Caleb Alexander
@readingcabbage.bsky.social
He/him. Software engineer.
Thinking about this today for no reason at all.
January 5, 2026 at 11:54 PM
Thinking about this today for no reason at all.
I live in a place where the *highway* has a kind of congestion pricing (lanes you pay to use that cost more depending on traffic). It's not that hard?
I find "America isn't really set up for it" to be an annoying rebuttal to any sort of proposal to reduce car dependency. Our leaders used policy to create a system of car dependency and we can sure as hell use policy to undo that. There are absolutely barriers, but do nothing is not a solution.
December 31, 2025 at 10:05 PM
I live in a place where the *highway* has a kind of congestion pricing (lanes you pay to use that cost more depending on traffic). It's not that hard?
The people in the comments insisting that they have read a bunch of books, none of whose titles or authors they can recall, is crazy to me. I couldn't name every of the half dozen or so books I read in the last year, but I could name at least one!
Very funny polling result where ~3/4 of people will say they read a book last year but if you ask them to name the book the share drops 20 points
open.substack.com/pub/theargum...
open.substack.com/pub/theargum...
Some of you are lying about reading
How one polling decision uncovered a lot of untruths
open.substack.com
December 30, 2025 at 5:46 PM
The people in the comments insisting that they have read a bunch of books, none of whose titles or authors they can recall, is crazy to me. I couldn't name every of the half dozen or so books I read in the last year, but I could name at least one!
Microblogging platforms structurally resist nuanced discussion on any issue. Their proliferation is a substantial contributor to dumbing down of the discourse.
December 28, 2025 at 6:43 PM
Microblogging platforms structurally resist nuanced discussion on any issue. Their proliferation is a substantial contributor to dumbing down of the discourse.
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
Insane but true fact: making US roads as safe as Canadian, Australian, or European roads would save more lives than eliminating murder from the US.
November 21, 2025 at 3:01 AM
Insane but true fact: making US roads as safe as Canadian, Australian, or European roads would save more lives than eliminating murder from the US.
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
if tumblr dies I need this video to make it's seasonal rotation here instead just in case, Happy holidays 🎄
December 18, 2025 at 2:05 AM
if tumblr dies I need this video to make it's seasonal rotation here instead just in case, Happy holidays 🎄
Once upon a time I would have put "independent redistricting" on a list like this.
Disturbing that today that feels like pre-emptive unilateral disarmament. Although, feels like a similar kind of logic could extend to a lot of these proposals...
Disturbing that today that feels like pre-emptive unilateral disarmament. Although, feels like a similar kind of logic could extend to a lot of these proposals...
I am often asked what laws I would recommend blue states adopt. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, there are seven changes every state could adopt right now, for virtually no cost or administrative burden. www.democracydocket.com/opinion/seve...
Seven Voting Laws Every Blue State Should Enact Right Now
Read more here.
www.democracydocket.com
December 15, 2025 at 1:20 AM
Once upon a time I would have put "independent redistricting" on a list like this.
Disturbing that today that feels like pre-emptive unilateral disarmament. Although, feels like a similar kind of logic could extend to a lot of these proposals...
Disturbing that today that feels like pre-emptive unilateral disarmament. Although, feels like a similar kind of logic could extend to a lot of these proposals...
On the one hand, I agree that lots of websites have become awful to use because of ads. On the other hand I use an adblocker (uBlock Origin w/Firefox) so I never experience this. At some point consuming the web this way is a skill issue.
December 15, 2025 at 1:17 AM
On the one hand, I agree that lots of websites have become awful to use because of ads. On the other hand I use an adblocker (uBlock Origin w/Firefox) so I never experience this. At some point consuming the web this way is a skill issue.
Super cool how there is ~no remedy for fourth amendment violations like this!
Armed ICE agents trapped US citizens in a restaurant and demanded their papers. Federal agents walked into East African restaurants in Cedar-Riverside, MN. They closed and blocked the doors. Then they demanded to see everyone’s papers. Every person present was a US citizen.
Federal agents use chemical irritant on crowd in Somali neighborhood of Minneapolis amid Trump crackdown
Federal agents have used chemical irritant to disperse a crowd in a heavily Somali neighborhood in Minneapolis. This happened Tuesday during a identification checks amid the Trump administration's cra...
www.mprnews.org
December 14, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Super cool how there is ~no remedy for fourth amendment violations like this!
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
Honestly, one of the great American poems. Arguably the great American poem.
November 5, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Honestly, one of the great American poems. Arguably the great American poem.
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
Reminder that Violent J of Insane Clown Posse has the correct response to a lot of the shitty things he said in the early days.
October 21, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Reminder that Violent J of Insane Clown Posse has the correct response to a lot of the shitty things he said in the early days.
Now imagining a world where blacksky or some other PDS alternative to bluesky becomes big enough to be a threat so they block the whole provider at the relay level. Speed running defederation.
I hear and see your concerns. Over the weekend, a couple users hosted on Blacksky's PDS were banned from the Bluesky app and thus the Bluesky API servers. This was a weakness of our system I've been aware of and hoped we had more time to address before any kind of public incident. 1/11
October 7, 2025 at 11:54 PM
Now imagining a world where blacksky or some other PDS alternative to bluesky becomes big enough to be a threat so they block the whole provider at the relay level. Speed running defederation.
Even granting Bluesky/ATProto can achieve the decentralization they want, why doesn't this end with all the problems Mastadon has? "Yea you can see A's posts on AppView X but not Y and you can only see B's posts on Y, but not X." Bluesky is currently Twitter but wants to be a Mastodon instance?
October 6, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Even granting Bluesky/ATProto can achieve the decentralization they want, why doesn't this end with all the problems Mastadon has? "Yea you can see A's posts on AppView X but not Y and you can only see B's posts on Y, but not X." Bluesky is currently Twitter but wants to be a Mastodon instance?
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
September 29, 2025 at 10:46 AM
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
i think this picture, from a public promo stream for a video games starring one of the most popular comic book characters of all time owned by the disney corporation, should be used on every single story about storefronts taking down lgbt content
September 24, 2025 at 9:40 PM
i think this picture, from a public promo stream for a video games starring one of the most popular comic book characters of all time owned by the disney corporation, should be used on every single story about storefronts taking down lgbt content
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
Playing FF Tactics for the first time? Here’s a tip. Go to Mandalia Plain. You’re gonna spend 5 miserable hours having all your characters power up like goku next to a terrified bird or have them throw rocks at each other until they’re max level. This is the best game ever made btw.
September 23, 2025 at 10:42 PM
Playing FF Tactics for the first time? Here’s a tip. Go to Mandalia Plain. You’re gonna spend 5 miserable hours having all your characters power up like goku next to a terrified bird or have them throw rocks at each other until they’re max level. This is the best game ever made btw.
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
Finally: remember to take care of yourselves. There is a long road ahead, but we’re in this together.
November 8, 2024 at 7:21 PM
Finally: remember to take care of yourselves. There is a long road ahead, but we’re in this together.
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
The free speech activist who built a list of professors he worked to get fired for their speech must be celebrated for his support of free speech, and anyone who quotes his speech accurately in context will be fired and/or face state punishment by the champions of free speech, do I have that right?
September 15, 2025 at 2:43 PM
The free speech activist who built a list of professors he worked to get fired for their speech must be celebrated for his support of free speech, and anyone who quotes his speech accurately in context will be fired and/or face state punishment by the champions of free speech, do I have that right?
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
congratulations to charlie kirk on becoming a good fascist
September 10, 2025 at 11:04 PM
congratulations to charlie kirk on becoming a good fascist
This is my hot take but abolishing the filibuster by any means necessary needs to be prority #1. If Republicans do it to pass a shitty continuing resolution, it's win-win.
2) Rs change the rules, Ds lose more of what little power they have, Rs look unified, and you’re counting on a process backlash that lasts over a year
September 8, 2025 at 11:48 PM
This is my hot take but abolishing the filibuster by any means necessary needs to be prority #1. If Republicans do it to pass a shitty continuing resolution, it's win-win.
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
September 6, 2025 at 6:31 AM
Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
Never been more sure there is something awfully damning about Trump in the Epstein files. He's crashing out.
a deranged Trump claims Obama and Hillary wrote the Epstein files and urges people to not care about them 🥴
July 12, 2025 at 9:35 PM
Never been more sure there is something awfully damning about Trump in the Epstein files. He's crashing out.
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
“The New York Times collaborated with a white nationalist eugenicist hacker and agreed to keep his identity a secret to publish a Zohran Mamdani hit piece” is a way bigger story than “18 year old Zohran Mamdani ticked ‘African American’ on his Columbia application because he was a citizen of Uganda”
July 4, 2025 at 1:40 AM
“The New York Times collaborated with a white nationalist eugenicist hacker and agreed to keep his identity a secret to publish a Zohran Mamdani hit piece” is a way bigger story than “18 year old Zohran Mamdani ticked ‘African American’ on his Columbia application because he was a citizen of Uganda”
Reposted by Caleb Alexander
posting this bc if I see one more doomer take im going to kill someone with hammers
June 19, 2025 at 8:01 PM
posting this bc if I see one more doomer take im going to kill someone with hammers
Really getting a preview of what a world without universal injunctions could be like with the AEA litigation. It's not good!
BREAKING: Federal judge in Pennsylvania, a Trump appointee, finds that Trump's Alien Enemies Act proclamation is properly invoked against a designated "Foreign Terrorist Organization," but that insufficient process is currently being given in the implementation of the AEA proclamation.
May 13, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Really getting a preview of what a world without universal injunctions could be like with the AEA litigation. It's not good!