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 They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts.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

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

The less useful the media is for finding out the truth, the less likely it is to be censored.

I noticed that Trevor Noah gave the White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech this year. I only watched a minute of it, the portion that had been posted somewhere to demonstrate how amazing his support of journalism was. He spoke of how tough it was for journalists in Ukraine or Russia, where they are being persecuted and hounded for publishing unpleasant truths. This is unlike the States where you... [More]

I’m consulting on a private project with a couple of friends. They use Discord for communication. It’s quite a nice app, but there is no app in the MacOS app store. When I search for it, Apple shows me the following, wildly irrelevant hits.

Discord in App Store

You could also just say that you didn’t find any hits, Apple. This isn’t even close. The top hit is a 1/5-star reviewed product, with one review. What is the point of ever even showing this product to anyone who didn’t search for it?

So I installed 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 They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts.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

• Economy & Finance
• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism... [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 They are intentionally succinct, else they’d be articles and probably end up in the gigantic backlog of unpublished drafts.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

• COVID-19
• Economy & Finance
• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism... [More]

The following is a collection of essays, notes, and ideas I’ve written over the last several weeks, all loosely associated with the war in Ukraine. I’ve tried to edit the notes into some coherence, especially since some have been chronologically superseded, but I’m neither a journalist nor a scholar, so YMMV. I don’t even necessarily stand behind everything here—some of it is or was just food for thought. The lower you go, the older the notes. The title refers to one of the essays, which... [More]

I was listening to this video,

COVID decreased life expectancy by 2 years. What does that mean? by Sabine Hossfelder (YouTube)

Sabine said that the standard measure of life expectancy “is easy to misunderstand”. So, instead of expecting that people should make an effort to understand it, we dumb it down instead, making it easier to understand, but much less accurate. That is, people will get a less-accurate impression, but be just as confident in it. It will become the new reality, as usual.

Hossfelder talks about the Period life expectancy, which is a measure that assumes that every... [More]

If we can agree that calling Stephen Pinker right-wing is factually if not wildly incorrect, then are we not also intellectually obliged—in some part, at least—to look more carefully into other accusations of right-wing association or white-supremacy made by the same crowd?

That their accusations are wrong in the case with which we are familiar should make us suspicious that their other accusations might also be incorrect or exaggerated—and that they are perhaps motivated to do so for... [More]

YouTube doesn’t actually remove videos from your lists. I suppose that makes them better than truly totalitarian systems, which would make a greater effort to erase knowledge. Instead, when a video is unavailable, YouTube automatically hides it from you, removing its pesky presence from your lists, replacing these videos with a subtle notification at the top of the list.

Unavailable Videos In Watchlist
If you’ve got more than a couple of dozen videos in a list, then you’ve probably scrolled down far enough in the list that... [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

• COVID-19
• Economy & Finance
• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism... [More]

The article ‘What-aboutism’ and the Universal by Chris Horner (3 Quarks Daily) provides an example of an atrocity—the bombing of a school—that people would see the need to tell the world their opinion about. He writes of the hypothetical commentator,

“It is a war crime and you name it as such[,] as an evil, criminal thing. Soon after the words leave your mouth, or get posted online, someone responds with something along these lines: yes, that’s all very well, but why just condemn that? What about..? They then name... [More]”

I thought this was a nice way to express disagreement,

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

• COVID-19
• Economy & Finance
• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism... [More]

This quote has quote a storied history, as documented in The Biggest Problem in Communication Is the Illusion That It Has Taken Place (Quote Investigator). Alternatives are,

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

“The greatest problem with communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”

“The most serious danger in communication is the illusion of having achieved it.”

“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

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

Another game that rides on the coattails of Wordle a bit is a game called Worldle. Just like Wordle, you get six guesses. Unlike Wordle, it shows you a country or a territory somewhere on the planet and then tells you how far off you are as well as the direction in which you should go to find the real territory or country. Sometimes, it throws a real curveball, like Christmas Island or French Southern Territories.

Almost all of the “hole-in-ones” are due to my partner, who’s just amazing at... [More]

I just heard that Switzerland is thinking of banning RT.

Europe has done it. Great Britain has done it. The U.S. has de-facto done it (it’s not by government decree, but by the corporations that de-facto run that country’s media).

Viola Amherd of Switzerland said something about following their lead.

So, let me get this straight: Viola’s principles allow her to buy JSF35 jet fighters from the U.S. and have no problems running U.S. state propaganda (CNN everybody; pay attention), but she has... [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

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

The article When to Avoid the text-decoration Shorthand Property by Šime Vidas (CSS Tricks) makes a couple of interesting points. Basically, you have a lot of control over how underlines are drawn on text.

• Modern browsers allow you to tweak the text-decoration: underline (MDN) with text-decoration-thickness (MDN) and text-underline-offset (MDN)
• Use the :any-link (MDN) to select links that actually have an href attribute rather than selecting all links.
• The CSS property text-decoration is a shorthand property, which means that setting it... [More] (MDN)

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

• COVID-19
• Economy & Finance
• Public Policy & Politics
• Journalism... [More]

From the Intervention Plenary 7.2.2022 by Mick Wallace (Twitter),
some backbone and real talk from Mick Wallace of Ireland, in the European Parliament. The video is 62s; transcript is below.

Mick Wallace

“The current crisis in Ukraine has been used by the Irish media class and a handful of politicians to make the case that Ireland should relinquish the neutrality enshrined in our Constitution and even commit to joining NATO.

“Naturally, these jingoistic sentiments are from those too old to enlist, their children and... [More]”

Some backbone and real talk from Clare Daley of Ireland, in the European Parliament. The video is 87s; transcript is below.

Afghanistan crisis by Clare Daley (YouTube)

“There’s no doubt about it. We’re living in times of catastrophic crisis, where the lives of innocent civilians are sacrificed in the wars of their masters. Yes, in Ukraine, but not only.

“Since the last plenary, tens of thousands of Afghani citizens have been forced to flee in search of food and safety. Five million children face famine—an agonizing and painful... [More]”

The article Restaurants Now Requiring Proof Of Ukraine Support (Babylon Bee) shows a sign outside a restaurant that reads,

“Notice: Proof of Ukraine Support Required

“Patrons must show proof of Ukraine support to enter this restaurant. Please have your social media profiles open and a photo ID ready. Thank you for helping us defeat the Russian menace.”

Just be clear—because the world has largely lost its sense of humor and sense of irony—The Babylon Bee is a satirical newspaper.

“That’s a nice little town you have here. It’d be shame if something were to happen to it.”

Imagine we live in a small town. We’ve got a neighbor who’s a bit of an asshole. It’s complicated. This neighbor tells everyone how great he is, and he’s done some good things for the town in the past—quite a while ago—but he’s really been a pain in the ass lately. Like the last 50 years or so. He’s pretty rich and he owns a lot of the local stores—or buys from them—so it’s kind of hard to... [More]

I upgraded by by-now 5.5-year-old iMac 27" with MacOS Monterey. It went very, very smoothly. For once, it didn’t even offer to have me connect my Apple account before just loading my user. It just upgraded, rebooted, logged back in, and TADA! all set. 😀💪🏼🎉

My M1 MacBook Pro, on the other hand, was a good deal more annoying about it. As on the iMac, I have two accounts on the MacBook: my standard user and an “Admin” user. Unlike the iMac, the disk is encrypted on the MacBook. Will I... [More]

I got this pretty awkwardly phrased inspirational notification from DuoLingo the other day.

DuoLingo is getting quite forward

DON’T STOP NOW IT’S SO GOOD!

Um, ok.

These are my notes to remember what I watched and kinda what I thought about it. I’ve recently transferred my reviews to IMDb and made the list of around 1600 ratings publicly available. I’ve included the individual ratings with my notes for each movie. These ratings are not absolutely comparable to each other—I rate the film on how well it suited me for the genre and my mood and. let’s be honest, level of intoxication. YMMV. Also, I make no attempt to avoid spoilers.

Legion S02 (2017) — 9/10... [More]

I took a look at the Full Transcript of Biden’s State of the Union Address by Joe Biden (New York Times) and took some notes. As these things go, it wasn’t the stupidest State of the Union I’ve heard, but it was pretty stupid.

“Throughout our history we’ve learned this lesson: When dictators do not pay a price for their aggression, they cause more chaos.”

This is 100% true. It was also delivered without irony or shame.

“Putin’s latest attack on Ukraine was premeditated and totally unprovoked.

“He rejected repeated,... [More]”