John P. Murphy

I once had an ISP send me letters for months demanding the -$8 I owed them. They threatened to turn me over to collections. I think they tried, even, because the letters stopped for a while then started again. Eventually I called and told them where to send me a check.

Come hang out with us (virtually)!

finally got a full vid of the hover!!!! omg

God I miss the days when this would have clearly been an unhinged conspiracy theory. I feel like I’ve got Occam’s Razor at my throat.

Congratulations!!

All while the same cities are being slandered by right-wing media as dangerous battlefields full of places it's just not safe to go. Funny how many Thin Blue Line assholes are essentially out there saying cops suck at their jobs.

Why do people still listen to this man? Is it the bow tie? do they think he’s smart because he wears a bow tie and they don’t bother to look up his actual track record?

What’s that saying? “It’s better to close your mouth and be thought a fool than to open it in rambling and incoherent defense of the worst people in the world”?

I try again every 5 years or so, just in case, but they just make me ill. I still like Reece’s cups though so who knows.

Are you in Boston next week and want to hear two serious physicists have a conversation about aliens?

I will discuss whether aliens speak physics with @mattstrassler.bsky.social on Nov 17 at the Harvard Bookstore. @harvardbookstore.bsky.social

It's not just that he's a pedophile, he was the least popular pedophile

The greatest trick rich and horrible people ever pulled is convincing us they were interesting.

You just know there’s some dipshit out there eagerly feeding Epstein’s emails into a neural network, convinced he’ll get a financial genius AI out of it.

RE starbucks picket line--the relevant detail is "picket line, do not cross." Pass that along. Proclaiming that you are in no danger of doing so because you are too aesthetically pure to let Starbucks coffee pass your lips is...unhelpful and does not give the impression you perhaps imagine it does.

<soft music plays in the background>
Narrator: “If Jeff Epstein had access to Microsoft Copilot his emails would’ve been as smooth as <puts finger to ear> I’m being told not to finish that sentence.”

Don't Buy Starbucks! At any location, today and beyond, while workers are on ULP strike!

As of this morning, Starbucks workers across the country are officially ON STRIKE. And we're prepared for this to become the biggest and longest ULP strike in Starbucks history.

Say #NoContractNoCoffee with us: DON'T BUY STARBUCKS for the duration of our open-ended ULP strike! $SBUX

That really stinks. I’m sorry they weren’t willing to offer a reasonable industry-standard contract. Hopefully they pull their heads out of their asses soon.

At the risk of being tedious: this is why markets should post sample contracts. An author should never be in the position of agonizing like this over an acceptance versus a surprise bad contract. It benefits everyone for everyone to have full information before a story is submitted.

Visual of a sleek MiG25 over a forested site under a steely-grey sky.

Today's research fun fact - in the late USSR the MiG25 fighter was called a "Flying Restaurant" because the distilled alcohol used as a coolant could be consumed. Training flights were often cancelled because coolant had been drunk or sold. Feshbach and Friendly, Ecocide, 165.

It all went downhill when they took out the windmills.

I earned spending money in college tutoring math at the school’s math learning center, and honestly the biggest obstacle wasn’t people being assholes, but having this huge ball of weird shame at not being instantly good at a new task and having this “I suck at math“ view of themselves.

"babies are born worshipping unknown gods" is one of the most incredible dwarf fortress bugs i have heard of. its poetry.

DESPITE ALL MY RAGE
LET'S CIRCLE BACK
AND GET ON THE SAME PAGE

DESPITE ALL MY RAGE THERE ARE STILL SEVERAL METRICS TO GAUGE

SOMEONE WILL SAY
TURN THIS IN
BY THE END OF THE DAY

DESPITE ALL MY RAGE
YOU DON'T NEED MY SIGN-OFF
AT THIS STAGE

Brought to you by driving down the road and saying “does that train logo say what I think it says? It can’t possibly.”

Fun fact: After Pan Am went bust, the name was bought by a railroad company. No idea why, but you can occasionally see Pan Am trains in New Hampshire.

Gritty reboot of James Bond Junior?

And it gives the writer the opportunity for the line, “Your name is now Bond. James Bond.”

I keep seeing this one pop up on lists of games like the ones I've enjoyed; sounds like it's time to at least try the demo. Thanks!

The inside should be well cooked; I like corn dogs but would not enjoy what you had.

Oof. I sometimes enjoyed TAing, but… well, at least this too shall end.