Subscribe
I brilliantly deleted all the subscribers to my newsletter without having a current backup. Fortunately, I had a backup from late May, so I restored from that.
If you unsubscribed since late May, please accept my apologies and I’m afraid you’re gong to have to unsubscribe again.
If you subscribed since May, well, you’re not seeing this so I’ll just try to beam telepathic apologies in your direction.
The government is very upset that people are criticizing it for shooting innocent mothers to death in the street. DHS stalked and intimidated a man who protested against state-sponsored killing, issuing him a “WARNING NOTICE” as flimsy as the nonjudicial “warrants” it uses now to bust into people’s homes…. It’s both deadly serious and deeply unserious. What are they afraid of? Well, we already know. Accountability in any form."
How Markdown took over the world.
By Anil Dash:
Nearly every bit of the high-tech world, from the most cutting-edge AI systems at the biggest companies, to the casual scraps of code cobbled together by college students, is annotated and described by the same, simple plain text format. Whether you’re trying to give complex instructions to ChatGPT, or you want to be able to exchange a grocery list in Apple Notes or copy someone’s homework in Google Docs, that same format will do the trick. The wild part is, the format wasn’t created by a conglomerate of tech tycoons, it was created by a curmudgeonly guy with a kind heart who right this minute is probably rewatching a Kubrick film while cheering for an absolutely indefensible sports team."
A look at the history behind the musical “1776.” It’s surprisingly accurate. youtu.be/ZAHEUe7UV…
The Ringer’s Rewatchables podcast discusses “48 HRS," starring Eddie Murphy and Nick Nolte. “This is my favorite movie ever. It’s indefensibly racist and got more racist every year.” Me too — I love this movie and yeah it is, as the young people say nowadays, problematic.
The End of Reading Is Here. Optimists once believed that universal literacy was inevitable. Now it seems that the age of reading might be a short anomaly in human history.
I parked in front of this shop while running an errand this afternoon. I feel unworthy of extraordinary banana pudding.
The US House is set to vote on bill to make daylight saving time permanent
The United States used year-round daylight saving time during World War Two and enacted it again in 1974 to reduce energy use. But it proved deeply unpopular and Congress repealed it later that year.
I’m sure it will be extremely popular this time. ⬅️ sarcasm
The “Eliza effect” refers to our “tendency to treat responsive computer programs as more intelligent than they really are. Very small amounts of interactivity cause us to project our own complexity onto the undeserving object.”
‘Dead Dolly Lane:’ San Diego County’s creepiest roadside attraction. “… the site is a private driveway transformed into an evolving folk-art installation lined with hundreds of dolls, doll heads and broken toy figures attached to fences and posts. What looks at first like a scene from a horror film is actually a long-running folk-art installation created by local artist Toni Fusco.”
While I was signing up for the Masterpiece on PBS newsletter, a dickover interrupted me to prompt me to sign up for their newsletter. I have achieved dickover nirvana.
Why Were Superheroes Popular? Charlie Jane Anders has a few interesting theories.
Inside AT&T’s industrial IoT logistics play. Telcos like to talk about going beyond mere connectivity to find new revenue streams. AT&T isn’t just talking. The operator IoT provider Wiliot are building an industrial IoT supply-chain and asset-tracking business. My latest on Fierce Network.
Minnie is back to her old self. A somewhat stiffer version of her old self, but we are delighted to have her back.
Her appetite has returned and she is eating regularly now. Rather than feeding her once a day, as we did most of her life, today I have given her three or four small meals, and it’s only 11 am. She’s got the spring back in her step again. She doesn’t even need the anti-nausea med or appetite stimulant. However, I have discovered I am a wiz at pilling the dog and giving her liquid medication, and these are skills I expect I will need again.
I’d like to get her on a healthier diet. She’s eating all meat and a little yogurt now, which is the doggie equivalent of subsisting on Doritos and Mountain Dew. I’ll tackle that problem after she’s had a little time getting back in the habit of eating.
If you’re reading this post in my email newsletter, please reply to let me know. I’m taking a headcount. Thanks!
Nominating the guy with the Nazi tattoo, a downwardly mobile career, a record of shitposting on Reddit and public denunciations by women was not a great idea for the “vote for us because the other guys are incompetent Nazi misogynist failures who post too much crap on social media” party.
When I make life decisions, I want certainty. I want to know I’m making the one and only right choice.
I’m learning that life often doesn’t give us that, especially for the bigger decisions. You know you don’t have enough information to make a good choice — let alone the right one — and you have to decide anyway.
This blows.
Upscale AI, a pure-play AI networking startup, has $500M funding and ambitious dreams: building open-standard silicon, systems and software for AI scale-up and scale-out. My latest on Fierce Network.
Overheard: “Today we celebrate the PDFing of “Declaration FINAL v3 USE THIS ONE - SIGNED.docx””
I realized recently that I enjoy running errands. Buying gas, going to the store, picking up groceries. I would’ve made a great 1950s housewife
I thought I looked badass walking the dog this morning, but then I got in the car, glanced at myself in the rearview mirror and saw the front brim of my hat was pushed up the entire time. So instead of looking badass, I looked like a simple country cousin from the Beverly Hillbillies.
Also, I was wearing black socks with shorts.
