Ian Welsh

Mamdani Represents A New Era Of Political Conflict As everyone's probably aware, Mamdani, a brown muslim social-democrat who has promised, among other things, to open city grocery stories, make transit free, a rent freeze on stabilized units (about 40...

Mamdani is the start of a great struggle and represents America's last chance to turn things around.

www.ianwelsh.net/mamdani-repr...

2. Rolling Stone is owned by a large media conglomerate, which is ending remote work across its brands.

My home is Portland, Oregon, ~1,000 miles from the nearest office, so this marks the end of the line for me at RS.

You know, everyone keeps saying "political violence isn't acceptable" and I'd like to know "why not?" Or, at least, "why is it worse than all the other violence, like the invasion of Iraq or Libya or genociding Palestinian kids?"

Should You Kill or Mourn Nazis and Commies? (Charlie Kirk Edition) My favorite Charlie Kirk quote is: I can't stand the word empathy, actually, I think it's a made up new age term, and it does a lot of damage. But Charlie wasn't just a one-note ideological thinker. I...

Is killing Nazis and/or Commies Justified? (Charlie Kirk Edition)

www.ianwelsh.net/should-you-k...

A New Cold War has started and the "Golden Billion" is in a far weaker position than the Soviets were at the start of the old cold war.

The West is behind in Five of the Six factors one would use to predict who will win a strategic confrontation.

www.ianwelsh.net/the-west-is-...

"isn’t a democracy and its actions clearly benefit the majority of its people more than the actions of ... governments benefit their people.

Democracy isn’t just something word you wave around. If it doesn’t produce better results, people will stop believing in it."

"chart ~rent as % of income."

If You Understand Only One Thing About Chinese Government It should be that almost always they do what they promise, and they meet their goals. An American-Chinese silicon valley type spent some time in China recently (I don't agree wit the whole article, bu...

If you understand only ONE thing about China's communist party let it be this. They make goals and they almost always accomplish them, and those goals are more likely to be good for most people than the goals western government set.

www.ianwelsh.net/if-you-under...

This was completely inevitable.

What's frustrating is that a huge component of Uber's success was due to an effective app that people liked to use, and which provided a consistent experience everywhere… something that existing services could have been providing since smartphones were introduced.

As far as I can see anyone who builds an AI product on top of anything that isn't open source is asking for a world of hurt. (And right now, that basically means deepseek, which is also far cheaper to run, meaning you might actually make a profit.)

All of this stuff to go back to being the 3rd way for Starbucks is good, but none of it will matter if they don't reduce their prices. And Luckin is coming for them.

Non Bot traffic to my site is up about 100% in the past 3 months, and I have no idea why.

Bloody AI scrape bots keep bringing my site to a halt. I can't see anything good that AI does for the web. Maybe it'll do good things elsewhere, but so far it looks like a multiple disaster.

We should probably start recognizing the VC model and stop feeding it

Uber’s Finally Profitable & Workers and Customers Will Pay Back Its Losses Fast Uber started in 2009. It incurred losses every year until 2023 except for a profit in 2019 which was due to selling subsidiaries in various countries. Numbers before the IPO are difficult to obtain, b...

Uber is now profitable. For years it provided cheap rides, now its rides are more expensive than Taxi rides, but since it has dominant market share, it can raise prices and screw over its drivers even more.

You got a few years of cheap rides in exchange.

www.ianwelsh.net/ubers-finall...

Mind you, the Catholics, while better than most American Protestants still have issues. The Popes who were against Liberation Theology will have a lot to answer from in the after life.

Jesus made his preferences clear, and they were for the weak and poor.

America Protestants are very good at ignoring Jesus's clear words that the rich almost never go to Heaven, that one who wants to follow Jesus should give their wealth to the poor, and that what you do to the poor and weak determines whether Jesus knows you.

The thesis "Israel has blackmail material on almost everyone in Congress" has great predictive utility.

Project Nectar: Another Palantir Special A honey-filled database. What could that be used for?

Project Nectar: Another Palantir Special

by @thomasneuburger.bsky.social
h/t @ianwelsh.bsky.social

neuburger.substack.com/p/project-ne...

Yes. Just hammering the point home.

I think a series of Comics with Superman vs. Ice would be great. Eventually they get him, shackle him with Kryptonite, then throw him among the immigrants in an overcrowded camp. The wretched of the Earth have to care for and eventually save Superman.

In modern America, Superman wouldn't even be a citizen. I mean, he doesn't even have the right to birthright citizenship—his foster parents lied about him being theirs.

ICE would be Superman's mortal enemy.

Almost everyone thinks “military grade” is a synonym for “best.” It often isn’t. Even among professionals, actual competence and attention to important details is rare. Every field I’m familiar with this is true, I expect it is for assassins, blackmailers and so on.

While I appreciate the back to basics stuff at #Starbucks, the bottom line is the bottom line: the drinks cost too much. I ordered a venti-refresher today, and it cost me over $7 Canadian. It's a good drink, but it isn't a $7 drink.

Of course, religions change over time and space. As someone with respect for Jesus, I find modern American evangelical Christianity an abomination, for example, but certainly the beliefs have an effect on behaviour and society and it is jejeune to act as if they don't.

Really weird idea that different religions and ideologies don't produce different types of people and different types of societies.

Absolutely obvious wrong and insane idea, actually, but held by many.

Enough. MAGA are idiots, voting against their own best interests, just like most Democratic voters. Gloves off, I'm tired of pretending they aren't xenophobic morons.

Back when I was a serious distance runner, no other exercise, I could easily do a 100 push ups, and my resting heart rate was around 50bpm.

Chin ups, otoh, were nearly impossible.

Running is mostly about legs and lungs, but it involves the whole body, including hips, abdomen, back, shoulders and even arms.

Runners' torsos aren't that bulked up (except 100m sprinters), but they are toned.

Although you need to be in better shape to use controlled falling properly, once you are, it decreases your energy use, and you can go farther or faster.

Running for speed or distance is controlled falling. The faster you're going, again, the more your knees should be lifting and you partially fall into each step.

If you're not in shape, this is hard, but this is the goal.