Ben Klemens
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b-k.bsky.social
Ben Klemens
@b-k.bsky.social
150 followers 170 following 190 posts
I've stopped using "Economist" and have switched to "Computational Social Scientist". @b@xoxo.zone on Mastodon. He/him or they/them
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b-k.bsky.social
December 2023
East wing of the White House, with a massive Xmas tree and other well-lit foliage along its portico. Paper lanterns on the floor along the entranceway to the WH grounds.
October 24, 2025 at 8:16 AM
b-k.bsky.social
Got my first electric bill since installing the solar panels: negative seventy bucks. I've never felt so good receiving a utility bill
A close-up of my electric bill on the part which says "total credit amount: -$69.91".
September 25, 2025 at 9:29 PM
b-k.bsky.social
I've got one left.
A can of 3 stars peppercorn saison beer
September 21, 2025 at 1:24 AM
b-k.bsky.social
This is the logo for the now-decommissioned DataFerrett tool from the U.S. Census Bureau. Every bureaucracy should have a mascot.
August 16, 2025 at 6:52 PM
b-k.bsky.social
It's the day to declare independence from the Imperial--switch to Metric today!
The cover of the US Department of Commerce's 1971 report "A Metric America: A decision whose time has come".
July 5, 2025 at 12:27 AM
b-k.bsky.social
Sometimes you get a really great essay in the form of a court ruling. If you've been following the Abrego Garcia case, I recommend taking a break from doomscrolling and giving it a read.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

h/t @jessicahuseman.bsky.social‬
It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear. The Executive possesses enormous powers to prosecute and to deport, but with powers come restraints. If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?∗ And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present, and the Executive’s obligation to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” would lose its meaning. U.S. CONST . art. II, § 3; see also id. art. II, § 1, cl. 8
April 17, 2025 at 10:37 PM
b-k.bsky.social
Nice CRS infographic on where international visitors to the USA come from--66.5 million people coming to spend their money. We'll see if they keep coming.
www.everycrsreport.com/files/2025-0...
66.4 million total on this bar chart from 2023. Canada then Mexico are by far the largest shares, then Great Britain, Germany, India, Brazil, Korea, France, Japan, China.
March 20, 2025 at 1:49 AM
b-k.bsky.social
Whoa---I still have a copy of the original.
A paperback: The Hobbit, by JRR Tolkein. With trippy looking trees and birds in foreground and a village on a hill in background, all very 1960s.
March 18, 2025 at 1:29 AM
b-k.bsky.social
Literally a museum piece.
A big ol Pato V terminal, with orange plasma touchscreen. The museum's explanatory card is on top
February 17, 2025 at 5:32 PM
b-k.bsky.social
Going to self-RT this post from 2022 when I thought it was pretty cool that the people who run Google Maps use discretion in selecting location names, and picked something significant instead of the official street name.
Screen shot of a tweet from June 2022. "The street is still New Hampshire Ave but now has the honorific Khashoggi Way, like how I live between Bishop Hart Way and Li'l Benny Way but both of those names won't appear on a map. But Google is all in and is using the honorific in this case." The map is a close-up of DC outside the Saudi Embassy, with Jamal Khashoggi Way displayed.
February 16, 2025 at 3:31 AM
b-k.bsky.social
I know good pita can be hard to find, though. Here's a demo of what good pita does:
January 13, 2025 at 3:51 AM
b-k.bsky.social
Posting this mandelbrot set a friend gave me because it was so delicious. Check out the rich texture.
Almond bread (German: mandelbrot) cookies. One is on its side to show the texture of the interior.
December 27, 2024 at 5:07 PM
b-k.bsky.social

It's always nice to see feedback that I've been blocking the right people.
@xoxogossipgita replying to a blocked account. "This is not common sense" and "THERE ARE TWO OTHER POSTS IN THIS THREAD LEARN TO READ". It looks like she also blocked the person later in the day.
October 27, 2024 at 8:59 PM
b-k.bsky.social
I attended the University of Chicago when it was self-selecting---only nerds applied. But people think I got past the rigorous admissions standards of today, where 95% are rejected. Thank you, U of C admissions, for making me look smarter than I am.

Via flowingdata.com/2024/07/16/m...
Plot of U of C admissions rates. In 2001 it was just under 45%, it dropped steeply between 2007 and about 2015, and by 2022 was just under 5%.
September 14, 2024 at 4:24 PM
b-k.bsky.social
No cats, but Mexico also has a great response.
August 20, 2024 at 5:27 AM
b-k.bsky.social
I wasn't sure if lyrics had gotten more bland or it was just me, so a few years ago I pulled all the lyrics to all the top 40 songs over the last century and read them all. My conclusion: yes, it really has been as downhill as you think.
Two tweets from @popchartbot. "To die from the cold in the arms of a nightmare, well knowing your best days are gone." and "I wonder why we waste our lives here. I wonder why we spend these nights together. Is this the room I'll live my life in forever?"
May 22, 2024 at 2:38 AM
b-k.bsky.social
Just got off the plane and I am already loving Austin (yes, for #sxsw). Every bus stop should look like this.
The bus stop is a giant blue guitar.
March 9, 2024 at 2:45 AM
b-k.bsky.social
DC streets are very wide, maybe because it looks more like a "monumental city"? In older photos, all that empty space, the long walk from one side of the street to the other, becomes obvious.

This one is from 1908, via www.shorpy.com/Washington_D...
A 1908 street scene, with some buildings to the left and right, and a whole lot of space in between. There are some horseless carriages, a streetcar, random pedestrians, none very close together.
February 29, 2024 at 3:57 PM
b-k.bsky.social
While we're diagramming Manhattan, don't forget that the "Upper" in "Upper West Side" refers to less than halfway up the island.
A map of Manhattan, with 1st, 50th, 100th, 150th, and 218th streets marked. The Lower East Side is South of 1st, and the Upper West and Upper East Sides are South of 100th.
February 1, 2024 at 11:57 PM
b-k.bsky.social
Hey meme designers, The Post is handing you new material today.
www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2024...
Headline is "How the polar vortex could bring winter back with a vengeance", and the image is technically a weather map but clearly some kind of demon.
January 22, 2024 at 2:12 AM
b-k.bsky.social
Tonight's activity is comparing Al Jazeera's English versus Arabic coverage. English coverage is exclusively about humanitarian/civilian issues; Arabic coverage is exclusively about military battles.

www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblo...
vs
www-aljazeera-net.translate.goog/news/liveblo...
December 24, 2023 at 6:15 AM
b-k.bsky.social
It worries me that these things always ask us to help computer vision systems find crosswalks but never to help them find pedestrians and cyclists.
A captcha with a crosswalk at left and a pedestrian at right. We're asked to find the crosswalk. A captcha with a crosswalk and a bicyclist. We're asked to find the crosswalk.
December 15, 2023 at 5:11 PM
b-k.bsky.social
Next time somebody calls you out for using snarky typography like inline exclamation marks, tell them the NYT does it too.
www.nytimes.com/2023/10/23/n...
"In 2022, a hard-right faction took over the Republican Town Committee — and are now planning to seize control of the Representative Town Meeting, the 230-member (!) legislative body whose powers include final say on any municipal expenditure over $5,000."
October 24, 2023 at 8:46 PM
b-k.bsky.social
Before Gap took creative control in 1988 and added their higher-tier "BR Monogram" line, Banana Republic was an African safari themed apparel retailer. Less weird than selling suits under that name, but still, is there anywhere in the world that has both lions and bananas?
Ads from the mid-1980s for "Old Engish Wildlife engraving t-shirt", with lions and tigers and giraffes, and the Banana Republic name and logo (a star ringed by two bananas).
July 23, 2023 at 5:44 AM
b-k.bsky.social
IXPE remains my favorite space telescope b/c it doesn't produce stellar images, just science. Here's new info about a galaxy-sized particle accelerator w/(we now know) a rotating magnetic field.
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/ixpe/feature/nasa-s-ixpe-fires-up-astronomers-with-new-blazar-findings
It's IXPE the Interstellar Ibex! She wears glasses, and looks out from the stars. You're getting a cartoon mascot because IXPE doesn't quite observe light, but the polarization of light, and so doesn't produce magazine-ready pix.
July 19, 2023 at 2:26 AM