Currently reading: The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Harry Harrison 📚

I had an actual, legitimate wrong-number text just now, followed by a phone call. They weren’t trying to get me to invest in crypto or a pump-and-dump meme stock. They were just trying to reach somebody else and got me instead.

What a refreshing novelty.

More precisely, I went near Comic-Con. I didn’t get tickets. But that’s OK — Comic-Con takes over all of downtown. I like to ride the Trolley in, walk around, people-watch, take photos, look at all the wild decorations and themed attractions studios put up to advertise the big movies and TV shows. I like to rack up the steps. I did 23,000 steps yesterday. A friend came down from Orange County, and it was delightful to see him.

I’m on my way, looking dapper, if I do say so myself, wearing a tasteful shirt.

This is not a Comic-Con photo. It’s just a nice scenic photo of the San Diego embarcadero.

Another scenic San Diego photo.

In past years, there used to be a couple of dozen of these guys hanging out at the trolley stop. Now I only saw two or three scattered around. We used to be a country, I tell ya.

Dozens of downtown skyscrapers are wrapped to advertise TV and movies. This is just one example.

At first glance, I thought this gentleman, who I saw on the Trolley ride home, was cosplaying. Upon further scrutiny, I think he is just exquisitely fashionable.

✪ “Resident Alien,” one of our favorite TV shows, is canceled. Son of a bitch! This is some bullshit! deadline.com

✪ Today I learned Ron Goulart wrote a series of mystery novels featuring Groucho Marx as a detective. en.wikipedia.org

✪ “The head of the main UN agency serving Palestinians has said his frontline staff are fainting from hunger, as the number of people dying of starvation in Gaza continued to rise and hopes for a ceasefire faded as negotiations collapsed.” theguardian.com

✪ “A group of far-right Israeli politicians and settlers met in parliament this week to discuss a plan to displace Palestinians from Gaza, annex the territory and turn it into a hi-tech, luxury resort city for Israelis.… Michael Sfard, one of Israel’s leading human rights lawyers, said: ‘This is a plan for ethnic cleansing. Under international law, this would amount to a crime against humanity because deportation is a war crime when committed on a small scale and a crime against humanity when it is committed on a massive scale.'” theguardian.com

✪ “Venezuelan men who were deported by the US to a notorious prison in El Salvador without due process are speaking out about treatment they described as ‘hell’ and like a ‘horror movie’, after arriving back home.” theguardian.com

✪ Immigration agents told a teenage US citizen: ‘You’ve got no rights.’ He secretly recorded his brutal arrest theguardian.com

✪ JD Vance Claims One of Our Worst Traditions as His Own. By Jamelle Bouie. nytimes.com Vance echoes the principles of the Dred Scott decision, which declared that Black people were an inferior race who could never be US citizens.

✪ White House Slams ‘South Park’ After Unflattering Depiction of Trump. hollywoodreporter.com The South Park episode includes a realistic, AI-generated image of a naked Trump showing his micropenis. youtu.be

✪ Ghislaine Maxwell Can’t Help But Notice Interview Room Covered In Plastic Sheeting. theonion.com

✪ Today’s labor market is “less like a ladder, more like a slot machine,” resulting in “zero-sum logic” that is poisoning society, writes Kayla Scanlon. kyla.substack.com

In 1957, the Soviet launch of Sputnik triggered a huge US response. It led to 3x funding for science education, created NASA and DARPA, and created massive investment in talent and infrastructure (and optimism). The US looked at a challenge and said: We can build our way out of this.

As economist Alex Tabarrok pointed out in his piece about the Sputnik moment, that kind of mobilization didn’t happen in 2024 when China’s DeepSeek AI surpassed OpenAI’s GPT-4. The US retreated instead of rallying. We looked at a challenge and say: They must be stealing from us.

This is a shift in how we understand problems and solutions. As Alex highlighted, research shows we’re developing what economists call zero-sum thinking, or the belief that my success requires your failure, that wealth and opportunity are fixed pies to be divided rather than expanded. As Alex explains, zero-sum thinkers “see society as unjust, distrust their fellow citizens and societal institutions, espouse more populist attitudes, and disengage from potentially beneficial interactions.” It’s a form of despair that arises during times of economic uncertainty.”

As Scanlon notes: This is reversible.

✪ The Seeds of Democratic Revival Have Already Been Sown. nytimes.com — I love nearly all of this article — but I am deeply troubled by suggestions we should fail to support our LGBTQ fellow Americans.

✪ “You think you’re the coolest guy in the parking lot and then this guy shows up.” “This guy” being a cat. tiktok.com

✪ Skittles gets a hat. tumblr.com

✪ Prepare Batcopter for immediate takeoff. tumblr.com

✪ By the way, is there anyone onboard who knows how to fly a plane? tumblr.com

He was the hero of the Stainless Steel Rat books by Harry Harrison. His full name is James Bolivar diGriz, aka “Slippery Jim diGriz.” Also good names. Harrison had a good ear for how names sound.

I loved those novels when I was a kid.

I also loved Harrison’s “Deathworld” novel series, whose hero also had a pretty good name — Jason dinAlt.

On the other hand, “Jake Cardigan” is a ridiculous name. He was the hero of the Tekwar novels and TV series, created by William Shatner. Ron Goulart ghostwrote the books.

I think I’m going to stick with the Zen browser. I found it confusing at first, even though I used the Arc browser, which is similar, for months. But I think I have it figured out. I particularly like compact mode, where I can easily use a keyboard shortcut to show and hide the toolbars and sidebars for maximum screen real estate and focus.

I prefer to write in Markdown, but often I have to write in Microsoft Word, and I hate it, because I find myself devoting significant time to managing Word, rather than writing and making formatting decisions.

This morning, I had a block of text that I wanted to format in bullets. Simple, right? I’ve done it a million times. But Word would not let me format that particular block in bullets, and I spent 15 minutes plinking around in the user interface and doing web searches figuring it out.

This is not at all unusual behavior for Word. There are even memes about it.

I’ve been using the Zen browser for a couple of hours. I think I like it, but it’s confusing. I used Arc for a few months a year or two ago. Zen is very similar but different in significant ways. Zen also seems very buggy.

My phone is an iPhone 15 Pro Max — the big one. I think I might be happier with a standard-size iPhone.

The standard-size iPhone doesn’t have the iPhone’s best camera, so I think I’d also like a small camera too.

And I think I’d like an iPad mini, for when I want a bigger screen.

Then I think, why don’t I just set a stack of $100 bills on fire instead?

I’m thinking about trying Firefox or one of its forks for the Mac, iPhone and iPad. Does anyone have experience to share and suggestions? I was looking at Floorp.

A friend told me yesterday that I should take up painting. Later, I was reviewing my to-do list and saw, in the someday/maybe area: “Learn to draw? Take a class?” I have no memory of adding that task, but my to-do software says I added it three weeks ago.

I have not tried to draw anything since I was a pre-teen in art class. I expect if I tried now, the result would be so bad that you would not even be able to figure out what I am trying to draw.

And yet….

I have discovered Skymoth, which automatically crossposts Mastodon posts to Bluesky. My inexorable plan for global domination progresses!

I searched on my own name in an AI chatbot, which I have not done for a while. The chatbot universe has now learned that I am not the San Diego trial lawyer named “Mitch Wagner,” but it still thinks I’m a crossfit athlete with strong rankings in national and regional competitions over several years. (Which, no — I would say I am extremely healthy and fit for a middle-class American my age, but no, I am not a competitive athlete. I have seen photos of that Mitch Wagner with his shirt off, and it is very different from the shirtless me I see in the mirror.)

I was told tonight that I look like the composer Igor Stravinsky.

I’ve heard from two people in the past 24 hours who have dropped Mastodon, citing negativity. One said it’s “pretty fucking toxic.”

Meanwhile, I’m focusing more of my blogging and social media on Mastodon (and Tumblr too, but I’m talking about Mastodon today).

I’m taking a break from posting to Bluesky because I don’t get enough activity there to be worth posting to.

And I am taking a break from posting to Facebook — hopefully permanently — because I don’t like Meta and I don’t like the way Facebook operates.

Different people have different experiences, and my social media profile is so low nowadays that if Masto is toxic, I may simply be too small to target.

One of the reasons I chose Masto over Bluesky is that I was able to migrate my account to a server, hachyderm.io that permits posts of up to 2,263 characters. I hate short character limits — 140 characters, 280, 300, 500. I have more than that to say.

Here’s my link page, where you can find my links to Mastodon, Tumblr, etc.

I use Grammarly to check grammar and usage in my writing. I find it valuable, but also excessively intrusive. The recent update is more aggressive and annoying about making arbitrary and unnecessary changes.

I decided to read through the documentation and lo! there is a preference page.. I’ve switched off some types of suggestions — for example: “Sound more personable,” “Use word variety,” “Use descriptive, vivid words,” “Rewrite text for improved effect,” etc. This makes Grammarly far less pushy and annoying and more useful,

I am an extremely good writer, but a mediocre proofreader at best. Also, Grammarly is great at cutting out extraneous words. I want Grammarly to focus on those things, not look over my shoulder and make obnoxious suggestions.

I still think Google Glass had the right idea. I mean, augmented reality sounds nice, but I’d be happy with a discreet, unobtrusive little screen in the corner of my vision that shows me turn-by-turn directions and notifications and stuff. Like an Apple Watch for your face. Just that would be great.

This post is based on conversations I had on Tumblr and Mastodon yesterday.

Kyla Scanlon is an insightful writer about societal issues from a fresh perspective — Generation Z. She recently appeared on the Ezra Klein Show podcast, in an episode titled, “How the Attention Economy Is Devouring Gen Z — and the Rest of Us. She expands on that theme in her newsletter, in a post entitled: From Dollar Dominance to the Slop Machine

One of the themes Scanlon raises stays with me. It appeals to me a great deal as a Grand Unified Theory of a lot of what’s wrong with the U.S. economy, and perhaps the whole West.

The U.S. is focused on extracting wealth – tearing down – and China is focused on building.

The U.S.’s focus on wealth extraction rather than value creation means all activity is measured as a revenue opportunity. We can’t build affordable housing because families' wealth is tied up in their homes. Initiatives in healthcare, education and the food chain are all measured against their ability to generate revenue. Artificial intelligence extracts the works of millions of creative people and sends the revenue to a few Silicon Valley billionaires. Short-term financial thinking locks us into fossil fuels – though wind and solar are generating wealth and jobs, much of that financial value doesn’t exist yet. And that’s not the point of wind and solar anyway – the point is to avoid burning down the planet.

People are desperate to keep from falling behind economically, and therefore don’t think about long-term threats like Long Covid and climate change.

As a friend pointed out a few years ago: If James Bond went up against a supervillain in real life, the local community would rally around the supervillian. He’s a job creator! Look at how many henchman and crony positions he’s created!

We can’t even enjoy our hobbies anymore without pressure to make money off of them. Why have a hobby when you can have a side-hustle!

Meanwhile, China is building cities, electric cars, solar power and educating engineers and scientists.

This ties in with writing by two bloggers I follow closely, particularly Ian Welsh and also Chris Arnade.

China’s leadership has done terrible things. But they’re pulling ahead of the U.S. because they are investing in the future. They serve the future of China and all its people for the long term. Meanwhile, our leaders are dismantling American greatness and selling it, like the gangsters in “Goodfellas” or “The Sopranos” busting out a business.

The U.S. is becoming a nation of TikTok celebrities, grifters and crypto scammers. Our leaders serve the superrich and have no plans for the future.

But the U.S. slide is not inevitable. We have plenty of smart people here who are working and building, and plenty more eager to join them.

We need elected officials who think about the long term for their communities, the state, U.S. and world. Who think beyond the nexxt election and who work for all the people, not just the super-rich and white people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War.

We’ve probably lost a generation of time. But (paraphrasing a popular saying): When you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, the thing to do is stop digging and start climbing.

Links and ephemera (memes, vintage photos, illustrations and ads) go on Mastodon, Tumblr and (sigh) Facebook. I’m saving this blog for meatier updates.

It just seems more appropriate and easier to post the links and ephemera in those other places. Unfortunately, that means my newsletter subscribers won’t see those things, at least for now.

Also: I’m taking a break from Bluesky. I feel like I don’t get enough activity there to be worth the expenditure of attention and time.

This is all likely to change again. I am constantly fiddling with my blogging and social setup. In late May, I paused Mastodon entirely and just used this blog, which is hosted on Micro.blog, as my outpost on the Fediverse. This current change reverses that one. I think Mastodon is better for linkblogging and ephemera than Micro.blog is, though Micro.blog is a great blogging platform.

More ideas I’m noodling:

• Possibly switching from mastodon.social to hachyderm, because hachyderm permits longer posts.
• Can I figure out a way to keep the links and ephemera in my newsletter without doing significantly more work? Because this isn’t supposed to be work for me — it’s a hobby!

How to break obsolete data models that drag down AI. Today’s telcos are hawks among sparrows, armed with futuristic AI technology held back by networking infrastructure built for a prior era. My latest on Fierce Network.

I read this story when I was a little kid — it blew my mind.

My cousin Barry let me borrow a whole stack of Analog magazines from 1968-72, which included this issue, and I devoured them voraciously. That stack of magazines is a big part of my origin story as a science fiction fan.

That stack of magazines is a big part of my origin story as a science fiction fan.

And Barry never expressed much interest in having the magazines back, so I hung on to them. They may be somewhere in my house right now, 50+ years and 2,500 miles from where they started.

Those magazines were how I was introduced to Joe Haldeman — they included several of his early stories, including “Hero,” which became the opening of “The Forever War.” In much later life, Joe and his delightful wife Gay became friends.

Great cover, isn’t it?

I loved this Ezra Klein interview with Kyla Scanlon, a newsletter writer who focuses on the attention economy. The discussion complements one of my greatest fears about the U.S. (and maybe the whole West) — that the economy, politics and society are now built on attention and virality, rather than things that matter — manufacturing, science, infrastructure, etc. It’s all about the retweets.

We’re doing ok now, coasting on past accomplishments, like wealthy spendthrifts living off the wealth of past generations. But it’s coming apart fast.

Donald Trump is, of course, the ringmaster of this circus.

Crypto is the apotheosis of the U.S. economy built on social media virality. Gilded Age robber barons were monsters, but they built railroads, coal and steel mines and factories. They built urban infrastructure. The U.S economy and society today are built on conspiracy theories and digital beanie babies.

This sounds dire — but we can stop this. People and societies have free will. It’ll take a while to dig out of the hole we’ve dug ourselves into. I probably won’t live to see the end of this process. But we need to get started.

My latest on Fierce Network: AI looks like magic, but the real trick is infrastructure — AI requires massive investment in cloud infrastructure, skills, and compliance strategies. Enterprises are balancing performance, cost, and risk as they deploy AI across cloud and on-premises environments. Our new Fierce Network Research report covers how successful enterprises are deploying infrastructure for AI. And get the report here.

What’s the most NSFW thing you saw someone doing at work and still got away with it? : r/AskReddit. I’m not in a hurry to go to Waffle House.

What something you see in movies all the time that’s unrealistic and annoys you? : r/AskReddit

Businesses are hiring copywriters and web designers to fix problems caused by AI (Suzanne Bearne at BBC) — AI is great at helping with work but don’t expect it to do the work, because people will point at you and laugh.

Gmail’s new subscription management is here to declutter your inbox (Ryan Whitwam at Ars Technica) — This looks like a great feature.

Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo:

“Identifying America just with agreeing with the principles, let’s say, of the Declaration of Independence – that’s a definition that is way over-inclusive and under-inclusive at the same time,” Vance said.

He explained that such a definition “would include hundreds of millions, maybe billions of foreign citizens who agree” with the principles of the Declaration of Independence, dubbing it “the logic of America as a purely Creole nation.”

By the opposite token, Vance said, conceiving of American citizenship “purely as an idea” would “reject a lot of people that the ADL would label as domestic extremists, even though those very Americans had their ancestors fight in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War,” he said, referencing the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that was founded to combat antisemitism and that, among other activities, tracks far-right groups.

“I think the people whose ancestors fought in the Civil War have a hell of a lot more claim over America than the people who say they don’t belong,” he concluded.

My ancestors did not serve in the Civil War. My grandparents immigrated around 1905. I suspect that by Vance’s bullshit standards I don’t qualify as a real American, even though I and both my parents were born here.

It’s a strawman argument to suggest that anybody believes that simply agreeing with the ideals of the Declaration makes a person American. There’s more to it than that. But Vance’s blood-and-soil patriotism is both wrong and traitorous, and it’s particularly shameful that he gave his talk on Independence Day weekend.

Shockingly, Mamdani, who was born in Uganada to parents of Indian descent, checked both the “Asian” and “Black or African-American” boxes on his Columbia University application in 2009. Supposedly, this was wrong of him to do, even though he is, in fact, both Asian and African-American.

Mike Masnick at Techdirt:

Where’s the lie? Did Uganda move? Is it not in Africa anymore? Are we really going to pretend that America’s racial categories, designed primarily for descendants of American slavery, map perfectly onto the global complexity of human identity?

Also:

But here’s what kills me: they could have written a fascinating story about how a network of racist activists was trying to weaponize hacked university data that revealed nothing particularly interesting to attack a Muslim mayoral candidate. They could have exposed the whole operation. Instead, they decided to become part of it. It’s like if Woodward and Bernstein, upon discovering Watergate, had decided to focus their expose on how the security at the Watergate Hotel was top notch, with an anonymous quote from G. Gordon Liddy.

The Double Standard is Glaring

The Times' decision becomes even more indefensible when you consider their recent editorial choices. They refused to publish hacked materials about JD Vance during the 2024 election and declined to explain why. But when a racist hands them a hacked college application from 2009 that reveals nothing of public interest, suddenly those ethical concerns disappear.

The paper also famously decided not to endorse candidates in local elections–except when it came to Mamdani, whom they specifically urged voters not to rank at all on their ballots. Interestingly, they didn’t issue similar “please don’t vote for this person” guidance about Andrew Cuomo, the disgraced former governor who resigned over sexual harassment allegations and has been plagued with scandals from his mismanagement during the pandemic. Apparently checking the objectively accurate box on a college application is more disqualifying than a pattern of sexual misconduct and mismanagement.

Manufacturing Controversy To Justify Bad Journalism

Perhaps most galling is the Times' response to criticism. When readers and media critics pointed out how absurd this story was, an anonymous Times source told Semafor that the controversy proved they were right to publish this:

“The fact that this story engendered all the conversation and debate that it has feels like all the evidence you need that this was a legit line of reporting,” one senior reporter told Semafor.

But that’s not how any of this works. At all. Sometimes the “conversation and debate” is about how you should have known better.

The Times mostly does solid journalism. I subscribe and read it most days. But it also regularly kowtows to racist Republican interests.

Technicians who climb cell towers have dangerous jobs. Now they’re getting a not-for-profit group, “focused on unifying, protecting and advocating for the tower technician workforce,” organized by former tower climber Tommy Schuch. My colleague Tommy Clift reports on Fierce Network: Tower climbing veteran launches Climber Protection Group

Charles Pulliam-Moore at The Verge loves the new Superman movie.. I’m jazzed to see it. I’ve been burned out on superhero movies for years, but I’d love to see somebody breathe new life into the genre. This one seems written for the current political era, emphasizing Superman’s immigrant origins and painting Lex Luthor as a nativist villain.

Are We About to Have Labor Camps in the United States of America? By Michael Tomasky at the New Republic — Sure looks that way. Trump is bringing back slavery. It is not an exaggeration to say that — it seems to be exactly what the Republican-led U.S. government wants to do.

Text message spam is getting to be a problem for me. I’m thinking of activating the iPhone feature where you can shift text messages from unknown senders into their own inbox, but I do occasionally get an important message from someone not already in my contacts. How do other people handle this?

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.”

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

“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.

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!

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?

“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.'"

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

In Defense of the Tourist Trap: Why Following the Crowd Might Be the Smartest Way To Travel. “The tourist traps were made for tourists. They know what they’re doing. If you’re a tourist, there’s no shame in enjoying them.” By Christian Britschgi at Reason.

This is the way.

“Thoughts and prayers” does sound a lot nicer than “I didn’t do anything before to prevent this foreseeable disaster and I’m not going to do anything now.”

— Peter Gleick @petergleick@fediscience.org

I wanted to get out to walk the dog early Friday morning because I had an important 11 am meeting — not a video meeting. Real life. So I got up early enough and shaved. I put in a new blade and noticed how much nicer it was. I go months between changing razor blades, and by the end of that time, it’s like dragging a broken beer bottle across my face.

I thought to myself that I need to change the blade more often. So, after I let the dog in from the backyard to the kitchen, I got out my phone, leaned against the kitchen counter, and I checked on ChatGPT to see how often I should change a Gillette Mach 3 blade, which is the brand I use. ChatGPT said every 5 to 10 shaves. So I set a reminder in Omnifocus, which is the reminders app that I use, to change the blade in two weeks, based on my shaving every other day, which is what I do.

I wanted to set a notification for that reminder because I usually don’t check OmniFocus until midmorning, and a notification would pop up on my phone screen first thing in the morning. That’s how I remind myself of things I need to do first thing in the morning — I set notifications to pop up on my phone home screen, because, like many people, I check my phone as soon as I get up. This may be a bad habit, but I’m not going to worry about that now.

I did not want to set a due date for the OmniFocus task, because you should only set a due date on tasks where there is a real penalty for failure to complete them. I learned that from the GTD productivity system.

I could not figure out how to set a notification for a task in Omnifocus without first setting the due date, and after much tapping around on the Omnifocus iPhone interface, I asked ChatGPT. ChatGPT give me a bullshit answer so I searched the web and that didn’t work so I hunted around on the Omnifocus website for the Omnifocus manual. I was not able to find a way to do what I wanted to do, so I just gave up and used the Due app to set the reminder.

Then I decided to double-check whether ChatGPT had misled me on the number of shaves recommended between blade changes, and sure enough, the Gillette website said that I should change every 15 shaves. It also said that there is a colored strip on that blade itself that fades when it is time to change the blade. I have been using Gillette Mach 3’s for 30+ years and was completely unaware of that. So I stood up from where I was leaning on the kitchen counter tapping my phone, and I went into the bathroom and fished the used razor blade out of the trash, and compared it to the new blade, and confirmed that there was a colored strip on the new blade and that was not present on the old blade. So it turned out I did not need to set a reminder at all.

Then I went out and walked the dog, which is what I had initially set out to do.

A Small Web July — The author of the Small Cypress blog is “spending less time on the corporate web for the month of July,” minimizing Meta products, Reddit, and maybe Bluesky, and spending more time on small websites, RSS and the real world.

I did a social media fast in June 2022, inspired by Cal Newport’s writing on “social media detox” and “digital minimalism.' I would not say it had any effect on my life. I would also say I did not follow Newport’s prescription – he says you should make a point to add healthy activities you love to your life, to fill the social media gap.

Every few years I get a craving for nitro coffee, and I have some and remember I don’t like it. This weekend should do me for nitro coffee through 2028.

When state legislatures consider whether to bail out rural hospitals, remember that the tax money you send to the feds didn’t decrease, it just got stolen from hospitals and sent to billionaires and ICE agents. If your state then bails out the hospitals, your state tax money is now going to something your federal tax money was supposed to cover, so basically your state taxes are bailing out the Republican hand out to billionaires.

— @mcnado@mstdn.social

The next time a politician claims we can’t house the homeless, feed the starving or give medical care to the poor…. remember that they were able to build a concentration camp in 8 days.

We could provide for everyone if we wanted to, but instead we’re spending the money on fascist facilities and cutting taxes for the wealthy.

— @broadwaybabyto@zeroes.ca

Trump’s Big Beautiful Gulag: The concentration camp reminagined as a hype house. By Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day.

When George W. Bush left office in 2009, the United States was mired in two wars and the global economy was in free fall. When Donald Trump left office after his first term, the United States was mired in a deadly pandemic and its economy was recovering from a free fall. (And this is to say nothing of Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a desperate bid to stay in office.)

That’s two Republican presidencies over 20 years that ended in disaster. There is no reason to think that Trump’s second term will be the exception that breaks the rule.

— Jamelle Bouie

Jamelle Bouie at The New York TImes:

If signed into law, the Senate version of Trump’s policy bill would slash $1.1 trillion from Medicaid and $186 billion from anti-poverty food assistance to help pay for trillions in tax breaks, including more than $564 billion in business tax cuts. By one estimate, these changes would result in at least 17 million people losing their health insurance over the next decade, as well as millions losing SNAP benefits, with some states possibly even ending their programs. All this so that the top 1 percent of households can receive an estimated average of a few tens of thousands of dollars each year.

But as irresponsible as this bill is, there is a dog-bites-man element to its existence. If we understand that Trump is, in most respects, an ordinary Republican president, then it is not news to learn that a Republican president wants to cut social services for the poor to sustain a large tax cut for the rich.

…

This reality extends, at least somewhat, to foreign policy.

What, so far, has been the signature foreign policy action of the Trump administration? A strike on Iran’s nuclear program. With one decision, Trump fulfilled the dreams of a generation of Republican hawks who have been clamoring for war with — and regime change in — Iran since President Bush proclaimed that it was a member of the “axis of evil” in 2002.

…

Across both the first Trump administration and this one, what you see are the longstanding goals of the Republican Party being fulfilled by a Republican president. What’s striking isn’t that this is happening, but that Trump, in his 10 years on the American political scene, has successfully obscured his rigidly partisan agenda with claims of populism and ideological heterodoxy. His occasional gestures toward support for existing social programs or greater taxes on the rich — and his willingness to say anything to amass power — are enough to persuade many voters (and some professional political observers) that Trump will somehow moderate the Republican Party or turn it away from its traditional agenda. If anything, it’s been the opposite: Trump’s willingness to do everything favored by his partisan fellow travelers has only accelerated the Republican Party’s dash toward ideological and policy extremism.

…

To look at the Trump administration and see something distinct from the past 44 years of Republican governance is to inhabit a fantasy in which past Republican presidents weren’t similarly contemptuous of legal and constitutional limits on their authority.

…

When George W. Bush left office in 2009, the United States was mired in two wars and the global economy was in free fall. When Donald Trump left office after his first term, the United States was mired in a deadly pandemic and its economy was recovering from a free fall. (And this is to say nothing of Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in a desperate bid to stay in office.)

That’s two Republican presidencies over 20 years that ended in disaster. There is no reason to think that Trump’s second term will be the exception that breaks the rule.

Congressman Issa falsely claims ‘criminal illegals’ are enrolled in Medicaid

Which ‘wow’ skill is secretly super easy to learn? : r/AskReddit

I am a regular user of an LLM chatbot (ChatGPT). It’s becoming essential to my work and life. And I also hate vendors' efforts to stuff AI into everything.

If I do a Web search, I want search results, not an AI summary. Likewise, Gmail email summaries are an abomination.

LLM chatbots like ChatGPT are good for answering questions. Search engines are good for finding websites. Two different jobs. And I know how to read email — I don’t need AI help with that.

Prices of Both Housing And Rent Are Decreasing In China. “In 2016, Xi said that houses were for living in, not for speculating. The Chinese government took steps to reduce prices, those steps took time to bear fruit.” By Ian Welsh.

When an Internet service is not responding the best thing you can do is click the button over and over again, dozens of times if necessary, getting more angry and frustrated. Follow me for more helpful tech tips.

Warnings that AI will take people’s jobs re the latest way for CEOs to keep workers afraid and submissive.

Trump’s Immigration Enforcement: Free The Criminals, Jail The Innocent:

They’re literally freeing dangerous criminals while manufacturing cases against innocent people…. The Trump admin is literally freeing a repeat violent offender in exchange for testimony against Abrego–a man with no criminal history who was working and raising a family.

And Trump cut a deal with Salvadoran dictator Nayib Bukele “to let actual top MS-13 gang leaders go free.”

— Mike Masnick at Techdirt

Hamilton Nolan:

[Trump’s tax and immigration bill] contains enough money to build a new system of immigration detention centers far bigger than the entire federal prison system. The American Immigration Council says that it will be enough to facilitate the “daily detention of at least 116,000 non-citizens.” It will let ICE hire more field agents than the FBI. Its $170 billion in funding for Stephen Miller’s rabid campaign to purge America of brown people is comparable to the total annual funding for the United States Army.

…

This budget will give [Trump] the final piece of the puzzle that he needs to achieve his fever dream: a nationwide army of masked, unaccountable armed agents empowered to snatch anyone they like off the streets, and the physical infrastructure to imprison or deport those people at will. Thousands of men with guns, unrestrained by judges or local police, who do not answer to Congress, who point guns at the press, who arrest whoever they want, for reasons they do not share, and do whatever they wish with those people. The implications of this are going to make America a much darker place.

…

Yesterday, Trump proudly attended the opening of a concentration camp. There will be many more to come.

Dave Winer: New York City is “a tough place to govern.”

The thing about NY that people might not understand is that the politics are dirty and fucked up. Dems tend to elect handsome young heros who when they have to deal with NYPD and the sanitation workers, the teachers union, and the federal government, also the ancient infrastructure, melt.

How do you save your best AI prompts for reuse? Do you just drop them in a text document on your desktop, or is there a better way?

Currently reading: A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin 📚

Currently re-reading: Getting Things Done by David Allen 📚

Currently reading: Mark Twain by Ron Chernow 📚

”american leftists seem extremely focused on anti imperialism (good) but rarely- if at all- discuss decolonization in their own fucking country, despite acknowledging that it is a settler colonial state. “

 Mamdani and Zionism. 

Nolan:

Subway’s not scary. It’s fine and safe. It’s full of women and children. There are tons of old ladies on there. You should def be helping those old ladies carry their grocery carts up the stairs. That is an issue we can discuss. The rest of the stuff, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

You sound real corny being scared of the subway.

When I say this, you may read my meaning to be, “The subways are fine if you are brave,” or “Riding the subway is a character-building because it teaches you to be tough.” No. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the subway is fine. It is not scary. It is the standard mode of transportation for millions of New Yorkers. Six million rides a day. Let me try to put it in terms that a non-New Yorker can understand. “I am scared of riding the Google shuttle bus to my job at Google.” “I am scared of riding the Epcot monorail.” See how crazy that sounds? Same basic thing.

Most of the people who live outside the city drive cars to work. This is far more dangerous than riding the subway. Last year there were ten murders in the NYC subway system, with well over a billion total rides taken. During the same time period, there were 253 traffic fatalities in New York City. One person dead every day and a half. Cars? Those things are fucking dangerous. The subway? You might be tempted to buy a churro. Could be damaging to your diet, yeah. But you can work it off. Don’t make such a big deal out of it.

There are homeless people on the subway. They are there because they have no homes. Some of them are mentally ill. If you ride the subway a lot, it is possible that you will see a homeless person who does not smell good sleeping on a train. It is possible that you will see a mentally ill person ranting and raving. This may make you uncomfortable. But imagine how they feel. Not only are they homeless, but they are also in need of mental health treatment, and they don’t have it, and instead they are consigned to riding a train all day, where people constantly move away from them and view them with disgust. An awful fate.

What might a serious policy response to this situation look like, from mature adults who take this issue seriously? Is it… “have cops with guns arrest them all?” Come on. Give me a freaking break. Stupid Rambo ass policy. A real solution would involve a serious investment in mental health and housing programs, and then having a dedicated team of outreach workers who can go onto subways and connect the homeless people there to the services they need. Incidentally, this is Zohran Mamdani’s proposal. When Serious Political Thinkers talk about it, they say “he wants to defund the police.”

On r/AskReddit: What things in porn actually happen in real life?. Pizza is delivered.

Seriously, use the browser you like, don’t worry about battery. Matt Birchler has advice for Mac users.

Nations Are People. Do you deserve to die for your own bad government?

Hamilton Nolan:

If you live in America, your government is run by Donald Trump. Ugh. You might despise that guy. You might have worked hard against him during campaign season. When you visit another country, and tell them that you are American, you might add, “But don’t judge me!” You would not want to be branded with the weight of the various stupid and despicable actions of your own government. You understand, first, that you do not agree with those things, and second, that you as a regular person have little power to affect those things. You are just living your life. You want to be respected as a human being.

“Unfortunately, this simple and intuitive understanding of the difference between the government and the people of your own country often evaporates–or gets erased–when the discussion turns to foreign countries. When someone says “Russia,” you probably think of Putin, not of the teenage girl dreaming of what she will do after graduation. When someone says “Iran,” you probably think of something that is often referred to as “the regime,” rather than of the laughing family gathering for a holiday meal. This mental mistake, this unwitting juxtaposition of one thing for a different thing, is like a steamroller that paves the way for you to accept unacceptable things. You would never nod sagely and agree that a bomb should be dropped on a child. But air strikes to “cripple” the “command and control” of a “hostile regime?” Well, of course, serious people understand that this may be necessary in the grand chessboard that is geopolitics.

…

Are you willing to be killed for your own government’s sins? Are you willing to have your house destroyed and your child hit by shrapnel and your elderly parents lose access to medicine because of the policies of the latest president? If that seems unfair for you, it is unfair for anyone, anywhere. From this perspective, it is easy to see that the hurdle that a war must clear to be truly moral is so high that it stretches up into the clouds. Grounding ourselves in this perspective–always holding people, and their right to live, in the forefront of our minds–is the only way to make clear judgments about what our own government does with its killing machines.

Promises The ‘Trump Phone’ Would Be ‘Made In USA’ Lasted 1/100th Of A Scaramucci. The Trump organization has scrubbed its website of claims that the phone would be made in America. Now the site has handwaving about how the phone will be infused with “American values.” By Karl Bode at Techdirt.

What is a democratic socialist?

Cross the Courts Off the List: We have enough information to conclude that the law won’t save us.

Hamilton Nolan:

The most significant remaining opportunity for course correction is the midterm elections. It is not so much that the elections (which if history is any guide should cause Republicans to lose control of Congress) are a magic wand that will fix our broken democracy, any more than, you know, Obama’s election fixed America. It is instead the much more modest but vital hope that Republicans can still lose power in elections. The midterm elections will be a test not so much of whether the Democratic Party will finally become the heroic resistance heroes we need–they won’t–but rather a test of whether Trump and Co. will have it together to suppress the vote to the degree that elections, also, need to be crossed off the list of fruitful avenues of opposition.

We are going to see ICE agents at polling places, and politically motivated government investigations of political opponents, and possibly a number of non-Republican politicians and activists arrested and put in jail. That will be the setting of the midterm elections. Trump is a man who does not believe in even the abstract concept of losing an election. He is surrounded by yes men top to bottom in the federal government, and he has armies of armed agents at his disposal. The midterm elections are going to be a very, very important gut check for our democracy, and the extent to which it still functions. We, all of us, all of civil society, must protect the integrity of those elections at all costs. If the Trump administration is able to suppress the vote so severely that the midterms cannot be seen as fair, we are in an even worse place than we are now.

Having given up on the possibility of a Supreme Court line in the sand, I am now looking at those elections as the next most important data point about how much hope is left to return to our traditional standard of “normal.” Apart from the elections, the other meaningful source of opposition is: Us. People. I have hoped that organized labor could be the rallying point for popular opposition to dictatorship. So far, that hasn’t happened. Institutionally, the long decline in union power has rendered organized labor extremely ineffective, disorganized in the face of a war on the existence of public sector unions, and unable to act in a powerful, concerted fashion on a nationwide scale. It is still possible, however, for unions to be one part of a grassroots coalition that forms to battle this out. The national protest movement we have seen arise–most recently the “No Kings” protests–shows me that the bulk of public opinion is on the right side here. The fascists are a minority. Stopping their advance, though, will require funneling the public opposition into organizations, into all facets of direct actions. What we have now is the sentiment, but not the organization. It can be built. The situation is not, in any sense, hopeless. There is much more to be said about the mechanics of all this, but for now, join an organization that is in the fight, and fight.

It’s just that the path is narrower. We don’t gain anything by telling ourselves fairy tales about what is coming. If the courts won’t do their ostensible job of saving us then it is time to think of the law not as the arena of our salvation but as a minefield to pick our way around carefully en route to a more promising destination.

I received this in my Facebook notifications. I didn’t realize adolescent memes and dad jokes count as “high-quality content.”

I loved “Airplane” when it was first released. I laughed and laughed and probably saw it several times.

A few years ago, I discovered Julie had never seen “Airplane” and then sat down to watch it with her. We were both bored and gave up after about 20 minutes. But that was long enough for us to watch the “Saturday Night Fever” parody scene, and we both decided we’d like to watch “Saturday Night Fever” again.

And man — I think I have said this here before — but “Saturday Night Fever” blew me away that time. In my mind, I had previously conflated the movie with the cheesy disco comedies that came out in its wake. But “Saturday Night Fever” was brilliant and dark. One of my top 10 movies for sure.

The 100 best walking cities of 2025. — I can vouch for Barcelona, London, Edinburgh, Copenhagen, New York and Glasgow.

McDonald’s around the world: A discussion with author of McAtlas: A Global Guide to the Golden Arches, Gary He. By Chris Arnade, who has written about McDonald’s as local community centers and force for good, particularly for the poor.

You could escape the heat or cold, charge your phone, get inexpensive food, use the bathroom, and connect to Wi-Fi, while generally being left alone, as long as you didn’t act too weird.…. if you want to understand America, spending time in McDonald’s is not a bad way to go.

10 Hot Takes About Superman. “10. Superman is American. The truth is, Superman is as American as a hot dog inside a piece of apple pie served in a baseball glove.” By Charlie Jane Anders.

I Still Miss My Luddite Web Browser — Charlie Jane Anders on being a science fiction writer and hardcore late adopter.

We’ve moved from a system where corruption hides in shadows to one where it operates in plain sight, confident that we’ve all accepted it as just how things work.

— Mike Masnick, We Have All Become Too Comfortable With Corruption www.techdirt.com/2025/06/2…

Matt Stoller: Mandani is running a “system-defining” election, possibly reinventing the Democratic Party. www.thebignewsletter.com/p/a-democ…

I was a Twitter addict in the late 2000s and 2010s, but I lost interest in Twitter even before its change of ownership. I think I’ve lost interest in reading or writing prose chopped up into 300- or 500-character chunks.

Too much of Bluesky is people being outraged about politics and posting unverified news rumors. Too much of Mastodon is people being outraged about politics, unverified news rumors, and posting about technology issues that I’m not involved in. I still check both daily, but my heart isn’t in it.

Nowadays, I like blogs, newsletters and news and magazine websites, like I did in the 2000s.

I like Tumblr and Reddit. They’re great sources for the memes, vintage photos and vintage ads that I’m addicted to, as well as odd, delightful personal essays. I post regularly to Tumblr. I rarely post to Reddit — it’s too much work running the gauntlet of moderators and rules.

Seriously, I am surprised how much I continue to like Tumblr.

I like the community and connections on Facebook, but I hate Facebook as a software platform. Too much noise! It’s like trying to carry on a quiet conversation in a noisy, rocking subway car, with a smelly guy next to you shouting randomly.

Here’s where to find me on those other platforms, if you’re interested. Not on that list: Facebook. I’m trying to discourage people from connecting with me on Facebook. Eventually, no one will be left connecting with me on Facebook, and I can pull the plug.

Lewin Day at Hackaday:

Born in 1848 in Albany, New York, James Goold Cutler would come to build his life in the state. He lived and worked in the growing state, and as an architect, he soon came to identify an obvious problem. For those occupying higher floors in taller buildings, the simple act of sending a piece of mail could quickly become a tedious exercise. One would have to make their way all the way to a street level post box, which grew increasingly tiresome as buildings grew ever taller.

Cutler saw that there was an obvious solution—install a vertical chute running through the building’s core, add mail slots on each floor, and let gravity do the work. It then became as simple as dropping a letter in, and down it would go to a collection box at the bottom, where postal workers could retrieve it during their regular rounds. Cutler filed a patent for this simple design in 1883. He was sure to include a critical security feature—a hand guard behind each floor’s mail chute. This was intended to stop those on lower levels reaching into the chute to steal the mail passing by from above. Installations in taller buildings were also to be fitted with an “elastic cushion” in the bottom to “prevent injury to the mail” from higher drop heights.

Tim Cushing at Techdirt:

Who are we ejecting from this country at the rate of dozens of people per day? Hardworking, law-abiding migrants who’ve done nothing more than seek jobs, pay taxes, and carve out a better life for their loved ones. The government knows what it’s doing. After all, it already has all the evidence it needs to show its mass deportation program has nothing to do with making this nation safer or more secure.

…

The pretense of making America safer has been discarded. America won’t get any safer, just as surely as it won’t get any greater under this president. For years, it’s been known that migrants commit fewer crimes than natural-born citizens.

…

It’s nothing more than a racist purge…. just looking at ICE’s numbers, it’s easy to see this isn’t about ejecting criminals. It’s about getting rid of non-white people.

Paul Krugman:

I was enormously cheered by Mamdani’s victory, not because I think he’ll be a great mayor — honestly I have no idea — but because a Cuomo victory would have been deeply depressing. Why? Because it would have been an affirmation of elite impunity and lack of accountability. Cuomo is by all accounts a terrible person, and his bungled response to Covid killed people. For him to make a comeback simply because he’s part of the old boys’ club and had the big money behind him would have said that the rules only apply to the little people.

There’s a huge argument among Democrats about whether they need to run more centrist candidates. I am not ready to weigh in on that debate. But if you’re going to take that side, find better centrists. I mean, are Cuomo and Eric Adams the best you can do?

…

Oh, and centrist Democrats often urge leftier types to rally behind their nominees in general elections. I agree. Anyone claiming that there’s no difference between the parties is a fool. But this deal has to be reciprocal. Zamdani will be the Democratic nominee, and anyone calling themselves a Democrat should support him.

U.S. Army veteran Sae Joon Park took two bullets in the spine defending America. Now he’s being deported. Meanwhile, ICE has arrested only 6% of known immigrant murderers. Also, ICE arrested a pregnant Tennessee woman who had a stillbirth while in detention. nextdraft.com/archives/…

The first meeting of RFKJr.’s CDC vaccination panel was “packed with anti-vaccine talking points and arguments” and they’re questioning all childhood vaccines. Children will die unnecessarily if this committee has its way. arstechnica.com/health/20…

Trailer for “London Calling,” starring Josh Duhamel, about a down on his luck hitman who has to babysit the teen-age son of his new crime boss. Looks good. youtu.be

What is spotted dick? Tasting History With Max Miller youtu.be

Ryan Broderick at Garbage Day:

Social media does not turn a bad candidate into a viable one. It’s just amplification. And the same platforms that can amplify the ugliness and hatred and resentment of someone like Trump can amplify the joy and earnestness and seemingly genuine conviction of a candidate like Mamdani. It cannot, however, make voters forget that a candidate like Cuomo killed their grandparents during COVID or that current New York Mayor Eric Adams is a genuine maniac. There’s no magic trick. Mamdani ran a regular ass campaign where he spoke clearly about what he cared about and was normal about it and it worked. Revolutionary! And I understand why this would all be very threatening to Democrats, seeing as how most of them do not seem to care about anything.

Congress, Now More Than Ever, Our Nation Needs Your Cowardice. theonion.com

⁠⁠Now is not the time for bravery or valor! This is the time for protecting your own hide and lining your pocket…. ⁠This is the time to let the wave of apathy and indifference roll over you as you think about getting a really nice renovation to your house in Kalorama.

An MIT student developed a system that uses AI-generated polymer masks to restore damaged paintings in hours rather than months. arstechnica.com

What’s a “public internet?” By Cory Doctorow pluralistic.net

⁠⁠The Supreme Court just gave the Trump administration a green light to traffic humans to random countries around the world–including war zones where migrants face torture, slavery, or death. And they did so while offering literally zero explanation for why this is legal or constitutional.

— techdirt.com