Colin
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kolyin.bsky.social
Colin
@kolyin.bsky.social
2K followers 360 following 1.2K posts
Professor, teaching about law, negotiation, business, and conspiracy theories.

'Pese a su facha de tipo rudo, Colin es un amor: un pacifista del escepticismo.'

Currently clean on OPSEC.
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kolyin.bsky.social
I just rewatched Glass Onion and this is exactly the kind of nonsense they threw in as a gag to signal to the audience that the character everyone thinks is a genius is actually extremely stupid.
November 14, 2025 at 6:50 AM
kolyin.bsky.social
November 12, 2025 at 11:12 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
Should we refrain from forcibly tattooing Betteridge's Law of Headlines on the torso of every pundit and thought leader, upside down so they can read it before they sin again?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteri...
November 6, 2025 at 8:32 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
I've always been a big fan of Saddleback Leather products and super curious about whether the company is a great success story or a wild trainwreck to come.

This doesn't completely answer the question, but ...
November 5, 2025 at 12:08 AM
kolyin.bsky.social
DHS's propaganda poster of AI slop knights uselessly standing in a circle waving swords at each other really reminds of something. But what? It's on the tip of my tongue.
Official DHS troll account posting an AI slop image of cosplaying knights standing in a circle and pointing swords at each other, in a way that one struggles to see as impressive or threating to anyone other than the other people standing in that circle Headline reading, "2 injured, including a US marshal, after an ICE agent’s weapon discharged during LA immigration enforcement operation" NYT headline and lede: Artillery Shell Detonated Over Interstate 5 During Marines’ Celebration, California Officials Say The mishap, during an anniversary celebration for the Marine Corps attended by the vice president and defense secretary, underscores safety concerns that Gov. Gavin Newsom voiced before Saturday’s event at Camp Pendleton.
October 22, 2025 at 4:30 AM
kolyin.bsky.social
This entire article is like hearing a fire alarm going off in a distant building, then another one, then another and another and another.

The mainstream isn't hearing these stories or understanding why they matter. But something huge and ugly is building anyway.

www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/t...
October 17, 2025 at 5:24 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
October 16, 2025 at 4:01 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
I was married once but now I ride forever shiny and chrome. Women love the vehicle.
October 16, 2025 at 3:56 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
Tweet from an anti-vax quack complaining that a free coupon CVS used as an incentive for flu vaccines is "coercion." "Is this" meme reading "Anti Vax / getting paid to not get the flu / Is this coercion?"
October 13, 2025 at 8:47 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
Good morning! Attack today with the unhinged confidence of Elizabeth Holmes posting a samizdat TedX from her prison cell.

And tonight you can drink with the grim determination of Elizabeth Holmes's legal team watching her call her fraudulent scheme "unfinished business."
Pinned tweet of Elizabeth Holmes, incarcerated former CEO of Theranos: What did Theranos do and what's unfinished business? Theranos recieved FDA approval on its hardware, software, and its first small sample chemistry test for HSV, along with a CLIA waiver to run that system and test in distributed locations. It began operating at retail on the first phase of its operations for just over a year. But after 15 years, hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D, and just as it prepared to introduce its technologies - and lower the cost of healthcare testing - nationwide, it never got to see its vision through. It never got to launch its FDA approved device. It is unfinished business. Because access to affordable health information is a basic human right.
October 9, 2025 at 1:12 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
Good morning! Attack today with the unhinged confidence of Elizabeth Holmes posting a samizdat TedX from her prison cell.

And tonight you can drink with the grim determination of Elizabeth Holmes's legal team watching her call her fraudulent scheme "unfinished business."
Pinned tweet of Elizabeth Holmes, incarcerated former CEO of Theranos: What did Theranos do and what's unfinished business? Theranos recieved FDA approval on its hardware, software, and its first small sample chemistry test for HSV, along with a CLIA waiver to run that system and test in distributed locations. It began operating at retail on the first phase of its operations for just over a year. But after 15 years, hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D, and just as it prepared to introduce its technologies - and lower the cost of healthcare testing - nationwide, it never got to see its vision through. It never got to launch its FDA approved device. It is unfinished business. Because access to affordable health information is a basic human right.
October 9, 2025 at 1:12 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
They've been tilting at this evil liberal windmill since before Andrew Schlafly tried to take down the theory of relativity with Conservapedia.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn19...
October 8, 2025 at 1:01 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
If only they'd had AI when Andrew Schlafly created Conservapedia to take down the theory of relativity.

Elon isn't the first screwball with a bone to pick with reality. He won't be the last, or even the richest in the final analysis.

We have to fight for facts forever. That's the deal.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19303-emc2-not-on-conservapedia/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19303-emc2-not-on-conservapedia/
October 8, 2025 at 12:59 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
Note also that the Mint very specifically says, "Congress authorizes commemorative coins." That's because the Constitution is also very specific about this: "The Congress shall have Power To . . . coin Money".

Not the president.
October 4, 2025 at 4:52 AM
kolyin.bsky.social
Are commemorate coins "currency"? Who knows what janky workaround they're planning--we could get the Trump version of Patel's challenge coin, and maybe not in that case.

But in general the US Mint makes legal tender commemorative coins. I don't see how a spendable coin isn't currency.
October 4, 2025 at 4:49 AM
kolyin.bsky.social
Alex Jones bankruptcy update - the Trustee has filed notice that the Alex Jones estate will abandon its 100% ownership stake in Free Speech Systems, the holding company for Infowars and related assets (IP, URL, etc.).

Starts a 14-day clock for objections.

ecf.txsb.uscourts.gov/doc1/1780532...
Legal filing saying in part, "The Trustee hereby gives notice of his intent to abandon this ownership interest because it is burdensome to the estate and is of inconsequential value and benefit to the estate. See 11 U.S.C. § 554(a); FRBP 6007(a)."
October 3, 2025 at 6:45 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
As the administration makes moves to take over elite universities, let's see how their goons have done with the schools they already conquered:

www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...
Those metrics are down even as New College spends more than 10 times per student what the other 11 members of the State University System spend, on average. While one estimate last year put the annual cost per student at about $10,000 per member institution, New College is an outlier, with a head count under 900 and a $118.5 million budget, which adds up to roughly $134,000 per student. Now critics are raising new questions about NCF’s reputation, its worth and its future prospects as a public liberal arts college. But now, two-plus years and one failed presidential run later, money continues to flow to the college to help establish new athletics programs and recruit larger classes each year. Part of the push behind such recruiting efforts, the faculty member said, is because of retention issues. “It’s kind of like a Ponzi scheme: Students keep leaving, so they have to recruit bigger and bigger cohorts of students, and then they say, ‘Biggest class ever’ because they have to backfill all the students who have left,” they said. A Rankings Spiral Since the takeover, NCF has dropped nearly 60 spots among national liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, from 76th in 2022 to 135th this year. And some critics worry that death is exactly what lies ahead for NCF. The anonymous faculty member said they feel “an impending sense of doom” at New College and fear that it could close within the next two years. Allen said he has heard a similar timeline from lawmakers. Even Corcoran referenced possible closure at a recent Board of Governors meeting. In his remarks, the president emphasized that a liberal arts college should “produce something different.” And “if it doesn’t produce something different, then we should be closed down. But if we are closed down, I say this very respectfully, Chair—then this Board of Governors should be shut down, too,” Corcoran said, noting that many of its members have liberal arts degrees. To Allen, that remark was an unforced error that revealed private conversations about closure are likely happening behind closed doors.
October 2, 2025 at 8:28 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
There it is. The stick is shameless, blatantly illegal impoundment of funding authorized by the legislative branch.

Any university signing on to this is kowtowing to immoral, unethical, illegal, and incredibly clumsy extortion.
Adherence to this agreement shall be subject to review by the Department of Justice. Universities found to have willfully or negligently violated this agreement shall lose access to the benefits of this agreement for a period of no less than 1 year. Subsequent violations of this agreement shall result in a loss of access to the benefits of this agreement for no less than 2 years. Further, upon determination of any violations, all monies advanced by the U.S. government during the year of any violation shall be returned to the U.S. government. Finally, any private contributions to the university during the year(s) in which such violation occurred shall be returned to the grantor upon the request of the grantor.
October 2, 2025 at 5:18 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
Incredibly clumsy wording. So no international company or group may fund a scholar? The Rhodes people are going to have to have a think about this.
No foreign funding may in any way encourage or restrict the hiring of any persons or the teaching of any particular perspective or the admission of any foreign student or group of students.
October 2, 2025 at 5:16 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
So don't raise tuition, but also don't use foreign students who pay full freight to defray costs.

This makes college much less affordable for Americans, and benefits no one. No one! Adding a foreign student doesn't take a seat away from an American--it just helps pay the electrical bill.
Therefore, no more than 15 percent of a university’s undergraduate student population shall be participants in the Student Visa Exchange Program, and no more than 5 percent shall be from any one country. For schools presently over the 15 percent population, incoming matriculating classes should meet the 15 percent cap.
October 2, 2025 at 5:14 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
I *really* want to see an analysis of this number. How does this hit MIT, for example? (It's one of the victim universities.)

I'm very skeptical that the clownshow behind this letter did a good job working out the numbers and impacts of this.
Any university with an endowment exceeding $2 million per undergraduate student will not charge tuition for admitted students pursuing hard science programs (with exceptions, as desired, for families of substantial means)
October 2, 2025 at 5:12 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
"We're dynamiting the economy with tariffs, leading to massive price increases for you and your employees. But don't charge more for your services. Figure it out somehow."

Total abdication of leadership.
Towards this end, signatories to this compact commit to freezing the effective tuition rates charged to American students for the next five years.
October 2, 2025 at 5:10 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
Others have also pointed out how incoherent this is. Many people treated as and identifying as female from birth would fall outside this definition, such as people who were born with non-functional ovaries or testicles.
Institutions commit to defining and otherwise interpreting “male,” “female,” “woman,” and “man” according to reproductive function and biological processes
October 2, 2025 at 5:09 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
Others have already pointed out how shameful it is that someone put these two sentences next to each other.
Signatories commit themselves to revising governance structures as necessary to create such an environment, including but not limited to transforming or abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle, and even spark violence against conservative ideas. Given the importance of academic freedom to the marketplace of ideas, signatories shall adopt a policy protecting academic freedom in classrooms, teaching, research, and scholarship.
October 2, 2025 at 5:05 PM
kolyin.bsky.social
The architects of this already declared that "socioeconomic status" is a proxy for race, and sued to eliminate income-based scholarships to achieve a whiter med school.

That is what universities are being asked to comply with in advance.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Therefore, no factor such as sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations, or proxies for any of those factors shall be considered, explicitly or implicitly, in any decision related to undergraduate or graduate student admissions or financial support, with due exceptions for institutions that are solely or primarily comprised of students of a specific sex or religious denomination.
October 2, 2025 at 5:03 PM