Lina KhanI’ve heard the argument that Lina Khan at the FTC is really good and making good guidelines. Fair enough. She’s not an elected official. She could work for any administration. The argument is, of course, that Trump wouldn’t hire her, so we therefore need to get Biden or Harris back in there, so that she can continue her good work. This is ridiculous. We have to put up with Biden or Harris so we can have a working FTC? That’s the argument?

That’s getting toward the bottom of the barrel of the... [More]

The following Slavoj Žižek video is only one minute long. In it, he explains that we need another system simply because the one we have is so utterly inadequate to the tasks before it.

…on why he is a communist, but not a socialist by Slavoj Žižek (YouTube)

“I remain a communist. In what sense? My good friend told me he was there, as part of some delegation, two days after Fukushima. He told me that, for a couple of hours, the Japanese government was in total panic. It looked that they will have to evacuate the entire Tokyo area: 30 million people. Then, maybe,... [More]”

The work journal 2024-03-27T16:03:51 conversation: 01ht0afgwryks5fepkvvm0kn28 by Simon Willison (GitHub) describes the author’s process of using AI prompting to write a console text-wrapping algorithm.

He prompted with “JavaScript that takes a big string of text and word wraps it at the specified width, adding newlines where necessary.” The answers meandered around a solution space that seemed over-engineered and not particularly fruitful—the answers all used regular expressions, which seems kind of like overkill, when... [More]

The video linked below is a great 1-hour documentary[1] about one guy—Karel Sabbe—who finished the Barkley Marathon (Wikipedia), which is,

“[…] an ultramarathon trail race held each year in Frozen Head State Park in Morgan County, Tennessee, United States. The course, which varies from year to year, consists of five loops of the 20+ mile, off-trail course for a total of 100 miles.”

The video is named #17 because he’s only the 17th person to have finished the race in its 40-year history. And people... [More]

The article Prefer test-doubles over mocking frameworks by Steve Dunn writes,

“This is testing implementation and not behaviour. Your SUT called something and there is likely an observable side-effect of that. Test the side-effect and not that a particular method was called. If the code is refactored (e.g. you change the implementation but not the behaviour), then your test that checked that a method was called will likely break, but your test that tested the behaviour should remain unchanged and should... [More]”

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism & Media
• Labor
• Economy... [More]

The Talk − Bringing C# nullability into existing code by Maarten Balliauw is a 66-slide deck that I summarize as follows:

• The C# nullability feature is for build- and design-time. It does not enforce anything at runtime. That means that you still have to check parameters for null.
• The C# nullability feature is available to solutions working with .NET Framework and .NET.
• For .NET Framework, you have to explicitly set the <LanguageVersion> to 8.0 (however, there are a bunch of cons associated with doing this, as... [More]

The article Bidenomics and Its Discontents by James Galbraith (Scheer Post) is from April but discusses several structural issues with the economy that persist today and many of which have become even more severe, despite simultaneously being desperately papered over by the song-and-dance of the markets and an administration interested in the economy sinking only after November 5th.

Wages rising; hours sinking

“Today’s typical American working household has several earners, sometimes in multiple jobs. If one earner loses a... [More]”

After several years of being virus-free, I’ve been sick several times in the last eight months. I was telling a friend that I was sick of being sick and he told me that’s how your body gets stronger; it builds up immunity by being sick. Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps we are incapable of mastering these unseen enemies. But I can’t help feeling that this is a capitulatory attitude, the attitude of someone stuck in the Dark Ages, a time when people had no hope of beating disease. We used to be... [More]

Way back in mid-February, on the night before the Super Bowl, I opened the SunriseTV web page in Opera to set up the recording. That worked just fine.

I left the page open on the recordings, so I wouldn’t forget about it in the morning, when I started working in home office. The next morning, I refreshed the page and was confronted with the following dialog box.

Sunrise TV: login not possible

I tried logging in again, but was denied again.

Had my account broken overnight? Had my subscription expired? No, of course not.... [More]

Deepfakes are fake. It’s right in the name. So why are we getting our panties in a bunch about them?

The article There’s Probably Nothing We Can Do About This Awful Deepfake Porn Problem by Freddie deBoer (Substack) was surprisingly superficial. It deals only with the question of whether we should do a “war on drugs” style campaign against deep fakes—a hopeless and utterly ineffective crusade that causes misery for the innocent and pours money into the coffers of the usual suspects—or whether it’s completely hopeless... [More]

If you think the current barrage of pro-Democrat propaganda is bad, remember that this has been going on all year. They started very early. For example, the article How Bad It Was by Richard Farr (3 Quarks Daily) writes about the Bush years. It’s essentially an essay that is a campaign ad for choosing the lesser evil, which is clearly the Democrats in the author’s eyes. They exhorted readers to choose now, and to start donating at least $25 regularly, even thought that’s a “pathetic” amount. How much money do these dopes need... [More]

The article Israel Raids Hospital by Liz Wolfe (Reason) is from February but the incident it describes has been repeated at least a dozen—if not dozens—of times since. It illustrates quite concisely how you should write about war crimes when you wholeheartedly support them. It hits all the standard notes:

• Attacking a hospital is a normal thing.
• It’s perfectly reasonable to tell everyone in a hospital to evacuate.
• The hospital is a enemy headquarters (this time it’s true!).
• The enemy uses human shields.
• The... [More]

There is an article in Microsoft’s documentation called How Microsoft names threat actors by diannegali & Dansimp (Microsoft). That sounds interesting. How does Microsoft determine and label threat actors?

“Microsoft shifted to a new naming taxonomy for threat actors aligned with the theme of weather. We intend to bring better clarity to customers and other security researchers with the nex taxonomy. We offer a more organized, articulate, and easy way to reference threat actors so that organizations can better prioritize and... [More]”

I really hope that, if we continue to apply pressure to get what we want, that it will bear fruit. Although it’s easier to retreat into the reassuring hopelessness of cynicism, I do wonder whether something might be categorically different this time. The rulers have lost control of the narrative, at least to some degree. They’re making a lot of unforced errors that they haven’t made before. Consider the stink of desperation in the coverage of the Olympics—we are a powerful sports... [More]

The article Why the US Is Reimposing Sanctions on Venezuela? by Roger D. Harris (Antiwar.com) came out in February, so about six months ago. I took some notes on it before the U.S. decided to completely ignore the Venezuelan election results a few weeks ago.

So, how was it going in Venezuela before the election?

“Even with limited sanctions relief, Venezuela anticipated a 27% increase in revenues for its state-run oil company. Experts predicted a “moderate economic expansion” after having experienced the greatest economic... [More]”

The article The Cult of Mac by Cory Doctorow (Pluralistic) goes hard on anyone who uses Apple hardware.

“It’s Apple customers who lose access to apps that can’t be viably offered because the app tax makes them money-losing propositions. It’s Apple customers who lose out on the ability to get apps that Apple decides are unsuitable for inclusion in its App Store.”

It’s never even occurred to me to have this on my radar because I don’t use the App Store for anything but finding a very specific app, usually one that I’m forced... [More]

There is an unalterable dynamic in which the establishment rejects all heresy if it is a challenge to its power. It continues to repeat itself. In Midnight Mass, one of the characters told a story about Ignaz Semmelweis (Wikipedia).

“[…] was a Hungarian physician and scientist of German descent, who was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures […] Semmelweis discovered that the incidence of infection could be drastically reduced by requiring healthcare workers in obstetrical clinics to disinfect... [More]”

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. Sherlock Holmes (2009) — 6/10
2. Hijack (2023) — 6/10
3. French Dispatch (2021) — 9/10
4. Exploding Kittens (2024) — 5/10
5. Tombstone (1993) — 8/10
6. Kiss of the Dragon (2001) — 6/10
7. Waterworld (1995) — 7/10
8. Godzilla Minus One (2023) — 8/10
9. I Canoni die Navarone (1961) — 8/10
10. Born on the Fourth of July (1989) — 8/10

Sherlock Holmes (2009) — 6/10

Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) is like a superhero. He’s not only brilliant,... [More]

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. Shrinking (2023) — 8/10
2. John Wick 3: Parabellum (2019) — 8/10
3. South Park: The End of Obesity (2024) — 8/10
4. South Park (Not Suitable for Children) (2023) — 8/10
5. South Park: Joining the Panderverse (2023) — 8/10
6. The Terminator (1984) — 8/10
7. Glass (2022) — 8/10
8. Ghosts of Mars (2001) — 4/10
9. Five Days at Memorial (2022) — 4/10
10. The Sandman (2022) — 7/10

Shrinking (2023) — 8/10

Jimmy (Jason Segal) is a psychiatrist at a... [More]

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. The Lost City (2022) — 6/10
2. Mission to Mars (2000) — 6/10
3. Mission Impossible − Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) — 8/10
4. Who Killed Malcolm X? (2019–2020) — 4/10
5. Top Gun: Maverick (2022) — 9/10
6. Independence Day (1996) — 9/10
7. Gorillas in the Mist (1988) — 8/10
8. Iron Maiden: Flight 666 (2009) — 7/10
9. (T)Raumschiff Surprise − Periode 1 (2004) — 5/10
10. American Assassin (2017) — 5/10

The Lost City (2022) — 6/10

Loretta Sage... [More]

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. American Gods S03 (2021) — 8/10
2. 47 Rōnin (2013) — 7/10
3. The Highwaymen (2019) — 8/10
4. World War Z (2013) — 7/10
5. Seven Pounds (2008) — 7/10
6. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) — 9/10
7. Star Wars: Le Réveil de la Force (2015) — 10/10
8. PBS American Experience S36E04 − Poisoned Ground: The Tragedy at Love Canal (2024) – 8/10
9. Living with Yourself (2019) — 7/10
10. 6 Balloons (2018) — 9/10

American Gods S03 (2021) — 8/10

Note... [More]

Read the explanation of method, madness, and spoilers.[1]

1. Beasts of No Nation (2015) — 8/10
2. Killers of the Flower Moon (2023) — 8/10
3. Cam (2021) — 4/10
4. Tribes of Europa (2021) — 5/10
5. Curb Your Enthusiasm S12 (2023) — 10/10
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2008) — 7/10
7. Metal Lords (2022) — 8/10
8. Emily the Criminal (2022) — 8/10
9. Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) — 8/10
10. What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015) — 9/10
11. Stewart Lee: Tornado (2022) — 9/10
12. Stewart Lee: Snowflake (2022)... [More]

The re-review 25 Years Later, Alexander Payne’s Election Remains as Relevant as Ever by Daniel Joyaux (Roger Ebert.com) writes the following about the movie Election.

“The elephant in the room when talking about “Election” is Hillary Clinton, in that comparing her (and others) to Tracy Flick over the years has become a sort of code for calling a woman a robotic, success-obsessed ambition machine who needs to stay in her lane. Like Jim McCallister, people saw Clinton’s Flick-like ambition as almost an existential threat,... [More]”

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• Public Policy & Politics
• Environment & Climate Change... [More]

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism & Media
• Economy... [More]

There is a form of protest where people glue themselves to roads and block traffic. If you’re serious at all about building a movement or awareness—i.e., you’re trying to enact positive change—you must consider the effects of your tactics. What will they make people think about your cause? What is the likelihood that you’ll get them on board?

Are your tactics likely to work? Will they perhaps backfire in the near-term, but have positive long-term effect? When you protest, what is the... [More]

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism & Media
• Economy... [More]

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism & Media
• Art &... [More]

Below are links to articles, highlighted passages[1], and occasional annotations[2] for the week ending on the date in the title, enriching the raw data from Instapaper Likes and Twitter. They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts. YMMV.

Table of Contents

• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism & Media
• Labor
• Economy... [More]