I went to New York City and saw some new toys. Consumer Electronics at the PEPCOM Holiday Expo

“While it’s true that fewer Americans self-identify as liberal than as moderate or conservative, this tells us almost nothing about voters’ policy views. “Moderates” do not actually display a preference for “centrist” positions, but merely for ideologically inconsistent ones. In fact, the Stanford political scientist David Broockman has shown that moderates are just as likely to subscribe to “extreme” policy positions as other voters are: In the United States, there are self-identified “moderates” who support a $1 million maximum income, prohibiting gays and lesbians from teaching public school and the mass deportation of all undocumented immigrants.

Meanwhile, the number of genuine “liberals” and “conservatives” is far smaller than meets the eye. Most voters who identify with those terms are partisans first, and ideologues second. Or as Mr. Kinder and Mr. Kalmoe conclude an analysis of four decades of voter survey data, “ideological identification seems more a reflection of political decisions than a cause.” In other words: The average conservative Republican isn’t a Republican because she’s a conservative — she self-identifies as a conservative because she’s a Republican.” Opinion | America Is Not a ‘Center-Right Nation’

“The other problem is that the term “moderate” makes it sound like there’s one kind of moderate — which is where the idea emerges that there’s some silent moderate majority out there waiting for their chance to take back politics. But someone who believes in punitively taxing the rich and criminalizing homosexuality is not going to form a coalition with someone who believes in low taxes and gay marriage, even though both of these voters would look moderate on a survey.

The deeper point here is that the idea of the moderate middle is bullshit: it’s a rhetorical device meant to marginalize some policy positions at the expense of others. There’s no actual way to measure it, or consistent definition animating it, and it doesn’t spontaneously emerge in any of the data.” No one’s less moderate than moderates

Fortunately, he works in America so this isn’t an issue. Slate on Twitter

Siri is the puppy who joyfully greets you at the door. Alexa is the cat. James Gobert ???? on Twitter

“Poor preteens” is roughly homophonous with “Puerto Ricans,” continuing 2017 conversion of the merely apathetic into actively sociopathic. Jason Sparks on Twitter

More emoji conclusions: 1) Apple designers are foodies; 2) Google Friday beer bash may actually be urine samples. Thomas Fuchs on Twitter

Jess Dweck on Twitter

I think we need to discuss how Apple’s burger is bigger, but has Canadian bacon tomato and a bun comprised of 20% of Iowa annual production. Thomas Baekdal on Twitter

Nifty. If you don’t see me here as often, I’m probably spending 60 hours a week playing poker in my pajamas. Again. Pennsylvania Passes iGaming Bill to Legalize Online Poker, DFS

90% of my problems with the touch bar would be solved if Apple had a setting, “don’t register a tap until a button is pressed for 0.25 or 0.5 seconds.” Apple likes the MacBook Pro Touch Bar, but here’s why I really don’t

Note to self: become a journeyman lineman contract supervisor.

“Under the contract, Whitefish is charging $330 an hour for a site supervisor and $227.88 an hour for a “journeyman lineman.” The cost for subcontractors, which make up the bulk of Whitefish’s workforce, is $462 per hour for a supervisor and $319.04 for a lineman.” Puerto Rico’s electric utility likely to get emergency manager amid criticism over contract to small Montana firm

For years, I’ve had this odd mental block where I can’t remember the date my father died. I thought it might be today, was pretty sure that if it wasn’t, it was sometime this weekend, and it was only from looking up the link below that I learned it’s tomorrow.

In any case, it’s been ten years. So any of you that knew him, I think he would have liked being remembered ten years on. Hell, I know he would have.

Aside: once I get over being weepy writing this, I’ll be fine. The point of this is to remind you of him, not to inspire 100 hugs comments (which I think will just make me weepy again). If you can remember a story, go for it.

His eulogy, still true:

David Porten, 1932-2007 | The Vast Jeff Wing Conspiracy

Inexplicably not mentioned: in order to do this, they will have to disturb ALL THE MUMMIES. As Abbott and Costello taught us, that never ends well. Penn Museum is getting its biggest makeover in 118 years

This has been driving me apeshit for two weeks and you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me that this is what’s causing it. Bizarre. Android phone unknown notification sound (solved)

?I felt a great disturbance, as if a million @Penn alumni, faculty, and students cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.? David Mack on Twitter

Best tech news headline of 2017. Amazon Wants to Let Strangers In Your House

Saving you a click: following up on experiments where liberals expressed more conservative beliefs after they thought about their own mortality, conservatives express more liberal beliefs when they literally picture themselves as Superman.

What the article doesn’t say is what I think is most interesting: what can we infer from this about how conservatives and liberals view themselves ALL THE TIME? It’s not like these belief systems are genetic implants. Strange Thought Experiment (Briefly) Turns Conservatives Into Liberals

I can’t tell you how much I adore that they cited Penn as the source of this article. New Study Finds You’d Love Being Rich Asshole