betsythemuffin

@betsythemuffin

Autodidactic to a fault, always. Nolite te bastardes carborundum. Technically not a Hugo Award winner. she/they. Former software developer retraining in green (bio)chemistry. Techno-optimist; hopepunk. Towards partially automated luxury for all.

1,363 Following372 Followers1,289 Posts

Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and betsythemuffin.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Jun 25

From Ruby Tandoh’s Cook As You Are; life changing

A recipe for zucchini and halloumi, roasted. Too lengthy to retype in full but available in Ruby Tandoh’s Cook as You Are

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Jun 11

afjawdofiauerlwekjalsdfjeworiuweoiuaoruiovjwareawefsdfwEREAR

a screenshot of the studiotommmy.co instragram. The image says "wtf is happening" superimposed over a partial view of a person in death's head makeup. The caption reads "Full site blackout 6/11. Resurrected 6/12."

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Apr 27

yes. for clarity to readers, this is all genuinely my fault for asking questions.

iMessage containing the text: ellen, what would it take to git gud at building public transit out on a pure physical infra level

an iMessage thread.

me: Meanwhile I have been reading up on Capitol Corridor planning and link21 and … ellen… why can’t we bild
Ellen: where to begin (sad face)
me: “What if we fixed the Amtrak-caltrain connection problem” vs “what if we just imagined hard and sat on our hands”

More iMessages:

me: like the more I live here, the more I realize that BART SJ expansion is nigh fucking useless, but focusing on what would actually serve people (light rail and high-frequency buses for last-mile throughout the East Bay and Peninsula that improve level of service to Berkeley’s or better, plus Caltrain/Capitol Corridor integration and unfucking) is invisible because of the anchor that is the Embarcadero - King St transfer fuckery
Ellen: "fun" fact: they literally invented the Embarcadero–King Street fuckery from scratch in the 1990s

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Apr 3

XKCD comic showing two stick figures in conversation. The left figure, a person with a ponytail, says: "Silicate chemistry is second nature to us geochemists, so it's easy to forget that the average person probably only knows the formulas for olivine and one or two feldspars." Her interlocutor replies: "And quartz, of course." The left figure acknowledges: "Of course." Bottom text reads: "Even when they're trying to compensate for it, experts in anything wildly overestimate the average person's familiarity with their field."

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Mar 5

I see people misinterpreting this quote _all the time_, and it's especially bad in light of the school strike. It doesn't mean "computers should never make decisions." It means that computers making decisions without informed human oversight is the road to hell.

A computer can never be held accountable; therefore a computer must never make a management decision.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Jan 25

look for the helpers, except awful. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

14. I don't know why they shot him. He was only helping. I was five feet from him and they just shot him.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Jan 21

This is great: rooseveltinstitute.org/publications...

Anti-YIMBYs on the Left will sometimes deride the transition from a discretionary to a ministerial process as "deregulatory," because it smooths the path for more private construction. But ministerial review does not intrinsically mean less regulation-that depends entirely on the objective standards that become part of the review process. In a sense, ministerial review could be understood to require a strongerregulatory apparatus because it shifts the locus of decision-making from project-by-project haggling to real citywide planning.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Jan 9

love how the FOP is signing itself up to be Reconstructed

that famous painting of Sherman's March. We bring the jubilee, fuckers.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Nov 13

A tabby cat with an inquiring look; inquiry likely categorizable as "where is the food?"

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Nov 13

My beautiful idiot son Miles, gone a year ago but never to be forgotten. The sweetest cat in the universe.

A wide-eyed tabby cat sits on an organic chemistry textbook

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Nov 8

up there with the black-footed cat, my favorite tiny murderbabby

a black-footed cat carrying a dead bird by the neck, look of fierce triumph in its eyes. One of the bird's wings is extended, demonstrating that that single wing is as large as the cat.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Nov 5

Painting of Sherman leading the march into a burning city.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Oct 1

A blobby, semi-anthropomorphic figure saying "oh no."

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Jul 24

periodic reminder:

Movie screencap from All the President's Men. A backlit man in a parking garage, with the subtitle "The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand."

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Apr 16

I don't want my tax dollars to go to torture prisons, foreign or domestic.

Norman Rockwell's "Freedom of Speech." A working-class-coded man stands up to speak at a public meeting.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Apr 1

eg look at this quote: "Just as" obscure and technical treats the technicalities of derivatives risk analysis as the same *kind* of technicality as mandatory parking minimums. But derivatives are made-up. It is easy to lie to oneself about their properties. Parking spaces either exist or don't.

THROUGHOUT THIS PERIOD, the deregulation of mortgage finance was justified and sold as a means to make housing affordable and give everyone a slice of the American dream. The way in which that process was supposed to manifest was just as obscure and technical as zoning laws and mandatory parking minimums. It involved allowing Wall Street to dominate how housing got built and mortgages got sold. Unbounded by rules to protect borrowers and the financial system, it eventually imploded.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Mar 14

Fuck the CR.

A sample Washington DC license plate. The motto underneath the license letters is "End taxation without representation."

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Mar 6

This is the goal. This is where the correction needs to go. I believe in us.

A graph of Tesla's stock price for the past five years, highlighting that 5 years ago it was $28.50 a share -- about an order of magnitude lower than its current price.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Feb 19

Man with cigarette saying "The truth is, these aren't very bright guys, and things got out of hand." Screen grab from "All The President's Men."

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Feb 9

Text-only: "A computer can never be held accountable. Therefore, a computer must never make a management decision."

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Dec 12

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. (4/20) #BookSky #20daybookchallenge

Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, by Pamela Dean. The title dominates the cover, over a background of stylized stars, as though through a high-powered telescope. Images of the titular plants are composited on to this background, with proto-steampunk clockwork. There is a strong, but not bad, air of early-90s Photoshop.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Dec 10

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. (2/20) #BookSky #20daybookchallenge

Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story, by Martin Luther King Jr. Cover contains a group photograph with MLK at the center. Approximately two dozen other African-American people, mostly men, crowd around him.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Dec 9

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. (2/20) #BookSky #20daybookchallenge

Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold. A head-and-neck shot of a man in a military uniform, with his face's silhouette filled in by misty, low-contrast flashback sequences.

betsythemuffin@betsythemuffin· Dec 8

Choose 20 books that have stayed with you or influenced you. One book per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just covers. (1/20) #BookSky #20daybookchallenge