photo of lyndon ks county courthouse interior. https://courthouses.co/us-states/h-l/kansas/osage-county/
photo of the original AZ state capitol building in Phoenix
I mean, maybe a great value brand version but still for sure not just faulty childhood memories of ol' Lyndon, Kansas.
awkward photo of me, half kneeling by my kid, who is seated in his stroller also awkwardly leaning forward
Also, Arizona state capitol. The original (now a museum), surprisingly, reminded me a lot of the county courthouse in the rural town I grew up in. Built around the same time!
picture of a cactus
went to a desert and saw a cactus
"Is this a doctor?" Based on "is this a pigeon" meme, but with Buddy Christ as the butterfly.
It has clearly been a long time since I've tried to do a meme.
I thought it was wild that our family's OB said that over half of their workload (in Ann Arbor) consisted of "geriatric" pregnancies. Guess that's pretty widespread.
"Mission Accomplished" banner from 2003; a symbol of President G W Bush's premature declaration of victory in what would be a protracted military quagmire. Totally unrelated to anything happening in the world today. I just enjoy thinking about history and how important it is that we don't forget it.
The clarity or persuasiveness of writing is unrelated the underlying quality of ideas or author's critical thinking skills, despite what I've heard from many different legal/technical writing instructors over the years. I will die on this hill.
child with bucket that reads, "happy easter"
Because of my name. I suspect that people get a bit of a boost with job-fitting names. Perhaps I'll change my name to "Nicholas Politics."
I sometimes think I should have gone into ornithology.
Update: spouse is once again employed. Instead of supporting a rare disease company saving little babies with brittle bones or whatnot, she will be supporting the development cancer treatments. All important stuff, extremely proud of her regardless.
Had my identity stolen 2 weeks ago. Couldn't access their dispute forms online or via phone. Not surprised by this one bit.
It may or may not be a company specifically mentioned in this story.
www.nytimes.com/2026/03/05/h...
She is far more competent than I am, as evidenced by her reputation among clients, coworkers, and supervisors, and is unlikely to remain on the job market for long.
If anyone needs/knows of anyone who needs a transactional attorney with over a decade of experience in R&D, mostly rare disease biotech/pharma, LMK. My spouse was part of a recent company-wide layoff- part of the risky nature of the industry, I suppose, especially in this regulatory environment.
To be clear, this is a tool for extracting text from documents. I'm not firmly in either camp when it comes to LLMs on principal, but I do think the optimal use is likely as a bunch of smaller dedicated purpose assistive tools rather than enormously costly human replacement/do-everything machines.
LLMs for research!
I still feel new to coding/sharing work, so I have no idea if this is good or useful to others, but it was exciting to make something.
github.com/nbrdsong/LLM...
Bucket list item: visit all US statehouses and presidential museums/libraries. I personally find this announcement very exciting.
And also every day.
Iranian = nationality, Persian = ethnicity, Persia = archaic name for the nation now know as Iran. The use of the old name is mostly dumb, partially (I'd guess) intended to indicate the intent to remake the current state.
A lot of false and unconfirmed "news" prematurely taken as fact on Bluesky today. Beware of misinformation/disinformation!
My toddler insists that ranch dressing is a kind of soup that you eat with your hands.
Do people not call them "potato chips"?
Steven Miller and pals want proportionally more dumbass white people to vote for their mediocre asses in perpetuity, so to do it, they burn down everything that makes us extraordinary. Let's spend billions to shoot ourselves in the goddamn foot and make the world an objectively worse place. Bravo.
There is a lot of things I refrain from commenting on because I don't think my perspective is valuable or important. But this has already damaged interest in people coming here to study, do research, contribute or innovate, and it is pushing talent inside the US to seek opportunity elsewhere.
Some discussion from the other day in the PS grad student group chat about ICE activity in Ann Arbor, then this email today. Can't speak for others, but personally:
Fuck ICE, fuck this clearly eugenicist administration/policy, and fuck this attack on America's greatest institutions.
Is it just my feed or is Bluesky a consistent source of extremely upsetting information for everyone? But, you know, in a good way. Motivation to do something meaningful and positive.
ALJs should never be referred to as judges, nor should quasi-judicial administrative hearings be called courts. They are executive branch employees, not part of the judiciary, and they typically act as all but rubber stamps for executive priorities (or else they lose their jobs).
