👨🏽🏫 Unfollowing hyperpartisan social media influencers durably reduces out-party animosity
We found that incentivizing Twitter/X users to unfollow hyperpartisan social media influencers improved feelings toward the out-party by 23.5% compared to the control group, with effects persisting for at least six months.
I suspect those trends would hold for other social media accounts as well.
First pumpkin pie of the season
My son just figured out the joke behind “A & B conversation so C your way out of it.” My wife has been saying this to him for years, and just now, I said it and he started laughing, “Ooooooo! That’s so good dad.”
Then he came back a minute later, “Dad, you could even say ‘C’ Ya!, get it?!”
“I don’t at all expect to resolve the Riemann hypothesis,” he says. “But we hope that wondering about something we don’t understand will help find something that is beautiful or maybe even useful.”
“Sensational Breakthrough” on the Reinmann hypothesis
A day of mourning
I prayed the Mourner’s Kaddish every day from last October 7th until Easter. I had a list of names, not all 1,200 to be sure, but any time I read a name of an Israeli in the paper, I added it to my list. Typically the Kaddish is said during a funeral service or during Shiva; I know very little about when and how long one might say that prayer. But Easter seemed appropriate, for me.
Glorified and sanctified be God’s great name throughout the world
which He has created according to His will.May He establish His kingdom in your lifetime and during your days,
and within the life of the entire House of Israel, speedily and soon;
and say, Amen.May His great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted, extolled and honored,
adored and lauded be the name of the Holy One, blessed be He,
beyond all the blessings and hymns, praises and consolations that
are ever spoken in the world; and say, Amen.May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us
and for all Israel; and say, Amen.He who creates peace in His celestial heights,
may He create peace for us and for all Israel;
and say, Amen.
I will say this prayer again today during my prayers throughout the day.
That feeling in which you realize that your University’s IT is actively blocking Apple’s Migration Assistant or its backdoor monitoring is preventing the app from opening.*
* The same IT that will let older machines upgrade to Sequoia but not the new machine they just bought for you.
Finished an R&R (Revise and Resubmit) on a paper with a co-author, a full day early. Enjoying a bourbon before firing up the submission website. I’ll have it in before the pizza arrives.
Rarely does it work out that I go into a weekend with such a relaxed work-state.
Elon Musk activated free Starlink for areas affected by Hurricane Helene.
New MacBook Pro Day, M3 Pro Edition
I got my first new laptop since fall of 2019. I ordered the last MacbookPro on an Intel chip when I arrived at ASU. It was—is—a wonderful machine and still serviceable. But every 4–5 years, my university authorizes faculty to order new machines. I held off for a year but finally pulled the trigger over the summer. After two months of waiting my new MacBook Pro arrived.
The new machine is a 14inch, M3 Pro, 32GB Ram, and other misc bells and whistles. It’s overkill for 99.99 percent of my workload, but for that other 0.01, the extra power and bandwidth will make it worth it. Mostly the few times a year I run large regressions or other data science style work. For what I do right now, I could have gotten an M2 or even less RAM. But since this has to be my work machine for the next 4 to 5 years, I opted to get a little more than I need so I can remain current with whatever new stuff comes up. I figured this was an especially true rule of thumb with the advent of AI. My buddy from grad school already wants me to start playing with Ollama.
Of course, the irony of it arriving today is that I have a hard deadline on an article with a co-author, and I’m taking my oldest camping this weekend with Cub Scouts. Thus, other than a few basic things (email, iCloud, password manager), all the fun stuff of setting up the new laptop will have to wait until next week.
Welp, that’s some shit new. Rest in Peace, John Ashton. Sure we know as Sgt. Taggart, but it was all those smaller, character roles that made the memories.
Finished reading: Religious Appeals in Power Politics by Peter S. Henne 📚
It’s for a review symposium. Good, and worth while if you’re into technical yet qualitative political science.
First time on DC metro in ten (??) years
What is the greatest television show since The Wire and why is it Bluey?
Sometimes you just have to pre-order the 18th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style and call it a day. Today is that day.
Creating Deep Fakes is becoming extremely cheap and easy, Chris Welch on Threads (via Daring Fireball).
Classes start this week, students are all moved in. The gym was full. I caught a glimpse of the swim team getting ready for practice.
Writing the Canvas assignments for my first online course since the pandemic. I’m unsure whether to be happy or sad—it’ll be a tough course for students (compressed schedule), but a lot has improved since spring 2020.
Terrible news about Lazar Dukic, who drowned at the CrossFit Games today. The reporting suggests insufficient lifeguards and preparation for such a possibility and that maybe one or two spectators tried to save him but were prevented from doing so.