The left has become more adept at shaming toxic masculinity than at showcasing a positive masculinity that is distinct from femininity. Progressive readers of the previous sentence might roll their eyes at the notion that it is the job of any left-wing political movement to coddle men’s feelings. But if a large shift rightward among young male voters helps Trump eke out a victory in November, Democrats will have little choice but to think up a new message to stop the young-male exodus.
Much truth here I think. I have never been bothered by this because I do not feel at all targeted by progressive denunciations of toxic masculinity, and I don’t look to politicians and political pundits to tell me how a man ought to act.
Then again, I am not young.
The Republican vision of masculinity is not only toxic, but it is also false. Donald Trump is a draft dodger and a coward who hides behind his inherited money, and his lickspittle lackeys are no better. I’m not seeing a lot of astronauts, athletes, military combat veterans or other true adherents of machismo in that crowd. Republican President Theodore Roosevelt would have been disgusted with what his party has become.
Training AI using synthetic data seems like a lot of bullshit to me. It’s like learning to cook by reading cookbooks, watching YouTube videos and talking to other people who are doing the same thing, but never actually cooking. All of those things are useful, but the only way to learn to cook is to cook.
I’m pleased to see the Goodlinks read-later app has added support for highlights and notes. My Readwise Reader annual subscription runs out in a few days, and I’ve been looking for alternatives. Readwise Reader is a great product, but it is overpowered and overpriced for my purposes.
Meta’s idiot moderation AI strikes again, this time deleting a meme I posted to Threads weeks ago for allegedly violating Meta’s terms of service prohibiting drug sales. Of course, I was not selling drugs — it was stoner humor. I used to run into this kind of thing several times a month on Facebook before I stopped posting there about two weeks ago.
This incident was particularly annoying because I was unable to dismiss the warning notification to click through to the timeline.
I’m not thrilled with the ageism in the Democrats' new slogan: “Donald Trump is old and weird.” But I’m happy to see it seems to be working. I’ll deal with my issues after President Harris is sworn in.
Also from Broderick: Musk Is Violating His Own Terms Of Service (And Likely Election Law) If You Even Care.
A Few Blockbuster Podcasts Are Making All the Money. I listen to about 90 minutes of podcasts daily, but I only listen to one of the listed top ten podcasts. I haven’t even heard of most of these (though some of the hosts are familiar names — they’re real-life celebrities). That’s a testimony to the excellent richness of the podcast landscape, and that richness is, to a large degree, attributable to open standards.
“Nearly 100 million Americans age 12 and older listen to podcasts every week,” according to this article in the Wall Street Journal.
I started listening near the beginning, 20 years ago, when podcasts were very much a nerd affair. It amazes me that they are now mainstream like TV and radio are used to be.
Anchorage [Alaska] will one day be the port of exchange between Asia, North America, and Europe…. I don’t think you all are considering how much an ice free Arctic Ocean will change international trade routes. It will become the very northwest passage explorers had been looking for since like 1500.
Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album “The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart” — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.
Newhart was a master of the slow build and used silence and his stammer as power tools.
Newhart went straight to the top. Unlike other comics, he didn’t have years of playing small gigs to refine his act before hitting it big. He went from nowhere to a #1 album and had to learn his craft in the spotlight.
Newhart repeats the hilarious story about how his wife met Don Rickles. The Newharts and Rickles became lifelong friends. Rickles was an insult comic who spewed racist jokes at a time when a person could do those things, and it was clear they were demonstrating how racism was stupid. But offstage, Don Rickles was, by all accounts, a kind and gracious man—the opposite of his onstage persona.
Newhart shrugs and does not explain how he and Rickles became close friends. But I think a big part of it is that they were both good men who played Rat Pack shows but were not interested in the boozing, philandering lifestyle. They were family men.
I recently upgraded from a 27" 14-year-old Apple Cinema Display to a 34" Dell ultrawide.
Until now, I’ve always run a simple windowing setup: Most of the time, I’m using one app, and it’s maximized to fill the whole screen. When I want to switch apps, I Cmd-Tab between them (that’s equivalent to Alt-Tab on Windows). Often, I use two apps, and I tile them side by side when I do.
But that strategy is not going to work for me on a 34" display because the individual app becomes too big to take in.
If I’m working on just one application, I think I’ll have it centered, full height, 2/3 or 3/4 of the width of the screen. We’ll see how that works out over time. But what goes on either edge?
How do you manage your ultrawide lifestyle?
I use the computer for basic productivity, the web and social media. I’m not a gamer and I don’t generally watch videos or listen to music on my desktop.
I already use Raycast for window management, so I don’t need pointers to software such as Raycast, Moom, or Magnet. However, if there are particular applications you love for window management on ultrawide displays, please let me know.
By the way, I searched the Internet for tips on making the transition and found reddit.com/r/ultrawidemasterrace, where people share tips and photos of their ultrawide setups. 34" seems huge to me, but it barely qualifies for that sub. For example, check this out: a 49" display with another monitor mounted above it.
“Dexter” is returning, with Michael C. Hall as the titular character.. Good news! The character died at the end of the previous miniseries (spoiler for 2-year-old TV show soz) but there are ways they can retcon this. It’d be a cheap trick, but I don’t care if it brings the show back.