Dave Kamper

Yeah, lots of lawyers come off as overly technical and hesitant in questioning, because they're aiming for some kind of courtroom precision.

(For Minnesotans, this is one of the (oh so many) things I love about @erinmayequade.bsky.social. When she asks questions in a committee hearing, they're always smart, informed, and thoughtful. It's a sad truth that even many legislators on our side aren't very sharp, but EMQ always gets it.)

You can always tell the difference between the legislator who is just reading questions put together for them by staff, and one who understands the subject and knows what they're asking.

The original story did look very plausible. This seemed a lot more solid than lots of junk that gets passed around, so I don't think you or anyone else who shared it should feel too bad. Good work by The Friendly Atheist, though, to dig into it more.

Evergreen post

Being able to Control+F an issue of The Times from 1932 is a huge deal. Saves time, money, makes you more efficient an historian.

But while an LLM may someday be able to summarize The Times from 1932 with some accuracy, that summary is not what I'm looking for. It offers no help for me.

My (limited) understanding is lots of coding is a means to an end - you code so that you can do the other thing - and so a shortcut to help does feel useful.

For an historian, seems like the best comparison is when scanning technology got good enough for you to scan and search paper texts.

same

Good piece but feel like it needs to include the fact that Mancini's is a union shop and that has to have played a role in all this.

No amount of regret can reunite families, save children from indefinite detention, or make our communities whole again.

www.huffpost.com/entry/latest...

I have it on reliable authority that their contract with this hotel ran through 2026, so hopefully in 2028 they'll have a venue that can accommodate more people.

General Registration Closed: The Labor Notes 2026 Conference: June 12-14 General Registration is Closed! Join the Waitlist. The Labor Notes Conference is the biggest gathering of rank-and-file union activists, union reformers, and all-around troublemakers out there. Due to...

Amazing. The @labornotes.bsky.social conference isn't for another three months, and general registration is already closed. I'm thrilled that they sold out so fast, disappointed that I know many of you who want to attend may not be able to.

labornotes.org/2026

Don't know but it really is

Donate to Support Sheri's Ranch Workers Terminated for Unionizing!, organized by Molly Wylder Welcome to the GoFundMe for the United Brothel Workers (UBW) (A … Molly Wylder needs your support for Support Sheri's Ranch Workers Terminated for Unionizing!

Sheri’s Ranch responded to the petition for union recognition by firing workers Jupiter Jetson, Molly Wylder, Paloma Karr, Adalind Gray, Genevieve Dahl, and Gwen Bunny.

The union will be fighting their unlawful terminations, but for now, they need our support: www.gofundme.com/f/support-sh...

Today is International Sex Workers’ Rights Day, a time to support and uplift sex workers everywhere—and a particularly good day to throw some money to the United Brothel Workers in Nevada who were illegally terminated after their historic union drive with CWA went public! ☂️

Like, there are political scientists who publish all kinds of work based on the American National Elections Survey. They take an dataset someone else generated and run a bunch of regressions on it to see what they find. I'm actually prepared to believe LLMs could do a lot of that.

Sociology, psychology, poli sci -- research in these fields generally involves a graspable number of possible sources and variables (subject in a survey, government datasets, etc.), and so the beginning of their research is so much more ordered than ours is.

It means we're applying our judgment at every stage of the process, and it's not easy to get a research assistant to exercise the same judgment. Not that they're better or worse at it, it's just that your judgment mostly sits in your head.

I feel like a big part of it is how unbounded historical research is compared to most other social sciences. Even relatively small research topics may involve tens of thousands of pages of primary sources, far more than we can read (and in physical form so not machine-readable).

A red umbrella on a green background, surrounded by the words International Sex Workers' Rights Day.

Today is International Sex Workers' Rights Day.

It's the perfect day to spoil your favourite sex worker and do something nice for them!

Supporting local sex worker organisations with a donation would also be a good idea.

Love goes out to all my fellow sex workers! ♥️

I try hard to discipline my ego; while I'm proud of my accomplishments, I'm no more special than anyone else.

Nothing challenges that discipline more than seeing mediocrities get a platform to spout nonsense about things I know about while I toil in relative obscurity.

Apologies for vagueposting.

Laverne update:

Just @ me next time, Onion.

Yeah, it was an immediate uninstall for me.

it's a good day to support peggy flanagan for US senate!

Ahem: bsky.app/profile/dska...

Respectfully, Senator, what answer could Trump possibly give that would make this ok?

Yup.

Can't wait to see how all the Angie stans out there who've been defending this vote adjust to the new truth.

Also, "The text of the bill did not include the word deportation" is an absolute banger.

Also, it's not rich people who leave. The suburban counties are growing far above the state average. The population loss is mostly rural Minnesota, which has fewer high-wage jobs.

It's not just overall population change. We're trading population in low-wage areas for population in high-wage areas.