Julia Wester, PhD

reading about organisms that aren’t your specialty is like

margins of the quorbus eplungulate, ploobular processes bent posteriorly towards the foobulum

define term “eplungulate”
- lacking plungae. synonym: thubulous

It’s 2026. There is a measles outbreak in the prison for babies

wake up babe the right is doing drapetomania for white women engaging in race treason bsky.app/profile/hann...

olive oil is a legitimate interest

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Jeff Wheeler, The Minnesota Star Tribune

Minnesotans are showing the soul of the United States to the world.

unfortunately it appears that things are really complicated and getting the details matters a lot, sometimes more than anything, and also evil is extremely real. sorta the worst of both worlds there.

Maybe the most important thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that the solution to what looks like a collective action problem is to just start solving it. People will show up.

I can see direct through lines from the times in my life when I was flailing/dicking around and getting really good at things later. It’s part of the process.

Most Top-Achieving Adults Weren’t Elite Specialists in Childhood, New Study Finds An analysis of elite performers, from Olympic athletes to Nobel laureates, found that those who don’t specialize too soon go farther.

this shouldn't be surprising to anyone: specialization is for insects

fairly certain i qualify as a high performance adult by these standards and i wasn't good at anything as a kid besides reading a shitload of random books

www.wsj.com/science/elit...

My partner and I got our cats through the traditional cat distribution system (mama cat gave birth in the bush in our backyard) and he calls them “shake and bake” cats because of the hodge podge of traits they have. Just sharing because I love that branding.

so in the last 2 days I have received 2 "welcome to gemini" emails. Both say I received them because I "signed up" for gemini which I definitely didn't. Anyone know what this is about? Any tips on turning it off? Web search has failed to turn up answer. Wild how hard it is to opt out of this stuff.

💀

CONFIRMED: Eileen Higgins, a Democrat, will be the new mayor of Miami.

She'll be the city's first Democratic mayor since the 1990s. She flipped the office from Republicans, and does so easily. She leads the DeSantis-endorsed Emilio González 59/41 right now with most ballots counted.

If anything he was like “hey thanks for the shout out dude”

every time somebody asks me for help with an LLM problem at work, the checklist starts with "do you understand what you are trying to do well enough to explain it to me, a human with way more preexisting context about your problem than the LLM has?". most fail.

ruh roh

Don’t try to tell me when something should be a table google sheets. I decide when things should be tables.

A lot of education discourse is at root an inability to decide whether the purpose of our education system is to 1) teach material and measure learning 2) reward students who work hard 3) separate the smart kids (destined for smart guy jobs) from the dumb kids (destined to serve the smart guys)

the way basic human decency hits these days is crazy

DESPITE ALL MY RAGE
LET'S CIRCLE BACK
AND GET ON THE SAME PAGE

DESPITE ALL MY RAGE THERE ARE STILL SEVERAL METRICS TO GAUGE

SOMEONE WILL SAY
TURN THIS IN
BY THE END OF THE DAY

DESPITE ALL MY RAGE
YOU DON'T NEED MY SIGN-OFF
AT THIS STAGE

If we were really going to "run the government like a business," Costco is the actual model we'd want to follow.

THIS IS AMAZING. ALSO WHAT, IF ANYTHING, DID WE FORGET TO RUIN?

Mark your calendar for a huge December election (sorry, sorry, I know):

Democrat Eileen Higgins & Republican Emilio Gonzalez moved on to the runoff for mayor of Miami.

This is the most minor of points possible. But the theme for Halloween parties is “Halloween”. Why are you trying to narrow the field of possible costume choices? Anyways, unsurprisingly joyless crap here.

Yeah the Hobbits big virtue is that they're indomitable. They aren't wise or clever or strong, but that turns out to be less important than the will to pick up and carry your friend to the end of the world

I’ve gone through cycles. I mostly enjoy this app & can be normal about it. Then at times I’m clearly stressed/anxious and it goes from being fun/informative to an anxious impulse. I have the freedom app and use that block it for 24 hours when that happens to reset and that has helped.

Environmental activism that only focuses on “raising awareness” without a broader theory of change, are not helping and can potentially harm progress.

Great turn out and energy in Miami today 💙

"Organizing" is just "Did I do anything to help out with organizing efforts today?" And it, like most of the categories, isn't binary—I give myself more points for that day if what I did was more significant, or took more time.