Blake C. Stacey

@blakestacey

physicist, they/them, www.sunclipse.org

162 Siguiendo445 Seguidores5284 Publicaciones

¿Es tu perfil?Reclámalo y blakestacey.dirty.social es tuyo.Reclamar perfil

And really, Dershowitz had tanked his reputation by 2019, *months before* the incident over which he is suing CNN and trying to upend press freedom, which was in January 2020. See, for example, the Columbia Journalism Review in October '19: www.cjr.org/the_profile/...

The first time I talked to Alan Dershowitz was July 29, the day the New Yorker published its piece. The story was damning. It outlined darker points of Dershowitz’s career: rhetorically advocating sex with minors, his relationship with and vigorous defense of Epstein against allegations of rape and sex trafficking. The story also noted that Virginia Roberts Giuffre accused Dershowitz of participating in Epstein’s sexual cabal. Dershowitz responded by attacking Giuffre in the press. In April, Giuffre had filed a defamation suit against Dershowitz.

Giuffre told the New Yorker, “Jeffrey got away with it, basically. And Dershowitz was one of the people who enabled that to happen … Dershowitz thinks he’s a tyrant and can get away with anything. And I wanted to say, I might be as meek as a mouse, but I’m going to hold you accountable.”

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 27

That's what he told Entertainment Weekly.

So how did he get inside the head of his character in the dark foodie comedy The Menu? Leguizamo plays an on-the-wane action star trying to become a food show presenter in the hope of keeping his career alive.

"I've met lots of these stars like that, maybe before they were washed up," he says. "I mean, now they're washed-up. I kind of based mine on Steven Seagal. I had a bad run-in with him. We did a movie together. It was Executive Decision. He's kind of a horrible human."

from https://ew.com/movies/john-leguizamo-steven-seagal-the-menu-interview/

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 26

Excerpt from NY law S.4505:

"Addictive social media platform" shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application that primarily serves as a medium for covered users to interact with media generated by other users and which offers or provides covered users an addictive feed, push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, and/or like counts as a significant part of the services provided by such website, online service, online application, or mobile application.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 14

Chocolate sodas were Isaac Asimov's second-favorite childhood drink.

I had better luck with sodas, for some reason. Every once in a while, my mother would make a chocolate soda for me. The soda fountain in the store could make cherry sodas, vanilla sodas, strawberry

sodas, pineapple sodas, and so on, and there were bottled sodas, too. And if you added a dollop of ice cream, you had an ice cream soda. For a penny or two, if you were a pauper or a masochist, you could have a small or a large plain seltzer. what I wanted, however, was a chocolate soda, undiluted with ice cream.

You could never get that anywhere but in a candy store because chocolate sodas were never bottled. Now that there are no candy stores to speak of, and no soda fountains, there are no longer any chocolate sodas of the kind I remember.

I have a theory that chocolate sodas are called "egg creams" by some people. At least some people assume that since I was brought up in a candy store in the old days I must be an expert on egg creams, and when I tell them I never heard of an egg cream, they doubt my sanity. Therefore, when I found a place recently that said it supplied egg creams, I ordered one, and found that it tasted like an inferior chocolate soda.

[From pages 70--71 of In Memory Yet Green (1979)]

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 9

I knew I'd seen Nuzzi's logic before.

She retreats from anything truly revealing as quickly as possible. Even in her attempts at capturing her affections for Kennedy, Nuzzi paints herself as the most credulous reporter in the world making the most brain-dead assessments you could imagine. When Kennedy confesses to her that he’s been using DMT (a type of hallucinogen), she doesn’t consider that his sobriety has been compromised. “I had heard he used another drug and there were rumors it sometimes interfered with his ability to perform the work of campaigning for office,” she writes. “If he was willing to tell me about the drugs he did consume, like DMT, it did not make sense that he would lie to me about the others.” It could be a compelling moment braided with her story about her mother’s addiction; instead, it’s a horrifying peek into the mind of a fully compromised journalist, and a foolish woman with a silly crush.

https://slate.com/culture/2025/12/olivia-nuzzi-rfk-donald-trump-ryan-lizza-book.html

“If anything, the unfortunate period he suffered has caused him to really think about what he wants to do with his money and his time, and support knowledge,” says Krauss. “Jeffrey has surrounded himself with beautiful women and young women but they’re not as young as the ones that were claimed. As a scientist I always judge things on empirical evidence and he always has women ages 19 to 23 around him, but I’ve never seen anything else, so as a scientist, my presumption is that whatever the problems were I would believe him over other people.” Though colleagues have criticized him over his relationship with Epstein, Krauss insists, “I don’t feel tarnished in any way by my relationship with Jeffrey; I feel raised by it.”

https://skepchick.org/2011/04/lawrence-krauss-defends-a-sex-offender-embarrasses-scientists-everywhere/

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 6

Am I the only one who sees it?

YouTube thumbnail of Gavin Newsom from the NYT, captioned "We Have to be More Culturally Normal"

Reuters headline "Hegseth says he would have ordered second strike on Caribbean vessel" with a photo of Hegseth that rather evokes the photo of Newsom

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 6

If we look at the decision that Dershowitz is trying to appeal, we find this (left), which points back to Jews for Jesus v. Rapp (right):

Florida law, which we apply here, requires five elements for
a defamation claim: (1) publication; (2) falsity; (3) “knowledge or
reckless disregard as to the falsity on a matter concerning a public
official”; (4) actual damages; and (5) defamatory content. Turner v.
Wells, 879 F.3d 1254, 1262 (11th Cir. 2018).
The third element resolves this case. The concept of actual
malice was incorporated into constitutional law in New York Times
Co. v. Sullivan, where the Supreme Court considered First
Amendment limits on state-tort defamation liability for public
officials. 376 U.S. 254, 256, 279–80 (1964). Public figures, the Court
said, cannot recover damages for defamation unless they prove
that an untrue statement was made “with knowledge that it was
false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.” Id.
at 279–80. That is, “actual malice.” Id. at 280. Florida has since
implemented that same standard as a matter of state law. See Jews
for Jesus, Inc. v. Rapp, 997 So. 2d 1098, 1106 (Fla. 2008).

The Florida Legislature has also provided certain requirements for plaintiffs to meet in order to bring a defamation suit, which serve to protect First Amendment interests. Under Florida's defamation law, a prospective plaintiff is required to give a media defendant notice five days before initiating a civil action. § 770.01, Fla. Stat. (2007). The notice must specify the alleged false and defamatory statements contained in the article or broadcast. Id. Further, section 770.02, Florida Statutes (2007), limits the amount of damages a plaintiff may recover where: (1) the statements were published in good faith; (2) the statements were false due to an honest mistake of facts; (3) there were reasonable grounds for believing the statements were true; and (4) a full and fair correction, apology, or retraction was published or broadcast within a specific time period. We believe that all of these protections are necessary to ensure the delicate balance between preventing tortious injury resulting from defamatory statements and protecting the constitutional right to free speech.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 5

MA makes a big deal about not trying to hold Meta liable for "the content of the content". I think @thefireorg.bsky.social is correct in saying that in fact, they are doing that.

As if to prove the point, the Commonwealth asserts that addiction to
Instagram harms youth by, among other things, inducing “negative social
comparison.” Compl. ¶ 201. But “social comparison” is the result of specific
types of content users post and encounter. It requires content—such as
pictures of activities, vacations, parties, or “selfies”—that allows a user to
compare themselves with others.

Excerpted from https://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/pdf/SJC-13747/SJC-13747_21_Amicus_Foundation_for_Individual_Rights_and_Expression_Brief.pdf

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 4

Clone High promo poster, showing characters sprawled out in a field of grass, partially resting atop each other

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 4

I was definitely in a Mood when writing the intro for my lecture notes.

This is a book about heat and unpredictability. I am writing it during a pandemic,
while humanity goes about destroying the Earth’s climate and our democratic insti-
tutions, flawed to begin with, splinter and fall. I began this project during the first
COVID spring, because I was teaching statistical physics to graduate students and
wanted to provide as much for them as I could. I continue it because teaching science
feels at least a little important and, unlike so many important things, may not be
entirely beyond my capabilities.
As I told the students in my graduate quantum mechanics course this past semester,
“I don’t know whether I can make this class a reason to get up in the morning, but I
will try. That requires, I think, a reason to study quantum physics which goes beyond
the fact that the department requires it, maybe even a better reason than its being a
useful theory in various practical applications. Perhaps, in a time of confusion, clarity
can be a source of renewal; perhaps, when lies are commonplace and legitimized, feeling
an argument unfold in logical sequence is a moment of respite. I don’t know.”

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 4

Also, let's make a quick check with www.snopes.com/fact-check/h... ...

That Hillary Clinton supporters circulated such an e-mail isn't in question, but the claim that that's the moment the birther theory "first emerged" simply isn't true. The likeliest point of origin we've been able to find was a post on conservative message board FreeRepublic.com dated 1 March 2008 (which, according to a report in The Telegraph, was at least a month before Clinton supporters got on the e-mail bandwagon):

I was told today that Obama swore in on a Koran for his Senate seat. I do not believe he did. Can someone clarify this for me? I am under the impression only a Congressman has so far sworn in on a Koran.

Also that Obama's mother gave birth to him overseas and then immediately flew into Hawaii and registered his birth as having taken place in Hawaii.

Again, any clarifications on this? Defintely disqualifies him for Prez. There must be some trace of an airticket. While small babies are not charged air fare they do have a ticket issued for them.

Long time ago but there may be some residual information somewhere. Good ammo (if available and true) BEST USED AFTER he becomes PREZ (if that occurs) and it's too late for Dems - except accept the VP.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 3

You're the one carrying on the work that began with burning the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft. So, I mean, if the shoe fits... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institu...

Nazi Party members at the Opernplatz book burning in Berlin

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 2

It's also possible that trying to wedge pre-emption of state AI regulation into "kids' safety" bills will stall the latter. www.politico.com/newsletters/...

WHERE ELSE AI LEGISLATION COULD HITCH A RIDE — The NDAA isn’t the only place Republicans are looking to stick language to preempt state AI laws. Katherine Long and Alfred Ng report for Morning Tech that a partisan fight is brewing over whether to include it in legislation to protect kids’ safety online.

Two bills with children’s tech safety provisions had bipartisan support in the Senate until House Republicans tacked on preemption language that could derail both pieces of legislation, known as COPPA 2.0 and KOSA. Democrats believe the language would benefit Big Tech by stripping states’ authority to safeguard kids.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 2

On the possibility of ramming through #KOSA in the most ill-conceived manner possible: www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Nathan Leamer, a former GOP staffer at the Federal Communications Commission and executive director of Build American AI, a new pro-industry group, told POLITICO last week that Republican lawmakers are negotiating several potential online protections for kids as part of the AI preemption package they hope to shoehorn into a year-end defense bill.

“Is it KOSA or [the] SCREEN Act, or age verification, app-store verification? I think all of those are on the table,” said Leamer. “But I don’t know what the final package is going to be.”

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Dec 2

... in "Definition of a Germanophile" (1940), which also says this.

I always discover that my interlocutor idolizes Hitler, not in spite of the high-altitude bombs and the rumbling invasions, the machine guns, the accusations and lies, but because of those acts and instruments. He is delighted by evil and atrocity. The triumph of Germany does not matter to him; he wants the humiliation of England and a satisfying burning of London. He admires Hitler as he once admired his precursors in the criminal underworld of Chicago. The discussion becomes impossible because the offenses I ascribe to Hitler are, for him, wonders and virtues. The apologists of Amigas, Ramirez, Quiroga, Rosas or Urquiza pardon or gloss over their crimes; the defender of Hitler derives a special pleasure from them. The Hitlerist is always a spiteful man, and a secret and sometimes public worshiper of criminal “vivacity” and cruelty. He is, thanks to a poverty of imagination, a man who believes that the future cannot be different from the present, and that Germany, till now victorious, cannot lose. He is the cunning man who longs to be on the winning side.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 30

I made the mistake of assuming that my experience with LSD would be the same as anybody else’s. Prior to that, I’d known that if you all drink whisky, you all get drunk, you all feel dizzy and you all start slipping around. So I presumed, mistakenly, that everybody who took LSD was a most enlightened being. And then I started finding that there were people who were just as stupid as they’d been before, or people who hadn’t really got any enlightenment except a lot of colours and lights and an Alice in Wonderland type of experience.

— George Harrison, quoted on page 179 of the Beatles Anthology

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 30

Influencers desperately trying to catch up to the MP of Woolwich East in 1955.

CLOSE-UP OF MAYHEW, AS BEFORE

MAYHEW
Well, er, Humphry Osmond said... that was the difficulty all the time... it was bound to be... of trying to find this bridge of communications between the two worlds of time in which I've been this afternoon, in your presence... and I've failed to do so... not for want of trying... I know, in my lucid moments, that I've failed... but, er... it's because I don't think it can be done, that's all I can say. I don't think it can be done. One can only live in one time or in another...

LONG PAUSE

...and, er... I think, er... (PAUSE) yes, I'm sorry, once again I'm coming back to what I've been trying to say - that I have seen a whole series of things happening, but not in a series. Er, they have been of equal reality, Humphry. Some have been more real, some have been less real, but no... of inequal reality, but they have neither gone in front of each other nor behind each other... there's been no time sequence at all in them. And, for all I know, what I'm saying now, I may have said before... it's obviously... (PAUSE, SHRUGS) ...and er, I'm now becoming tired as well... in, er... I can see, in physical terms... so that, I'm afraid I must disappoint to you again...

MAYHEW SUDDENLY SITS BACK IN HIS ARMCHAIR AND STARES AT THE FAR WALL, WITH A GREAT BIG BENIGN GRIN ON HIS FACE.

DIRECTOR'S VOICE (OFF)
Cut!

FILMING CUTS

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 29

I can understand why you're behind, when the decisions make no sense, and sometimes struggle to make other decisions make sense.

Excerpt from IN RE: APPLE INC. APP STORE SIMULATED CASINO-STYLE GAMES LITIGATION (N.D. Cal. 5:21-md-02985-EJD), in which Judge Davila tries to make sense of Calise v. Meta and generally fails.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 28

Crude edit of a panel from the Wondermark comic that introduced the term "sealioning". A superficially polite sealion is leaning into a woman's personal space, saying "I would like to have a civil conversation about your statement. Would you mind showing me evidence of any negative thing any AI slop has ever done to you?"

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 27

TabPFNMix is a hybrid machine learning model specifically designed for tabular data. It combines the strengths of tree-based models, such as gradient boosting machines (GBMs), with neural networks to achieve superior predictive performance. The model leverages the Pattern Feature Net (PFN) architecture, which captures complex interactions between features while maintaining computational efficiency. The TabPFNMix model can be represented as:

f_TabPFNMix

where is a tree-based feature transformation, and is a neural network that processes the transformed features.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 25

Literally the only thing preventing Wikipedia from getting swept up by #KOSA is how this clause in the definition of "covered platform" is interpreted.

(E) uses the personal information of the user to advertise, market, or make content recommendations.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 25

The most recent Senate version of #KOSA put restrictions on what state Attorneys General can sue over, but the House version doesn't.

(1) IN GENERAL .—In any case in which the attorney general of a State, or an official or agency of
a State, has reason to believe that an interest of the
residents of such State has been or is threatened or
adversely affected by an act or practice in violation
of this Act, the State, as parens patriae, may bring
a civil action on behalf of the residents of the State
in an appropriate State court or an appropriate district court of the United States to—
(A) enjoin such act or practice;
(B) enforce compliance with this Act;
(C) obtain damages, restitution, or other
compensation on behalf of residents of the State; or
(D) obtain such other legal and equitable
relief as the court may consider to be appropriate.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 25

I think this is what they're saying instead of "duty of care".

(a) IN GENERAL .—A covered platform shall establish, implement, maintain, and enforce reasonable policies,
practices, and procedures that address the following harms to minors:
(1) Threats of physical violence.
(2) Sexual exploitation and abuse.
(3) Distribution, sale, or use of narcotic drugs,
tobacco products, cannabis products, gambling, or
alcohol.
(4) Any financial harm caused by deceptive practices.
(b) C ONSIDERATIONS .—The policies, practices, and
procedures required under subsection (a) shall be appropriate to each of the following:
(1) The size and complexity of the covered platform.
(2) The technological feasibility of addressing
the harms described in subsection (a).

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 25

The most pedantic nerds on Earth (complimentary) are willing to put "conspiracy theorist" in the opening sentence.

Screenshot of the beginning of RFK Jr.'s Wikipedia article. "Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954), also known by his initials RFK Jr., is an American politician, environmental lawyer, author, conspiracy theorist, and anti-vaccine activist serving since 2025 as the 26th United States secretary of health and human services. A member of the prominent Kennedy family, he is a son of Senator and U.S. attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and a nephew of U.S. president John F. Kennedy."

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 19

John Brockman definitely is.

Date: Thursday, December 15 2011 02:57 AM
Subject: Re: The Edge Annual Question 2012 - Invitation (Confidential)
From: John Brockman
To: jeffrey epstein <jeevacation@gmail.com>,
Keep it coming. JB
On Dec 14, 2011, at 3:47 PM, jeffrey epstein wrote:

> Mathematics ideals are universal truths, biology is intrinsically based in deception. Predators
in search of

free energy, would be able to decipher and consume, if it weren't couched in a multi layered
encrypted form.

Even self deception acts as a defensive strategy. More later
> Sorry for all the typos .Sent from my iPhone

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 18

I was honestly a bit surprised to find that this had not vanished from the AtlasIntel website yet.

Snip of AtlasIntel's poll of the New Jersey gubernatorial race, released 31 October 2025, showing 50.2% for Sherrill and 49.3% for Ciatarelli.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 17

Hey, remember Grokipedia? Its article on Newton's law of gravity is, like, 50% rendering errors by weight.

screenshot of Grokipedia's article "Newton's law of universal gravitation", showing garbled text and math formulas

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 8

A headline reading "The Latecomer's Guide to Crypto" with the byline "Kevin Roose"

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Nov 5

Exactly the opposite message in the NYT today...

By Catie Edmondson and Megan Mineiro

Reporting from the Capitol
Nov. 5, 2025 Updated 3:25 p.m. ET

Democratic victories in key statewide elections on Tuesday have injected a jolt of energy into the party’s resolve to continue the government shutdown fight, putting at least a temporary damper on bipartisan talks to end the crisis.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday dug deeper into their demand that President Trump negotiate with them on health care subsidies in exchange for reopening the government, after Mr. Trump declared that the record-long federal closure had hurt his party in Tuesday’s elections.

In the days leading up to the balloting, some centrist Democrats had signaled that they were ready to strike a deal to end the standoff. Patience has worn thin across the political spectrum with a shutdown that has furloughed hundreds of thousands of federal workers, sapped nutritional benefits for millions of Americans and snarled air traffic.

A clutch of Democratic moderates has been meeting privately with a handful of centrist Republicans, mostly to discuss spending legislation that would fund the government.

But Mr. Trump’s declaration on Wednesday at the White House that the shutdown had hurt Republicans appeared to have complicated efforts to find an off-ramp, at least for now.

Blake C. Stacey@blakestacey· Oct 30

xcancel is a way of reading X without logging in. Here's the thread: