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Stephen Hardwick

@nonfinality.com

3.4K followers 1.5K following 9.5K posts

Appellate public defender. Poll worker. Peace Corps Tunisia. Low-level zoning chair. Wolverine in Buckeye land. Cyclist. Personal views only. On the payroll of the rain garden interests. he/him LOTR/poll worker feeds https://www.eac.gov/help-america-vote

www.eac.gov

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · Aug 26

I can’t over-emphasize how critical it is to have competent, rule-following poll workers with back bones. Now more than ever. To my attorney followers, we especially need you. To my non-attorney followers—you too.
Find out how to sign up where you are here: www.eac.gov/help-america...

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 7h

Yay! A step toward passenger rail service for Columbus, which has none.

But the photo/video attached is our governor holding up bags of quasi-edibles. Heckuva job, Dispatch AI!

www.dispatch.com/story/news/l...

Screenshot of Dispatch article:

MORPC, rail partners commit $650,000 toward Chicago to Columbus train route
Nathan Hart, Columbus Dispatch
Published 12:22 p.m. ET October 15, 2025
Updated 12:32 p.m. ET October 15, 2025
Passenger rail
Add+
Video of Governor DeWine holding up bags of what look like candy.
• Play | 01:12

Show caption v
The Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission and its out-of-state rail partners are committing $650,000 to a Chicago-Fort Wayne-Columbus-Pittsburgh passenger rail line, MORP announced on Oct. 14.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 10h

On the subject of humor, Kim Stanley Robinson gets credit for the Scout Un-Law:

…ity as a species. We were described as cowardly, mean-spirited, chickenhearted, pathetic, treasonous, wasteful; untrust-worthy, unloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, discourteous, unkind; and so on.
We did not let it distract us. For…

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 10h

I switched from the audio boom to the book. One disadvantage of audiobooks is that you can’t skim when you want a different pace. This is a good book with a dry sense of humor, but sometimes there are pages of sciency stuff that don’t seem to help the story (at least to my impatient lawyer brain).

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 11h

i blocked a reply. I can’t abide doom-speak. We still have a chance to take the country back from fascism without violence. If someone doesn’t want to vote, I think that’s a dumb decision, but it’s theirs to make. If someone doesn’t want anyone to vote, they’re saying exactly what the fascists want.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 12h

This is my absentee “I Voted” post. I love that my BOE sends me a text saying that my absentee ballot was accepted and will count. Info on how to cote early or absentee in Ohio here: www.ohiosos.gov/elections/

Text message screenshot from “BallotTrax” with an Ohio Voted sticker as the icon. You can see the end of the faded previous message, which is covered in part by the icon, so it’s incomplete:

on was sent
3-5 days for

arrive by mail. ^
BallotTrax ›
voters ballots c electronically were also transmitted today - please check your email.
…ease
ballot to

Then, this message from today;

Today 1:41

STEPHEN H, Your absentee ballot for the November 4, 2025 General Election has been received, accepted and will be tabulated by the Board of Elections on election night. If the ballot was accepted after Election Day, your votes will be included in the final totals at certification. Thank you for voting.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 21h

Good morning from eastern Ohio. Sometimes, you just need to stop and look around.

Sunrise over a hill framed by a tree and a bush. Sun peaking over the hill.

Farm buildings in the background in a hill. A diagonal line of orange from left to right top to bottom with clouds above it—dark backlit with a night blue.

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 1d

Beyond the UCMJ, these killings could also be in the jurisdiction of other countries, and I doubt a pardon bars extradition. “If you assert the pardon as a defense, we’ll honor Venezuela’s request for extradition.”

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 1d

If the President pardons the killers, is there more that can be done under the UCMJ or any other code?

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

It sounds like a wonderful way to remember her. May her memory be a blessing.

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

“It’s not always a misfortune, being overlooked.” -Meriodoc

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

You’d think it would be the kind of details any web-savvy team would pay attention to. It’s like misspelling your client’s name and fixing it everywhere except the cover page.

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

This quilt is a gift from my partner, who made it.

Large quilt with intricate dismount pattern with squares insure the diamonds. Most white yellow and blue.

Close up showing the circle-ystitching patterns.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

But she didn’t know to tell them to also correct it in whatever script produces the link card.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

Got distracted when it was half way up?

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

I’m open to “third world” when applied to the US. The phrase has a pejorative in it that we deserve.

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

What I find weird is that if it’s doable for governments in the US to restrict VPN access, none seem to have effectively done it yet.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

State prosecutors need to get creative about charging these goons, especially when they’re just anonymous dudes on masks and combat gear. Put all the cell phone tracking tech to work, publicly charge them by name, and let them offer any defenses they think they have.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

How long until governments start insisting on age/ID verification that can’t easily be bypassed by turning on a VPN?

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

Having an appeal dismissed because your e-filed notice of appeal didn’t have a blank line for the clerk to stamp the case number above.

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

Suing someone because the affiant didn’t say that further affiant sayeth naught.

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

The main thing the verification (without a VPN or providing ID) blocks is chat, which I use very infrequently already. A lack of verification also doesn’t seem to affect access via third-party apps, probably because of the open-source structure.

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

Update: It turns out that to avoid age verification, you only have to use a VPN when you open the app. As long as the Bluesky app stays open, it sticks with the location it receives from the ISP when it opened. Minimizing the app doesn’t reset it. Just closing it or it closing on its own.

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 16d

People say, “just use a VPN,” but that’s a *bit* of a pain. I was scrolling Bluesky at the bus stop, & because a VPN was on, my bus pass didn’t work. Then, because my VPN was on, I couldn’t look up a zoning application on my city’s website for my variance committee. Small nuisances, but nuisances.

Bluesky Safety @safety.bsky.app · 17d

In Ohio, starting on Monday 9/29, we'll be implementing an age assurance solution similar to what we're doing in South Dakota and Wyoming. Read more here: bsky.social/about/blog/0...

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

The Christopher Columbus statue in Colunbus five years ago. Columbus city government recognizes today as Indigenous People’s Day.

www.dispatch.com/picture-gall...

Screenshot of linked photo and caption.
Photo is of a Columbus statue on its back being loaded onto a truck. Text is:

Photos: Christopher
Columbus statue
removed from City Hall
Published 9:25 a.m. ET July 1, 2020
Updated 7:53 p.m. ET September 14, 2020
14 photos
[photo here]
Workers remove the Christopher Columbus statue on the Broad Street side of Columbus City Hall Wednesday, July 1, 2020. The city says it will be replaced with a different statue or artwork that reflects diversity. A city news release said it will be placed in safekeeping at a secure city facility. The Christopher Columbus statue was a gift from the people of Genoa, Italy, in 1955.
Doral Chenoweth/Columbus Dispatch

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Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

For economics, a book about pirates: The Invisible Hook by Peter T. Leeson
Arrrg!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Inv...

The Invisible Hook - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Stephen Hardwick @nonfinality.com · 2d

That order wasn’t final.

Sean Marotta @smmarotta.bsky.social · 3d

That deadline was jurisdictional.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 6d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.