lay off junior engineers, but in reality, many companies are trading near-term productivity for long-term woes. Not only does the pipeline of junior talent dry up, but...

social.ayjay.org
Alan Jacobs https://social.ayjay.org/2026/07/17/wsj-vibe-slop-happens-when.html

Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:40:16 -0400

Saw someone standing outside what I assume from their uniform is their place of employment smoking a cigarette. At this point if it’s about some sort of blend of nicotine and aroma they might as well have just popped a Zyn pouch and gone for a walk.

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 09:36:13 -0400

yup

really thinking about this tweet as i’ve been struggling to breathe through nausea for the last 5 hours

[image or embed]
— phoenix ([@phoenix-rights.bsky.social](http://phoenix-rights.bsky.social)) July 15, 2026 at 8:34 PM

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 09:10:53 -0400

📷 Welp.

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 14:28:02 -0400

Danny Caballero:

A president’s compensation funded by unnamed private actors is a governance question, not a compensation question.

Wed, 15 Jul 2026 08:16:19 -0400

From dismal science to dumb science:

fascinating economic discovery from Fidelity: houses actually are cheaper now than in 2020!*
* if you denominate them in an arbitrary asset that has appreciated over that time frame
next up from Fidelity: groceries aren't getting more expensive!**
** if you denominate their price in World of Warcraft gold
#crypto #cryptocurrency

Molly White https://hachyderm.io/@molly0xfff/116921441667666535

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 19:59:14 -0400

They may take our cold beet soup but they can never take our freedom 🇱🇹🇱🇹🇱🇹.

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 14:31:45 -0400

Sorry I have to direct your attention to a page hosted by Meta, but for my fellow great lake residents it looks like Michigan is about to get blitzed by Canadian wildfire smoke.

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 22:00:53 -0400

It’s time for ‘corn sweat’ as Michigan hits mid-summer. Let’s gooo! 🌞🌽💦🇺🇸

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 20:34:08 -0400

Cal Newport:

We should treat highly distracting digital garbage like junk food…

Following this analogy I have a hamburglar-esque relationship to the stuff 😩😩😩

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:51:31 -0400

404 Media has a story out today that is a compilation of unhinged AI fliers and posters for businesses or other community events. It’s getting wild out there.

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 16:43:20 -0400

I’ve read a lot of pleasant toddler books, but every once in a while you encounter a certified banger.

📚 Kids books: Toot Toot Beep Beep by Emma Garcia

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 10:30:00 -0400

Seeing these sorts of artifacts makes me wonder about what archives will be featuring 500 years into our own future as our feeble attempts at understanding the cosmos.

A blog about planetaria housed in the Library of Congress::

Armillary spheres are the oldest of the three main planetaria. Used by ancient astronomers, they consist of small round balls representing either the Sun or Earth, surrounded by interlocking, solid rings representing planetary orbits, the zodiac, constellations, and sometimes the equator.

Nova ac generalis orbis descriptio. Caspar Vopell, 1543. Photos by Shawn Miller/Library of Congress. Geography and Map Division.

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 18:59:43 -0400

Some Konmari strategy for your social feeds from Austin Kleon:

Good phone hygiene: “Open your most-used social-media app. Ask yourself one question about six of the accounts you follow: Does this expand me or shrink me? Not: Is it entertaining? Not: Do I agree with it? But: After I engage with this, do I feel more curious, more grounded, more kind—or do I feel smaller, more anxious, more numb? Unfollow the ones that shrink you. Bookmark the ones that genuinely expand your clarity, kindness, or courage.”

Sat, 11 Jul 2026 10:14:50 -0400

Tyler Pager and Anatoly Kurmanaev:

In the six months since U.S. forces blew open Mr. Maduro’s bedroom door and snatched him in the dead of night, Mr. Rubio has become the de facto viceroy of Venezuela, holding sway over a sovereign nation in a way that no American official has since L. Paul Bremer III arrived in Baghdad in 2003 to run U.S.-occupied Iraq.

Mr. Rubio now effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources and its government, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials and people close to both governments in Washington and Caracas, who provided details about his involvement in steering the country’s policies. Many spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private interactions and internal discussions.

Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:42:03 -0400

📷 Hello There.

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 15:07:36 -0400

Adrian Carrasquillo in The Bulwark:

Surreptitious extremism is still extremism, and ICE remains an undertrained, overly aggressive organization. Which is why, in this shooting just hours after Homan’s remarks, we see all too clearly what happens when armed agents swarm blue-collar working parents fearing for their lives.

Here's the Ghost in the Shell TV Series Openers

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 22:58:19 -0400

Okay FINE, here’s the new Ghost in the Shell TV show’s opener followed by GITS:SAC and 2nd GIG:

YouTube Video

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:56:55 -0400

I don’t want to speculate too much here based on a movie trailer, but if Denis Villeneuve found a way to play up Chani and Paul as quasi-adversaries I’d consider it an improvement to Dune Messiah (which was already one of my faves in Herbert’s).

YouTube Video

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:51:30 -0400

Test (does ‘youtube no cookie embed’ plugin also embed yt shorts)

YouTube Video

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 09:59:36 -0400

🎓 Reading work by Brooklyn Walker and Paul A. Djupe this morning: “I am a Christian nationalist”:

Most identity work has focused on identities with long histories – race, ethnicity, religion (in broad strokes, like ‘Christian’). When we study these identities, we are asking about groups that have existed as groups, often for hundreds of years. But with Christian nationalism, we get a unique opportunity to watch a new identity develop. The ideas of Christian nationalism have been around for a long time in American history. In this study, we document that a new label is now being applied to the worldview, and that people are changing how they think about themselves as a result.

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:07:14 -0400

I haven’t seen a movie in theaters yet this year, but Coyote vs. ACME might get me there.

YouTube Video

Governmental Kitchen Cabinets and Collegiate Varsity Squads

Tue, 07 Jul 2026 11:25:26 -0400

Approx 15-20 years back I recall reading a biography about Golda Meir that made frequent reference to her ‘kitchen cabinet’ where key government officials would gather over cigarettes and cups of coffee to make hard national decisions. Given the reporting I’ve read on Kevin G’s decision to stay at MSU, and the behind the scenes influence of figures in the Athletics department and University Advancement, I wonder if a similar cabinet here could be called the ‘varsity squad.’