I feel this. In my first book I used roughly one em dash per page. So I am a (vanishingly small) part of why "AI" uses em dashes, and humans like me and you now feel wary about using them.

Nothing says “support the troops” like kidnapping their family while also starting a pointless war.

Sam Stein tweet: Susan Collins comes out against the War Powers resolution: "Passing this resolution now would send the wrong message to Iran and to our troops. At this juncture, providing unequivocal support to our service members is critically important, as is ongoing consultation by the Administration with Congress.”

There's no limiting condition to this bonkers logic.

All Trump has to do is bomb somewhere else and Susan Collins will say, 'Welp, we have to go along because not going along would send the wrong message.'

Utter madness. #MEpolitics

Literally the only statement from an elected official I’ve read this morning worth our time. @schumer.senate.gov @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social @sanders.senate.gov take note!!

Thank you @mayor.nyc.gov @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social

CC: @hebagowayed.bsky.social

Safe travels. Enjoy California.

Do you want to help develop new theories for systems that adapt, evolve, and interact?

Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 UCR program, a fully funded, 10-week experience for undergraduates, offering mentorship, seminars, and project development.

Apply by Jan 14, 2026

www.santafe.edu/ucr

Applications open for SFI’s 2026 UCR program.

Are you fascinated by transdisciplinary questions that transcend or combine disciplines? UCR is a fully funded, 10-week summer research experience for undergraduates curious about complexity science.

Apply by Jan 14, 2026
santafe.edu/ucr

Applications are open for SFI’s 2026 summer education programs, offering research and training in complexity science in Santa Fe, NM:

– Undergraduate Complexity Research
– Complex Systems Summer School
– Graduate Workshop in Computational Social Science

Info: www.santafe.edu/engage/learn...

Also notable - the Maine Principals' Association has had a policy of allowing trans kids to participate in school sports since 2013, but only now Senator Collins is concerned about it? Journalists should ask her why it was fine for 12 years but is now bad.

For undergraduates curious about complex systems research, applications are now open for the 2026 Undergraduate Complexity Research (UCR) program — a fully funded, 10-week summer research experience at the Santa Fe Institute.

Apply by Jan. 14, 2026: santafe.edu/ucr

Once more, for old times’ sake

Congrats!🥳

What the Public Memory of Charlie Kirk Revealed

If you read anything today, let it be Nikole Hannah Jones’ essay on how Charlie Kirk’s death is doubling as an invitation to transform white supremacist views into normal political discourse www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/m...

Center for the Alignment of AI Alignment Centers We align the aligners

Very glad to see that someone is doing the important work of aligning AI alignment. alignmentalignment.ai

Yes. Although I'm a physicist, so I never took analysis. Or Analysis. Power series are somehow primal. Every function (some conditions apply) is, at its heart, a power series.

Power series solutions will always have a warm spot in my heart. Something so fundamental and satisfying about them.

What to make of POTUS's attempt to fire the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)?

Let's run down what knowledgable people are saying...

Photograph of around 100 garlic plants, recently harvested laid out and drying on my deck. Two blue Adirondack chairs are in the background.

Garlic harvest.

This is the same amount as the entire National Science Foundation's R&D spending for the entire field of *engineering* for the whole country. All of it.

“The River House Broke. We Rushed in the River.” The July 4 Texas flooding ripped our Kerr County home from its pillars, pulling us into the water and into the night. Then morning came.

This first-person account of bring swept away by the Texas floodwaters is harrowing & an incredible piece of writing.

An incredible piece of writing. A tragic story and a beautiful tribute. Thank you for sharing.

Five things to remember about war:

Well worth a few minutes to listen to. Thank you @leighfinke.bsky.social for your wisdom and clarity.

Good luck with your next steps. I very much appreciated your hockey writing over the last few years!

Abducting people at work sites - meaning they have jobs.
Capturing them at court dates - meaning they're following the law.
Blocking them from accessible higher education - meaning they're striving for more.
And peddling lies about jobless, lawless, driftless.

I’d think a lot of people would find this gross, but as a Jewish person with cancer it has, let us say, a special repulsive resonance.

🧵 1/9 It could have mattered.

Nine minutes and twenty-nine seconds deprived of oxygen should have chastened the world to become allies, and not just for a summer.

A man being murdered by those who should protect and serve should have been an indelible metaphor.

From the Community | Stanford professors respond to political interference in the governance of U.S. universities Over 300 Stanford professors respond to Trump administration's interference in U.S. universities.

Bravo, to Stanford faculty, led by physics, to ask their administrators to stand up and fight Trump.

stanforddaily.com/2025/05/22/f...

Please read and share the League of Women Voters of Maine's fact check of Jared Golden on the SAVE Act. #mepolitics

www.lwvme.org/node/3443