.@VoteHub partnered with Verasight to poll Texas’s midterm contests. Among likely voters, including those leaning toward a candidate, Greg Abbott received 48% support to Gina Hinojosa’s 46% in the governor’s race. In the Senate race, James Talarico led Ken Paxton 48% to 45%. On the generic ballot, Republicans led Democrats 48% to 45%. All three of these leads are within the survey’s margin of error. From VoteHub’s article: “We chose Verasight for its use of several recruitment approaches, voter-file validation capabilities and election research experience.” Read about the poll results and methods: votehub.com/2026/10/23/voteh…

ها هم النشامى قد لاحقوهم حتى جحورهم. قلنا إن الإرهابيين لن يفلتوا من العقاب، ولن يفلت أي صاحب فكر يفرق بين الأردني والأردني. رحم الله الشهداء وشفى المصابين وحفظ وطننا وشعبنا من كل شر وسوء

"Universities are due for another evolution: offering 90-credit, three-year bachelor’s degrees in fields that demand immediate workforce development," Linda G. Mills, president of @nyuniversity, writes. wapo.st/4zPMALk

Coffee shops boost innovation. 10% more Starbucks in an area --> 3-4% more inventions. People gather over a cuppa. They share ideas, discuss how to untangle a knotty problem, help see an issue from another perspective. These conversations lead to breakthroughs and inventions. A very fun paper finds that when Starbucks rolled out to a new county, it fueled a coffee-shop culture, urging more and more people to “grab a coffee” together. The authors compare the counties where Starbucks had rolled out to those where it had not yet arrived. And they find that the number of patents in caffeinated counties is meaningfully higher. This paper underscores how essential the face-to-face encounter is. Starbucks isn’t that old. People Could have picked up the phone and chatted at any time. People Could have dropped an email. Probably they did. But those connections didn’t yield the same insights and creativity. Turns out that a Cup of Joe really does help the knowledge flow. We talk about how much in-person connection boosts creativity in In Person. It’s out in just few days, so now is a great time to pre-order. To see the full research use the link in the comments. #Innovation #InPerson #FutureOfWork #CoffeeCulture #NewBook

CBS News to launch election night "nerd show" for politics junkies axios.com/2026/10/07/cbs-new…

Ben Affleck reveals he writes Python, understands convolutional neural networks, worked extensively with GPUs, and used his celebrity status to get private looks at Google and OpenAI’s video models “I’ve always been kind of into computers since I was young. Then, when film started to move from analog film to digital, I became more interested in that aspect of it. The visual-effects workflow for many years has included machine learning, so I can write pretty shitty Python scripts and stuff like that. “With convolutional neural networks, which were the precursors to what the transformer can do, which is much more computation simultaneously, you would do things like look at what’s called a tensor. That’s the numerical translation of a visual image in numbers, like the batch number, the frame number and the red, green and blue values of each pixel in each frame. It’s just that simple. That numeric is called a tensor. “You’d use a convolutional neural network to identify patterns that reveal what’s called edge detection or feature extraction, which is identifying patterns well enough to know, this is where the window ledge is, so we can more easily take the green-screen image out and replace it with something. “That was familiar to me early on because, prior to Artists Equity, I had a small visual-effects company. I’ve worked with GPUs a lot too. The visual-effects guys said, ‘Hey, you should see. There are a couple: Google and this other company, OpenAI, are doing really interesting stuff with transformers in video.’ “I’ve learned that I can actually just call up and go, ‘Hey, it’s Ben Affleck. Can I come see what you’re doing?’ Sometimes people say yes, to my astonishment.”

I did not have "Stata becomes irrelevant as a social science tool" on my bingo card this year. Things are moving very quickly.

Use of turn signals around the world

ReconMR/Siena poll | 9/8-9/11 LV US Senate Texas 2026 🟦James Talarico 49% 🟥Ken Paxton 43% Link to poll: reconmr.com/wp-content/uploa…