Saturday, September 14, 2024
The Lost Traveler by Steve Wilson (Ace, 1978). “A science fiction Western and motorcycle quest epic.” via
Punch Almanac, 7 November 1939
Greystones Road, Sheffield late 1890s to today
A 38-pound rescue cat named Crumbs got stuck in a shoe rack while trying to escape from fat camp. With photos of course.
Friday, September 13, 2024
Hangry corgi. “this shiba just fucking throws it with all the offended indignance that every dog has when faced with no food when food is wanted”
“The former Embers Inn of Lexington, Kentucky last operated as the New Circle Inn. It closed in the early 2000s and went up for sale in 2012. By 2017, both motel wings had been demolished, leaving only the original office building. Today, the property remains in use as Ky’s Auto Plaza.” via
My friend Gregory Feeley teaches college. He shared this photo of his classroom whiteboard.
Journalist Katie Notopoulos tested whether the Threads algorithm can be manipulated by engagement bait, and it’s hilarious.. Also at archive.ph
Wednesday, September 11, 2024 →
We didn’t even last halfway. The tv has been off for 15 minutes and I can feel my blood pressure subsiding.
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Had it. Lost most of the pieces in the first week.
HOLY SHIT IT’S HERE!!! via
The Night Watchman, c.1900
Karl Martin August Splitgerber
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
An iPhone 16 AI supercycle? Nope, according to analysts. (Dan Jones). I agree — yesterday’s presentation was too long and underwhelming — although if you happen to suffer from one of several health problems that the new gear addresses, the technology could be literally life-changing for you. The AI features were meh and the new iPhones will be great for people who were upgrading already, but won’t win new users.
AT&T’s CEO John Stankey plans to be first and biggest on fiber (Linda Hardesty).
AI is increasing 5G traffic. Signs point toward 6G as the answer (Julia King). tl;dr AI requires a great deal of uplink traffic, overwhelming even 5G.
19 things to love at Vintage Computer Fest Midwest 19 — Liz Coyne went to Vintage Computer Fest Midwest and found a whole lot of fantastic retro technology, including a novelty Kermit the Frog phone, 900-pound IBM mainframe, 1980s era robots and the computer behind Chuck E. Cheese audio-animatronics. Fun!
Monday, September 9, 2024
Rule 34
Myrna Loy photographed by Ted Allen for “Evelyn Prentice” (1934)
libraries aren’t a charity, they’re a public service
…
public libraries exist b/c our societies decided that access to culture, to information, to knowledge, and to a public space that preserves those things is a public good, it’s something everybody should have
public libraries are not and should not be a charity that we only minimally fund b/c some people are too poor to partake in capitalism and therefore need a little handout so they can get smarter to partake in capitalism
— Ami Angelwings urusai.social/@ami_ange…
Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate.
The Associated Press, via the Las Vegas Sun:
Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term. There is no evidence of the kind of fraud he continues to insist marred the 2020 election; in fact, dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own administration have said he lost fairly.
Just days ago, Trump himself acknowledged in a podcast interview that he had indeed “lost by a whisker.”
While Trump’s campaign aides and allies have urged him to keep his focus on Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border security, Trump in recent days has veered far off course.
On Friday, he delivered a stunning statement to news cameras in which he brought up a string of past allegations of sexual misconduct, describing several in graphic detail, even as he denied his accusers’ allegations. Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on the appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, turning focus to his legal woes in the campaign’s final stretch.
Earlier Saturday, Trump had leaned into familiar grievances about everything from his indictments to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election as he campaigned in one of the most deeply Republican swaths of battleground Wisconsin.
“The Harris-Biden DOJ is trying to throw me in jail — they want me in jail — for the crime of exposing their corruption,” Trump claimed at an outdoor rally at Central Wisconsin Airport, where he spoke behind a wall of bulletproof glass due to new security protocols following his July assassination attempt.
There’s no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris have had any influence over decisions by the Justice Department or state prosecutors to indict the former president.
…
Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika responded to his comments with a statement warning that, if Trump is reelected, he will “use his unchecked power to prosecute his enemies and pardon insurrectionists who violently attacked our Capitol on January 6."
…
As Trump was campaigning, Harris took a short break from debate prep to visit Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where she bought several seasoning mixes. One customer saw the Democratic nominee and began openly weeping as Harris hugged her and said, “We’re going to be fine. We’re all in this together.”
Harris said she was honored to have endorsements from two major Republicans: former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman.
“People are exhausted, about the division and the attempts to kind of divide us as Americans,” she said, adding that her main message at the debate would be that the country wants to be united.
“It’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness,” she said. “It’s time to bring our country together, to chart a new way forward.”
Trump held his rally in the central Wisconsin city of Mosinee, with a population of about 4,500 people. It is within Wisconsin’s mostly rural 7th Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state.
During his speech, he railed against Harris in dark and ominous language, claiming that if the woman he calls “Comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living (in) a full-blown Banana Republic" ruled by “anarchy” and “tyranny.”
Trump also railed against the administration’s border policies, calling the Democrats’ approach “suicidal" and accusing them of having “imported murderers, child predators and serial rapists from all over the planet."
Many studies have found immigrants, including those in the country illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens. Violent crime in the U.S. dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.
A corporate-sponsored speaker came in right after we were ordered to come back to the office to try and boost morale or something. None of the bosses or directors were there, having sent an email that they were working from home, which really ticked everyone off. We gave this speaker a pretty hard time, ignoring him and talking amongst ourselves. His presentations were mostly about why remote work was never going to be the norm and some stuff that was union-bustingly awkward. He tried to get us up and involved with, “Okay, who can stand on one foot the longest! Woo! Let’s get that blood pumping!” My coworker, RJ, is an amputee so he popped his leg off and left it standing, sat back down and dug a novel out of his bag and started to read. RJ is my hero.
— Workplace morale-building competitions gone wrong,, on Ask a Manager
I’m still exploring Capacities, which looks like Obsidian 2.0. Two different products by two different companies, but it seems like the Capacities developers looked hard at Obsidian, learned from it, and improved it.
Capacities uses tags and objects instead of folders, which I hated the idea of, but now I think maybe I just haven’t seen tags done well until now.
The Capacities home page has the usual marketing folderol for notetaking and document management software. It’s a “studio for the mind!” (wow!) “Our computers made us think like them!” (Capacities says that’s bad.) “Folders and hierarchies limit our creativity!” (ok sure whatever if you say so) “Break the silo, create a network of thoughts!” (if we break the silo, where would we put the corn?)
I like the look of Capacities.
Monday, September 9, 2024
The killer app for 5G gets unveiled with iPhone 16. By Joe Madden, principal analyst at Mobile Experts. It’s AI, specifically AI’s need for big, fast uploads. Interestingly, Joe says that the applications for 2G, 3G and 4G were known when the networks were deployed — allowing wired applications to go wireless — but 5G uses are still emerging.
“Peak shaving” could help data centers solve the AI power problem — for now. Diana Goovaerts reports. Data center power consumption comes in spurts, putting a strain on power grids. But “… most data centers have plenty of battery and generator power available on standby as backup power in case the electrical grid goes down. With peak shaving, data centers can just put those existing assets to more active use.” (I achieved peak shaving this morning — new blade.)
The iPhone 16 may cause a surge in demand — a “supercycle.” “’Given the strong consumer interest in AI capabilities, we anticipate a supercycle of upgrades when Apple launches their new devices that will support an embedded Apple Intelligence expected later this year,’ said Rebekah Griffiths, vice president of Product Management and Strategy at Assurant, which collects phone trade-ins and prepares them for resale.’” Monica Alleven reports. I’m skeptical.
AT&T and Verizon aren’t worried about an iPhone supercycle (Dan Jones)
Brightspeed is replacing copper with a unique wireless technology. By Linda Hardesty
And something I listened to: The newly relaunched Five Nines Podcast, hosted by Diana. The introductory episode of the new series focuses on startup Vaire Computing with the ambition of becoming the next Nvidia using technology called “reversible computing” that reduces processor heat generation to virtually zero. CEO Rodolfo Rosini says existing processors are basically heaters that produce compute as a by-product.
Here’s something I saw while walking the dog: A seasonal display of horrors—witchcraft, skeletons and Libertarianism.
It’s been too hot to go out and do anything this weekend, so I’ve been blogging like crazy today and messing around with Capacities.
I’m considering switching to that from Obsidian.
Talk me out of switching. I may need an intervention.
Sunday, September 8, 2024
I’m struggling with my Obsidian setup–I think it’s too complicated.
In addition to Markdown documents, I work with a lot of Microsoft Word documents, PDFs and Web URLs. Until now, I’ve stored all of those in Obsidian – even the Word docs.
Now, I think maybe I’d be better off keeping Obsidian for just Markdown documents and embedded images. Which is how most people seem to use it.
I’m a Mac user, and I know many Mac Obsidian users use DevonThink in conjunction with Obsidian for just the use case I describe. Markdown goes in Obsidian, everything else in DevonThink.
My question is: Why?
The main benefit, as I see it, is that DevonThink gives each document a unique URL, which can then be integrated into Obsidian. But there are other ways to do that, and these ways might be more lightweight than DevonThink:
Why do you use DevonThink with Obsidian?
(Perfectly valid answer, but uninteresting for this discussion: “Because I’ve used DevonThink for many years, it works for me, and I see no reason to change.” However, this answer can be made very interesting indeed if you tell us why it works for you.)
Today I learned Carrie Preston and Michael Emerson are married for 26 years. Given the types of characters they play, I am gobsmacked.
Preston’s signature role is as Elsbeth Tascione, a brilliant attorney who presents as an utter ditz—sort of a female Columbo. She played that role on The Good Wife and a couple of its spinoffs.
Emerson plays delicious, sociopathic villains on “Evil” and “Lost.”
Also, now I want to see an Evil/Elsbeth crossover.