Regina Rini

more about the epistemic backstop:

philpapers.org/archive/RIND...

never ending epistemic backstop crises
time.com/7290050/veo-...

Defendant accused of faking Trump death threats so witness would be deported Demetric Deshawn Scott wrote letters threatening to kill President Donald Trump, in an attempt to get Ramón Morales Reyes deported, Wisconsin prosecutors said.

story here: www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/...

incredible...
A man charged with assault and robbery tries to get his alleged victim deported (to prevent him testifying) by forging letters threatening the president.... but fails to consider that the victim doesn't speak English...

... and still gets his victim rounded up for deportation

seeking podcast recommendations:
- case studies of advertising campaigns
- the history of obsolete technology (especially industrial revolution vintage)

apartment building wifi naming drama comes for Korean Starbucks
www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

The motives here are good, but it's hard to imagine how to keep students from gaming this. Also risk of a backfire effect if young people think civil discourse is just what the olds force you to pretend to do a few minutes a day while you go on being horrid on your real (hidden from olds) accounts.

but we tell people 'click through to the original source, don't just read the AI summary'

What's maddening is that the Trump admin probably didn't even think about the long term consequence. I can picture the meeting around a whiteboard last week: 'Come on guys, we need a way to damage Harvard's finances. Toss them out, no dumb ideas!'

Central European University is forced out of Hungary, moving to Vienna Central European University says the Hungarian government has forced it to move its main campus from Budapest to Vienna.

The playbook. (This was 2018.) www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/12...

Also: future scientists, you are very welcome here in Canada! We may not be able to pay as much as America, but there is much less chance we will abduct you off the street and send you to a nightmare prison in El Salvador!

Future historians may actually be able to calculate how much economic benefit China gained from today's news.

Throughout the Cold War, America benefited enormously from its reputation as a place you could come to do science without ideological interference. Its edge in leading technology comes from that. Today the Trump administration ratified a new policy: if you want to do science, go somewhere else.

also: who would trust an AI attached to a program that routinely mishandles CTLR-c-CTRL-v?

adobe acrobat AI saying this about a 20 page journal article is a form of violence

After years of bad takes from some corners of the left that blamed corporate greed for the effects of a worldwide flood of money supply & contraction of goods supply due to COVID, now we're getting bad takes from the insane right-wing president blaming corporate greed for the effects of his tariffs.

Truth, Texas style Way back in the pre-Google internet I used to trawl quote compilation websites looking for inspiration. This one stuck with me: “A cynic is a person

FWIW I predicted this about Univ Austin when it launched in 2021

www.the-tls.co.uk/regular-feat...

Is the University Of Austin Betraying Its Founding Principles? Created as a haven for free thinkers, UATX was the last place where I’d expected to encounter ideological litmus tests.

Why I find the 'free speech' debate so exhausting:

Almost no one who says that are a free speech absolutist is actually a free speech absolutist. But you can only prove this about people once they are in power, denying free speech.

quillette.com/2025/05/16/i...

If you are desperate for applause, one strategy is to threaten to make things much worse, let the tension build, and then suddenly make things only moderately worse.

this is the only acceptable pun

I did laugh, but actually the thought that the Pope is now someone with whom I might have shared cultural reference points is really messing with my head

Nearly 200 years ago, Samuel Morse - yes, the Morse Code guy - published a book claiming that the Pope had directed a vicious Catholic conspiracy to seize control of the United States.

I wish Morse could be resurrected, just for today, to see how things have turned out.

for years, the online alt-right discovered they could distract from the substance of their most repugnant views by jumping to a meta- debate about free speech. Some seemed to conclude that they would never find a limit to that strategy

a remarkable demonstration of how, for some people, 'free speech' was only about their personal freedom to speak certain words

the tell is when she says she uses the n-word 'when appropriate' and when pressed which situations are appropriate says 'anytime I feel like it'

pure egoism

if you follow Trump on PravdaSocial, you can document America's move toward Soviet policy day by day.

Over and over, the Trump admin sounds like 1970s Soviet leaders. Not buying things you want is a savings. The children will get by with two dolls. Coming soon: The ration lines aren't as long as the lamestream media wants you to believe.

okay Bezos, all is forgiven

news about subs exploring the Yorktown wreck led me to a wikipedia page that answers a question I'd never known I had: what happens if you try to land your fighter plane on the other side's aircraft carrier?

Kaleigh Rogers @KaleighRogers One couple at a voting station in Port Credit said they would rather not speak to American media. They then apologized three times. 10:12 AM • 4/28/25 • 69K Views

Peak Canada