Maxwell Palmer
Political scientist at Boston University. Institutions + local politics + voting rights.
www.maxwellpalmer.com / www.housingpolitics.com
- It's only two weeks into 2026, but I'm pretty sure The Raven Scholar is going to be the one of the best books I read this year.
- Is there an incompleteness or impossibility theorem about this? It's impossible to prevent hallucinations, and any model that reviews models to detect hallucinations is also vulnerable to hallucinations?
- "In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...
- How to fix America's gerrymandering problem? @benschneer.bsky.social and I wrote in Time today about a solution we developed (with @cantstopkevin.bsky.social). time.com/7309565/amer...
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View full threadThe Define-Combine Procedure allows both parties to act in their own partisan interests but produces a fair map by dividing map-drawing power between both parties.
- See our website, www.definecombine.com, for more, including an article summary and an interactive simulation where you can try DCP yourself.
- This piece builds on our paper in Political Analysis, “A Partisan Solution to Partisan Gerrymandering: The Define-Combine Procedure.” cup.org/471aVyW
- The redistricting battles evoke the cold war: "unilaterally disarm," "nuclear option," "mutually assured gerrymandering." We call our solution "mutually assured representation." bsky.app/profile/atru...
- Really?
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- This is great music for grading midterms.
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View full threadI think we see schools mentioned more around large developments, especially affordable housing developments. Since we included every multi family development in our sample, that might affect our results.
- Also, for traffic, I think in the Boston area traffic comes up in every conversation, regardless of topic.
- Local politics is the best politics. www.wsj.com/us-news/educ...
- I am confident that this will be the best thing I read today.
- This is not helping my productivity on a day when I need to finish a report with PDF graphs.
- I just completed all 25 days of Advent of Code 2024! #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com
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- You can’t have enough.
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- We just bought our first set, and it is great. I was really impressed, especially with the light kit. We got the ski cabin, and it fits in great with our winter village sets.
- I just completed "Hoof It" - Day 10 - Advent of Code 2024 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2024/day/10
- I just completed "Red-Nosed Reports" - Day 2 - Advent of Code 2024 #AdventOfCode adventofcode.com/2024/day/2
- The Thanksgiving stuffing waffle is the platonic ideal of leftovers.
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- Yes. You can have IT set up your BU email to use Gmail instead of outlook. Then you still have two inboxes, but you can control forwarding etc from the BU Gmail.
- Nothing says "climate emergency" like "policies to slow down addressing the climate emergency."
- Not sure how anyone could see @maxwellpalmer.bsky.social @davidmglick.bsky.social and my research on public meetings in MA and think that more community input will produce better development outcomes. www.housingpolitics.com/research/nei...
- How much money is going to be spent from the "Intervenor Trust Fund" on lawsuits brought solely to delay clean energy infrastructure?
- Great callout from @bostonglobe.com from our new report with The Boston Foundation:
- Excited to see @maxwellpalmer.bsky.social and my research in this @bostonglobe.com op-ed this morning. The use of public money to actively block much-needed affordable housing is appalling, and shows the strength of opposition to new housing in Greater Boston. www.bostonglobe.com/2024/11/25/o...
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- Thanks!
- Here are the thirteen cases we've found over the last ten years. If you know of more, please share them with @katherineeinst.bsky.social and me!
- Our full report is here: www.tbf.org/-/media/tbf/...
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- It would be great to see some evidence of places where it’s working to produce affordable housing, and not reducing the total amount of housing built.
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- Yes. This and town efforts to allow inclusionary zoning requirements in MBTA-C districts.
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- I think any large scale approach would need to analyze the conditions of each individual lot, and consider the current structures, lot size, actual proximity to transit, etc. It would also need to compare to prior zoning. Feasible, but difficult.
- @amydain.bsky.social has some good analysis, but it's hard to measure without digging into each individual town. mbtacommunities.bostonindicators.org/meaningful-o...
- This article shows how you have to look at the individual parcels and their context to get a sense of if the MBTA zones will actually achieve new housing. commonwealthbeacon.org/opinion/is-p...
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- I’m pretty sure that one was my fault. 🤦♂️
- The Boston Foundation released the 2024 Greater Boston Housing Report Card today, including a report on the potential use of publicly owned land for building housing by me and Katie Einstein. www.tbf.org/-/media/tbf/...
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View full threadInstead of using public land as a tool for building housing, towns use it to stop housing. We found 13 recent cases where municipalities spent more than $50m of public money to buy private land in order to prevent it from being developed into housing, including to stop affordable housing.
- What can be done about this? The state can streamline the public land procurement process; reform state funding programs so they can’t be used to block the development of housing; and provide technical assistance to municipalities seeking to dispose of surplus land…
- The state and municipalities own a huge amount of land in greater Boston - almost 1/4.
- About 1/3 of this public land is vacant. If just 5% of the vacant, non-conservation land was used for multifamily housing, more than 85,000 units could be built.
- There's no better way to procrastinate than trying out a new task manager.
- New Job: BU Political Science @bupolisci.bsky.social is hiring a tenure-track AP in Environmental Politics. academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/28327 #APSA2024 #polisky
- Has anyone seen my HDMI adapter? Last seen in May. #FirstDayOfClass
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[This user deactivated their account]- The Tainted Cup was excellent. Saint of Bright Doors is in my list for this summer.
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- Thanks!
- Thanks @ispsyale.bsky.social for a great summary of my work with Ben Schneer and @cantstopkevin.bsky.social on partisan gerrymandering. isps.yale.edu/news/blog/20...
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- Is that true for all of the primaries, or just tonight?
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- Thanks for the reminder! Glad I still have 2 days to figure it out.
- Excited to share that "A Partisan Solution to Partisan Gerrymandering: The Define–Combine Procedure" is now out at Political Analysis. With @cantstopkevin.bsky.social and Ben Schneer. t.co/sc5Tt5wpYq
- We develop a new method to reduce partisan gerrymandering that doesn't require independent commissions, judges, or tiebreakers.
- Great NYT crossword theme today for #polisky. “Political pun-ditry.”
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- Ugh. I hope your back is ok.
