Jon Green

wait can we spin up an LLM persona of the Baileys and ask their opinions on stuff?

oh god we're doing it again aren't we

I'm convinced one of the reasons epstein was able to coast for so long is that for many sensible people including and especially educated liberals, viewing the world through a conspiratorial lens was always seen as vaguely distasteful and rube-coded

New and open access, in @psrm.bsky.social: What happens when we make politicians draw distributions? Nic Dias, @jacklucas.bsky.social and I explore whether the large errors politicians make about public opinion are artificially inflated by how researchers ask them to estimate it /1
cup.org/4kltoyE

Stop Blaming DoorDash for the Affordability Crisis One DoorDash Discourse to rule them all: Food away from home is down. Groceries are up. This is especially true for young people. Affordability is a real problem.

DoorDash Discourse is entirely wrong.

Since the pandemic, percent spending on groceries are up, food away from home is down, and this is especially true for young people. Trends point to food affordability being a real problem.

Dig into the CEX with me!
newsletter.mikekonczal.com/p/stop-blami...

If a university student group had celebrated Charlie Kirk being killed, complete with a graphic made from an actual picture of the killing, the whole lot of them would have been expelled before the ink on the digital story was dry.

The Epstein Files and Russiagate are the Same Thing For years the culture war has assigned these scandals to opposite teams.

more here

heated rivalry is good but I’m surprised it’s generated as much new interest in hockey as it has given how little hockey is actually played in the show

There’s pasta in the pantry and jarred sauce in the refrigerator. So what compels Kiely Reedy to keep having spaghetti with marinara delivered from the restaurant down the street, for several times the cost of cooking the dish herself? It’s not that the restaurant dish is particularly good, she said. “It’s the instant gratification.”

It’s not like DoorDash hides the option to order for pickup and save on the delivery fees www.nytimes.com/2026/01/30/d...

Pluribus drinking game where the only rule is drink when Carol drinks

Duke professor Dan Ariely had longstanding friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, newly released files show Ariely is named in 636 of the some 3 million newly released files. He was a prominent professor at Duke over the course of his correspondence with Epstein.

Duke’s student newspaper is all over this. Neither Ariely nor the university are saying anything so far www.dukechronicle.com/article/duke...

AOL email as status symbol <p><strong>Blog:</strong> &nbsp;There's long been a certain stigma attached to an AOL.com email account, and those of us obsessed with keeping up with the times have cycled t</p>

can Ben Smith update this post but for not bothering to put three correct sentences together? www.politico.com/blogs/ben-sm...

adding “not proofreading for spelling or grammar” to the trashy if you’re poor/classy if you’re rich list

tweet by Casey Lawrence (@LeanandCuisine): "Was playing smash bros with my godson and his Dad tells him if he gets one stock off me then he doesn’t have to eat his vegetables. Slim I cooked him so bad he started crying, this is what I do this for. This is why I love the game. Gon head and eat them veggies son"

dudes rock

now in print in the new issue of APSR: Campos and Federico (2026), "A New Measure of Affective Polarization" -->

seems like the difference is more the distribution model than the product itself

my bonus prediction would be that they at least strongly imply that Dr. Al-Hashimi gets sued over it (they already said everyone gets sued right before she laid down the marker that she's never been sued)

FWIW @dkthomp.bsky.social says he’s not a new contributor at CBS and has been on contract with the network for the past seven years.

POLYBIUS, the authoritarian consolidation index, is live. (daily updates for now)
polybius.world

“We are going to put huge emphasis on scoops,” Weiss continued of her plans. “Not scoops that expire minutes later. But investigative scoops. And, crucially, scoops of ideas. Scoops of explanation. This is where we can soar, and where we’ll be investing.” Per THR, she described CBS News as “the best-capitalized media startup in the world,” but added, “But startups aren’t for everyone. They’re places that move at a rapid speed. They experiment. They try new things. They sometimes create noise and, yes, bad press. If that’s not your bag, that’s ok. It’s a free country and I completely respect if you decide this is just not the right place at the right time for you.”

takes. these are called takes. www.avclub.com/bari-weiss-c...

The threat of analytic flexibility in using large language models to simulate human data: A call to attention Social scientists are now using large language models to create "silicon samples" - synthetic datasets intended to stand in for human respondents, aimed at revolutionising human subjects research. How...

Can large language models stand in for human participants?
Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research.

One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want.

THREAD 🧵

Hamilton (2003)

I’ve been saying on this site and on the old one for years that pundits are great, opinion-slinging is a noble profession, but none of them could eat without journalists providing facts on which to opine. Weiss is firing the sharks and hiring more remoras.

NC’s snow/ice removal plan seems to literally be wait for it to melt

it’s far from the only legit line of argument one could make but “people are dying because these idiots are unqualified and untrained” is absolutely a good and correct line of argument for professional law enforcement officers to be emphasizing right now

The guy that runs the Reddit where people post about patting their cat on the butt like bongos has put his foot down

Statement from Michael and Susan Pretti Parents of Alex Jeffrey Pretti “We are heartbroken but also very angry. Alex was a kindhearted soul who cared deeply for his family and friends and also the American veterans whom he cared for as an ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA hospital. Alex wanted to make a difference in this world. Unfortunately, he will not be with us to see his impact. I do not throw around the ‘hero’ term lightly. However, his last thought and act was to protect a woman. The sickening lies told about our son by the administration are reprehensible and disgusting. Alex is clearly not holding a gun when attacked by Trump’s murdering and cowardly ICE thugs. He had his phone in his right hand and his empty left hand is raised above his head while trying to protect the woman ICE just pushed down, all while being pepper sprayed. Please get the truth out about our son. He was a good man. Thank you.

Kare 11 local news just read, in full, this statement from Michael and Susan Pretti, the parents of Alex Pretti.

"Please get the truth out about our son."

I do a lot of “reasonable people can disagree about [the substantive policy issue], but here’s the more abstract problem with [the democratic backsliding issue]”