Mark Igra

table showing party shares of Presidential election results from 2004 through 2024, with massive shift to Republicans in 2016, which has held steady since then

Hey Blooskiers, can anyone explain this massive change on what's seemingly a dime, in Knox County, IL? I will engage with anyone who's got receipts.

(I assume similar things happened in many other midwestern counties, and I know the standard answer is "racism" but county TWICE went big for Obama.)

Gemini’s task automation is here and it’s wild Computers using computers.

37 (yikes) years ago I joined Microsoft with the goal of putting APIs into apps so you could control them without doing SendKeys. Now there are AI’s literally scrolling browser windows to achieve tasks. Progress!

www.theverge.com/tech/893820/...

It’s one banana, San Francisco. What could it cost? Ten dollars. And you can get it dipped in chocolate from Go Bananas in Dolores Park on a sunny day.

Congratulations to San Francisco for inventing the long-prophesied banana that costs ten dollars sfstandard.com/2026/03/11/g...

Oh damn for a sec I thought you were referring to Monica Prasad and I thought what the beef with her? And she’s at UC?

It’s a bit of a Chotiner moment. Don’t say much. Just ask a simple question let the person say the stupid thing they think.

We have “Kinsley Gaffe”, I think we should call this a “Chotiner Trap”

Each of these data companies touts its stable of pedigreed experts. Mercor says around 30,000 professionals work on its platform each week, while Scale Al claims to have more than 700,000 "M.A.'s, Ph.D's, and college graduates." Surge Al advertises its Supreme Court litigators, McKinsey principals, and platinum recording artists.

That project soon ended and then came another. It was nearly identical to the first, which she had enjoyed, but now, on top of writing rubrics, she had to stump the model and complete the more difficult task in the same amount of time. She was also getting paid $8 an hour less. This is common at Mercor. Nearly every worker I spoke with reported that demands increased, time requirements shrank, and pay decreased as projects continued. Those who couldn't meet the new demands got "off boarded" and replaced by new recruits.

This is what concerns her more than the AI itself: that it's bringing to knowledge work the sort of precarious platform labor that has transformed taxi driving and food delivery. Meanwhile, she watches in horror the desperate gratitude of her colleagues as they rejoice at the 7PM announcement of incoming work.

Thousands of workers poured into the new Slack only to discover it was the exact same job, now paying 24 percent less. All but two of the Slack channels had been deleted, including the watercooler, support, and help rooms. The ability to direct-message one another had also been cut off. There were no team leads to be found. With no one to ask for assistance, workers flooded the main rooms with pleas and indignation.

This is so incredibly bleak. A must read about the great expertise extraction from highly competent precarious professionals. A giant sucking sound as brains get extracted by malevolent billionaires (Gift link) www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

Not gonna try to rank worker abuse. I will say

1. Online platform work is especially bleak because there’s almost no way to even find your coworkers to organize.

2. This platform extracts skills that took years to develop so they can be performed by AI, eliminating future employment opportunity

Each of these data companies touts its stable of pedigreed experts. Mercor says around 30,000 professionals work on its platform each week, while Scale Al claims to have more than 700,000 "M.A.'s, Ph.D's, and college graduates." Surge Al advertises its Supreme Court litigators, McKinsey principals, and platinum recording artists.

That project soon ended and then came another. It was nearly identical to the first, which she had enjoyed, but now, on top of writing rubrics, she had to stump the model and complete the more difficult task in the same amount of time. She was also getting paid $8 an hour less. This is common at Mercor. Nearly every worker I spoke with reported that demands increased, time requirements shrank, and pay decreased as projects continued. Those who couldn't meet the new demands got "off boarded" and replaced by new recruits.

This is what concerns her more than the AI itself: that it's bringing to knowledge work the sort of precarious platform labor that has transformed taxi driving and food delivery. Meanwhile, she watches in horror the desperate gratitude of her colleagues as they rejoice at the 7PM announcement of incoming work.

Thousands of workers poured into the new Slack only to discover it was the exact same job, now paying 24 percent less. All but two of the Slack channels had been deleted, including the watercooler, support, and help rooms. The ability to direct-message one another had also been cut off. There were no team leads to be found. With no one to ask for assistance, workers flooded the main rooms with pleas and indignation.

This is so incredibly bleak. A must read about the great expertise extraction from highly competent precarious professionals. A giant sucking sound as brains get extracted by malevolent billionaires (Gift link) www.theverge.com/cs/features/...

How to say "The dog is brown" in Bourdieuspeak

That said, I’m itching to try out Claude Code for a bunch of things in the ideas folder.

Maybe make incoming grad students watch Mina Kimes on gen AI. She knows more than how to attack a 2-deep shell.

Haven’t used LLMs for writing or qual analysis cause I know that process is where you figure out what the idea really is. Also keeps that “Use of AI” appendix short & uncontroversial.

Sociologist and rights watchdog director Ramin Jabbarli says Iran’s blackout has cut internet and phone lines since strikes began, as the Khamenei succession fuels civil war fears.

www.kyivpost.com/post/71253

Cover of the book "The Diversity of Morals" by Steven Lukes

I reviewed Steven Lukes’s rich and provocative book The Diversity of Morals for H-Net. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the sociology of morality. www.h-net.org/reviews/show...

Been a TPM member for years. Journalism with a point of view, but principled & forward looking rather than outrage bait.

We are proud to announce the launch of our universal representation pilot program to provide free, merits-blind legal representation to people in immigration detention facing deportation, regardless of their demographics or legal claims.

TIL: It was banned from some radio stations cause Horse = Heroin. I guess theory was that people would want to use heroin after hearing about the "plants and birds and rocks and things" you could really appreciate.

On the first part of the journey I was looking at all the life There were plants and birds and rocks and things There was sand and hills and rings The first thing I met was a fly with a buzz And the sky with no clouds The heat was hot, and the ground was dry But the air was full of sound

"The heat was hot and the ground was dry."

Has there ever been a more heartfelt, deeply observed description of the desert than in the 1972 #1 hit song "Horse With No Name"? They just don't write em like they used to.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OTc...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwSh0dAaqIA

While we're discussing what we like and dislike in #Rstats, here's why I don't like tidymodels: mansthulin.se/posts/tidymo...

It’s interesting that the internet in 30 years recapitulated the media evolution of mass communication of the previous 300+ years: print (blogs) —> radio (podcasts) —> TV (everything now)

Let's try this again 👋

Hi Bluesky - I'm Massachusetts' Attorney General. You might know me from suing President Trump nearly 50 times, beating Uber and Lyft in court, or being the first woman of color elected to statewide office in MA.

I officially left X today - help me find my MA people?

I saw this photo & I automatically tried to make that face since it seemed so odd. What emotion does that reflect? Pouty toddler?

🤔

Brett Calvinball

Google search showing no results for Brett Calvinball

Associate Justice Brett Calvinball*

*How was this not already a thing

Don’t Be Fooled By the Corrupt Court’s Tariff Decision The depth of the Supreme Court’s corruption has forced us to find...

Don’t Be Fooled By the Corrupt Court’s Tariff Decision talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dont-...

#sociology peeps: I am organizing a section at ASA called neuroscience, cognition, and sociology. Please submit. Please pass around. Papers need not do both neuroscience and cognition...

Incompetence & thoughtlessness abounds.

This stuck out to me “ICE intends to reduce its number of facilities from approximately 300 to 34 nationwide. The facility in Social Circle is expected to house anywhere from 7,500 to 10,000” Are they really gonna cut out GEO & CoreCivic?

Tap to Pay: Puget Sound Region Transit Systems to Accept Credit and Debit Cards, Digital Wallets as Fare Payment - myORCA FEBRUARY 19, 2026 – On February 23, ORCA is launching a new Tap to Pay feature allowing riders to use credit and debit cards, and digital wallets, to pay for transit across the Puget Sound region. Rid...

📰  ORCA Press Release: Tap to Pay Coming 2/23

On February 23, ORCA is launching a new Tap to Pay feature allowing riders to use credit and debit cards, and digital wallets, to pay for transit across the Puget Sound region.

🔗 Full press release: info.myorca.com/news/tap-to-...

From the conclusion of this 2014 review: "As the proportion of whites declines, will there be a backlash among whites regarding their definitions of and attachments to being American?" Hmm.

A clear and engaging read. Often can't say that about reviews.