Recent
Hands off our Census: my comment on the proposed 2030 residence rules
The Census Bureau's proposed rules would drop residents from the apportionment count and ban questions on race. I oppose them, and here is my comment so you can write your own. Comments are due November 2.
Sylvester Stallone Interview
This interview with Sylvester Stallone is wise, emotional, and gripping. And, it really made me want to read his memoir. I knew only bits and pieces before (that he banked on himself for Rocky, didn’t like Arnold). But from his childhood to adult regrets, its an astonishing read.
Needed a walk in the sunshine today and was rewarded by the beautiful colors breaking through this street tree just up the road.
Jared KnowlesSpent more time than I want to admit cleaning out dust and dead bugs from my server enclosure today. I’ve had some high temp alerts lately and I’m concerned about one drive in my ZFS pool so I’m hoping adding some airflow will keep things running until HDD prices come back down.
Why hello there! Today was a great day to get out and ride. Perfect weather and the foliage was looking sharp!
Took a ride today along a rail trail and had some stunning river views and this quintessential New England scene. That's me on the bike.
Profile of Duncan Robinson: An improbable NBA breakthrough
As someone who has immediate family struggling with mental health disorders, this profile was compassionate and very real feeling. It is hard to describe the ups and downs, day by day, but Brendan Quinn’s writing nails it. Much 💝 to Duncan and his family.
Motion looping over a New England pond
Not much motion on a calm early fall day, but the gentle breeze gives a calmness to this pond scene.
Census of Governments Explorer
The Census of Governments Place Explorer is a free, no-code way to look up revenue, spending, and cash and securities for every state, county, city and township government the Census Bureau surveyed, across 56 published years: https://cog-demo.civilytics.org/
Took some time today to get out in nature and see some of the great open spaces near my own backyard. This is the Great Meadows Wildlife Reserve!
Wednesday night at the rock show
Saw Brandon Flowers, whose new album Thrasher is great, was playing down the road from me tonight. Grabbed a last minute ticket and hopped on my bike and it's time to rock!
The Tragedy of the Commons AI Edition
https://www.economist.com/britain/2026/08/06/the-tragedy-of-the-commons-ai-edition →
This article in the Economist gets to a layer of AI discourse that seems completely absent. Workers by the thousands are using AI to file administrative claims against their employers in Britain, putting a previously overly burdensome legal remedy in their hands. Sorry for the paywall, but this is worth a read.
Comment on Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR, 2026)
The proposed changes in EDGAR would harm small businesses like mine and hurt innovation in education research. Register your opposition to the further politicization of education research today.
Macklemore vs. Everybody - The American Prospect
https://prospect.org/2026/09/19/macklemore-ed-sheeran-palestine-israel-nfl-live-nation/ →
Maureen Tkacik wrote the heck out of this piece which explains the collusion, consolidation, and consumer exploitation at the root of the censorship of Macklemore. The roots run deep and old, but there is hope that the public is showing we’re fed up!
Versioned operating principles for coding agents
https://github.com/kenn-io/constitution →
Wes McKinney’s keynote at #positconf2026 is 🔥
The idea of a clanker constitution is one I’ve been working on as well, but not as elegant. Luckily he’s sharing it so we can read and learn from it.
Really enjoying day 1 of #positconf2026. Lots of great ideas being shared. I definitely need to dig in on ShinyChat and data-dict to make public data more accessible.
Really enjoying day 1 of #positconf2026. Lots of great ideas being shared. I definitely need to dig in on ShinyChat and data-dict to make public data more accessible.
Jared KnowlesI really enjoyed the ASA Nation’s Data At Risk 2025 report. I’m very late to the party reading it but it does such a valuable service. I’ll have more to say from it soon, but great work by the authors and ASA for bringing it together.
The East Bay bike path in Rhode Island is a wonderful 14mile ride that includes this fun piece of public art.
Jared KnowlesSaw Coyote vs. ACME last night - it was wonderful. I take to heart its message of perseverance and the importance of trying looking at our primary election results in MA. We need more bold challengers! All the credit to those who took on incumbents, except Seth of course.
Final day at PolicyLink #Summit2026
After an exciting and inspiring week it's time to get together one final time and think about how to carry this work forward!
Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
Institutional actors already using AI chatbots as a propaganda vector but if you read the story AI also already surfaced the credibility gap. It’s an incredible story. We have to grapple with the ways this new technology and information dissemination method is being actively used.
US Census of Governments Finance Corpus
Revenue, spending, and cash and security holdings reported by US state, county, municipal and township governments, FY1967–FY2024, harmonized across five decades of changing identifiers and file layouts.
Scenes of a rising class consciousness
Nickel and Dimed, a timeless classic, rests at the driver station for the jet bridge at Boston Logan.
Jared KnowlesFlying to DC this morning to join PolicyLink Summit 2026. I’m really looking forward to thinking big about our democracy and public life and how social science expertise can fit into and be in service of a more just, equitable, and rich civic life.
Visited the Toltec ruins at Tula today and spent some time reflecting on just how long people have been building and celebrating and puzzling the mysteries of the universe.
I’ve been doing education data work for a long time and somehow this never got on my radar: “Since 1979, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) has published Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates. This analysis projects the number of high school graduates for all 50 states and the District of Columbia…”
I’m grateful there are so many people doing high-quality open source data like this!