Mitch's Blog

Jul 7, 2025 ↓

Warning: NY & Minnesota’s Social Media Warning Label Laws Are Unconstitutional. And based on zero scientific evidence too. By Mike Masnick at Techdirt.

Jul 7, 2025 ↓

“The more we turn and face the truth – that we are all ageing, that death is coming for us all – the more alive we become…. That’s my definition of ‘ageing gracefully.’”

Jul 7, 2025 ↓

I’ve recently become conscious of how often I say, “Cool.” It’s an all-purpose word for me, meaning “OK,” “thank you,” “good-bye,” “that’s good,” etc.

It seems lazy to me to keep hitting that word. I need alternatives.

Candidates:

  • Ave atque vale.
  • Keep the shiny side up and the greasy side down.
  • Get your hands off me you damn dirty apes.
  • You’re damn skippy.

Other ideas?

Jul 7, 2025 ↓

Insomnia isn't anything you should lose sleep about

Journalist Jennifer Senior writes at The Atlantic about her own and the nation’s struggles with insomnia: Why Can’t Americans Sleep?.

Like Senior, I have struggled with fierce insomnia, sometimes getting only two hours per night of sleep for several nights a week. It started in 2020 or so. And like Senior, medication has corrected the problem for me. She takes Klonopin; for me, it’s 50 mg of Trazodone, an antidepressant. I take it at bedtime, and I sleep soundly most nights. It hasn’t fixed my insomnia, but it’s reduced to two or three nights a month.

Not only is restored sleep great for my physical and mental health, but I get the added benefit that I can drink as much coffee as I want, whenever I want. It’s coming up on 4 pm right now and I’m thinking of fixing myself a cup now!

Jul 7, 2025 ↓

“Dozens of federal officers in tactical gear and about 90 members of the California National Guard were deployed for about an hour Monday to a mostly empty park in a Los Angeles neighborhood with a large immigrant population” — A ridiculous display of needle-dick energy.

Jul 7, 2025 ↓

[“Growing up, my brother and I deeply dreaded going shoe shopping.”](www.tumblr.com/atomic-tw…[

Jul 8, 2025 ↓

He’s Ringo. And Nobody Else Is.

Lindsay Zoladz at The New York Times:

Starr then drifted back to a memory of his early days gigging around Liverpool, before he joined the band that he sometimes refers to as “the Fabs.” “When I first started,” he said, “my mother would come to the gigs. She would always say, ‘You know, son, I always feel you’re at your happiest when you’re playing your drums.’ So she noticed. And I do.” He smiled. “I love to hit those buggers.”

Jul 8, 2025 ↓

Mitchellaneous Vol. CI: Ten things I saw on the Internet


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This looks pretty good. I would enjoy reading it.

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