I’ve spent some time reading legal material, and I’d say that most of the legal jargon exists because common English terms aren’t fully-defined. That’s fine for everyday speech, but not when one is talking about whether-or-not something is legal.

So, for example, take mens rea. That’s Latin for “guilty mind”. Could you come up with some kind of common-language equivalent? Yeah, probably. You could maybe say “intent to act wrongly” or something like that. But there is a lot of precisely-defined legal doctrine around mens rea, and using the term makes it immediately clear that you’re talking about that, and not a more-casual meaning.

Generally-speaking, Latin isn’t in vogue these days, isn’t more Latin being added, but there will still be phrases, even though they’re in English, that have that same sort of precise meaning and probably aren’t the phrase one would use if one was just trying to give a high-level overview to someone who isn’t familiar with the doctrine.

I think that this is a positive. My quick skim of the material here is that it is not hysterical, and it avoids the “we’re buying Greenland” sort of distractions. It’s talking about real policy, and trying to suss out the actual impact, including digging up numbers.

We’ll see where this goes, but my initial take is that this is more-or-less what I’d like to see from media.

The same judge established the freeze – which was intended to be temporary – and then later dissolved it.

This sort of thing is done when an action might have serious consequences and more time is needed to examine the arguments and their legal basis.

It’s not different judges fighting with each other. It’s just how the legal system normally works.

EDIT: I’d add that this is just over an offer to people to voluntarily resign. If the Trump administration does intend to do major layoffs – which would cause people who don’t want to leave to go – my guess is that there are likely to be more legal actions over it.

Having a fee of some sort based on payment option is probably desirable. They get charged those fees.

If they don’t expose the fee to you, they still charge the fee, or at least an average that covers their costs across all users, but it gets buried in a single price charged to all users, so you can’t choose whether or not to pay it.

Otherwise, the guys paying via their bank are subsidizing the guys paying via credit cards, even though they aren’t incurring the cost.

In the US. I’ve never seen it served as a drink or in a soda machine, and most carbonated drinks, aside from birch beer, are sweeter.

I like drinking diet tonic water straight. As far as I know, it’s not generally-consumed as a drink, just used as a mixer. More sour than most sodas.

I don’t know if it’s super weird, but I don’t believe that it’s the primary intent for the thing.

https://www.city-data.com/city/Fremont-California.html

Mean prices in 2022: all housing units: over $1,000,000; detached houses: over $1,000,000; townhouses or other attached units: over $1,000,000; in 2-unit structures: $871,684; in 3-to-4-unit structures: $882,000; in 5-or-more-unit structures: $724,990; mobile homes: $226,331

Median gross rent in 2022: $2,745.

This happens when housing construction is constrained.

Fremont exists on a strip of land between the mountains and San Francisco Bay. It cannot expand outwards. It can only expand upwards.

https://earth.google.com/web/search/fremont/@37.59363502,-121.9914645,161.19919328a,9097.59119891d,35y,-4.42998245h,88.63834593t,0r/data=CnYaSBJCCiUweDgwOGZiZjQ2YjdlOGNhZjc6MHg4YWRhMzEzYjg5ZDg4OGQ0GcxHrYs2xkJAIWuYofFEf17AKgdmcmVtb250GAIgASImCiQJ1i4P4JTaQkAR8ae1kYPTQkAZ2AoAEvKMXsAhC_jRBDmSXsBCAggBQgIIAEoNCP___________wEQAA

That’s what Fremont looks like. It is full of low-height residential buildings.

You want people to be in houses, then you’re going to have to adjust zoning and planning restrictions to permit Fremont to grow upwards.

Don’t do that, and people will simply bid what they are able and willing to bid to try to force someone else out of the limited supply of housing so that they can live there. Some people will not be able and willing, and those people won’t get housing in Fremont. If you don’t like that, then you need to remove restrictions on vertical growth.

I don’t know about them in particular, but at one point in time, it was common for a lot of the bureaucracy to change with the President. That is, there was functionally a patronage system in place, and the President could reward supporters with government jobs. We had major reforms to end that, IIRC at some point in the 1800s, and I’m pretty sure that that placed some level of restrictions on at least hiring, if not firing, that the President could do in the bureaucracy. Today, the President only appoints a limited number of people at the top.

kagis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoils_system

In politics and government, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends (cronyism), and relatives (nepotism) as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party. It contrasts with a merit system, where offices are awarded or promoted on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity.

The term was used particularly in politics of the United States, where the federal government operated on a spoils system until the Pendleton Act was passed in 1883 due to a civil service reform movement. Thereafter the spoils system was largely replaced by nonpartisan merit at the federal level of the United States.

Hmm. Jackson was apparently known for it – Jackson, like Trump, ran a populist campaign, interestingly.

In 1828, moderation was expected to prevail in the transfer of political power from one U.S. president to another. This had less to do with the ethics of politicians than it did with the fact the presidency had not transferred from one party to another since the election of 1800—known historically for the extraordinary steps the outgoing Federalist Party took to try and maintain as much influence as possible by exploiting their control over federal appointments up until their final hours in office (see: Marbury v. Madison and Midnight Judges Act). By 1816, the Federalists were no longer nationally viable, and the U.S. became effectively a one-party polity under the Democratic-Republican Party. The Jacksonian split after the 1824 election restored the two-party system. Jackson’s first inauguration, on March 4, 1829, marked the first time since 1801 where one party yielded the presidency to another. A group of office seekers attended the event, explaining it as democratic enthusiasm. Jackson supporters had been lavished with promises of positions in return for political support. These promises were honored by a large number of removals after Jackson assumed power. At the beginning of Jackson’s administration, fully 919 officials were removed from government positions, amounting to nearly 10 percent of all government postings.: 328–33  In 1913 a history of Tennessee commented, “It is said that in early life Jackson had made it a principle never to stand between a friend and a benefit. The converse seemed also to have been a principle: never to benefit an enemy. And those who were excluded from his friendship were excluded from preferment.”

The Jackson administration aimed at creating a more efficient system where the chain of command of public employees all obeyed the higher entities of government. The most-changed organization within the federal government proved to be the Post Office. The Post Office was the largest department in the federal government, and had even more personnel than the War Department. In one year, 423 postmasters were deprived of their positions, most with extensive records of good service.: 334  Jackson did not differ much from other Presidents in the number of officials he replaced by his own partisans. There was, however, an increase in outright criminality , with a measurable if not marked increase in corruption in the Land Office, Post Office, and Indian affairs departments.

Reform

By the late 1860s, citizens began demanding civil service reform, but it was only after the 1881 assassination of James A. Garfield by Charles J. Guiteau as revenge for the latter being denied a consulship that the calls for civil service reform intensified. Moderation of the spoils system at the federal level with the passage of the Pendleton Act in 1883, which created a bipartisan Civil Service Commission to evaluate job candidates on a nonpartisan merit basis. While few jobs were covered under the law initially, the law allowed the President to transfer jobs and their current holders into the system, thus giving the holder a permanent job.[citation needed] The Pendleton Act’s reach was expanded as the two main political parties alternated control of the White House every election between 1884 and 1896. Following each election, the outgoing President applied the Pendleton Act to some of the positions for which he had appointed political supporters. By 1900, most federal jobs were handled through civil service, and the spoils system was limited to fewer and fewer positions.

Although state patronage systems and numerous federal positions were unaffected by the law, Karabell argues that the Pendleton Act was instrumental in the creation of a professional civil service and the rise of the modern bureaucratic state. The law also caused major changes in campaign finance, as the parties were forced to look for new sources of campaign funds, such as wealthy donors.

The separation between political activity and the civil service was made stronger with the Hatch Act of 1939 which prohibited federal employees from engaging in many political activities.

Hmm. So the Pendleton Act was the major factor. Does it block firing or just hiring?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pendleton_Civil_Service_Reform_Act

By the late 1820s, American politics operated on the spoils system, a political patronage practice in which officeholders awarded their allies with government jobs in return for financial and political support. Proponents of the spoils system were successful at blocking meaningful civil service reform until the assassination of President James A. Garfield in 1881. The 47th Congress passed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act during its lame duck session and President Chester A. Arthur, himself a former spoilsman, signed the bill into law.

The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act provided for the selection of some government employees by competitive exams, rather than ties to politicians or political affiliation. It also made it illegal to fire or demote these government officials for political reasons and created the United States Civil Service Commission to enforce the merit system. The act initially only applied to about ten percent of federal employees, but it now covers most federal employees. As a result of the court case Luévano v. Campbell, most federal government employees are no longer hired by means of competitive examinations.

Hmm. Well, it does restrict political firings. No idea whether this runs afoul of it. It sounds like the prior Trump administration ran into it, so they’re probably familiar with restrictions:

In October, 2020, then-President Donald Trump, by Executive Order 13957 created a Schedule F classification in the excepted service of the United States federal civil service for policy-making positions, which was criticized by Professor Donald Kettl as violating the spirit of the Pendleton Act.

Shortly after taking office in January 2021, President Joe Biden rescinded Executive Order 13957 by issuing Executive Order 14003.

On January 20, 2025, then-newly reelected President Trump issued his Executive Order titled “Restoring Accountability To Policy-Influencing Positions Within the Federal Workforce” to restore the effects of his own prior Executive Order 13957.

https://www.masslive.com/living/2014/05/favorite_places_lilac_lovers_flock_to_lilacland_in_pelham.html

PELHAM — For more than 30 years, lilac lovers from all over New England have traveled to Pelham to witness scores of lilac bushes in full bloom each spring.

Lilacland, created by Mabel and Al Lumley and run today by their son, James Lumley, features some 200 varieties of lilacs on about four acres of picturesque property.

There is no fee for visitors. On occasion, he has plants potted for sale.

In addition, Lumley is an artist, and has a gallery on the property, which features many of his prints of the property’s lilacs. He does not sell his artwork, but the gallery is usually open on the weekends and late afternoons/evenings for viewing.

Huh.

Don’t they support video posts?

kagis

Hmm. Apparently so.

https://help.tumblr.com/knowledge-base/posting-video/

• It’ll need to be a MOV or MP4 file.

• You can post up to 20 videos per day.

• A single video can be up to 10 minutes in length.

• The video upload size limit is 500 MB per video.

• The total video time limit per day is 60 minutes.

Well, it’s not an open platform, but I guess it may be a platform with the resources to serve some serious video, and it’ll be on the Fediverse.

We have been having a lot of discussions about what it would take to get video on the Fediverse at more than PeerTube scale.

I don’t use tumblr, don’t know if they provide a video-centric interface, but I imagine that one could always write a software package to index those videos and link to them. Maybe PeerTube can already do that, haven’t played with it enough to know.

What if it is and it became unrecoverable ages ago?

I don’t really care about the Confederate thing, but there are two Fort Braggs, one a town in coastal California, and it was kind of obnoxious to have the same name on them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Bragg%2C_California

It’s notable for Glass Beach:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Beach_(Fort_Bragg%2C_California)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Bragg

So I kind of liked having it not be “Bragg”.

Also, if I remember correctly from the American Civil War military history I’ve done, Bragg (the general, not the private) didn’t actually perform very well across a number of battles. Like, he was high-ranking, but I’m not sure that he’d be someone to name forts after.

kagis

Yeah, actually, sounds like he was outright awful, in fact.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braxton_Bragg

At the start of the Civil War, Bragg trained soldiers in the Gulf Coast region. He was a corps commander at the Battle of Shiloh, where he launched several costly and unsuccessful frontal assaults but nonetheless was commended for his conduct and bravery.

In June 1862, Bragg was elevated to command the Army of Mississippi (later known as the Army of Tennessee). He and Brigadier General Edmund Kirby Smith attempted an invasion of Kentucky in 1862, but Bragg retreated following a minor tactical victory at the Battle of Perryville in October. In December, he fought another battle at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the Battle of Stones River, against the Army of the Cumberland under Major General William Rosecrans. After a bloody and inconclusive battle, it ended with his retreat. After months without significant fighting, Bragg was outmaneuvered by Rosecrans in the Tullahoma Campaign in June 1863, causing him to surrender Middle Tennessee to the Union. Bragg retreated to Chattanooga but evacuated it in September as Rosecrans’ troops entered Georgia. Later that month, with the assistance of Confederate forces from the Eastern Theater under James Longstreet, Bragg was able to defeat Rosecrans at the Battle of Chickamauga, the bloodiest battle in the Western Theater, and the only significant Confederate victory therein. Bragg forced Rosecrans back into Tennessee, but was criticized for the heavy casualties his army suffered and for not mounting an effective pursuit. In November, Bragg’s army was routed by Major General Ulysses S. Grant in the Battles for Chattanooga and pushed back to Georgia. Confederate President Jefferson Davis subsequently relieved Bragg of command, recalling him to Richmond as his chief military advisor. Bragg briefly returned to the field as a corps commander near the war’s end during the Campaign of the Carolinas.

Bragg is generally considered among the worst generals of the Civil War.[1] Most of the battles he engaged in ended in defeat. Bragg was extremely unpopular with both the officers and ordinary men under his command, who criticized him for numerous perceived faults, including poor battlefield strategy, a quick temper, and overzealous discipline.[1] Bragg has a generally poor reputation with historians,[1] though some point towards the failures of Bragg’s subordinates, especially Major General and former Bishop Leonidas Polk—a close ally of Davis and known enemy of Bragg—as more significant factors in the many Confederate defeats under Bragg’s command. The losses suffered by Bragg’s forces are cited as highly consequential to the ultimate defeat of the Confederate States of America.[1]

When I’ve interviewed candidates for software engineering positions, I have never asked any questions about them outside of work. I don’t personally feel that it has a lot of impact on how they perform at work.

I mean, the bill isn’t going to pass, but it’s proposing buying it and then renaming it.

Yeah, that’s another thing that bugs me about products that can be remotely-updated and especially those which don’t currently represent an ongoing revenue stream. I think that it’s a broader problem, too, not just cars.

I was kind of not enthusiastic when I discovered that TenCent bought the video game Oxygen Not Included and started pushing data-harvesting updates into it via Steam. As things stand, that’s optional. But any company could do the same with other games and not have it be optional. If you figure that all the games out there that have already been sold aren’t actually generating revenue but do represent the option to push and execute code on someone’s computer, they have value to some other company that could purchase them and monetize that.

Then you figure that the same applies to browser extensions.

And apps on phones.

And all those Internet of Things devices that can talk to the network, cameras and microphones and all sorts of stuff.

There’s a lot of room for people to sit down and say “what I have is a hook into someone else’s stuff…now what things might I do to further monetize that? Or who might I sell that hook to who might be interested in doing that?”

Like, if I buy a product, all I can do when I make my purchasing decision is to evaluate the product as it is at purchase time. If the vendor also has the ability and right to change that product whenever they want, then what I’m actually buying is a pretty big question mark. And unless they’ve got some kind of other revenue stream on the line, their only real incentive to avoid doing so is the reputational hit they take…which for failing brands or companies, may not be all that large.

One constraint for efficient markets is that the consumers in it need to be informed as to what they’re buying. If they don’t have that property, you can get market failure. And a consumer can’t be informed about what he’s buying if the person selling them the product can change that product at any point after purchase.

Sure, not saying that you’re at fault or anything.

“He isn’t paying attention to the jingly keys.”

“Find something more-outrageous to say. We’ll get there.”

A lot wealthier, but that’s in significant part because most of the world is very poor relative to most people reading this. Some guy in Sudan isn’t gonna be reading your post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult

Median global wealth per adult (2023):

North America: $108,918

Europe: $28,611

China: $27,273

World: $8,654

Latin America: $6,341

Asia-Pacific (excluding China and India): $5,176

India: $3,755

Africa: $1,242

I think that you’re going to have a hard time getting fine-grained data globally, though, because lots of countries just don’t gather data and those that do often don’t measure it in the same way. I really wish that the UK had stayed in Eurostat when leaving the EU, because now getting comparable data for the UK and EU isn’t doable.

If it’s the US (in 2021 dollars), on a per-household basis:

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2023/demo/p70br-183.pdf

Median Wealth by Household Characteristics: 2021

Typically someone tends to build up assets during their working life, and spend them in retirement, so age is gonna be a factor.

Age of Householder

Highest Level of Educational Attainment in Household

Annual Household Income

Also, just for good measure, since I suppose that “gold” would fall into “other asset holdings”, you’d be pretty high relative to the norm in that category:

Composition of Wealth by Asset Type

Trump given power

No, he hasn’t. Congress hasn’t passed it – it’s just been introduced as a bill.

One House Representative introduced it and then released the statement.

I was away from things for a day and when I came back everything as wizards and orbs.

Let this be a lesson to you.