<Laughs in Chinese and Persian.>

Did @jvl.bsky.social run up Saddam Hussein numbers by the end?

Voting rights groups sue DOJ to block national voter surveil-and-purge database The complaint argues that DOJ’s actions are unconstitutional, illegal, and a key component of the Trump Administration’s attempts to subvert the 2026 midterms.

Under Trump, the Dept of Justice is demanding voter file information from all 50 states.

Why? To create a national voter list that Trump operatives can use to purge voters.

We're suing.

protectdemocracy.org/work/voting-...

It's criminal that a network like Showtime didn't pick this IP up when GoT was going strong. (Though I'm glad in retrospect that it wouldn't be under the Ellison family's control over at Paramount now.)

The last 3 books are after a MUCH larger time jump than the main thread of the first book and could be a standalone series if there was still more demand after all that.

I'm confident that this series would build an audience that could sustain it through the next seven books, for a 15 season series to tell the whole story. (It would be a stronger 15 seasons than "Supernatural".)

Every 4 books or so, the series soft-reboots, so it would stay pretty fresh.

Within Temptation and Metropole Orchestra - Jillian [I'd Give My Heart] (Black Symphony HD 1080p) YouTube video by Within Temptation ADA

Within Temptation has already written a song about the story, and an orchestral version sized for time gives you the opening credits track. (If I had $$$$ instead of just $$$, I'd hire the band as musical collaborators and Sharon den Adel & Robert Westerholt as series composers.)

There's a natural arc spread over the first four books that has a good ending point, AND a time jump after book 4 that would serve as a natural point for the show creators renegotiate terms for four more seasons to tell the history of the Westlands and continue building the foundational mythos.

Each book is already plotted with a beginning, middle, and end for good season arcs, and there's a phenomenal underlying plot that ties everything together.

Uses reincarnation extensively as a plot device, which means lots of fun with casting, sets, and costumes (much better than WoT).

✍️ Writers of Bsky: Instead of “what IP do you want to write for” I have a better question—What NICHE IP do you want to write for? The IP that you’re sure no one cares about but you.

EASY: @kitkerr.bsky.social's Deverry books. Initial cable TV order for each book through "The Dragon Revenant" (#4).

Silent Hill Movie Soundtrack (Track 14) - Chasing Memories YouTube video by Aethryix Xylor

That would be awesome. I haven't seen anyone navigate those straits as well since 2006's "Silent Hill" soundtrack. (And it's a crime that album was never officially released.)

I pray you're correct and I'm just Chicken Little'ing over here.

🐓

Share an 80s movie you will always love!

Ghostbusters 2 (1989).

The movie was a lot of fun, and that Bobby Brown track ruled the FM radio summer that year.

Software development is 99% planning and 9,999% finding out what's wrong with your plan.

You’re regular reminder that Cosmos will absolutely fuck you up

Wrigley Field at sunset

a black and white photo of a baby looking out of a window with the words `` here take my money '' . ALT: a black and white photo of a baby looking out of a window with the words `` here take my money '' .

Do you keep the original game score or bring in a new composer to write new music?

I feel like Brian Tyler or Ramin Djawadi could work some real musical magic.

YES.

Excited to attend the ribbon-cutting for the next segment of California’s solar canal initiative later this month in Hickman. Imagine generating solar power over 4,000 miles or so canals across the state. A lot of Sierra and Colorado River water to save via avoided evaporation.

Wondering where I would come down on AI questions if I didn’t get a good dollop of science and technology studies in grad school and information economics (e.g. Varian & Shapiro) in undergrad.

The alarming stuff isn’t in the tech so much as it is where the tech touches people and social systems.

There's no shame in skipping the Chuck Austen era...

Note 34: No longer sailing alone? Social Media = Super-Soldier Serum?

But I can see why someone would get twitchy about citing DK when I was thinking of something else.

I get similarly twitchy when folks discuss Robert Putnam and social atomization, as if that were the big message from "Bowling Alone".

;-)

Note 31: Meet my robot army. Beat the Robot Overlords by becoming an Overlord of Robots yourself.

That said, hopefully open source models will advance to a state where the imbalance between Labor and Capital begins to tilt more in Labor's favor, and having an army of yourown AI assistants becomes an asset in the market.

That was (and remains) my thinking before any of this LLM stuff popped off.

Given to what extent all this AI stuff is being heavily subsidized, there are going to be serious personal and economic repercussions when investors aren't blindly shoveling cash into it.

But it does become an issue when someone uses the PED to achieve a position that outstrips their competence (w/o the PED), and the supplier of the PED gets the idea to capture the excess that's being created. It's a nefarious version of golden handcuffs that keep folks from switching positions.

My biggest worry with AI is similar to the phenomenon of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs).

PEDs aren't necessarily a bad thing of the PED is plentiful and there's no risk of it becoming too expensive or unobtainable (e.g. caffeine).

Peter principle - Wikipedia

No worries at all. With some sleeping on it, the idea that I was probably closer to (than Dunning-Kruger) was the Peter Principle where in organizations, people tend to get promoted to the level where they *become* incompetent (due to the position outstripping their skills) and "stuck".

A vehicle that looks like a zeppelin floats near a giant purple cloud bank.

Art by Ron Miller, depicting a Jupiter aircraft passing through the planet’s dense lower atmosphere to study its chemistry.