Bryan Pickel

America Loves Cocaine Again—Mexico’s New Drug King Cashes In The Trump administration’s war on fentanyl created an opening for ‘El Señor Mencho’ to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. by the ton.

Especially incredible when their actual drug policy is flooding the market with illegal drugs: www.wsj.com/world/americ...

YouTube video by ANTI- Records Snocaps - "Coast"

I am totally here for this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxTg...

Taking over from Szabó.

My Compositionality entry is out at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: plato.stanford.edu/entries/comp...

Vance and Trump Call for Rehiring of DOGE Staffer Who Quit Over Racist Posts. Musk Obliges.

I can't imagine anyone betraying their own children like this: www.nytimes.com/2025/02/07/u...

Guys repairing the roof in the office above me are listening to "Golden" from Kpop Demon Hunters at top volume.

Similarly, we don’t give young school children calculators or excel when learning arithmetic even if these wind up being important for many tasks using arithmetic.

Both. And also, what will the law be? What should it be?

If a major studio were to release an AI generated animated movie, would it be copyright infringement for animators to re-draw it scene by scene with small changes and for voice actors to voice it and release it as their own work?

Help people file their taxes!

Etoufee with shrimp

Etoufee

YouTube video by SimonGarfunkelVEVO Simon & Garfunkel - The Sound of Silence (from The Concert in Central Park)

I woke up at the same time this morning (in Scotland), looked out the window, and had an urge to play this song www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAEp.... Hello Darkness, my old friend indeed.

The proper response to this kind of article is: "Where I disagree with Caldwell is that I think the US Military should be a disciplined fighting force, but Caldwell thinks that it should be an undisciplined and unready force whose aim is social engineering through segregation and exclusion."

One way to frame this is that Caldwell is proposing that the military should be an experiment in social engineering (so as to exclude people) and then writing as if that's what his opponents want to do.

Another use for LLMs/AIs: rather than go to the beach, and have to bring a suit and towel, and come home all sandy, you could have the AIs fabricate photos of you going to the beach, not look at them, have the AI post them on social media, and let LLMs write comments (that you don't read).

Another use for LLMs, rather than solve a conflict with another person by discussion and compromise, you could have the LLMs propose a solution and then ignore it.

I was about to do a task but was temporarily distracted by another task. In the interim, the first task was resolved on its own. Hurray for structured procrastination!

A President’s Remarks Harshly Single Out Men With a Particular Name

Defend Bryans/Brians/Brayans: www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/w...

It really hit me that I'm not in Scotland when it started drizzling and everyone started ducking into shops and protected places.

Jason Momoa (labelled "my sake") sneaking up on Henry Cavill (labelled "me").

Me and my sake.

My most anti-immigration opinion is that any company over a certain size that wants to hire immigrants should be required to have a recognised union.

You can be surprised by the fact or by his admitting it?

You might think that to be surprised by what you've been told, the content rather than the telling might be surprising. (E.,g. "I was surprised by the thing he told me. That LA is east of Reno.")

Can one felicitously say, "What Sam told me surprised me. I didn't think we were that close."?

One further problem with this: without a lot of context, it's very hard to communicate or set the agenda by what you don't say. It's much easier to message by coming up with something you want to get across, saying it, and then letting that set the agenda.

Your colleague has a nice way of answering such questions about David Lewis:
www.david-lewis.org?search=%22sp...

Don't do science if it has any implications for how we should live together as a community!

Do you think the latter about philosophy specifically, or would it generalize to other subjects (biology, chemistry, business, computer science, etc)?

Shrimp and grits

By separating shrimp and grits, one can only conclude that Trump hates America.

Is there any interesting literature on the difference between audience and addressee in pragmatics?