07 Feb 2017, 10:18 a.m.

Upcoming Talks

I happened upon the New York state Assembly's website last week,* and noticed an upcoming hearing about "Government oversight of forensic science laboratories" (PDF), hearing oral testimony by invitation only. I wondered: Who's on the …

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30 Dec 2016, 13:06 p.m.

On LiveJournal

I've posted to MetaFilter about some recent goings-on at LiveJournal; if you have an LJ account you should probably take a look.

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27 Dec 2016, 10:43 a.m.

Yuletide 2016 Recommendations

Every year the Yuletide fanfic exchange delivers a bounty of fun transformative works concerning books, movies, songs, games, news stories, and other parts of our media landscape. I myself have, as they say, committed fanfic …

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02 Dec 2016, 8:30 a.m.

Answering the Phone

In one of my earliest internships, I volunteered in the local district office of my state Senator (that is, the guy who represented my area in the upper chamber of California's state legislature). I reordered …

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27 Nov 2016, 7:55 a.m.

Clover

On Sundays I make omelets. Today's omelets included three diced cloves of garlic. "I wish to make you aware that we are basically in a garlic ratchet. I will be increasing the number of cloves …

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08 Nov 2016, 14:34 p.m.

Podcast Recommendations

Podcasts I've been enjoying listening to recently include the following (I have not made my way through the back catalog of all of these, by the way): "Politically Reactive" with W. Kamau Bell and Hari …

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08 Nov 2016, 9:46 a.m.

Election Day

I voted today. Starting Saturday, and for a bunch of Sunday and Monday, I phone-banked and text-banked for the Clinton/Kaine campaign. I also caught up with a few aunts and uncles of mine to remind …

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02 Nov 2016, 11:09 a.m.

Book Catch-up

I need to catch up with my book reviews or at least log some of the books I've read and liked. I have some notes going back more than a year -- I'll do a …

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01 Nov 2016, 9:46 a.m.

Political Memories

I've been reminiscing about past US elections and administrations.* I've been paying attention to US federal politics since the early nineties, which means I remember a lot of details that many younger politics enthusiasts don't. …

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31 Oct 2016, 11:47 a.m.

How Do We Encourage Technologists in the Public Interest?

As I mentioned when the Recompiler interviewed me, my inspirations and role models in technology are technologists who serve the public interest. The person who introduced me to free and open source software, Seth Schoen, …

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