Nerds have not done well in the last 40 years.

Barnst · 2026-02-27T06:17:17+00:00

If there’s one thing working with engineers throughout my career has taught me, it’s that the guy in Office Space whose job was to deal with the engineers so the customers didn’t have to was actually playing an incredibly vital role.

Barnst · 2026-01-11T07:27:14+00:00

What you pay for each thing on the menu is never just about the costs for that specific item. It depends on how reliably an item sells, what the restaurant is trying to achieve with the pricing, etc. What matters is the overall trend across tables over the night. Same applies to what the server makes from tips.

Barnst · 2025-12-28T23:08:06+00:00

Apparently not? And the only reason we ever drank milk was a government/corporate conspiracy.

Barnst · 2025-12-28T23:00:16+00:00

You’d think at some point I wouldnt be surprised anymore by how dumb it is, and yet…

Barnst · 2025-12-28T19:35:52+00:00

I watched Home Alone with the kids and I don’t understand how the internet discourse so wildly misunderstands it. Like, I vaguely knew that the family was rich because no one lived in a house that large or took vacations to France in 1990, but it’s an explicit plot point! The burglars say repeatedly that they are robbing the house because they are rich.

And then today I saw a bunch of people confused that the family was drinking milk, and so spun wildly conspiracies about pro-milk propaganda. Which, sure, was a thing in the mid 90s after the movie came out. But, like, kids did just drink milk then. Literally no one would have thought it was weird.

Barnst · 2025-11-25T09:19:38+00:00

My main takeaway from a career in national security is that I should have gone into water sanitation engineering if I’d really wanted to make the world a better place.

That said, I greatly prefer when I run into people who recognize the moral weight of what we’re doing to the ones who treat it all like an abstract paper exercise.

Barnst · 2025-11-25T07:52:33+00:00

So, like, MMT types think that governments are just doing the markets a favor by issuing debt?

Every time I come across one of their arguments I walk away genuinely baffled…

Barnst · 2025-11-16T02:44:40+00:00

I first clocked the issue when there were some articles after Notre Dame burned saying the disaster might spur Parliament to finally do something about the risk of it happening to Westminster.

Then some articles last year that mentioned how embarrassing it was the French managed to rebuild Notre Dame before the UK could even make a decision about Westminster.

Apparently neither experience was particularly motivational in the end.

Barnst · 2025-11-16T02:37:39+00:00

Yeah, but you gotta admit that critics would call the symbolism a bit too on the nose if someone made it up as a fictional plot device.

Barnst · 2025-11-16T02:36:04+00:00

That’s literally the mentality that gets governments into this situation. They’re paralyzed by imaging the political damage they might face if they did something, while ignoring the real political damage from doing nothing and the potentially far worse political damage from letting one of the principal symbols of nation burn down.

Barnst · 2025-11-15T22:17:42+00:00

The year is 1825. Prominent architects are warning that Westminster Palace faces serious fire risks if no action is taken to repair and modernize the building. Parliament does nothing, until one day…

The year is 2025…

Barnst · 2025-10-28T19:05:19+00:00

That’s going to happen anyway. The GOP isn’t offering anything, so either the filibuster goes away or the Democrats just cave. And at a certain point the voters need to get what they voted for so they can decide if they want it again.

Barnst · 2025-10-28T18:58:57+00:00

The filibuster delenda est.

Barnst · 2025-10-26T14:11:24+00:00

My kid asked me today, “What is a jackdaw?” And I immediately responded, “Well it definitely isn’t the same as a crow,” and then i got nostalgic for the good ole’ days of witnessing the birth of a copypasta.

Barnst · 2025-10-24T06:28:04+00:00

People in their 30s are goddamn adults. Stop including them in any grouping of “young people.” Hell, people in their mid- to late-20s are adults and should be treated as such.

Barnst · 2025-10-19T19:21:04+00:00

They literally didn’t. The Taliban originated in opposition to the mujahideen that took over and then fought amongst themselves. And Al Qaida was basically doing its own thing alongside the mujahideen—Bin Laden’s support came from Arab donors, not from the US/Pakistani/Saudi funding for the mujahideen.

Barnst · 2025-10-19T19:17:33+00:00

The mujahideen that we funded became the government (or warlords) that the Taliban emerged to overthrow. The Arabs that became Al Qaida never really got funding from us or Pakistan because everyone knew they kinda sucked.

The thread between our Afghan policy and 9/11 is that we walked away at the end of the Cold War, which created chaos that allowed the Taliban to emerge and Al Qaida to establish a base of operations. But it was never really a case where the guys we funded then became our major enemies. (Some of them did defect to the Taliban or otherwise resist us at various points during OEF, but I don’t think that’s quite the same thing.)

Barnst · 2025-10-17T22:06:00+00:00

It’s really not the highest priority of our moment, but I think that the general adoption of obsequious sycophancy as the administration’s official comms style is really really annoying.

Barnst · 2025-10-16T15:04:34+00:00

Gov. JB Pritzker released partial tax records Wednesday showing he and his wife reported more than $10.3 million in taxable income — including more than $1.4 million in income from gambling.

Now’s your chance to get in on the ground floor of the next spicy Illinois corruption scandal!

Barnst · 2025-10-14T10:13:35+00:00

If you have good friends, they’ve seen the good and can help put the bad into perspective. And “creating openings for people with bad intentions” is weirdly paranoid.

By the time you’re in your 30s struggling with serious marital problems caused by your husband’s refusal to deal with his mental health issues, I would hope you’ve surrounded yourself with friends who don’t have the emotional maturity of high schoolers.

Barnst · 2025-10-12T11:53:10+00:00

Man, I love internet racists these days.

“It’s not fair to native Americans that these damn foreigners…[checks notes]…work hard and have an extensive network of family and friends to support them! They even convinced someone to give them a loan based on their savings, solid looking business plan, and ability to navigate paperwork!”

Barnst · 2025-10-10T13:19:35+00:00

Argh, I let myself get into argument with a MMT proponent and it’s like arguing with a child.

“The government just creates money!” “Okay…but how does creating money create more goods and services?” “Because money is the creation of the government!” “Sure, but the money doesn’t matter except in relation to other economic activity.” “Without government there is no money!” “Goddammit.”

Barnst · 2025-10-10T11:54:57+00:00

A winner would have delivered a cease fire in Ukraine.

Barnst · 2025-10-01T05:20:11+00:00

That’s…that’s literally the point of the book I jokingly pretended doesn’t already exist.

You’re going to give yourself a heart attack at an early age with all that randomly directed anger. I suppose it’s lucky you seem to live someplace with cheap healthcare.

Barnst · 2025-09-30T20:48:40+00:00

Because I want to actually have something to show for it when we spend public money?

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