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Text • Dave Winer

Scripting News: Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Wednesday, February 25, 2026 How many Jeffrey Epstein’s do you think there are? # New header graphic, the entirely delightful and inspiring Alysa Liu. She's made me a better programmer in the short time she's been on our minds and in our hearts. I do this work because it'...

Countdown with Keith Olbermann
Audio

TRUMP'S NEW EPSTEIN COVER-UP; WHY WAS PATEL DRINKING 'ON THE JOB' - 2.26.26

omny.fm/shows/countdown-with-keith-olbermann/trumps-new-epstein-cover-up-why-was-patel-drinking-on-the-job-2-26-26

SEASON 4 EPISODE 63: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (2:30) SPECIAL COMMENTS: Trump should be in prison JUST for his new role in the new covering-up of the part of the Epstein files that are about him. Trump. The accusations are against Trump. The memos are about Trum...

xkcd.com
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Little Red Dots

After a lot of analysis, I've determined that they're actually big red dots; they're just very far away.

Scripting News Valid
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How many Jeffrey Epstein’s do you think there are?

Manton Reece Supports Webmention Valid
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I’ve been going back and forth about how to price the new RSS thing. It’s one of the best things I’ve built in a while. There are new costs, but it’s confusing to require Micro.blog Premium. Pretty sure the basics will he included for all Micro.blog subscribers, with one feature just for Premium.

Manton Reece Supports Webmention Valid
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Reading through the proposals for Growing the Open Social Web, which is on Monday. I think the best suggestions are actionable. Real ideas that can be implemented.

Joost.blog
Text • Joost de Valk

FAIR, WordPress, and Knowing When to Stop

Over the past year, we, Karim & Joost, have written and talked extensively about the challenges facing WordPress. We’ve been critical. At times, very critical.

Daring Fireball Valid
Text John Gruber

‘H-Bomb: A Frank Lloyd Wright Typographic Mystery’

inconspicuous.info/p/h-bomb-a-frank-lloyd-wright-typographic

When re-hanging signage, “Mind your P’s and Q’s” ought to be “Mind your H’s and S’s”.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
Text John Gruber

Terry Godier: ‘Phantom Obligation’

terrygodier.com/phantom-obligation

Terry Godier, in a thoughtful essay on the design of RSS feed readers: There’s a particular kind of guilt that visits me when I open my feed reader after a few days away. It’s not the guilt of having done something wrong, exactly. It’s more like the feeling of walking in...

Daring Fireball Valid
Text John Gruber

Bill Gates Apologizes to Foundation Staff Over Epstein Ties

wsj.com/articles/bill-gates-apologizes-to-foundation-staff-over-epstein-ties-67f39ef5

Emily Glazer, reporting for The Wall Street Journal:

The billionaire said he met with Epstein starting in 2011, years after Epstein had pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution. Gates said he was aware of some “18-month thing” that had limited Epstein’s travel but said he didn’t properly check his background. Gates said he continued meeting with Epstein even after his then-wife Melinda French Gates expressed concerns in 2013.

“Knowing what I know now makes it, you know, a hundred times worse in terms of not only his crimes in the past, but now it’s clear there was ongoing bad behavior,” Gates told staff. Speaking of his ex-wife, he added: “To give her credit, she was always kind of skeptical about the Epstein thing.”

“Kind of” is doing a lot of work there.

 ★ 

Daring Fireball Valid
Text John Gruber

Greg Knauss: ‘Lose Myself’

eod.com/blog/2026/02/lose-myself/

Greg Knauss:

People will argue that speaking English to LLMs is just another level of abstraction away from the physics of how the machine actually works. And while that’s technically true — the worst kind of true — it also misses the point. Industrialization fundamentally changes things, by quantum degrees. A Ding Dong from a factory is not the same thing as a gâteau au chocolat et crème chantilly from a baker which is not the same thing as cramming chunks of chocolate and scoops of whipped cream directly into your mouth while standing in front of the fridge at 2:00am. The level of care, of personalization, of intimacy — both given and taken — changes its nature. Digging a trench is a very different thing than telling someone to dig a trench. Assembling a clock is a very different thing than asking Siri for the time.

Splendid little essay.

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Daring Fireball Valid
Text John Gruber

The Talk Show: ‘Serious Opinionators’

daringfireball.net/thetalkshow/2026/02/25/ep-441

Adam Engst returns to the show to talk, in detail, about certain of the UI changes in iOS 26 and Apple’s version 26 OSes overall. In particular, the new Unified view in the Phone app, and the Filter pop-up menu in both the Phone and Messages apps. Also: a shoutout to Balloon Help.

Sponsored by:

  • Sentry: A real-time error monitoring and tracing platform. Use code TALKSHOW for $80 in free credits.
  • Squarespace: Save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code talkshow.
  • Factor: Healthy eating, made easy. Get 50% off your first box, plus free breakfast for 1 year, with code talkshow50off.
 ★ 

Manton Reece Supports Webmention Valid
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Greg Mania writing at The New Yorker about Waymo:

Another car cuts in front of you. The Waymo brakes. It does not then surge forward to assert dominance. It does not briefly consider engaging in Reddit-sourced novice witchcraft to place a curse on the person who has wronged you.

🙂

Scripting News Valid
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I was looking for an adjective for the astounding wpcom api. aplomb seemed right. "Complete self-confidence, composure, or poise, especially under strain or in demanding situations." Yes that's the word I was looking for. BTW according to Daytona, this is the first time I've used that word in 31+ years of blogging.

Sarah Kendzior’s Newsletter
Text • Sarah Kendzior

Just Answering Questions: Overload Edition

Just Answering Questions: Overload Edition

Got a question, like "What the hell is happening?" Ask it in the Q & A!

kottke.org Valid
Text Jason Kottke

“A collection of images of trees at Dollar Tree...

“A collection of images of trees at Dollar Tree store locations across the United States.”

Daring Fireball Valid
Text John Gruber

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra’s Privacy Display

9to5google.com/2026/02/25/samsung-galaxy-s26-ultra-privacy-display-demo-hands-on/

Ben Schoon, writing for 9to5 Google: When activated, Privacy Display changes how the pixels in your display emit light, making it harder or near-impossible to view the display at an off-angle. At its default setting, it definitely works, but the contents of the display a...

WIRED
Text • Miles Klee

Everyone Speaks Incel Now

After migrating from misogynist forums to social media feeds, terms like “looksmaxxing” and “mogged” are now impossible to avoid.

Scripting News for email Valid
Text • Dave Winer

Scripting News: Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Really Simple Languages from AI#
  • It took me a while to realize..#
    • Agents are server software. #
    • The things you used to write in Node.js and before that PHP and Perl, and in my case Frontier.#
    • I had been trying to get ChatGPT to do exactly that for months.#
  • We're going to spend a while reimplementing all our server software.#
  • It would be super helpful if the whole thing could be packaged up so we can write our servers in English or whatever our preferred Really Simple Language is, and have it compiled to whatever internal language it likes, and not have to learn too much new jargon.#

kottke.org Valid
Text Jason Kottke

Physics Is a Conversation

Physicist Sean Carroll leads off this video with this line:

I like to say that Einstein is, if anything, underrated as a physicist, which is hard to imagine given how highly he is rated.

And then leads us through a history of modern physics and quantum mechanics that, Einstein and Newton aside, is much more collaborative than you often hear about.

This idea that there are many people contributing and many different parts of the pieces need to put together is actually much more characteristic of how physics is usually done than the single person inventing everything all by themselves.

Tags: Albert Einstein · physics · science · Sean Carroll · video