Briefs
Sunday, February 21st, 2016
Adamkhan.net
Sunday, June 4th, 2023
Interesting, seeing Ars Technica’s slant on Twitter’s handling of Matt Walsh’s What is a Woman because, like most tech blogs, they lean establishment/woke, and I’d expect some pushback in the comments. But instead the comments are far more supportive of The Current Thing than is the piece itself, and quite a few condemn the author and the publication for irresponsibly posting a link to the film. Here’s one right-thinking gem by mikesmith (8y, 3,207 comments):
The next time a right-wing weirdo confidently declares that the definition of “woman” is inexorably linked to their genitalia ask them how many genitals they’ve personally inspected to be sure about it since they’re so confident.
Saturday, June 3rd, 2023
Hugh Howey, author of Wool, the book(s) behind Silo, writes:
Science-fiction writers are best-positioned to have something worthwhile to say about society — though that’s perhaps a tautology; he’s not just supporting a policy, but speculating at which point in time it ideally should have been enacted!
Tuesday, May 30th, 2023
In his Mr Smart Everyman way, John Gruber speaks to the eternal tags vs folders topic in this interview with the maker of a new Mac gmail client. I was shouting to the speaker though that folders aren’t just for the technically weak; they are a specific type of tag and are nestable, something that tags traditionally are not.
Monday, May 29th, 2023
How much has Microsoft changed really? Well, they’re doing unexpected things, but maybe they always did that. Here’s something cool from CB Insights on the Microsoft underwater data center from December 2018:
In 2016, Microsoft’s cloud-related patent application activity was twice that of Amazon and nearly 6x more than Google.
One example is Microsoft’s 2016 patent application for an Artificial Reef Datacenter. The patent is an iteration of a 2014 patent filed by Microsoft for a Submerged Datacenter.
In both patents, Microsoft looks to submerge data centers at the bottom of the ocean, which will cool the infrastructure naturally. In the earlier patent, Microsoft also outlined the possibility of using oceanic wind turbines to power the underwater data centers.
Since these patents were originally filed, Microsoft has begun work on Project Natick, an underwater data center off the coast of Scotland. The submerged data center runs on 100% locally produced renewable electricity from on-shore wind and solar as well as off-shore tide and wave sources.
But is this a PR stunt? There’ve been no Project Natick updates since July 9th, 2020. I suspect they just wanted to show the way for someone else to bother with the hard work, whom M$ would subsequently bend to their will by being their biggest customer.
Saturday, May 27th, 2023
The tone of this litany of complaints by Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting author (and Orlando resident, I remember being told by a local taxi driver), reminds me of Victor Davis Hanson. I wonder on how many issue this ostensible leftist and rightist might actually agree.
Wednesday, May 24th, 2023
Some choice sentences regarding theses privileged medievalists blocking the way.
Tuesday, April 25th, 2023
At The Ringer, Succession via the prism of Tom:
Along with a five-figure Patek Philippe watch, Tom delivers a joke to Logan: “It’s incredibly accurate. Every time you look at it, it tells you exactly how rich you are.” Unimpressed, Logan says, “That’s very funny. Did you rehearse that?” … While watching Macfadyen in that scene, [Adam] McKay recalls, [Jesse] Armstrong leaned over to him and said, “Well, I’m going to have to expand this character.”
Monday, April 24th, 2023
Increasingly, Dan Senor’s weirdly-named podcast Call Me Back is becoming my favorite due to frequent regular output on topics close to my heart with authoritative guests. This is Micah Goodman on the Israel protests. He’s more sympathetic than I am towards the elitist tantrums protests but has the perspicacity to step back and view things historically.
Sunday, April 23rd, 2023
In The Telegraph, A multi-faceted layman’s tour of the differences between the US and UK economies.
Saturday, April 22nd, 2023
You’re looking at a story originally written to the ExpressionEngine content management system (albeit originally drafted on the MarsEdit blogging client for MacOS), but the web software stack I’ve migrated to is Strapi + Nuxt connected via GraphQL. With Strapi’s move from v3 to v4 however, significant changes have been made to how GraphQL is served, so much so that after reviewing things I am likely going to stick to v3, which is a first step in abandoning a software package completely. Some discussions by irate developers:
The Strapi team justifies the change by arguing that they are following the JSON:API standard but the numerous complaints point out how verbose this gets for queries that have deep nesting, with “data.attributes” all over the place.
Thursday, April 20th, 2023
Walter Russell Mead launches a new column in Tablet focused on American affairs domestic rather than foreign.
Wednesday, April 19th, 2023
In this tutorial by Martin Fowler for coding with ChatGPT, he interviews Xu Hao, who first tells the AI what tech stack he’s using, what the project is intended to be, and to generate not code but a list of tasks required to build it. He then tweaks this task list. And only then, working from the task list, do they begin generating code.
My take away from this discussion was that using chain of thought and generated knowledge prompting approaches can be a significantly useful tool for programming. In particular it shows that to use LLMs well, we need to learn how to construct prompts to get the best results. This experience suggests that it’s useful to interact with the LLM like a junior partner, starting them with architectural guidelines, asking them to show their reasoning, and tweaking their outputs as we go.
Monday, April 10th, 2023
Victor Davis Hanson is perhaps merely stating the obvious regarding America’s decline.
Sunday, April 9th, 2023
In his great book Where Is My Flying Car? author J. Storrs Hall suggests that perhaps the best way to measure the wealth of nations is in how much energy people in each country use. In a recent article at comparison site ElectricRate on the cost of electricity around the world, the table labeled “Percentage of Day’s Wages Needed to Buy Electricity” is perhaps an even better measurement. #1 is Norway, #3 is the USA, and Israel and the UK are #10 and #12.
Sunday, April 2nd, 2023
“The AI does not love you, nor does it hate you, and you are made of atoms it can use for something else.” — Eliezer Yudkowsky in Time
Tuesday, March 28th, 2023
What a mindblowing, humbling project: infinitemac.org — every Mac system since January 24th, 1984, in the browser!
At the Tikva Podcast, a national treasure, the fiercely smart Yehushua Pfeffer on the Haredi moment.
A couple of worthwhile recent podcast episodes: Dan Senor on Israel at the Commentary podcast and Kevin Kelly at Russ Robert’s EconTalk [both links via Overcast].
Saturday, March 25th, 2023
Woke:
- its core demand: are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?
- describes the ongoing cultural revolution which defines reality by its usefulness in achieving left-wing goals
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023
Israel and the UK have signed the 2030 Roadmap for UK-Israel Bilateral Relations. (Why oh why in the Vision section is there a comma before “signed”? Why the terrible digitized “two” in “as 2 innovation and technology leaders…”. And I really detest this recent UK-ism: “We are clear that democratic norms are…” — no, people are not clear that anything.)
Regarding the Abraham Accords, “the UK joins Israel in acknowledging [their] historic significance … which have the potential to enable profound advancements for security, co-existence, prosperity and peace for the region and its peoples.” Given Britain’s ties with the Gulf, it would be great if she dive in and actually catalyze things further.
And, stuck enthusiastically at the end of a paragraph on health cooperation: “Our ambition for closer, mutually beneficial ties is limitless.” Heartening!
Wednesday, March 15th, 2023
Dean of American foreign policy Walter Russell Mead has lately abandoned his on-the-other-handism — to wit, the stentorian moral tone of his book Arc of a Covenant and its politely scathing attack on Mearsheimer and the like. In his latest Wall Street Journal piece, “Netanyahu’s Bid for a Role in Zionist History”, WRM casts his lot, characterizing Israel’s protests as rear-guard snobbery and prejudice, and ending with the audacity of hope that Bibi will find a way out of the current conundrum by means of sagacity beyond that even of Ben-Gurion.
Tuesday, March 14th, 2023
The comments section in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s YouTube video condemning anti-semitism is, even if massively repetitive, eye-opening. The ADL’s Hate on Display helps decode some of it.
Gadi Taub and Peter Berkowitz on the Israeli moment. Whereas Taub thinks the opposition must make the next move, Berkowitz (and also Sharansky) thinks the government must reach across the aisle since it’s the one in power.
Monday, March 13th, 2023
Bar Ilan University’s BESA Center is optimistic after two years of Israel being in USCENTCOM.
Friday, March 10th, 2023
In Rome, Netanyahu speaks to La Repubblica. “What we can do is protect our freedoms,” he says, “using force if necessary, for as long as possible…” This is the second time in recent weeks I’ve heard the great man introduce this concept of existence as temporary. Not that it’s not true, but it’s unusual to hear a national leader speak that way. Intimations perhaps of his own mortality. Anyway, I love that he is coming with a vivid clear ask: Roma, recognize Yerushalayim.
In Mosaic Magazine, the redoubtable Evelyn Gordon lays out the issue of Israel’s judicial reform.
Wednesday, March 8th, 2023
Seems like great news, Israel’s government and opposition reaching a compromise over judicial reform.
Tuesday, March 7th, 2023
What a vile and unserious letter to Binyamin Netanyahu from members of the Entebbe commando squad. They write:
You compared us to those who carried out the pogrom in Huwara, and your son, who has not held a rifle in his life, calls us ‘terrorists’…
Perhaps I’m touchy about this because a friend recently dismissed my view on Israeli matters because when we served in the IDF some over 30 years ago he was in a combat unit and I was not, but really, does Yair Netanyahu’s military service or lack thereof belong in a serious discussion on national affairs? They go on:
You called us ‘conditional Zionists.’ You, whose father, left Israel in 1939 and returned only in 1949 when the Independence War ended. And then a second time left the country in 1962 and returned after his son fell [in Entebbe].
Now after insulting his son they’re after his father. Never mind that the senior Netanyahu was also the father to the son Yoni whom they valorize earlier in the letter…
Just pitiful.
The increasingly indispensable Michael Doran points out that:
If the goal of the Biden administration were to work with Israel to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, then Nides would either avoid any intervention whatsoever in Israeli domestic politics, or he would urge Lapid publicly to put forth practical proposals that could lead to a constructive compromise. Nides has demonstratively done neither.
Sunday, March 5th, 2023
Prof. Nir Keidar, legal historian and President of Sapir College, appears on the predictably leftist podcast The Tel Aviv Review ostensibly to discuss his book David Ben Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy but the conversation is mostly about today’s judicial reform, and he is reasonable and helpful.
Saturday, March 4th, 2023
As interviewed by Netael Bandel in Israel Hayom, Professor Yoav Dotan opposes judicial activism:
The High Court took the accepted understanding of reasonableness – intervening when a government authority harms the citizen in an absurd and capricious manner – and turned it into something else entirely. Everyone must be reasonable, the government and the prime minister, except that they always think they are acting reasonably. The court’s reasonableness approach states that the government will balance its own considerations and that the court will reverse-engineer the government’s determination. In effect, the court becomes a second government that oversees the elected government, and in instances that have no bearing whatsoever on personal liberties.
David Goldman, back on form, untangles Türkiye’s high-wire new stratagems that leverage its centrality every which way. But I don’t know, this all seems too clever by half and could unravel fairly instantly.
By the way, for ages Goldman was talking about how Türkiye was collapsing and becoming a vassal state to China. But of course, course-corrections happen among the living. For me as someone who believes Goldman is pretty prescient, it’s reassuring that he updates his views.
Thursday, March 2nd, 2023
In 1987 I attended a Telluride Association Summer Program. In 2020 I was shocked to read that in the wake of the George Floyd protests, Telluride had limited its TASP offerings to “Critical Black Studies” and “Anti-Oppressive Studies” seminars. In this article, Vincent Lloyd, a black professor who had taught at a TASP in the past, relates how he was cancelled by the students. The irony would be delicious if the seeming disintegration of American largesse and leadership in education were not sad and scary.
Via Paul Graham, who chose Gerald Ford’s portrait as his favorite, “every american president, but they’re all cool and they all sport a mullet” by Cam Harless.
Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes! The Goodfellas address climate change. Niall Ferguson complains about, just as I see it, the opportunity costs — and also the mental health toll on the young. John Cochrane complains that no cost/benefit analysis is being applied to climate change policy. And Bjorn Lomborg specifies what those opportunity costs are, listing demonstrably better ways to invest in human betterment. How wonderful it would be if everyone seriously considered the contents herein.
It’s over too quickly, these two great alliterative-entitled Americans in conversation, Alan Alda and Kevin Kelly on AA’s Clear+Vivid podcast. Alda has such a gracious voice, and Kelly’s meets it. Kelly introduces some novel standpoints, earning his “world’s most interesting man” Tim Ferris monicker. The impetus and much of the conversation revolves around AI chatbots.
Sunday, February 26th, 2023
Two masters: Walter Russell Mead interviews Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the Hertog Forum. The context is their respective recent books, The Arc of a Covenant and Bibi — each is most gracious about the other’s.
One jarring note is that a couple of questions before the end, Bibi ends an answer with “Thank you,” as if ending the interview there and then. Am I imagining that? WRM however is having none of it; the next question is about Putin, which Bibi refuses to answer (the only such response — earlier I think perhaps there’s an inkling even he’s said a little too much). Instead of wilting, WRM asks him another question, then at some point chooses a judicious moment to end.
WRM says at the beginning that it’s intimidating interviewing Bibi, but if he is truly intimidated he does not let on, and his plummy slow delivery belies that.
And WRM gets the closing word, sealing Bibi’s masterful survey beautifully. I just wish WRM looked after himself a bit more physically — he’s a national, no, civilizational treasure, and it would be a shame to lose him prematurely. Bibi in contrast looks well-sprung, the hands wonderful.
Monday, February 20th, 2023
Israel and the UAE have unveiled a jointly developed unmanned maritime vessel, Globes reports. Abraham of Ur would be pleased.
Thursday, February 16th, 2023
I’m Bing, and I know the date. ????. Perhaps I’m missing something, but surely: Fuck M$, and fuck $A?
Monday, February 13th, 2023
In “Overmatch”, Michael Doran and Can Kasapoğlu perfectly explicate the growing peril of America’s posture in the Middle East. If NATO was designed to keep the Americans in, the Germans down and the Russians out, the Obama/Biden approach to the Middle East seems hell-bent on getting America out, the Iranians up, and the Chinese in.
Like marriages gone sour and houses in Malibu, international orders erode gradually at first and then all at once. News of the demise of the American order in the Middle East is certainly premature, but the ground beneath it is shifting in very unsettling ways that American policymakers appear determined to ignore.
Thursday, February 9th, 2023
I never thought to google it, but once upon a time in the 1980s I made a nice speech in public speaking class at the American International School on the Nacirema. Turns out back in 1956 it had been a prank academic paper, “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” by Horace Miner in American Anthropologist, as this article JSTOR Daily article “The Long Life of the Nacirema” reminds us.
Thursday, February 2nd, 2023
What a tweetstorm by Hussein Aboubakr Mansour, self-styled “grand cultural architect of the post-Palestine Middle East”, on the main issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: the Leftist notion that first-world colonization justifies any behavior. Israel’s contribution, he notes, is that we “accept the Palestinian self-dehumanization as the ontological truth of the Palestinians: final, exclusive, and irreversible, and not as humans who are trapped into a terrible story made up by generations of mad intellectuals and sadistic tyrants.” Perfetto.
Tuesday, January 31st, 2023
Great to see that this post about a mural in Nazareth memorializing the heroes of the Iranian uprising is met at the NewIran subreddit with only sympathetic and grateful comments.
Thursday, January 19th, 2023
Righteous Rishi will visit Israel for her 75th.
Monday, January 16th, 2023
And now for something completely different, ie nice and civilized: John Mount’s article “Good Stationery as a Tool of Thought”.
Wednesday, January 11th, 2023
genders.wtf is an outstanding use of this thing we call the World Wide Web. It’s nice that it takes a hot divisive topic and makes it genuinely human and funny.
Tuesday, January 10th, 2023
Finally, Congress will pass a resolution expressing solidarity with and support for Iran’s protesters.
Senior Saudis tell an American delegation they are ready for normalization with Israel, but first they want normalization with the United States, writes JINSA’s John Hannah in The Jerusalem Post after the visit.
Actor fears Vlad revenge...
UPDATE: DRUDGE APP IPHONE, IPAD...
Ukraine counteroffensive begins...
ANDROID...
Agents behind enemy lines carrying out attacks...
Graydon Carter: He and Meghan made every wrong move...
Deepfake of Putin declaring martial law broadcast in Russia...
STUDY: Bad Movie Reviews Lead To Box Office Success, Positive Reviews Signal Flop!
Hundreds of GANNETT Journalists Walk Out...
Craft of Non-Human Origin...
Could U.S. visa get revoked?
Royals Prepare to Cringe...
Prince Harry Blasted for 'Wasting Court Time' as He Fails to Show up at Own Trial...
APPLE Set to Launch VR Headset; First Major Product in Decade...
Child Sex Abuse Material Still Found On Site...
Can Chris Licht Survive at CNN?
Trans PhD Student Threatens To Kill Matt Walsh
Can We Call It Fascism Yet?
This Pride Month, 'Normies' Revolting Against Extremism
Companies Must Do More Than Ever To Support LGBTQ+
Kamala Harris Can't Be Trusted With AI Regulation
AI's Rapid Growth Threatens to Flood '24 Race w/Fake Videos
Liar Comey Forgets FBI's Corruption Is Established Fact
Trump Could Be Wearing Ankle Bracelet at GOP Convention
After Durham Report, Voters Seek Deep FBI Reforms
Biden Using Ukrainians For Neocon Political Machinations
An Unwinnable War: DC Needs End Game in Ukraine
Zelensky: We Are Ready for Counteroffensive
Trump's Challengers Making Same Mistakes All Over Again
Trump, the GOP Field, and a Return to 'Normalcy' in Iowa
Links for the intellectually curious, ranked by readers.
Universal basic income of nearly $2000/mo to be trialed in UK for the first time
Apple unveils new Mac Studio and brings Apple Silicon to Mac Pro
Open-Source Data Collection Platform for LLM Fine-Tuning and RLHF
Apple unveils new Mac Studio and brings Apple Silicon to Mac Pro
Apple Introduces M2 Ultra
Apple Announces Apple Silicon Mac Pro Powered by M2 Ultra
Mac Studio gets its first hardware update with M2 Max and the new M2 Ultra chip
Apple Announces New MacBook Air with 15.3-Inch Display and M2 Chip
The Falcon has landed in the Hugging Face ecosystem
Building a Programming Language in Twenty-Four Hours
Our right to challenge junk patents is under threat
Sail 7B: New Fine Tuned LLM Outperforms ChatGPT and Vicuna with Search
Launch HN: Nucleus (YC W23) – Kubernetes platform for both devs and ops
SEC Accuses Binance of Mishandling Funds and Lying to Regulators
SEC Sues Binance and CEO Zhao for Breaking US Securities Rules
The principled largesse behind NetNewsWire
Cal Newport reimagines the internet
A masterclass in web processing
Call of the online wild
A sober take on the state of RSS
The feel of it
Calacanis: news readers are a tough business
Instagram creators announce reader
Feedbin creator on Shoptalk Show
Before there were blogs there were sites
Bin Wang announces RSS Brain
Hockenberry of Twitterrific is angry
Mindblowingly, DevonTHINK as RSS reader
Thank you, OpenRSS
Dear RSS, I miss you, Love ChatGPT
SubStacks have feeds too
Feeds for iOS developers
Disabling scroll-snapping stories on mobile
Don’t knock RSS, you’re embarrassing yourself
It’s RSS Day at Hacker News
Prepared for the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations
The Historic Ties between Israel and the Kurds of Iraq Will Continue
In New York State, a Huge Majority Knocks Down a Legislative Attack on Israel
Shame on the UK Foreign Office for Its Arabist Bias
Israel to Inaugurate Elevator at Tomb of the Patriarchs
Israeli Startups Raised $550 Million in May
Iran Elected to UN Committee on Disarmament and International Security
How UAVs Have Increased Israel's Military Power
Egyptian Policeman Kills Three Israeli Soldiers at Egypt-Israel Border
Israel Slams IAEA for Ending Probe into Iranian Nuclear Site
Ukraine Armed Forces Mastering Israeli Early-Warning Radar System in Poland
Israel Complains to UN after Hizbullah Drills Takeover of Israeli Communities
Israel to Share Data for Weaving Iron Dome into U.S. Air Defense
Hizbullah Members Accused over Killing of Irish UNIFIL Officer in Lebanon
Israeli Strikes in Syria Said to Target Training Base for Hizbullah's Golan Unit
Guardian Corrects False Claim over Palestinian Water Use
Scientific utopias: the Eclosion Event
Golden jubilee for an iconic financial formula
Six tips for better coding with ChatGPT
Sleep loss impairs memory of smells, worm research shows
Scientific utopias: scientific enlightenment in the Stupid Questions Office
JWST spots the most distant ‘smoke’ molecules ever seen in space
When a loved one dies: how academia can support bereaved colleagues
Spatial variations in aromatic hydrocarbon emission in a dust-rich galaxy
Frank Shu (1943–2023)
Accidental DNA collection by air sensors could revolutionize wildlife tracking
My mission to grow fruit without the plant
New Zealand volcano: science agency pleads guilty to risk-assessment charge
The US Supreme Court has gutted federal protection for wetlands — now what?
Scientific utopias: tackling an early-morning crisis at the Institute of Merged Sciences
Epic voyage finds astonishing microbial diversity among coral reefs
Egypt reopens historic mosque after long restoration
Sudan battle rages as Saudi Arabia, US urge new truce talks
UAE-Japan Committee for Women Career Development hosts 16th forum
US, UK navies say they responded to distress call as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard ‘harassed’ ship
Netanyahu convenes Iran war drill, scorns UN nuclear watchdog
France seeks removal of Lebanese ambassador’s immunity after rape accusation
Palestinian toddler shot by Israeli troops in West Bank dies of wounds
Israel jails Palestinian for life over West Bank killing
Kuwaiti, UN official discuss global food security
Palestinian residents ‘in constant fear’ over eviction threat
A quarterly magazine of urban affairs, published by the Manhattan Institute, edited by Brian C. Anderson.
Transit and the American City
How mayors and governors can address the post-Covid crisis of public transportationClassical Education Comes to Bedford
A wealthy New York suburb is home to a Catholic startup school with countercultural aspirations.No Free Curb
A new book explains how the demand for parking has shaped our cities and suburbs.Can States and Cities Dig Themselves Out?
Risk Talking podcastAlways Kissinger
At 100, the greatest diplomat of the twentieth century remains a clear-eyed observer of the twenty-first.Poetry, properly understood, is the total art form, from which all other modern art forms emerged. Want proof? Consider <strong>Nick Cave</strong>
<strong>South Korea</strong> is the most cosmetically advanced country on earth, with a beauty industry 10 years ahead of its competitors
What happens when a stand-up comedian with a <strong>dislike for Picasso</strong> curates a museum exhibit about him? An embarrassment
During the Great Plague of 1665, the Common Council of the City of London decreed: “<strong>All dogs and cats should be immediately killed</strong>”
The <strong>wisdom of Epictetus</strong> includes deep Stoic insights, as well as his thoughts on the unmanliness of tweezing body hair
Microfiction, nanofiction, hint fiction, flash fiction, dribble, drabble, trabble: What's with writers' <strong>fascination with brevity</strong>?
“<strong>The era of bourgeois revolutions</strong> coincided with a general turn towards neoclassicism in architecture, visual arts, literature, music and theatre”
US and Chinese diplomats held ‘candid and productive discussions’ in Beijing: State Department
Mainstream Republicans choosing US debt ceiling deal over global economic chaos is a welcome sign of sanity
China berates EU at World Trade Organization for policies it calls unfair
US SEC sues Binance and founder Changpeng Zhao for breaking securities rules
Former US VP Pence to seek 2024 Republican presidential nomination: federal filing
Ukraine conducting ‘offensive actions’ on front line, says Kyiv, noting some ‘success’
Detroit, recent Apec host, embodies Joe Biden’s trade policy goal of renewal
Child among 4 dead in US plane crash that sparked Washington fighter jets alert
Africa US$4 billion 900-mile oil pipeline creates climate dilemma, ‘highlights global inequality’
Ukraine war: Russian radio stations hacked, played fake Putin message, says Kremlin
Brain candy for Happy Mutants
Mark Rober launches flying graduation cap at MIT commencement
Trippy TV returns with The Sid & Marty Krofft Channel
Readying to sell off, Reddit shuts off third-party clients
100 instruments on the 'Careless Whisper' lick, except for the sax
Thirsty to sit down with Tom Morello, Republicans are outraged he refuses to sit with Nazis
Give your dad the gift of backyard golf with PutterBall, now only $160 in time for Father's Day
Basil Poledouris' soundtrack to Starship Troopers on vinyl
Principal is alarmed after finding bear in school dumpster
Find the invisible cow by focusing on the audio
A flustered DeSantis gets called out for being a fascist
This motionless dragon Illusion looks like it's turning it's head to look at you
How voice data is being used with AI to generate "predictive" medical diagnoses
City Hop allows you to listen to chill tunes as you virtually walk around various cities
Karen Thürler makes awesome ceramic sculptures that look like Tamagotchi digital pets
Monday assorted links
The Growing Market for Cancer Drugs
Pristina notes
Population Dynamics and Economic Inequality
What should I ask Ada Palmer?
Sunday assorted links
How the Russian Revolution boosted Marx’s influence
Where the AI extinction warning goes wrong
Sam Bowman on French success
Saturday assorted links
Who gains from corporate tax cuts?
Why I am not entirely bullish on brain-computer interface
Friday assorted links
The international competition heats up
My excellent Conversation with Seth Godin
Where the design community meets.
Industry standard practice briefs & design courses
Make your design sign-offs less dull (Figma freebie)
How To Start A UX Design Project (Quick Beginner Guide)
Boomer corporate culture: 5 traits we need to end
⏩ Speed up your typography tasks in Figma using these plugins
SaaS Product Designer for B2B Companies
⚡️ Split – brand new portfolio template for Framer
70% Off. Tetrisly DS - Figma, Docs, React soon. Limited offer.
Build your company like a product | Sahil Lavingia (Founder & CEO, Gumroad)
Forcing functions help streamline, simplify, or minimize how a user interacts with a design.
Finesse UI – Figma UI Kit and Design System
JUST IN: Minty Illustrators Selection Summer 2023
Top 10 UX Design Tips For Startups: Building Irresistible Products
Every Designer Should Be Doing This for Better UX! | UXtweak+Figma
Community Work-share: Share your portfolio w/ peers & clients
Rumors and news on everything Apple since 1997
Apple reveals macOS Sonoma with screensavers and widgets
'Death Stranding: Director's Cut' walking onto Mac
Apple reveals iPadOS 17 with customizable Lock Screen, Health app, more
Apple Silicon Mac Pro debut finally ends transition away from Intel processors
iOS 17 continues personalization push & makes big adds to Messages
Mac Studio gets updated with powerful M2 Max and M2 Ultra processors
Apple's new 15-inch MacBook Air with M2 processor is 12x faster than Intel's version
iPads, Apple Watch & Macs are all on sale for up to $250 off this week on Amazon
Get Apple's M1 MacBook Pro 13-inch with 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD for $1,199 ($700 off) today only
Apple adds Wallet app to Apple Business Register
Microsoft Office for Mac Home & Business 2021 on sale for $39.99, a discount of 84% off
You'll be lucky to get an Apple headset before Christmas, says Ming-Chi Kuo
Opinions on corporate and brand identity work.
Announced: Brand New will Shift to Subscription Model
Spotted: New Logo for Blue Islands
Linked: Louis Vuitton Architecture
Noted: New Name and Logo for St. Louis City SC
Reviewed: Friday Likes 339: From Studio MPLS, Wade and Leta, and Unifikat Design Studio
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Vitkus Clinic by Tandemo
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for Netgen by IDnaGroup
Linked: Biden &Harris &Decimal
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Correos de México by Carl Forsell
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for BERA by How & How
Spotted: New Logo for Playtika
Spotted: New Logo and Identity for The 19th by Page 33 Studio
Linked: Objects may be Closer than they Ap-pear
Noted: New Logo and Identity for Zappos Adaptive by Eric&Todd
Reviewed: New Logo and Identity for Lot61 by Smörgåsbord
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Yaccarino takes wheel at Twitter early as advertising woes become public
Couchbase courts developers with platform integration
Reddit blackout planned over app-killing API prices
UK warned not to bother racing with US, EU on EV subsidies
Intel promises to reduce droop with backside power in 2024
Qbot malware adapts to live another day … and another …
Debian 12 'Bookworm' is the excitement-free Linux you've been waiting for
Air Force colonel 'misspoke' when he said an AI-drone 'killed' its human operator
UK launches SKYNET – not a doomsday plot, just shopping for improved satellite comms
Windows XP's adventures in the afterlife shows copyright's copywrongs
Fed up with slammed servers, IT replaced iTunes backups with a cow of a file
The bonkers water-cooled shoe PC, hexagonal pink workstations, and IKEA-style cases of Computex 2023
experiments in refactored perception
Life After Language
In October 2013, I wrote a post arguing that computing was disrupting language and that this was the Mother of All Disruptions. My specific argument was that human-to-human communication was an over-served market, and that computing was driving a classic disruption pattern by serving an under-served marginal market: machine-to-machine and organization-to-organization communications. At the time, […]Storytelling — The Penumbra of Mortality
I’ve been reading Permutation City by Greg Egan, my first taste of his work. I picked it because it seemed like something of a contemporary chaser to J. G. Ballard’s work, whose complete short stories I just finished and thoroughly enjoyed (also a first taste for me). I was not disappointed. Though a much weaker […]Permissionless Research
The philosophies of science that I find most compelling, such as Paul Feyerabend’s, tend to argue for methodological anarchy as the characteristic of the most historically impactful science. It is not immediately obvious, but I think this is equivalent to arguing that the best science (and any sort of inquiry conducted with a scientific sensibility) […]