Jan Murphy
Enthusiastic family historian since 2006; moderator pro tempore at Genealogy & Family History Stack Exchange. http://genealogy.stackexchange.com Fan of F&SF, figure skating, baseball, equestrian sports, cycling. Former bookseller; book junkie.
- Rant du jour: I am so tired of the posters who chastise people who order from DoorDash and UberEats. "It's so easy to learn to cook!" My dudes, many of us *already know* how to cook. Some days we're effing tired. Go yell at DoorDash and UberEats, or fund services that actually feed people.
- Reposted by Jan MurphyThread. 🫤
- Reposted by Jan MurphyWell now, would you look at that? A massive, 4-YEAR-LONG study of NEARLY 30 MILLION people in France found that individuals who received a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine had a 74% LOWER risk of death from severe COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated individuals and ZERO increased risk of all-cause mortality.
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- Looks like it's time to share this again. Iowans, in case your legislators missed it, Roald Dahl's Letter about losing his daughter. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. fs.blog/roald-dahl-l...
- Reposting to boost the signal. You can help Minneapolis troops who can't do cookie booths this year and get delicious results. There's also an option to donate cookies. If your troop is in the same position (in any city) and can't do f2f, please share the link to your digital cookie site.
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- Reposted by Jan MurphyI find this excuse completely ridiculous. Given the fact that the dangers of raw milk are so well-known (and this is precisely what they look like), the idea that they were just inexperienced babes is absurd. This is like saying you didn’t know you shouldn’t make Match-N-Oily-Rag play kits for kids.
- This is bonkers. MAHA 'farmers' with ecoli tainted raw milk admit they really don't know how to make the stuff after all. "Producing raw milk takes careful planning from a facility and infrastructure standpoint. Unfortunately, we learned this after the fact." people.com/ballerina-fa...
- Reposted by Jan MurphyStriking paper from researchers at Anthropic using a randomised control trial to look at the effects of AI use on skills acquisition. TL:DR ‘We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.’ www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
- ‘Novice workers who rely heavily on AI to complete unfamiliar tasks may compromise their own skill acquisition… We find that AI use impairs conceptual understanding, code reading, and debugging abilities, without delivering significant efficiency gains on average.’ arxiv.org/pdf/2601.20245
- My order of Girl Scout Cookies arrived today! The new cookies, Exploremores, are delicious! www.girlscouts.org/en/cookies/c...
- Sorry I missed #AncestryHour! A few more wills & admons have trickled in this week. I haven't had time to look at them, which is probably why they're all arriving now.
- Reposted by Jan Murphydeath by preventable disease is an inevitable and even desired outcome of concentration camps. in every era of concentration camps people have died of typhus, which is a disease of privation and enforced crowding. this illness is intentionally inflicted
- Horrifying. ICE confirms measles outbreak at Dilley family detention center. www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-dil...
- Reposted by Jan MurphyThe fact that both are quite experienced—8 years and 12 years with CBP—is yet more evidence that CBP should be abolished and all of its agents fired. There's no way to "reform" or "retrain" that, it's just a violent gang with badges.
- ProPublica has identified Alex Pretti’s killers www.propublica.org/article/alex...
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- Reposted by Jan MurphyCongress should consider making it a felony to demolish federally owned buildings without congressional approval.
- Reposted by Jan MurphyYesterday, five-year-old Liam and his dad Adrian were released from Dilley detention center. I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning. Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack.
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- This comparison hits close to home. When you attempt to breed horses to run faster and faster, with no regard to whether the horses are sound or not, you not only *don't* get a locomotive, you get horses than break down. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoist_T...
- Córy Doctorow with another verbal bullseye: pluralistic.net/2026/01/13/n...
- To anyone about to watch the Winter Olympics: Watch what you like, enjoy what you like, but while doing that, can we not chirp about sports we don't care for? You don't need to say "this sport is better than that one". Just say what's good. Because there's enough negativity in the world already.
- Reposted by Jan MurphyA reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.
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- Reposted by Jan MurphyGIVE HIM HIS HAT AND BACKPACK BACK YOU GHOULS
- Federal judge has ordered the release of Liam Ramos (the bunny hat boy) and his father. A brief and rather remarkable order. Clearly written to be shared widely, so please do. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
- Reposted by Jan MurphyI can’t stress this enough. The state of 4th Amendment law is that the cops can’t force you to type in a passcode but they can force you to swipe your finger or present your face. Never stop using passcodes/passwords to unlock your devices. And consider additional code to unlock Signal.
- The FBI was able to access Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson's Signal messages because she used Signal on her work laptop. The laptop accepted Touch ID for authentication, meaning the agents were allowed to require her to unlock it. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
- Reposted by Jan MurphyWe have a perfect Rectangular February coming up, first time we’ve had one since 2015 Maybe this is what finally closes the loop and fixes the world
- Reposted by Jan MurphyReminded of the time that a BBC World Service presenter asked their guest how long there had been a Latino presence in Los Angeles and I yelled at my car stereo, “The name of the city is **LOS ANGELES**!”
- Reposted by Jan MurphyOkay troublemakers, punks, antifa supervillains, and anyone who just enjoys being a petty little shitbird while they fuck up the algorithm of a massive media corp. Here's your assignment for the weekend. Get on it and spread the word.
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- Any renter knows this pitch is bogus. The price of a property or rental always goes up after you evict the current residents.
- How can I resist cover copy like this? "Packed with information, hilariously but accurately (well...except for the chickens) illustrated, Hannah Holt and Korwin Briggs' A History of Underwear with Professor Chicken is sure to wedge its way into the annals of history-based picture books."
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