Rob Beschizza/Boing Boing: “The New York Times wanted to summon one of its favorite characters: an everyday Dem so upset with the Left that they were going to vote for Donald Trump instead.” They quoted “Anna Ayala, notable to [the Times] only for being a 58-year-old who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 but now likes the other guy.”
But Ayala is “the famed criminal who put a human finger in a Wendy’s chili among various other escapades.”
(Corrected to fix typo, credit Rob, post to correct place. Oy.)
Palestinian Deaths In the Gaza Conflict Are Probably Close To Half A Million — Ian Welsh.
That’s roughly 4% of a Holocaust, and showing no sign of stopping.
Israel and its enablers have learned precisely the wrong lesson from the Nazis.
“Confused about the Vance couch thing? Here’s a quick rundown”
It started as a a joke on X, with user @rickrudescalves claiming Vance revealed in his memoir Hillbilly Elegy that he lubed up two couch cushions and had sex with them when he was a teenager. It went very viral and a lot of people believed it because, I mean, look at the guy, it seems like something he would do. The Associated Press, however, made the mistake of trying to debunk all this, declaring in a headline that Vance has never fucked a couch. But as many pointed out, can they actually prove that? How do we know? The AP has since deleted the post, but I think we, as a nation, should keep loudly discussing this until November.
If you’re participating in get-out-the-vote campaigns, remember that Election Day is when voting ends. For absentee ballots, voting starts Sept. 21. So, get-out-the-vote campaigns start in September.
California’s image will be a weapon in the Trump campaign against Harris.. MAGA aims its messaging at convincing people who have never been to California or New York that those places are hellholes.
I have lived in California for 30 years. It’s great, despite also having real and serious problems.
I’d like something like the Clicks iPhone keyboard but for the iPad mini.
In a win for Uber and Lyft, a California Court upholds a proposition classifying gig workers as contractors.. Uber, Lyft and Doordash win, workers lose.
Dear Tim Apple: Congratulations on launching Apple Maps on the Web. Now do News.
Julie and I are quite enjoying the TV series “Evil,” which is of the paranormal investigator genre, like “The Night Stalker” and “X-Files.” In this case, the paranormal investigators work for the Catholic Church.
We’re partway through Season 1.
Did “Night Stalker” and “X-Files” invent the genre of the paranormal investigator, or was that trope already around and established?
Today I found my reporter’s notebook for South by Southwest 2007. That was the event where Twitter hit its first tipping point. I remember cruising around in a taxi with a friend who had a 17" MacBook open on his lap, connected with a wireless modem, watching Twitter for news about parties.
The notebook has a page of notes about voicemail messages. Remember voicemail?
I’m planning my first international trip in five years. I can’t find my passport, but I did find a receipt for a fleece I bought from LL Bean in 2011.
Although I have declined to renew my Tumblr premium membership, I’m grateful to Automattic for keeping the service going.
Today I learned there’s a tabletop roleplaying game based on “Space: 1999.”
I’m disappointed to hear that “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” was a bomb. We quite enjoyed it.
MacStories' Federico Viticci praises wired EarPods as an alternative to Bluetooth AirPods.
I don’t have a use for EarPods because all my sound-emitting devices are from Apple. Weirdly, that makes me more of an Apple fanboy than the editor of MacStories is.
Congratulations to @mtt on launching the Sumo Theme for Micro.blog. I like it so much that I immediately switched both my blogs to that theme.
Ghost cities in the Amazon are rewriting the story of civilization
The Amazon rainforests seem like “an environment largely untouched by humans.” But new archeological discoveries are changing that perception.
“With so much evidence of ancient human activity, it is now thought the pre-Columbian Amazon was inhabited by millions of people – some living in large built-up areas complete with road networks, temples and pyramids.”
And they did it all without the benefit of agriculture as we now understand it.
These discoveries defy conventional wisdom about the nature of civilization.
newscientist.com (subscription required)
“one of the reasons i have no particular problem with the manner in which harris has become the presumptive nominee is that i think plebscitary participation in internal party processes is overrated.put another way: is the primary process actually better at picking nominees then the pre-1972 system of conventions and party elites? i don’t think so!” — Jamelle Bouie
Tumblr is raising rates for Premium membership by 1.75x. And I'm canceling
I’ve been disappointed in the direction Tumblr has taken under Automattic, though I acknowledge that it’s a hard business. None of Tumblr’s four owners has managed to make the platform financially sustainable, despite an enthusiastic user base.
Also, I acknowledge that I am not the target audience for Tumblr. I am old enough to be the target audience’s grandparent.