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Again this year, we hear from the makers of the five films nominated for the Academy Award for best feature documentary. Today, documentary filmmaker Geeta Gandbhir talks about her film "The Perfect Neighbor" which uses police body cam footage to tell the story of a Florida community and the deadly consequences of "stand your ground" laws.

 

Photo Courtesy of Message Pictures. 

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California's richest residents are threatening to leave the state over a proposed one-time 5% tax on billionaires. Suzanne Jimenez, chief of staff at SEIU United Healthcare Workers West, an architect of the proposal, explains how the tax would work.

Photo: California Governor Gavin Newsom gestures as he speaks during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on January 22, 2026. Newsom opposes this proposal. (Photo by Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)

 

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NBA All-Star weekend has come and gone, and though the game itself was surprisingly spirited, the most intriguing development of the weekend was the strange story of some leaked DMs from a pair of anonymous Twitter accounts that people connected to those accounts say belong ...

Ski Jumping Pairs is my favorite Winter Olympics event. (Video by Riichiro Mashima.)

When politics feels broken, polarized, and paralyzed, what’s the real solution?

In this episode of That Trippi Show, Joe Trippi sits down with Nicholas Gruen to discuss an idea that could fundamentally reshape American democracy: citizens’ assemblies chosen by democratic sortition — randomly selected Americans serving in a permanent civic body, similar to a jury.

Could a “Citizen’s House” reduce polarization, weaken special interests, and restore trust in government? From the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to the “America in One Room” experiment, this episode explores the evidence behind a model that may calm the chaos of modern politics.

If Washington can’t fix itself, can the people?
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U.S. Senator Andy Kim (D NJ) talks about his work in the Senate and the issues in New Jersey, including his trip to the Munich Security Conference and how Sec. Rubio's speech was received.

photo credit: U.S. Senate Photographic Studio

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From designer Beth Mathews, a free “Private Property! No ICE” sign you can print out for your shop or restaurant.

More details about video in the new Apple Podcasts in this post on Podnews:

…this is the first time Apple Podcasts has ever announced a feature that forces you to be a customer of a few large companies to use it.

So disappointing. Micro.blog already uses HLS for video and could support this tomorrow if Apple had just used RSS. This is why open formats matter. Apple has instead chosen lock-in.

After a league phase in which only Arsenal and Bayern Munich looked truly excellent, the Champions League has arrived at the knockout playoff round. A quick refresher of what that means: In the new format, introduced last season, the top eight teams in the league-stage table...

Leaked documents reveal the inner workings of Alpha School, which both the press and the Trump administration have applauded. The documents show Alpha School's AI is generating faulty lessons that sometimes do "more harm than good."

Terry Godier’s new feed reader Current is out. I had a feeling he was exploring ideas similar to what I was also working on. In an announcement post, he writes:

As items age, they dim. Eventually they’re gone, carried downstream. You don’t mark them as read. You don’t file them. They simply pass, the way water passes under a bridge.

I have a similar concept in my upcoming feed reader, that items “fade” away and change colors. If you miss them, it’s okay. But Current embraces the river and has all sorts of design ideas beyond that. Really well done.

While Zettelkasten practice improves thinking outside the Zettelkasten, we’ll have to lay out a specific problem with the Zettelkasten Method: we can only think in and within our Zettelkasten when it is available. However, we are often somewhere else. Naturally, the inbox p...

BTW, people make the same mistake with AI that we make with every new tech. We focus on the creators not the users. As users we are learning a new skill, how to specify our needs precisely. Whether this is good or bad, I don't know.

What movies can you brag about seeing during their original run in the theater? Not big movies, more culty ones. I’ve got Iron Giant, American Movie, Run Lola Run, Hands on a Hardbody, and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. 😂

Back when I ran a software company I'd help the team understand why they should be very very nice to our customers. "They have our money in their pockets." It generally got a laugh partially because I was their boss, but I like to think also because it's the truth.

Knitting is the perfect activity to calm the body and soothe the mind during a high-pressure event like the Winter Olympics. Once you internalize your stitch pattern, you can just zone out and focus on how the yarn feels between your fingers, and for those EMDR girlies among us, knitting also counts as bilateral stimulation.

Since diver Tom Daley went viral in 2021 for knitting between events at the Tokyo Olympics, he’s become something of a knitbassador for the craft, and perhaps also an inspiration for this year's Olympians. This year, several athletes are posting their WIPs (works-in-progress) to social media, and as Defector's resident fiber freak, I am going to take this opportunity to review their projects. 

Yesterday, I had to ship an envelope to the UK and got caught in dead ends at the Fedex and DHL sites. One of them said my zip code wasn't in the town I live in. How do you get past that?? These companies are losing business because their systems are broken. Maybe they worked at one time. I used ChatGPT as I often do to get help on one of these antiquated sites. And while ChatGPT has the technology and the Fedex has the info, they just have to get together and upgrade the user experience, and eventually of course is the AI version of the UI becomes the real one.

Paywalls that require you to subscribe to an Atlanta news org when you don’t live in Atlanta prob don’t generate much revenue. Why not instead charge per article. Like a toll you pay on a road you drive on once every few years. I wouldn't even have an exception for Atlanta residents. If they start spending more money than a subscription costs, you could offer a subscription then, as a way to save money. Kind of the way Amazon lets you buy a certain amount of coffee beans without requiring you to sign up for monthly delivery. They do tell you how much you'd save if you subscribed. Everyone appreciates a chance to save money, but still might not want the commitment. And asking someone from upstate NY to subscribe to the Atlanta Journal Constitution is a total bullshit. An insult to both our intelligences.

Aram Zucker-Scharff writes "I don't want to read one more thinkpiece about blackbox AI code factories until you can show me what they've produced." I've made the same request, and there was very little even brilliant programmers could show, including some who have become in...

Vindication means nothing without justice.