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Two cities under siege

I’ve thought about this often lately, how much does today compare to the years running up to the American Revolution, where British troops attempted to force compliance in its populace? Boston 1770 and Minneapolis 2026 share similarities.

The rage from those pre-revolution clashes in Boston continued to linger for years into the Constitutional Convention, and then the debate over the Bill of Rights. The Founders were also students of history, and saw how the domestic use of the military led to the fall of the Roman Republic. This, in large part, is why we have the Second, Third, and Fourth Amendments, and why the Constitution splits control of the military between the president and Congress. You really can’t overstate how much the Founders worried about . . . exactly what we’re seeing in Minneapolis.

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  • Two cities under siege

    I’ve thought about this often lately, how much does today compare to the years running up to the American Revolution, where British troops attempted to force compliance in its populace? Boston 1770 and Minneapolis 2026 share similarities. The rage from those pre-revolution clashes in Boston continued to linger for years into the Constitutional Convention, and…

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    I found myself nodding along to nearly everything in this article about why certain people can foresee collapse before others. Basically, it comes down to be able to see patterns. Baron-Cohen’s work on hyper-systemising (2006) describes how autistic people naturally gravitate toward understanding structures, mechanisms, and causal patterns rather than social signalling. They notice inconsistencies,…

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    A really great essay delving into a design pattern that needs to be reevaluated for possible alternatives. The original inbox was a wooden tray on a real desk. Papers arrived there because a person walked them over. The obligation was physics: it took up space, it had mass, someone had expended effort. You could see…

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    A cow using a stick to scratch an itch. For a cow, Veronika has had what might be considered an idyllic life. She lives in a picturesque town in Austria, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and glacial lakes. She is a beloved family pet, rather than a production animal, and spends her days ambling through tree-lined…

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    The saying goes, “history doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.” In Florida, Jewish seniors are offering to hide their Haitian caregivers. About 500 seniors live at Sinai Residences in Boca Raton, Florida, including many Holocaust survivors. Recently, some of them asked if they could hide the building’s Haitian staff in their apartments. “That reminds me of…

  • Bluesky sports starter packs

    One of the more interesting features of Bluesky is the concept of starter packs, where people can create a list of accounts for a certain topic. Since sports are the last bastion of real time reaction culture, it would be natural for communities within sports to play out commentary in real time. Denny Carter collated…

  • Cryptocurrencies are dying

    Cryptocurrencies are dying as joke coins and pump and dump schemes burn out. With that in mind, a recent report from CoinGecko (via CoinDesk) says the crypto reaper has been unusually busy lately. Looking at its own records from as far back as 2021, CoinGecko found that 20.2 million tokens had been placed on the…

  • Spray-On Powder That Seals Life-Threatening Wounds

    Pretty cool, a powder that stops bleeding: KAIST scientists have created a fast-acting, stable powder hemostat that stops bleeding in one second and could significantly improve survival in combat and emergency medicine. Severe blood loss remains the primary cause of death from combat injuries. To address this challenge, a research team at KAIST that included…