The crypto industry has spent $200 million to get a bill too corrupt for Democrats to pass and a president too corrupt to sign anything that might meaningfully limit his grift.
Just had to patch a bug on the Tech Influence Watch Michigan House District 13 election page, stemming from Shri Thanedar reporting -$1.1 million in receipts.
Why is Thanedar reporting negative receipts? He put $3.7 million of campaign funds into crypto.
Finished reading:
The Locked Tomb series, book 1.
Gideon the Ninth
by Tamsyn Muir.
Published 2019. 448 pages.
Started July 16, 2026; completed July 17, 2026.
Posted: July 18, 2026 at 2:00 AM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, LGBT, science fiction.
Finished reading:
Wasteland Warlords series, book 6.
Wasteland Warlords 6
by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.
Published 2024. 158 pages.
Started July 12, 2026; completed July 15, 2026.
Posted: July 16, 2026 at 5:33 PM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, humor, litRPG, post-apocalyptic.
fascinating economic discovery from Fidelity: houses actually are cheaper now than in 2020!*
* if you denominate them in an arbitrary asset that has appreciated over that time frame
next up from Fidelity: groceries aren't getting more expensive**
** if you denominate their price in World of Warcraft gold
Posted: July 15, 2026 at 1:40 AM UTC.
Also posted to: Mastodon, Bluesky
Tagged: crypto.
Finished reading:
Wasteland Warlords series, book 5.
Wasteland Warlords 5
by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.
Published 2024. 131 pages.
Started July 12, 2026; completed July 12, 2026.
Posted: July 14, 2026 at 1:51 AM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, humor, litRPG, post-apocalyptic.
Finished reading:
Wasteland Warlords series, book 4.
Wasteland Warlords 4
by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.
Published 2024. 141 pages.
Started July 10, 2026; completed July 11, 2026.
Posted: July 14, 2026 at 1:50 AM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, humor, litRPG, post-apocalyptic.
Finished reading:
Wasteland Warlords 3
by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.
Published 2024. 141 pages.
Started July 9, 2026; completed July 9, 2026.
Posted: July 9, 2026 at 7:20 PM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, humor, litRPG, post-apocalyptic.
Finished reading:
Wasteland Warlords series, book 2.
Wasteland Warlords 2
by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.
Published 2023. 159 pages.
Started July 7, 2026; completed July 8, 2026.
Posted: July 9, 2026 at 7:19 PM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, humor, litRPG, post-apocalyptic.
Finished reading:
Wasteland Warlords series, book 1.
Wasteland Warlords 1
by James A. Hunter and Eden Hudson.
Published 2023. 150 pages.
Started July 6, 2026; completed July 6, 2026.
Posted: July 7, 2026 at 4:04 AM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, litRPG, post-apocalyptic.
Finished reading:
Discount Dan's Backroom Bargains series, book 3.
Kiosk Kingdom
by James A. Hunter.
Published March 31, 2026. 680 pages.
Started June 25, 2026; completed July 6, 2026.
Posted: July 7, 2026 at 1:28 AM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, humor, litRPG.
maybe they outsourced to ChatGPT the job of checking there haven't been any other projects with names like terra/luna that would evoke extremely negative reactions
Started reading:
Discount Dan's Backroom Bargains series, book 3.
Kiosk Kingdom
by James A. Hunter.
Published March 31, 2026. 680 pages.
Started June 25, 2026.
Posted: June 26, 2026 at 2:38 AM UTC.
Tagged: fantasy, humor, litRPG.
Finished reading:
Kay Scarpetta series, book 16.
Scarpetta
by Patricia Cornwell.
Published 2008. 500 pages.
Started June 21, 2026; completed June 25, 2026.
Posted: June 26, 2026 at 2:22 AM UTC.
Tagged: crime, mystery, thriller.
Finished reading:
Kay Scarpetta series, book 15.
Book of the Dead
by Patricia Cornwell.
Published 2007. 511 pages.
Started June 20, 2026; completed June 21, 2026.
Posted: June 22, 2026 at 12:12 AM UTC.
Tagged: crime, mystery, thriller.
Finished reading:
Kay Scarpetta series, book 14.
Predator
by Patricia Cornwell.
Published 2005. 453 pages.
Started June 19, 2026; completed June 20, 2026.
Posted: June 21, 2026 at 1:25 AM UTC.
Tagged: crime, mystery, thriller.
Setting aside the absurd premise of this op-ed, I love that the writer felt the need to hedge with "not that has been reported"
"No one's reported that one of the most famous popstars in the world dated a man who at the time was a random oyster farmer from Maine, BUT IT IS POSSIBLE"
Read:
“MAGA Pronatalism is Anti-Freedom No Matter the Packaging”.
Anne Lutz Fernandez in Nobody Wants This. Published June 15, 2026.
But its sanewashing is underway
Posted: June 16, 2026 at 1:04 PM UTC.
Tagged: extremism, women's rights.
Read:
“Anthropic's Safety Superpower”.
Ben Thompson in Stratechery. Published June 15, 2026.
Here’s the thing about these safety justifications: I think they work because, to Anthropic, they aren’t justifications. The company really believes that they are the only ones...
Read:
“Choosing to Stay Human”.
Ethan Mollick in One Useful Thing. Published May 26, 2026.
To be clear, I am cool with a lot of cognitive surrender. I don’t remember phone numbers anymore because my phone does that for me. I am happy my kids didn’t need to learn cursiv...
Read:
“Why "Book-Shaming" Won't Solve the Children's Literacy Crisis”.
Jessica Winter in The New Yorker. Published June 12, 2026.
Barnett’s concerns about literary merit and professional esteem may be timeless, but they are not terribly timely; they seem to float high above the current on-the-ground realities of what many educators and researchers agree to be a literacy crisis. In urging his audience to see children’s books as “real books,” Barnett skips over larger, more pressing questions about why so many children aren’t reading books at all, real or otherwise.
Posted: June 13, 2026 at 3:22 PM UTC.
Tagged: books, education, reading.
Tiffany Muller talks to me about what Citizens United enabled, how crypto and AI fit into the bigger picture of money in politics, and what it would actually take to fix this broken system.
Read:
“Under the Trump crypto playbook, the family always wins. Investors don't”.
Tom Bergin, Michelle Conlin, Koh Qing, and Tom Wilson in Reuters. Published June 9, 2026.
Risking little of their own money, the US president and his sons have added at least $2.3 billion to the family fortune from their main crypto ventures, while the investors they've wooed have taken a $2.3 billion hit, a Reuters examination found.
Posted: June 9, 2026 at 1:19 PM UTC.
Tagged: corruption, crypto, Donald Trump.
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