Nick Fleisher
@nickfleisher.bsky.social
2.8K followers 720 following 5.4K posts
Linguist at UW-Milwaukee. Syntax & semantics, higher ed, Wisconsin politics &c.
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nickfleisher.bsky.social
Grammar/syntax/semantics
Wisconsin politics
Academic freedom and shared governance
Philadelphia and Philadelphia sports
Modular synthesizers
Open source software
Stockholm, Sweden
All things Donald Fagen
nora.zone
okay, time for a prompt post to distract us all from the horrors. quote this post with your areas of expertise, interest, hyperfixation and/or obsession and invite your audience to ask you questions about them.
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
andycraig.bsky.social
This is a good catch. The statutory authorization supposedly being used to transfer R&D funds to regular payroll is, in fact, expired, just like the regular appropriations are also expired.
kdbyproxy.bsky.social
Not that Trump/Vought/Hegseth gaf, but among other ways in which the law says this may NOT be done:
A) The part of 8005 I've underlined in green says money transferred to another account is "available… for the same time period" as that other account; that other acc't expired on Sept 30.

1/
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
coreyryung.bsky.social
Every other federal judge has a larger docket, generates greater output, doesn't take summers off, and manages to properly issue preliminary decisions without creating this confusion.
atrupar.com
Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."
nickfleisher.bsky.social
Apart from its being illegal, there are no salary savings to be had during a shutdown because *nobody gets paid during a shutdown*
atrupar.com
BRENNAN: CBS confirmed the Trump administration rescinded the layoffs of CDC scientists. Some were involved with the federal measles response. How does a mistake like this happen?

VANCE: The govt shutdown inevitably leads to some chaos. It happened because of Schumer

B: But this was a WH decision
nickfleisher.bsky.social
Vance brings a real "I invented the piano key necktie!" energy here
bencollins.bsky.social
You know it's going great when you have to repeatedly remind the interviewer you're the Vice President of the United States mid-tantrum.
atrupar.com
STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.

VANCE: No, George, I sai--

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
tedmccormick.bsky.social
Shared courtesy of my Penn History colleague, Ben Nathans
Image: A variation on Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die” engraving, originally published in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1754. Each segment of the snake has the name of a university sent Trump’s “compact”: Texas, AZ, Vanderbilt, USC, Dartmouth, UVA, Brown, Penn, MIT.
nickfleisher.bsky.social
This is the government analogue of the idea that ideas emerge in academia because they conform to an ideological agenda, rather than face the truth that they emerge because they are genuinely insightful and revelatory. We got gender studies because that's where the facts led!
jamellebouie.net
a key thing about vought — and all of these guys — is that they have a totally top down and hierarchical vision of the world. they believe that the cultural changes they hate can be turned off by destroying the federal government because they can’t imagine that they emerged bottom-up in society
thomaszimmer.bsky.social
What he’s railing against is a profound shift in culture, status… He’s obsessed with the idea that America is controlled by a leftist “ruling elite” - but “elite” isn’t defined socio-economically or by political power, it means something like: Getting to define “real America” and who gets to belong.
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
aubreygilleran.bsky.social
Well golly it sounds like you should let long-standing precedents stand until you rule on the merits, then. That is not what you’re doing!
atrupar.com
Amy Coney Barrett defends heavy use of the shadow docket: "If we wrote a long opinion, it might give the impression that we have finally resolved the issue, and in none of these cases have we finally resolved the issue."
nickfleisher.bsky.social
The whiny condescension is off the charts in the first part of this clip. The vice president lecturing a tv host about why his show is terrible? Get a life.
atrupar.com
STEPHANOPOULOS: I didn't insinuate anything. I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50k as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024. You did not answer the question. Thank you for your time.

VANCE: No, George, I sai--

STEPHANOPOULOS: We'll be right back
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
ericstephen.bsky.social
MLB's final four has been set, aka the Henry Blanco gauntlet, named for the only player to play for the Dodgers, Brewers, Blue Jays, and Mariners
Henry Blanco (number 12, holding his arms up) on the Brewers Henry Blanco on the Dodgers Henry Blanco on the Blue Jays Henry Blanco on the Mariners
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
kylegriffin1.bsky.social
Sens. Schumer, Merkley, Murray, and Peters are calling for the resignation of OMB Director Russell Vought.

"By impounding billions of dollars … and aggressively pursuing the illegal use of pocket rescissions, Vought has done everything in his power to gut the federal government piece by piece."
nickfleisher.bsky.social
"Controversial topics" in spring 2024 were specifically and markedly different than they were a year earlier, for one thing. There's a good measure of equivocation built into the survey instrument and the resulting finding.
nickfleisher.bsky.social
Items of type <e>
unenthusiast.com
In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/
hammancheez.bsky.social
"The chancellor approved it"
nickfleisher.bsky.social
Cause of and solution to your problems. Makes things easier in the moment and harder in the long run, etc etc
nickfleisher.bsky.social
For many of the tasks where they're being pushed, LLMs' effect on student learning and worker productivity is roughly the same as that of alcohol
maxkennerly.bsky.social
IMHO, LLMs will be an economic negative for years.

They'll do a worse job than humans,

but will still replace humans because they're cheaper for employers,

but really they're costlier, it's just that lots of costs get externalized to society by our horrible energy/tax policies.

Lose-lose-lose.
The Real AI Risk is ‘Meh’ Technology That Takes Jobs and Annoys Us All
While AI doomsday scenarios dwell on the risks posed by superintelligent robot overlords, one Nobel-Prize winning economist fears a more mundane possibility.
www.bloomberg.com
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
nicholasgrossman.bsky.social
“Who was president in 2020?” remains one of the most pertinent questions in American politics—absurd, yes, but here we are—and that extends to “who was president January 1 - 19, 2021?”
joycewhitevance.bsky.social
That’s a nice trick, since Biden wasn’t the president on Jan 6.
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
philiprocco.bsky.social
We are a city of spirits.
Mookie Betts avoids Milwaukee hotel due to possible ghosts
nickfleisher.bsky.social
Feels like we are all dealing poorly with the fact that the 70s were fifty years ago
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Just got back from Normal, IL for a lecture at Illinois State University. Established in 1857 after this small town lawyer named Abe secured the funding. Was reminded once again that US public universities are the triumph of civilization
Normal, IL
nickfleisher.bsky.social
Trump wants to turn Gaza into a massive real estate and branding windfall for himself and his family and friends. He would like to forcibly remove the entire population. He has been very open about this! But sure, peacemaker.
reuning.bsky.social
Trump straight up murdering people in the Caribbean and the NYT writes this
The Trump Split Screen: A Peacemaker Abroad, a Retribution Campaign at Home
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
augustjpollak.bsky.social
I love how the big news on Trump’s tariff announcement is how moments before he made it a bunch of people made insanely profitable shorts on crypto, a thing that Bitcoin Bros are all astounded to see happening in a completely unregulated market of a fake currency primarily used by criminals.
BREAKING: Look at this.

A new crypto account was opened yesterday morning.

30 minutes BEFORE Trump's announcement of 100% tariffs on China, it added a huge multi-million dollar levered Bitcoin short position, per YF.

The market dumped.

The trader made a profit of $192 million in two hours.

Unusual. JUST IN: An anonymous trader opened massive crypto short positions just 30 minutes before Trump’s tariff announcements yesterday.

They made an estimated $192M in profits.
Someone knew the market would crash….

A Random brand new fresh wallet opened a massive $BTC short just 30 minutes before Trump’s tariff announcement and this trader made $88,000,000 profits. Donald Trump needs to go to jail. He is thief, he is literally robbing people internationally. 

He announced 100% Tarrifs on China and sends the US stock market into a death spiral. 

At the same time someone put over 1 Billion dollars into crypto with orders for 100 million being placed on Ethereum and Bitcoin and other crypto currencies across the board whilst markets got wiped after what he said. Billions, and I mean fucking billions got wiped out, whilst Bitcoin had it a biggest dip ever in a single candle losing 20k per Bitcoin, Whilst alt coins lost over 60-70% of value, everyone with leverage on the market with even 2 x leverage got murdered and robbed. 

This was co ordinated, this was market manipulation with one anonymous wallet making over 200 million dollars in one day with trades showing that they knew Trump was going to announce this and crash the market.
Reposted by Nick Fleisher
radleybalko.bsky.social
See below for the incredible way Meta’s AI tool describes this video.
thetnholler.bsky.social
“YOU hit HER.”

CHICAGO - Trump’s ICE goons ram into a passing car after snatching someone, then brutally drag the female driver of the car they hit out of her car with guns drawn and arrest her too. (Her brother says she’s a citizen)