Rod Van Meter

Today, for the first time, a mother in the hospital told her, "No thanks, we'll just get ChatGPT to do the nicer photos."

My wife is a photographer. Her business is photos of newborn babies. Relatively simple ones taken at the hospital right after the baby is born are the hook to get people to sign up for more expensive sessions at home in the first few weeks: different outfits and settings, "adorable" is the goal.

An unidentified man dressed in a Batman costume angrily confronted Santa Clara city officials during a joint meeting of the City Council, city authorities, and the Santa Clara Stadium Authority on Monday, using his public comment to condemn the city’s stance on cooperation with ICE.

Here's a thread that you should all read, even though it will make you want to punch a wall

(Okay, *that's* a weird one.)

I dreamed I was at a dinner theater with white tablecloths, and Dolly Parton was going table to table, wearing white lingerie and doing a burlesque bit with a 1kg plastic package of miso.

This is terrifically sad news. One of the true giants of the historical profession, endlessly curious and creative, and a genuine pioneer of new kinds of international history, especially using NGOs and culture as topics/methodology.

Other numbers around the web indeed suggest several times that. Of course match to match variability will be high.

But there is no way that I burn 2,500 calories sitting on my butt and Serena only burned 500 more in a high intensity match.

Turns out you can customize the spinner verbs in Claude Code.
So here we are:

"Even after the battle was finished, neither side understood that it had just fought the defining engagement of the war."

The war went on for close to two more years. United States victory was not inevitable after Gettysburg.

Started to curate a table of small quantum Tanner codes.
If you want to play with codes with fairly good parameters, all the parity-check matrices are available.
aleverrier.github.io/qtanner-sear...

How far do you run during a tennis match? - BBC Bitesize At Wimbldeon 2019, the pros like Serena Williams will be covering quite long distances when they play.

These numbers seem like a serious underestimate in both distance and calories. I might believe them per set.

www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/art...

Yeah, endurance is a huge factor for them. Also, slapping a ball hard enough to leave Wile E. Coyote-like holes in you, accurately enough that they can pick which kidney, all done at full sprint.

@acm.org I just spent fifteen confusing minutes trying to figure out basic account info like when I renewed last and what my SIG memberships are. My available time has ended, so I give up for now.

The relatively smooth, cracked surface of the moon Europa as photographed by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.

Jupiter's moon Europa, with an inset that shows a magnified view of one part of its surface. The inset photo shows grooves and cracks on Europa's icy surface. Overlaid on the photo are areas marked in purple what show non-detections of ammonia, and four small areas marked in red that shod where ammonia was detected.

HUGE EUROPA NEWS!!

OLD DATA HAS BEEN ANALYZED AND SHOWS THE PRESENCE OF AMONIA-BEARING COMPOUNDS ON EUROPA’S SURFACE!!!

THIS IS HUGE FOR THE SEARCH FOR LIFE!!

Okay, I now have Apple TV, which I signed up for explicitly to watch Murderbot. It was good (though nowhere near as good as the books).

So...now what?

I read both of those a while back. So much fun! And cinematic in a good way, Master would make a great movie.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich on Kindle
Project Hail Mary on audiobook

The Space Shuttle Challenger lifts off on January 28th, 1986, seconds before exploding, killing all seven crew members aboard.

Dick Scobee
Michael J. Smith
Ronald McNair
Ellison Onizuka
Judith Resnik
Gregory Jarvis
Christa McAuliffe

Would you really like to live in a society where you have no responsibility and no freedom, no choice, only the false option of obedience to the law, or disobedience followed by punishment? Would you really want to go live in a prison?

Cover page of Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 1 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

Table 2 Guest, O., & van Rooij, I. (2025, October 4). Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkrgj_v1

New preprint 🌟 Psychology is core to cognitive science, and so it is vital we preserve it from harmful frames. @irisvanrooij.bsky.social & I use our psych and computer science expertise to analyse and craft:

Critical Artificial Intelligence Literacy for Psychologists. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

🧵 1/

Science correspondent Miles O’Brien says the Challenger disaster 40 years ago was a "collective tragedy."

Screenshot of an X.com post by The Associated Press (@AP) stating that dozens of immigrant families protested for better treatment behind fences at a Texas detention facility, where a 5-year-old Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent after being detained in Minnesota. Below is a video thumbnail showing a crowd gathered outdoors along a fenced walkway; many people wear bright blue or red outerwear, and some hold signs.

After being held in two of them as a boy, I fought for decades urging America to never again build concentration camps and put human beings in them. It breaks my heart to watch this happen twice now in my own lifetime.

In a heartening turn of events, the ICEwatch patrol training in Pasadena was absolutely packed to the gills this week, surprising even the organizers of the event. LA continues to get organized against ICE terror

ICE in minneapolis are causing international incidents because agents don’t understand what a consulate is and tried entering ecuador’s

the country has put out a statement in spanish

This morning, an ICE agent attempted to illegally enter the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis, which is against International law. There’s a new boss in town, and yet they still continue to break the law. 1/

I can't believe we are teaching students how to vibecode

when emacsbe is so much better

A bird's-eye view of a former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp showing a wide dirt pathway flanked by parallel rows of barbed-wire fences. Groups of visitors walk along the path, surrounded by the remnants of brick structures and barracks, now reduced to foundations. Green grass contrasts with the somber history of the site, as the path leads toward a guard tower in the distance.

Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers.

This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder.

Auschwitz took time.

I'm certain lacrosse players wear eye protection for a reason, but the top jai alai players are whipping that thing at literally the speed of a shinkansen!

Sounds to me like the candidate dodged a bullet working for someone who likes zero color in their employees.