Kevin Riggle

@kevinr

Principal @ . I keep people safe on the internet (trying). Looking at the world with an “anarchist squint” 🏳️‍🌈 @ kevinriggle@ioc.exchange

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Kevin Riggle@kevinr· 26d

But isn't the Renaissance supposed to be a golden age? And the origin of so much modernity is proud of? Individualism?
The rational exploration of nature and our world? The glittering masterpieces we admire in museums? Yet, for those living through it, this famous era felt so desperate one could barely hope the future might forgive its failures-how can both be true at once?
The simplest answer is that there's a well-kept secret about so-called golden ages: a time that left us golden treasures was not necessarily a golden time to be alive. A deep dive into Machiavelli's life, and the lives of his friends, acquaintances, bosses, and enemies, will show us how the same circumstances nurtured both matchless art and deep despair, in an era well characterized by the old saying desperate times call for desperate measures.
And the same deep dive will show, in the coming pages, how the golden and grim extremes of the Renaissance, and the later mythmaking of those extremes, in turn

birthed larger myths which shape how we imagine history in general.

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· 26d

Apropos of nothing, I just started Ada Palmer’s INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE and this is the opening

Prologue
The Great and Terrible
Renaissance

The Renaissance was like the Wizard of Oz: great and terrible, and desperate for us not to look behind the curtain.

In 1506, Machiavelli received a letter from a friend, who had recently read the first part of his history of the decade they'd just lived through. The friend urged Machiavelli to write more. Why?

Because, he said, without a good history of these days, future generations would never believe how bad it was, and would never forgive their generation for losing so much so quickly. [1] This was the same decade in which Michelangelo carved the David and Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa, yet living through the years that laid these golden eggs felt like an apocalypse.

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· 26d

And is currently trading around $126.65 in after-hours. Sucks to suck!

A screenshot of the SPCX ticker showing ... what the post says ... basically as a result of a cliff around 6:30p ET

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jul 8

Oriental Cole Slaw
Makes 4 - 6 servings
1 pkg. (1 lb.) cole slaw mix w/ carrots
1 pkg. (6 oz.) slivered, almonds, toasted
2 green onions, diced
3 Tbsp vinegar
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup sugar
½ or all of seasoning packet from 1 pkg. (3 oz.) Maruchan Ramen Noodle Soup (Oriental OR Beef OR Soy Sauce)
1. In a large bowl mix cole slaw, almonds, and onions together.
2. In a small bowl mix the vinegar, oil, sugar, and seasoning
3.
packet to make the salad dressing:
When ready to serve, gently mix dressing into cole slaw mixture in a bowl, along with the broken up uncooked noodles of 1 pkg. Raman Noodles (Oriental OR Beef OR Soy Sauce).
Up

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jul 8

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jul 3

A cutting of a rubber tree with three big glossy green leaves in a square pot. There’s a bright red new apical bud coming off the cut top of the cutting

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jul 2

New Yorker cartoon: A man sits in a ragged suit around a campfire with three children. Caption: “Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 28

A couple shots of this month's flower arrangement

A flower arrangement overflows from a large vase against a white background. Dominant colors are purples, pinks, and blues, although there is a creamy-white nigella ranunculus front and center. Phlebodium leaves, an astilbe stalk, nigella, and larkspur, frame multiple showy alliums, a rose, germini, chrysanthemum, and more.

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 27

It's giving Cray www.hpe.com/content/dam/...

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 25

I also may or may not have added algae spores to the reflecting pool during my recent visit (Y’all know this shit occurs naturally right?)

A very smug looking man stands above a very
Green pool

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 20

From: Judith Butler
Date: Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 3:10 PM
Subject: Re: Spencer Bokat-Lindel on Turducken
To: <nytnews@nytimes.com>
To Spencer Bokat-Lindell,
I very much appreciated your piece in performative Turkey, but wanted to caution against the association of 'performative' with fake. The term gained meaning through J.L. Austin's theory of speech acts. There he gives the example of legal performative s such as "I sentence you" or "l pronounce you man and wife." In those cases the speech act makes something real happen in the world. Someone goes to jail or two people get married. Similarly, in Notes Toward a Performative Theory is Assembly, a title that appears to be echoed by your interesting piece, assemblies form an exemplify sometimes the very principles for which they call. They bring about a reality, or seek to, but they are not producing a falsehood by virtue of their performativity. Although some take performative to mean ersatz, that is not the main meaning of the term in speech act theory or its queer theory appropriation. Such a construal suggests that performative effects are not real or are the opposite of real.
In any case, I enjoyed your piece.
best wishes,
Judith Butler
UC Berkeley

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 19

We yet have our part of the work to accomplish, but we will win. Fin. Happy Juneteenth y’all.

Shot taken from beside Lincoln at the Memorial, looking with him out over the Mall at the Washington Monument

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 19

And yet even here the inscription gave me pause, because it directly connects the incomplete project of Washington and Lincoln with the anti-fascist project of the Second World War

The inscription at the WWII memorial:

HERE IN THE PRESENCE OF WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN,
ONE THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY FATHER AND THE OTHER
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY PRESERVER OF OUR NATION,
WE HONOR THOSE TWENTIETH CENTURY AMERICANS WHO
TOOK UP THE STRUGGLE DURING THE SECOND WORLD
WAR AND MADE THE SACRIFICES TO PERPETUATE
THE GIFT OUR FOREFATHERS ENTRUSTED TO US:
A NATION CONCEIVED IN LIBERTY AND JUSTICE.

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 19

Rounding the mall I came upon the WWII memorial, which I’ve never had much time for. Built during the height of post-9/11 paranoia and xenophobia, it’s always struck me as more of an exercise in fascist myth-making than an earnest memorial.

Wide shot of the WWII memorial, a pool with fountains surrounded by pillars engraved with the names of the US states and territories which sent troops to the war, and two short arches at the 3 o’clock and 9 o’clock positions engraved with Atlantic and Pacific for the theaters

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 19

And that was a good reminder to me, for us here on Bluesky, that the imagery he creates is intended for us too, and to not lose hope when it seems that he has co-opted, corrupted, and polluted every symbol of America that ever mattered.

Shot of the John F Kennedy Hockey Fields on the national mall showing large co-ed groups of people in brightly colored team T-shirts gathering and playing casual sports. The Washington Monument rises in the background

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 19

I was struck by how many different people were at the Memorial, from all walks and countries, and our stillness. Despite our President’s efforts to co-opt the imagery of the memorial to his own glory its power in person is not diminished

A wide shot of the Memorial showing its steps covered in people. We are too far away to make out faces but they are wearing many different colors and sitting and standing

A closer shot of the steps of the Memorial showing its steps covered in people. We are still too far away to make out faces but they are wearing many different colors and sitting and standing

A shot of the pediment of the memorial showing the names of the Union states engraved above the columns

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 19

I also paid a visit to one of our former Presidents and meditated for a while on his second inaugural address, from the middle of the (first?) American Civil War The evil that we face, today within our own government, is an evil we have faced before and vanquished

FELLOW COUNTRYMEN: AT THIS SECOND APPEARING TO TAKE THE OATH OF THE PRESIDENTIAL OFFICE THERE IS LESS OCCASION FOR AN EXTENDED ADDRESS THAN THERE WAS AT THE FIRST • THEN A STATEMENT SOMEWHAT IN DETAIL OF A COURSE TO BE PURSUED SEEMED FITTING AND PROPER • NOW AT THE EXPIRATION OF FOUR YEARS DURING WHICH PUBLIC DECLARATIONS HAVE BEEN CONSTANTLY CALLED FORTH ON EVERY POINT AND PHASE OF THE GREAT CONTEST WHICH STILL ABSORBS THE ATTENTION AND ENGROSSES THE ENERGIES OF THE NATION LITTLE THAT IS NEW COULD BE PRESENTED • THE PROGRESS OF OUR ARMS UPON WHICH ALL ELSE CHIEFLY DEPENDS IS AS WELL KNOWN TO THE PUBLIC AS TO MYSELF AND IT IS I TRUST REASONABLY SATISFACTORY AND ENCOURAGING TO ALL • WITH HIGH HOPE FOR THE FUTURE NO PREDICTION IN REGARD TO IT IS VENTURED• ON THE OCCASION CORRESPONDING TO THIS FOUR YEARS AGO ALL THOUGHTS WERE ANXIOUSLY DIRECTED TO AN IMPENDING CIVIL WAR • ALL DREADED IT-ALL SOUGHT TO AVERT IT • WHILE THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS WAS BEING DELIVERED FROM THIS PLACE DEVOTED ALTOGETHER TO SAVING THE UNION WITHOUT WAR INSURGENT AGENTS WERE IN THE CITY SEEKING TO DESTROY IT WITHOUT WAR - SEEKING TO DISSOLVE THE UNION AND DIVIDE EFFECTS BY INEGOTIATION • BOTH PARTIES DEPRECATED WAR BUT ONE OF THEM WOULD MAKE WAR RATHER THAN LET THE NATION SURVIVE

AND THE OTHER WOULD ACCEPT WAR RATHER
ND
ES-
ON RE NT
BE
THAN LET IT PERISH • AND THE WAR CAME • ONE EIGHTH OF THE WHOLE POPULATION WERE COLORED SLAVES NOT DISTRIBUTED GENERALLY OVER THE UNION BUT LOCALIZED IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF IT • THESE SLAVES CONSTITUTED A PECULIAR AND POWERFUL INTEREST• ALL KNEW THAT THIS INTEREST WAS SOMEHOW THE CAUSE OF THE WAR • TO STRENGTHEN PER-
IS H
PETUATE AND EXTEND THIS INTEREST WAS THE OBJECT FOR WHICH THE INSURGENTS WOULD REND THE UNION EVEN BY WAR WHILE THE GOV-
S
ERNMENT CLAIMED NO RIGHT TO DO MORE THAN, TO RESTRICT THE TERRITORIAL ENLARGEMENT OF IT • NEITHER PARTY EXPECTED FOR THE WAR THE MAGNITUDE OR THE DURATION WHICH IT HAS ALREADY ATTAINED • NEITHER ANTICIPATED THAT THE CAUSE OF THE CONFLICT MIGHT CEASE WITH OR EVEN BEFORE THE CONFLICT ITSELF SHOULD CEASE • EACH LOOKED FOR AN EASIER TRIUMPH AND A RESULT LESS FUNDAMENTAL AND ASTOUNDING • BOTH READ THE SAME BIBLE AND PRAY TO THE SAME GOD AND EACH INVOKES HIS AID AGAINST THE OTHER• IT MAY SEEM STRANGE THAT ANY MEN SHOULD DARE TO ASK A JUST GOD'S ASSISTANCE IN WRINGING THEIR BREAD FROM THE SWEAT OF OTHER MEN'S FACES BUT LET US JUDGE NOT THAT WE BE NOT JUDGED • THE PRAYERS OF BOTH COULD NOT BE ANSWERED THAT OF NEITHER HAS BEEN ANSWERED FULLY • THE ALMIGHTY HAS HIS OWN PURPOSES."WOE UNTO THE WORLD BECAUSE OF OFFENSES FOR IT MUST NEEDS BE THAT OFFENSES COME BUT WOE TO THAT MAN BY WHOM THE OFFENSE COMETH."

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.

An enormous marble statue of a seated man (Abraham Lincoln) whose gaze is fixed above the observer on something far in the distance. The inscription above reads “IN THIS TEMPLE
AS IN THE HEARTS OF THE PEOPLE FOR WHOM HE SAVED THE UNION THE MEMORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN
IS ENSHRINED FOREVER”

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 19

Because I was in town and staying nearby, I figured I had to pay a visit to DC’s latest tourist attraction. Folks, it is every bit as green as people say

A white guy with a short beard, heavy glasses, and a slight smirk stands next to a reflecting pool that is, in fact, very very green

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 10

Bit of a long one from over on Mastodon. (I am once again begging people to just make blog posts) infosec.exchange/@david_chisn...

Mastodon post from David Chisnall:

The interesting thing about the German court ruling against Google is not the verdict. The fact that, if you put libel on your web site, you are liable for it even if you used a machine to automatically generate libel, should not surprise anyone who has paid attention to the law at any point in the last century or so: humans have agency, the tools that they use do not shield them from liability, no matter how obfuscating they are.

The bit I suspect will have much more impact longer term is one of the defences entered by Google's lawyers. Somewhat more verbose in the original German, but it boiled down to: Everyone knows LLMs produce nonsense, no one should ever trust the output of an LLM in any situation that matters, it's not Google's fault if people read the output of an LLM and believed it might have some connection to reality.

It's debatable whether everyone knows that, but this is now an official statement entered into the court record that at least one of the major LLM vendors knows this. And that's now an on-the-record statement made under penalty of perjury that can be entered as evidence in any court case against companies selling LLM-integrated tooling.

I suspect that this will show up in a lot of court cases over the next few years and probably have a much bigger long-term impact than the ruling. Any claim about utility made by vendors of 'AI' tools is now open to lawsuits ranging from misleading advertising to outright fraud as a result of this.

Google would probably have been much better advised to settle the case rather than enter that claim as evidence. Imagine if a car manufacturer had entered a defence against liability in case of a collision by saying 'everyone knows automobiles are impossible to operate safely on the roads and anyone who buys one should know better than to take it on the public highway'. Google's lawyers have just done the equivalent for the 'AI' industry.

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· Jun 3

Me too

Quote tweet from Erika Hall, reposted by Cyd Harrell: “Co-sign.” Quoted tweet has been deleted.

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 31

Mediocrities…

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 29

Implementation Detail or Invariant?; or, The Hardware Interlock Fallacy free-dissociation.co...

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 23

Yeah this checks out, I am slightly too loud and urban and drinky to be ELCA any more

A scatter plot showing a large dot on CBC (something Baptist Church), with Episcopal, zucchini Disciples, and PCUSA highlighted and ELCA in gray nearby in the same cluster

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 22

Advice for New and Aspiring Consultants free-dissociation.co...

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 21

Was it what I was supposed to be doing today? No. But also

A photo of a somewhat intentionally asymmetric arrangement of yellow and orange flowers (rose, chrysanthemum, cockscomb, many others whose names I don’t know) backed by deep greenery (bay leaves and geranium greens) with a stalk of not-yet-bloomed iris sticking out at a jaunty angle. Pay no attention to the unwashed dishes around the edge of the frame please

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 21

Very pleased with the new visual design that @pa.ulst.ar did for Keystone! Arriving in Keystone Desktop in the forthcoming 0.2.0-alpha release. complexsystems.group/keystone-des...

A screenshot of a webapp called Keystone, showing a chapter called "Environment" of a document called TCAS II Intent Spec (part of the TCAS II Example project). The meaningful part is mostly the visual design, unfortunately, but, well, it looks simple and clean and still mostly textual but like some care has been applied to make it not simply a 1996-era web page.

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 19

Photo of former Vice President Al Gore resting his forehead on his hand, with a pensive look on his face. Caption reads: "The internet was a mistake. -Al Gore"

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 14

> Elon Musk weighs in on Lupita Nyong'o in Christopher Nolan's adaptation of the Odyssey Okay that's quite enough

Screenshot of the Bluesky muted words pane showing 'musk' and 'elon'

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 12

I dropped my 2024 ballot in a blue USPS mailbox in Brooklyn on Fri, Nov 1, 2024. Election Day was Tue, Nov 4, and in December I received this letter dated Nov 25.

Partial scan of a letter from the City and County of San Francisco Department of Elections dated 11/25/2024.

Letter reads:

"""
Your Vote-by-Mail Ballot for the November 5, 2024 Election Could Not Be Counted

Kevin Riggle
[address redacted]

Dear Voter:
The Department of Elections could not count your vote-by-mail ballot for the November 5, 2024 Election because the ballot return envelope was either postmarked after Election Day or received after November 12, 2024.
To ensure that your ballot can be counted in future elections, please return it on time. If you return your ballot by mail, your ballot return envelope must be postmarked by Election Day, (check collection times if you use a blue USPS mailbox to mail your envelope on Election Day). If you return your ballot in person to a voting site or drop box, you must do so no later than 8 p.m. on Election Day.
If you have any questions, please call (415) 554-4375 or send an email to SFVote@sfgov.org.
Sincerely,
San Francisco Department of Elections
"""

Kevin Riggle@kevinr· May 11

You know, I think it's time