@aisforahab.bsky.social For a regular dose of this...
29.11.2025 07:30
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@aisforahab.bsky.social For a regular dose of this...
A step farther: there is no thriving computer science at all.
Median SCOTUS justice tenure since 1789
Note that, in 1870, people were also waking up to the very bad SCOTUS decisions that led up to the Civil War. Many justices at the time were staying when they were incapacitated and unable to serve properly - like RBG and Rehnquist did. Here's the same graph from 1789 - note that we're still worse.
Why 1870, you ask? Prior to 1870, justices didn't get a pension, so more of them stayed on forever. So, a little known fact about the "second American revolution" of the 1860s is that they also thought justices were staying too long!
We've moved pretty far from what the framers intended. We're appointing people as young as possible, and having them stay on the court for generations to lock in our points of view.
Graph showing doubling in median tenure of SCOTUS justices
Here's a graph of the point. For a hundred years the median tenure for a justice was around 7 or 8 years. SCOTUS became a political football in the 1970s. The median tenure has doubled since then.
Supreme Court justices should have term limits. There is no reason that every appointment should be a high stakes game of chicken with the country's future on the line.
You know what I noticed? People on the right are pushing for Congressional term limits, and people on the left are pushing for Supreme Court term limits. Can we unite the country around the idea that people who aren't worried about voters and will hold on to their seat until they die should leave?
The ball, as they say, is in John Roberts’s court. Let’s see if he can play by his own rules. 7/7
This, of course, is nonsense. Trump found a tiny loophole in the law and drove a bulldozer through it. If the SCOTUS takes their own doctrine seriously - and not just as a way of killing Obama / Biden policies they don’t like - there is no way they could let his tariffs stand. 6/7
Trump has the power to issue tariffs in emergencies, in the name of national security. He’s issued tariffs against everyone. Apparently, there’s an emergency so important that it requires tariffs against every coffee producer in the world and islands mostly populated by penguins. 5/7
(Note that this means that the definition of “major question” is left to the court, which is an unelected body. I’m not a fan of this reading, but the Roberts Court has pushed it hard.) 4/7
They called this the “major questions doctrine” - the idea was that if you are doing something of real significance, you need explicit permission from Congress. 3/7
Context: In the Obama and Biden administrations, SCOTUS ruled that major action on climate change, health care expansion, and student loan forgiveness were illegal because they went beyond what Congress had in mind when they passed laws on the environment, health care, and student loans. 2/7
One measure of Supreme Court hypocrisy is going to be the upcoming battle over whether Trump’s tariffs are legal. 1/7
I bet it's because people don't have enough opportunities to screw up shell quotes or accidentally inject the wrong code in bash.
First thought: Ugh.
Second thought: This will probably be a huge success in LA.
Third thought: Ugh.
Just to be clear, the last four administrations averaged between about 1 and 3 state dinners per year. He's spending $200M on a hosting venue for something that happens maybe once every six months. That's like me building a separate house to host my kids' birthdays.
www.threads.com/@brittainfor...
President Donald Trump said Wednesday morning the U.S. is dropping plans to revoke Chinese student visas in exchange for China resuming the flow of rare earth minerals to the U.S.
Just a reminder that Trump's big deals all end with the situation the same as it was before he took office. He escalates, then they escalate, and then they agree to whatever it looked like before he escalated.
And then, every once in a while, something like this pops up to remind us that our society is redeemable.
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/h...
When people say they want OpenAI to be the new Google, I don't think they mean that they want OpenAI to adopt Google's branding strategy. #buzzchatduohangoutsmeetmessengertalkvoicemessagesallo #lamdabardduetgeminiadvancednanoproultraaipremium
Dumbest thing I've seen today, or everyone's seen today?
Even if we needed it, it would cost an enormous amount of money to turn it back into a working prison, and it would rob the SF area of a major source of tourism revenue.
If we actually need new prisons, pick a place where land is cheap.
Lots of movies ending ": Bloodlines"
Time for a Bloodlines hall of fame?
IMO, the independently viable businesses that you can break off of Google are Search + AI; Ads; YouTube; Cloud; Workspace; Android; Nest; Maps. We may see a spin of parts of Ads because of the ads trial, but I'm not sure breaking off any of the other businesses would help the monopoly situation.
I think that was a very long time ago, and it was mostly because their patent revenue was pure profit. A bunch of big companies committed to a big patent non-aggression pact 5 or 6 years ago, and Goog has gotten better at monetizing Android, so I suspect that's no longer true.
Android is viable, just not as a pure open source play. The Play Store brings in $50B a year. Agreed that Chrome is non-viable, though.
I've long believed that programming languages need HCI methodologies just as much as any other software, but that PL designers don't do it because they're all convinced they know everything about the domain.
Why is the NYT raising subscription prices by a third? That's absurdly enormous. I haven't seen any press coverage of it. @nytimes.com
I was really wondering if there was anything that affected them, personally - per Crista's point. My general feeling is that it's a bit odd to want revenge for something that is not specific and didn't affect you, but we're living in odd times.
If it's not too personal a question - revenge for what?