claims like Mississippi is richer than France because GDP per capita aren’t the zinger you think. they just (correctly!) undermine the notion that GDP per capita is a good measure of prosperity.

how does the electrical power utilization of generative AI compare with that of bitcoin?

a thing no microblogging platform offers, but all should: a hidden by default but click-to-revealable space for attributions of claims made in the post. just links, excluded from the character limit. many posts make factual claims that strike me either wrong or extraordinary, no way to tell which.

is DOGE going to be politically sustainable at this point under its proposed leadership?

an irony of the mad-white-guy H1B debate is that the fix most in their interest is to make the visas more generous — eliminate the tight attachment to continued employment which means visa-holders accept worse conditions than native-born would to ensure continued status.

you know the Democratic Party is the party of fairness, because whenever they have to decide who their leaders should be the question they ask is “whose turn is it?”

finance masters of the universe boasted and swung their BSDs and brought us the Great Financial Crisis. then Obama gave them a mulligan.

tech masters of the universe boast and are on the verge of giving us bigger, crazier crises.

i think what follows is an age of wrath. no telling who will burn.

every billionaire is a mad king in waiting.

you may say Donald Trump has achieved nothing, but he has performed a Christmas miracle. he has made Canadians impolite.

we keep arguing about immigration but i wonder if pretty soon we won’t be competing to emigrate.

centrism as triangulation in the age of Trump.

do the drones negotiate a Christmas truce? refuse to kamikaze, light up a cigarette with their neighbors in the sky?

sick, perhaps getting worse. hmm. see a doctor? or wait a week + hope for the best because contributions to the calendar-year deductible disappear into a black hole now, make progress towards useful insurance in a week.

skin-in-the-game really renders health-care utilization choices more rational.

one reason the US is so mad at insurance companies is not because rationing exists, but because care is often rationed the same way firms ration customer service, by byzantine discouragements that only the most dedicated persist through. even the most dedicated can and often do die from delay.

“the destruction of American public transit in the middle of the 20th century and the suburbanization of the middle class and aspirants both came before the increase in crime rates” @Alon https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/12/24/public-transportation-and-crime-are-not-about-each-other/

#relatable https://blog.rongarret.info/2024/12/i-have-failed-now-what.html

[new draft post] Wreckresentative democracy, "Secret Congress", and bee-sting theory https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/12/24/wreckresentative-democracy-secret-congress-and-bee-sting-theory/index.html

US FY 2025 deficit?

what would CNN’s euphemism, in the name of journalistic neutrality, be for extermination camps?